Unplugged (12 page)

I
don’t remember returning to my desk, but sometime later I found myself sprawled across it.

“Mac.”

I squawked at the sound and jerked to an upright position. “Laney!”

“What’s wrong?” She entered the room and closed the door behind her.

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

She started to shake her head, then froze. “It’s about Jeen, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“What happened?”

Excellent question. I had no idea what had happened. Except that Rivera wanted to fry my ass. Except for the fact that someone had been sneaking around Solberg’s house with a gun the size of a blow dryer.

But I had my suspicions, and they made my blood run cold. Solberg had done something stupid. Maybe it was the illegal kind of stupid. Maybe it wasn’t. But the fact remained that he was in deep shit, and if I wasn’t careful, Laney was going to be there with him, up the proverbial creek with no proverbial paddle in sight.

I stifled a shiver. “Listen, Laney . . .” I paused, having no idea what I wanted her to listen to. I couldn’t tell her the truth. She wouldn’t believe it. And if she thought the Geek Nerd was in trouble . . . The idea froze my heart. If Laney Butterfield had a fault, it was her unrelenting loyalty toward those she loved.

I’d learned that firsthand when she’d picked me up after my one and only date with a guy named Frankie Gallager. He’d had a reputation for being a fast mover. I had a reputation for finding that irresistible. She’d begged me not to go out with him, but good sense had not been my strong suit in my younger years.

Three hours after leaving my house, I’d had to knee Mr. Gallager in the groin to make him see reason. He’d left me stranded in a part of town my mother refused to drive through.

Laney was the only one I dared call. She’d stolen her dad’s keys to the Chevy and snuck out to rescue me. For the only daughter of a Methodist minister, that was tantamount to mass murder.

“What?” she said again, face pale.

I was shaking my head. I didn’t know why. “You can’t go to Vegas.”

“Why not? What happened?”

I flickered my eyes toward the door, mind spinning. “I don’t know how to tell you this.” Or what to tell her.

Her eyes were as big as dinner plates. “Is he hurt? Tell me if he’s hurt, Mac. I can—”

“No. No. He’s not hurt, Laney—”

“He’s dead.” Her face was absolutely colorless. Even her lips had gone white.

“No! No.” I reached across my desk and grabbed her hand. “He just . . . He . . . You can’t go to Vegas.”

She stared at me.

“Because . . . he did meet someone else.” The words hissed out on the wind of insanity. I swear my brain was in no way connected to them.

She blinked.

“I didn’t want to tell you.” Ah, a breath of truth.

She stepped back a pace and eased into a chair. A dab of color had returned to her cheeks. “How do you know?”

“I . . .” . . . was going to hell. Straight to hell. And for what? For trying to help a friend. The irony of it hurt a little. “I talked to him,” I said.

“You called him?”

“He called me.” I nodded, hating myself with increasing and surprising measures. “Said . . . He said he was sorry. Said I should tell you.”

She sat absolutely still for a minute, then drew a careful breath. “That was nice of him.”

“What?” I tilted my head toward her, ’cuz I was pretty damn sure I’d heard wrong.

“He doesn’t want me to worry,” she said. “Even though he’s with . . .” Her voice trailed off. She rose to her feet.

“Laney?”

“No. It’s okay. I’ll just . . . I think I’ll go home for a little while. If you don’t mind,” she said, then turned away and left.

I let my head fall onto my desk. I was a liar and a thief and an ass. What I wouldn’t do for a friend.

8

Love makes the world go around, but so does a gallon of vodka and a box of Cuban cigars.

—Pete McMullen,
shortly after his second divorce

I
KNEW BEYOND
a shadow of a doubt that I should not continue to investigate Solberg’s disappearance. I was in over my head. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and I didn’t even like Solberg. In fact, I detested Solberg. Elaine would get over him, just like she’d gotten over the measles in second grade.

“Ms. McMullen?” Emery Black, executive supervisor, rose to his feet as I entered his office. Reaching across his desk, he offered his hand. We shook once. Solberg’s boss had a handshake like the Terminator.

“Yes. Thank you for seeing me,” I said, and sounded, I thought, perfectly sane. But then, I was wearing taupe. Taupe blouse, taupe skirt, taupe shoes. You can’t get more sane than taupe, even if you’re wearing strappy little sandals with three-inch heels and spend your time panting across people’s lawns for no good reason.

Emery Black’s office was large and bright, awash in natu-ral light. But then, it would be. NeoTech, Inc., was basically a glass pyramid, noted by architects from L.A. to Boston for its innovative design. Or so said the receptionist, with whom I had spent an informative five minutes.

Unfortunately, she had known more about architecture than she had about Solberg’s absence.

I glanced around the palatial office. Expensively framed posters, most dealing with climbing the proverbial ladder of success, adorned Black’s walls. By the look of things, he was pretty securely perched on the top rung. Money, power, family et al., if one were to judge by his surroundings. Twin photos, professionally matted and framed, showed two young men wearing tasseled mortarboards and capes. I could only assume they were his progeny.

But there was no sign of a wife, girlfriend, or concubine. And no ring on his left hand. Hmmm. Successful, good handshake, and single. What more could a girl want?

