The Pepper In The Gumbo: A Cane River Romance (22 page)

            It
was just her name but she felt her control start to slip at the concern in his
voice. “My rings,” she said, her voice shaking. “They’re gone.”

            He
walked toward her, leaving Bix holding the e-reader. “Did you leave them in
your apartment?”

            “I
never take them off. Ever.” Her eyes were swimming in tears. If it had been
anything less important, she would have been embarrassed and wondered what he
thought, but she didn’t care. Her entire focus narrowed to the only thing she’d
inherited from her parents.

            “Where
did you go today? Just the store? They have to be here.” He put his hands on
her shoulders as if to keep her calm.

            Bix
crossed the store, e-reader forgotten. “It won’t take us long to search down here.
Can you remember which rooms you went into? Maybe they rolled under the
ranges.”

            “I
bet they’re in your bed,” Charlie said. “I lost a necklace and looked for a
week before I found it under my pillow.”

            Alice
looked up into Paul’s face. “I did leave the bookstore. I walked down to city
hall today.”

            “And
you had it this morning?” Paul wrapped an arm around her shoulders. His voice
was confident but he looked as worried as she felt.

            She
nodded. “I remember seeing them when I got dressed.”

            “Oh,
boy. That’s at least a mile along the river walk.” Bix rubbed a hand over his
white crew cut. “What were ya doin’ down there?”

            Alice
didn’t want to say, wanted to have Paul find out some other way. She didn’t
want to be there to see his reaction. She took a shuddery breath. “I was filing
legal papers to stop construction on the new ScreenStop store.”

            She
felt him freeze beside her and then he stepped back, eyebrows raised. A long
silence stretched between them all.

            The
lines of his mouth had gone tight. He inhaled slowly. “Okay, so we’ll search
all the way from here to there.” He looked around. “Bix, why don’t we-- No, actually,
Alice could use you better here. Charlie, do you want to walk with me to city
hall? We’ll look along the boardwalk while y’all search the store.”

            “Sure!”
Charlie jumped at the chance, her face lit up with eagerness.

            “I
have a meeting at four,” Paul said, turning to Alice. “But we’ll search as long
as we can and then we’ll regroup back here.”

            Alice
nodded, a feeling of disbelief washing over her. That wasn’t the reaction she
was expecting. Not a single comment about the papers. Maybe he was so confident
that he didn’t feel threatened at all, but his expression said differently.

            “Thank
you,” she whispered.

            Paul
nodded. “Come on, Charlie,” he said. They walked out of the store, scanning the
ground as they went. Or Paul scanned the ground while Charlie walked next to
him, clearly in awe of getting to walk around town with her hero.

            There
was a minute of silence and then Bix cleared his throat. “That’s a good man,
right there. I know you two have your troubles.”

            Alice
nodded, her throat closing around the words she wanted to say. Maybe she’d made
a mistake. Maybe Paul wasn’t an arrogant, ruthless, business man trying to take
over the city. But then again, sometimes people were personally very nice while
running cut-throat companies. Except he was more than very nice. He was
patient, kind, and faithful. Everything he had done showed his character to be
noble, just like the heroes in all her favorite books.

            Bix
seemed to understand she couldn’t even begin to discuss what was happening with
Paul. “Well, let’s start at this end of the store and then work our way
upstairs.” Bix gripped the counter and slowly lowered himself to a kneeling
position on the hard tile.

            “Oh,
don’t get on the ground, Bix.” Alice rushed forward to heave him up, but he
waved a hand.

            “
Sha
,
you know my eyesight. I’ll have to go inch by inch. And don’t you think twice
about it. I know how much those rings mean to you.” He was already sweeping his
hands back and forth, creeping toward the desk.

            Alice
choked back a sudden wave of emotion. She didn’t deserve any of these people.
She was petty and stubborn. She’d rather alienate someone who had made only a
positive difference in their lives than admit she was wrong.
Lord, I’ve gone
so far down this path I don’t know how to turn around.

            She
got to her knees, feeling the cold bite of the tile against her skin. She
skimmed her palms along the floor, blinking back tears, just as blind as Bix.

Tweeting is like sending out cool
telegrams to

your friends once a week.—Tom Hanks

            “I
can’t believe Miss Alice is trying to stop your store from opening. It’s
totally unfair,” Charlie said. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her
face was like thunder. “I just want you to know that even though I work there,
I don’t agree with her at all. She’s totally obsessed with keeping technology
away, like her lifestyle is more pure, or something.”

            Paul
stopped walking and scanned the sidewalk. When Alice lost her necklace, it
would have fallen inside her shirt, and then down, maybe bouncing off her leg
as she walked. Or maybe it was outside her shirt and it fell directly to the
sidewalk. He clenched his fists in frustration. How could two people find
something so small in all this space? Charlie’s words filtered into his
thoughts and he raised his head.

            “Don’t
be too harsh on her. I get her point, in a way,” he said.

            “What?
But you know that computers are the best thing ever!”

