Taking Stock (9 page)

“I’ll leave that to you.”

“She’s a bulldog. When she gets a sniff of what’s going on, she’ll never let it go. Just don’t go propositioning her and everything’ll be ok.”

She was a bit chunky for Brad’s taste. He preferred a woman who enjoyed the gym as much as he did, though his lack of recent success had loosened his standards. He didn’t feel guilty or embarrassed about his woman chasing or the results, but the jab stung. Each barked order, each insult he bore and every retort he swallowed built a hunger to get even.

He’d take care of that when the financial matters were settled.

For now he’d do as he was told.

The book popped shut abruptly and mom kissed the top of
Eric
a’s head to make amends for interrupting the story midway. She patted the quilt smooth and stood up in response to something
Eric
a asked. Strangely,
Eric
a couldn’t hear the request now. She could only watch as mom nervously glanced toward the front window twice, afraid of something out there.
Eric
a couldn’t see anything beyond the glass and she couldn’t hear anything at all, inside or out. Mom turned in place scanning the tiny room. She was torn between whatever was at the window and whatever she had lost. Not finding it she flashed a final look toward the window and rushed for the hall.

Eric
a wanted to tell her to forget whatever it was. She didn’t need to bother.
Eric
a was a big girl and she could take care of herself. Mom disappeared down the stairs and instantly she was back with Mr. Purple Bunny. She slipped him under the covers and tucked the quilt right up to his chin. He was warmer that way and just having him there made
Eric
a feel safe. Nothing could hurt her if Mr. Purple Bunny was there next to her.

Mom held a finger to her lips, asking, no, begging for
Eric
a be quiet.

Then mom was gone.

Eric
a felt her father’s angry screams downstairs. She hid under the covers, her warm breath nearly suffocating Mr. Purple Bunny. She remembered creeping to the stairs, listening. Any scary sound would have sent her scampering back to bed or maybe to the closet where she often hid among the shoes and clothes. She found herself on the stairs where she heard nothing then or now. She slid down the stairs one by one. Her bum thumped each carpeted tread. She stopped on each one, listening, and exploring the reaches of the living room and the kitchen that had just come into view. Thump, another foot closer.

Now she stood frozen in the middle of the living room, her feet rooted to the floor through the plastic soles of her feety pajamas. Mom kneeled on the kitchen floor rocking with huge silent sobs. One side of her face was red and puffy, and her shirt hung open for lack of buttons. They’d been neatly fastened when she was in
Eric
a’s room. She wondered where they went.

Father lay sprawled on the floor, the red pool around his head growing and growing. Mom looked at
Eric
a and in that second she understood they were free.
Eric
a’s heart raced with the remembered terror of the police taking her mother from her, leaving her alone with the couple next door. She gasped, but could not breathe.

She gasped again and bolted upright. The dark outline of her computer confronted her. The fabric walls of the cubicle across the way were lit by the dim security lights. Time and place settled over her, comforting in spite of the pressure of a looming implementation deadline.

She hadn’t had this dream for years. Karate lessons, hours of extra homework and an unwavering commitment to her career had guaranteed she’d never end up like her mother. So why did the dream come back now
?
She could still see the yellow-striped wall paper and the bright-colored polka dots. The scene was real, but
Eric
a had escaped this fate. It was behind her. Now, in the middle of the night she was defined by her escape. She’d poured herself into her work and excelled beyond even her own expectations. She’d jumped over, around or through every obstacle the men had thrown up in front of her, defying any attempt to hold her back. She needed no one. She was free, but so much of her life played out isolated in this sterile room, safe from the dangerous tangle of relationships outside. 

A door closed down the hall.
Eric
a checked the time. 11:46
p.m
.

She crept to the door and peered into the darkness. She didn’t understand why she was afraid. She’d always felt safe here, but not on this night. Maybe it was leftover energy from her dream. She went back to her computer and printed something down the hall, an excuse to roam around.

Sitting here during the first few runs with the numbers flashing on the screen, Brad had been so terrified he couldn’t enjoy the massive accumulation of wealth. He thought the fear would eventually subside, but instead his nervousness spread to the rest of his waking hours and even his dreams, thanks to the manufactured evidence that had arrived on his doorstep. The feds were hot to prosecute insider trading and the audio tapes would give them more than enough to put him away. He was powerless to refuse any request now, no matter how absurd or how dangerous. Demoralized, he sat in the cold room, forced to be on guard, forced to satisfy another man’s greed.

Collecting six million in a week was impossible even if he came here every night, but the boss refused to listen. Crossing him meant going to jail, so Brad would do what he was told until the scheme came to a close. He needed the boss to pin this on
Eric
a. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but Brad hadn’t come up with anything better in three years of ruminating. She’d go to jail and he’d resign in disgrace for letting it happen.
Sharon
and Marty would never look at him the same, but his only alternative was to run and never come back. If he did that, they’d never look at him at all.

