"But is he driven?"
"He could show a little more enthusiasm," he said ruefully.
"Then what is it? Is there nobody else? I mean, if you're struggling, I could put a couple names on the table."
He laughed lightly. "Like whose?"
"Yours," I said, but he shook his head in response. "Come on; this can't be the first time you've ever heard that."
"It isn't, but my response won't change no matter how many times I hear it. Natalie, how old are you? Twenty-six? It's been at least two decades since I was your age. Two decades of nothing but sweat and hard work. In two decades, Natalie, you're going to want a rest too."
"First of all, thank you for lowballing my age," I said, grinning at him, "and second, I'm afraid of what would happen to Porter Holdings without you or Mr. Porter there for support if he took over."
"Well, when that day comes, we'll see if all the training has had the desired effect. Stepping back isn't the same as abandoning him. His father will remain an owner, and we're both on the board. He would be able to come to us for advice if he needed it. Are you and Cameron friends, Natalie?"
"Nope. The most interaction we've had is him holding an elevator for me one morning maybe a year ago."
"You have a very low opinion of him for having little to no frame of reference."
I shrugged. "Are you telling me I'm wrong?"
"He's not a bad man, Natalie. I might not be the most impartial judge of his character, but I know him."
"He could enjoy kicking puppies and eating babies for all I know," I said. "It's what he'll do when his dad is out of the picture that I’m concerned about."
"Let him get there first. We owe him the chance to prove himself before we put a grade on his performance." I shrugged. Brett Hamm was a man who knew what he was talking about when it came to business. I believed him simply because I had no reason not to. For all I knew, Cameron Porter had gotten his dad's shrewd business sense along with his good looks and would do great. All I had to do was pat his shoulder a little bit when his little trial was over. It had begun today. His father hadn't shown up to work. He and his wife were probably in the air already. By tonight, they'd be sipping cocktails in Mykonos. Lucky bastards.
"If you say so," I said with another shrug. "Oh, I wanted to ask you something else," I began but stopped, hearing a knock at the door. The person on the other side of it didn't bother to wait for Brett's reply, flinging the door open and rushing inside. It was a man I had seen around but didn’t know by name. He was panting slightly like he had run up the stairs to get here.
"Bradley?" Brett said, concerned.
"Something happened," he said, pausing to catch his breath. "It'll be all over the news in about an hour. Mr. Porter... his jet..." he stopped, bracing himself on his knees then straightening up to try again. "The Porter's private jet crashed while the pilot tried to make an emergency landing in New Jersey. None of the four people on board survived." Brett stood suddenly, and he said something to him, but I didn't hear what. Asked him questions maybe. Asked him to pinch him because this had to be a dream; hell if I knew.
Four people had been on board, and none of them had survived. My breath became shallow. I couldn't believe it. Cameron's parents. We had just been talking about Grayson Porter; I had just thought about him and his wife in Mykonos, having the time of their lives. It had been yesterday that I had talked to him over the phone, and just like that, it was over. They were gone. Brett was grilling the guy, Bradley, for information one minute, then he was turning to me, apologetic, saying he had to leave. I watched, still speechless as the two men left the room. I got up and hurried to the elevator, getting back down to my office.
My hands shook as I tapped the letters into my phone. Porter... private jet... New Jersey. The story was breaking news. Real estate Mogul Grayson Porter Victim of New Jersey Plane Crash, said the first link I clicked. Grayson Porter and his wife, Evangeline, on a trip from Salt Lake City to Athens, Greece, had been killed alongside one crew member and the pilot of their private jet. The pilot, attempting to make an emergency landing, had lost control of the craft. The pilot, Captain Michael Hayes, stewardess Jaqueline Frank, and Mrs. Porter had been killed on impact. Mr. Porter had been found alive but succumbed to his injuries before he could receive medical attention.
"Oh my god." Kasey was mumbling as she read the news story. I sat in one of the salon chairs, watching her pace slowly as she read the story on my phone. I had stopped at her salon instead of going straight back home after work. She lived in Salt Lake, and we had been friends for years; moving hadn't changed that. She was also the only woman I trusted with my hair, so there was that too. Her salon was furnished in dusty pinks, blues, and silver: the exact color combination of her personality if those had colors.
"Oh my god," she repeated. "Married thirty-one years?"
"That's the part you latched on to?"
"The crash details are like a paragraph of the story. The rest is tribute stuff," she said. "Wow."
"What?"
"Wedding pictures," she said, turning my phone to show me. "Have you ever seen anything more eighties?" I reached for the phone, but she held it away from me.
"Come on, Kasey."
"What? Your boss and his wife had a long, beautiful marriage and fulfilling lives before this freak accident. That isn’t worth celebrating?" Had they? Yeah, I guessed they probably had. Thirty-one years together? They had been doing something right. They had been on their way to island hop in Greece; several things had been going very right. I had heard him talk about her. It was just so weird, seeing a record of Grayson Porter's life online, this man who I'd only ever known professionally. Now everyone and their mother was eulogizing him.
"Oh no, they had kids. Well, one kid," Kasey said. She gasped then.
"What?"
"Did you know about him?" she asked, turning the phone to me again. It was Cameron's Google search results. It turned up some profiles, interviews, and a collection of pictures. Not many, mostly