            “No,
not really.” He turned, scanning the other direction. He could use a metal
detector for the grassy areas. And more people. If Alice didn’t find it in the
store, there would only be four of them out here looking. Bix’s eyesight was
too poor, but he could get Andy to help. And his mother. Maybe they could put
up flyers and offer a reward. “Computers aren’t the best thing ever. They’re a
tool. And games are simply entertainment.”

            She
made a sound of pure disbelief.

            “Listen,”
he said, turning to face her. “I spent five hours a day playing Atari at my
friend’s house when I was a teenager. I played more than that every day when I
went to college. I was such a techno geek I worked three jobs so I could get
the latest controllers and games and equipment. My dream vacation is a big
comfy couch with a giant screen and a couple hot new releases of some game I
didn’t design because knowing the cheats isn’t everything it’s cracked up to
be.” He paused for breath. Pedestrians wandered by, sending curious glances at
the two of them. “But technology is a tool and this stuff is just
entertainment. What I do isn’t saving the world. Having a few million Twitter
followers doesn’t really mean anybody likes me.”

            “But
we do!” Charlie shook her head. “You’re the very coolest guy ever!”

            “I
mean,” he said, trying to find a way through to the teen girl, “you like who
you
think
I am. You like what is presented to you, what you’ve been
given as marketing.”

            She
frowned at him. “So, you’re not like that at all? Going to Comic-Cons and
cosplaying with fans and everything?”

            “I
am.” He sighed. “It’s just… complicated. I guess I want to say I agree more
with Alice than you might think I do. She understands that real life is more
important than any game. People can take it all too seriously. I’ve heard about
players dying because they won’t stop the game to get a drink of water or
sleep. I hear about parents abusing their kids because they want more
uninterrupted game time…. I get desperate tweets from people offering me all sorts
of things they shouldn’t, just to get what their character needs.” He held up a
hand. “Wait a minute.”

            Charlie
looked around at the busy boardwalk. “What?”

            “Even
if the building doesn’t open on time, we can still have the release day party
for the new game in two weeks.”

            “Okay,”
she obviously didn’t know how it was all connected. “You don’t think Alice can
really stop the store from opening, do you?”

            “No,
not really.” He shook his head. “But I was thinking. What if we make a
scavenger hunt? There would be only one item, Alice’s rings. And the prize
would be
some
sort of advanced pass for the new game.”

            “Like
the passport? I bought that last time.”

            “No,
like the rare-spawn that show up only every hundred times through the area.
I’ve seen guys go through the same sequence a thousand times to see if they can
catch the gear he wanted, but it never showed up.” Paul knew why. He designed
the thing.

            Charlie
gaped at him, eyes wide. “Wait! Back this train up and pick up some passengers
you left behind, like Mr. What the Heck and Mrs. Why?” She leaned forward. “Not
that I’m trying to talk you out of it.”

             He
knew how much time and effort went into catching those one in a hundred bonus
gifts. The person who knew all had them all was treated like the president in
the groups. Everyone wanted to friend them and go on raids together. They
became as famous as any actor on TV, or more in the gaming world. “I’m sure we
could create it so this person would catch them every time, no repeating the
raids just to get what they wanted, hoping it would show up right when they
passed by.”

            Charlie
grabbed his arm. “Does that apply right now? I mean, if I find the rings right
now would I get that?”

            For
a moment, he wanted to remind Charlie that Alice was her friend and employer
and that she should want to find the rings just to make her happy. But he also
realized in that moment why his idea was a good one. There were thousands of
people just like Charlie, who would be motivated by that prize. “Yeah, it sure
does.”

            He
looked at his watch. “We only have about an hour. Keep looking.”

            Charlie
stopped talking and tied her hair back. She hunkered down and started walking
slowly forward, her expression one of complete focus.

            Moving
to the other side of the sidewalk, Paul searched for the tiniest glint of gold.
He didn’t want to think of Alice watching him sleep, or the way his heart
stopped when she laughed. When she’d realized her rings were missing, he had
never seen anyone so devastated. And when she told him why she’d been at city
hall, her expression was filled with sadness, fear, and regret. He was starting
to understand why people wrote complicated poetry about love. He was so
frustrated and angry, but at the same time he wanted to gather her close and
tell her it was all going to be okay.

             He
couldn’t be a business man right now, or BWK, or a game designer. He shut it
all out and focused, praying for St. Anthony’s intercession as the patron saint
of lost items. “And for us, too. Me and Alice,” he whispered. Whatever they had,
it was surely lost now. You can’t ask out the girl who is suing you. No matter
how much chemistry they had, or how they connected over email, it would never
work. It would take a miracle to bring them together.

                                                                        ***

            Alice
stood at the bathroom mirror, motionless. Outwardly, she looked just the same.
Dark eyes, curly hair, maybe a little paler than usual, but nothing out of the
ordinary. Only she knew that part of her was missing, lost somewhere on her
mission to stop Paul Olivier and his company.