Columns of changes whizzed by too fast to read.

One day
Eric
a would understand Brad’s machinations were more than the random thrashings of an egomaniacal, bully boss. Left alone she would have connected his late night computer room visits to the seemingly inexplicable problems in client services. He gave her twice the workload of his best developer and added as much pressure as possible. She had no time for anything but the project at hand. She hadn’t discovered his motives and she was running out of time. Soon there’d be an investigation and it’d be pointed directly at her. Hopefully, she’d put it all together right before she was hauled away in cuffs. She’d go squirming, knowing what happened, but she’d be unable to fight back.

Did taking delight in her sorrow make him evil
?
Not delight, it was self-preservation. Her naïve prying threatened to expose him. Discovery meant going to jail, losing his job, and being forever separated from the only family he had left.
Sharon
had been a domineering older sister; the only parent he’d known since he was 13. He wouldn’t risk losing his last link to the family, not for
Eric
a, not for anyone.

Even if things went well,
Sharon
would blame him for the damage to her husband’s company, another huge disappointment from her little brother. She wouldn’t offer him another job and he wouldn’t want one. Another thread between them would be severed, leaving their relationship more tenuous than ever, but she’d still take his calls and she’d still read his Christmas cards. Maybe that was enough.

Brad was destined to be alone.

He forced himself to focus on the numbers to push away the image of a long solitary life. The empty hole in his chest grew until the numbers stopped and gave him something else to concentrate on. Two hundred fifty-one thousand, not his best, but not a flop either. He needed a gigantic swing in the market. That or he’d have to make big changes, risky changes that wouldn’t go unnoticed.

No time for that now. Time to cover his tracks.

After hundreds of repetitions the procedure was second nature. In moments, the program was deleted, the CD was in his bag, and the server desktop looked exactly as it had when he arrived. He slipped down the row of glass-fronted cabinets and eased around the corner to where he could get a view over the cubicles outside. A blast of frigid air sent a chill up his leg, but he didn’t step off the vented tile. Her office was dark. Surprising she’d be gone before
midnight
with her deadline looming. Maybe she’d given up.

Emboldened he stepped through the glass doors. A few steps down the hall he slipped the key into the security room door and disappeared inside.

The console came to life. With a few taps he knew she hadn’t opened a door since
four o’clock
. She usually went for dinner around six, but there was no entry for her return. There were scarcely any others in that time, no one to let her tailgate through security. Strange. He left the record as it was with her entry into the computer room at
10:04
p.m.
and an exit at
11:40
p.m
.
He switched the video tape with a blank from his bag and left.

He froze one step into the hall.

Her light was on. The printer whirred. Footsteps padded on the other side of the cubicles. Brad couldn’t breathe. She knew. She had to. Why else would she wait for him to finish then turn on her light
?
If she was logged into the same system she could have collected every change he’d just made. No one could help him if she did.

His eyes turned toward the elevator. His body wanted to run, get in the elevator and never come back, but his shoes remained still, three feet outside the security room door. His eyes darted for escape routes.

Brad reminded himself of his authority over everyone and everything on this floor. Slowly, tentatively, he headed for his office. His knees refused to bend; his facial muscles hardened in an expression of shock. He rounded the cubicles. There she was taking up pages that spewed from the Laserjet. She had her own printer. She didn’t come here to print. She was here to collect proof, to see for herself who was running the program.

How could he get enough to satisfy the boss now
?
How could he do this the next five nights with her watching
?
Irritating that many customers would send a shock wave through client services. The rumblings would head directly to her. She’d echo their outrage for all to hear, her voice booming to Marty, the auditors, the feds. Brad was caught between the uncompromising thief and the brilliant rookie. One of them would be his undoing.

Eric
a sensed his fear immediately. “Working pretty late for someone who’s taken two-thirds of my team,” she snipped.

Brad slowed as he reached her, but didn’t stop. “You’re not the only one who works hard around here.”

“Apparently not.”

He walked past, his eyes straight ahead, his face neutral, his walk slow. He could feel her watching, but didn’t look back. He waited thirty minutes in a chair by the door, listening to every movement in the hall. The evidence in his bag was irrefutable. He didn’t dare return the CD to its hiding place. He couldn’t give her another chance to get her hands on it. It was time to go.

Back at his apartment he pulled the leather bag from his closet. Two changes of clothes, the mini cassettes, his passport and enough cash to get him anywhere in the world, all ready in an instant. He added the video tape and the CD and called a cab. He’d feel safer at the airport. He’d wait there for the next plane to
France
no matter how long it took.