            She
bent her head and willed herself not to cry. There were people who didn’t have
food or shelter. She didn’t need to weep over a pair of rings. But they were
all she had, even though she knew that they were just gold, just a shiny metal.
That cold metal was once worn with love, warmed by her living parents, back in
a time when they were happy and all together. The rings were more than
sentimental, they were symbolic. Standing for everything she once had, and now
everything she’d lost, the loss of those two rings had gutted her in a way that
the lawsuit couldn’t.          

            She
looked up, into her own eyes. Today, she was going to be fire, like BWK had
said. But it wasn’t to wage a campaign against Paul’s store. It was to simply
get through the day.

                                                                        ***

            “Hey,
what’s up with you?” Andy dropped into the overstuffed chair across from Paul.
The living room was bright with late summer sunshine and the windows were open
to the river breeze.

            “Nothing.”
Paul straightened up. He’d been hunched over, staring at his shoes. Caught in
mope mode.

            “Listen,
Alice isn’t going to win. That injunction is plain stupid. The building is
nearly finished. Just the minor cosmetics and it will be ready for opening
day.”

            “I
know.” Paul hadn’t talked to her since yesterday, when he swung back by the
store to tell her that he and Charlie hadn’t been able to find her necklace. The
look on her face haunted him.

            “Then
why the sparkly vampire impression?” At Paul’s look of confusion Andy said,
“You know, dead guy wants live girl, they can’t be together and so he exiles
himself away from humanity.”

            Paul
stood up. “I’m not in exile. I just get tired of being stopped everywhere I go
and harassed.”

            “You
didn’t mind it so much until she filed those papers.” Andy stretched out in the
chair, hanging one leg over the arm.

            He
shot him a look. “It just brought it home, that’s all. She’s serious about
fighting the store even though I thought she might be softening up toward it.”

            “No,
buddy. She was softening up toward
you
. Big difference,” Andy said. “You
have to hand it to her. She stands by her convictions. Any of the other girls
you’ve dated would have given up whatever hang-ups they had way before now.”

            Paul
walked to the window and looked out at the river. “We’re not dating.”

            “Whatever
it is. And please don’t call it hooking up.”

            “No
worries. Not saying anything.”

            “Okay,
you’re not a bad roommate, but I’ve got to get some gear in here.” Andy heaved
a sigh. “I feel like I’m being forced into the life of a Luddite hermit, only
with Southern food and a cranky hutmate.”

            “The
cable’s being hooked up today.” He couldn’t resist a smile at Andy’s
description. He wasn’t a social butterfly but he was a far cry from a hermit.
They still had their laptops running from a mobile hotspot, but Andy needed his
bandwidth. You just couldn’t run the big raids on a spotty connection.

            “Thank
you,” Andy said, lifting his hands in the air. “I was about to book tickets
home.

I’d
go commercial just to get somewhere that supports streaming bit torrents. Don’t
worry, I’d come back for the opening.”

            Paul
came back to the chair and said, “About the opening…”

            Sitting
up, Andy fixed him with a look. “Oh, I don’t like that expression. Are you
thinking of canceling all of this? Can your Chief Technical Officer remind you
of how much we’ve invested in this project?”

            “No,
don’t worry.” Paul frowned. He wouldn’t say it hadn’t occurred to him, but he
still had a little bit of logic left in his brain. “I was thinking of a new
strategy for the opening. A sort of scavenger hunt.”

            “Sure,
okay. I’ve seen those before. People usually start a week ahead and go
everywhere on the list, and then at the opening they show the pictures of
themselves at the site, or bring something, and then get a special prize.” He
grinned. “I actually like this idea. You’ve got all sorts of inside knowledge.
You could send these people into some pretty weird places, like frog gigging,
or whatever you were threatening me with.”

            “Right.”
He cleared his throat. Those plans he’d made back in New York City seemed a
lifetime away. “But I have an idea for the big granddaddy treasure.”

            “Catch
a catfish with your bare hands?”

            “No,
but that’s a good one. I was thinking of Alice’s necklace being the last on the
list.”

            Andy
sat back. He didn’t say anything for a moment. “The one she lost? How would
that work?”

            “Look,
we know that it’s somewhere between here and city hall. Think of all the people
we could get looking for it. We went up and down the boardwalk a few times, but
think of the hundreds of gamers that come to the opening.” Paul knew it sounded
ridiculous.

            “Why
not just offer money? We could offer a reward and half the town would be out
there.”

            “No.”
Paul remembered Charlie’s change of attitude. “Money is a good way to get
attention, but to find this thing, we’re going to need some real detail-oriented
people. We need them to show up, armed with treasure-hunting gear.”

            “All
for a bonus pack and a free passport to the outer worlds? I can’t see that
happening.” Unless you’re going to fly in bigger celebrities, which will be
hard to get, last minute.”

            “I
was thinking of offering an early-access the a pass to all the bonus prizes.
The player wouldn’t have to repeat any raids because the rare-spawn would just
drop right out of the wall. Any special gear or power, automatic.”