It was Wednesday, two days after Rivera’s preemptive visit. Which means I had spent forty-eight hours trying to convince myself to forget about this stupid problem. But Solberg still hadn’t made an appearance. I’d popped the purloined disk into my home computer, but the gibberish that sprang onto my screen might just as well have been hieroglyphics. So I’d hidden the CD under my kitchen sink, where only the bold dare tread, and made an appointment with Emery Black, certain there was someone at NeoTech who could shed light in the darkness of my ignorance.

I glanced about the office again, maybe analyzing his personality, maybe snooping. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

A dracaena grew lustily in front of his east bank of windows. Adjunct to the trio of chairs that surrounded a Persian rug near the back forty of the room, a small teak table boasted an inverted gold pear on a porcelain pedestal that had an inscription I couldn’t make out. Or maybe it just looked like a pear. Maybe it was a golden water balloon, or—

Black cleared his throat. “So you’re a friend of our J.D.?”

“No.” I jerked my attention back to him, realizing my answer was too quick and might have been considered rude in certain circles. Say, those circles that didn’t think Solberg was an irritating little wart dweeb. “I mean . . .” I gave him a smile, set my purse on the floor, and sat down in the chair he indicated with a jab of his hand. “He’s more a friend of a friend.”

“I see.” He seated himself behind his desk. It was big enough to roller-skate on. “And what is your concern?” He steepled his arms, interlocked his fingers, and scowled at me over his knuckles. His hair was dark brown and receding somewhat, giving way to half a century of life.

“Well, my friend was expecting him home, and he hasn’t returned. I thought perhaps you knew why.”

“What’s your friend’s name?” he asked.

“Chester,” I said, ’cuz, what the hell, the truth and I weren’t exactly on intimate terms these days anyway. “He hasn’t heard from him in more than two weeks.”

“And what of you, Ms. McMullen?” he asked, giving me a schooled smile. “Have you heard from him?”

If I had, would I be sitting there in his boss’s office admitting a relationship, however remote, to Solberg? “No, but like I said, we aren’t . . .” . . . both human. “Close,” I said.

He stared at me, unspeaking. He had eyebrows like dark caterpillars that threatened copulation. I waited in silence for several seconds, then prodded.

“Have you?”

He rose to pace to the window. He was tall, over six feet, but he carried a few extra pounds, making him look shorter but maybe more capable. I’ve always thought it was one of God’s cruelest jokes that men are considered mature when they go to fat. While women are considered . . . well, fat.

“And Chester is his . . . significant other?” he asked.

I went from surprised to baffled. “What?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, glancing my way. “J.D.’s preferences are no concern of mine. I just like to make certain my employees are . . . content.”

He thought Solberg was gay, I realized hazily, and that was just weird. Hadn’t he seen Will of
Will & Grace
fame? Gay guys are intelligent, well dressed, and sophisticated.

“Frankly,” he said, “J.D. is a great asset to NeoTech.”

“An asset who has called you recently?”

He gave me a cat-at-the-canary-cage kind of smile. “I’m afraid not,” he said, “but you needn’t worry. He told me before I left Vegas that something came up that needed his immediate attention.”

“What was it?” I asked.

He shrugged his beefy shoulders. And there you go! “Beefy”! Like having shoulders like a corn-fed steer is a good thing or something. If a guy has beefy shoulders he’s manly. If a woman has beefy shoulders she’s . . . a cow. “He didn’t say exactly.”

I twisted my mind away from what’s for dinner and focused. “But you must have some idea.”

“Listen, Ms. McMullen . . .” His tone was a little patronizing, a little apologetic. “A man at the helm of an empire such as NeoTech must decide who to trust and when to trust him. I’d trust J.D. with my life.”

Really? ’Cuz I wouldn’t trust Solberg with my phone number. In fact, I hadn’t, but one infamous evening not too long ago, he’d oozed into my vestibule just the same. “Then aren’t you worried about losing him?”

“Not at all. Why would I be?”

“I just thought maybe you were concerned about him taking his knowledge elsewhere.”

“What knowledge?” he asked. His tone insisted he was relaxed, but was there the slightest bit of tension around his eyes?

“Nothing specific. I just thought . . .” What had I thought? Why was I there? For all I knew, Emery Black was the reason for Solberg’s disappearance. “I just thought you might be concerned about his absence if he hasn’t kept you apprised.”

“I can assure you, Ms. McMullen, J.D. is extremely happy at NeoTech. We have given him endless opportunities.”

“What kind of opportunities?”

“He makes a good deal of money here and will make a good deal more. I’m certain he’ll be back before the end of the month.” He said the words as a dismissal. I’d never liked to be dismissed.

“Why?” I asked.

For a moment he looked as if he was envisioning me with a volleyball stuffed in my mouth, but he managed a smile. “For people like J.D.—geniuses, perhaps I should say—friends come and go. But computers . . .” He spread his pudgy hands. “He can’t live without them. Technology’s his mistress.”

“So you’re saying he’ll come back because he’s having an affair with his motherboard?”

He laughed. “Well, he’ll be back within the next couple of weeks. I’m certain of that.”

“Have you considered the possibility of some sort of accident?” Like a hirsute guy with a gun the size of a tank mowing him down in his sleep. I felt sweat break out on my brow at the memory. Had the guy tried to shoot me as I scampered across Solberg’s lawn, or had I imagined the gunshot?

Black stepped toward the door. “It is certainly good to know our J.D. has concerned friends such as you and Chester, but I can assure you, he’s perfectly fine.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“What?” He turned toward me, struggling for patience and almost winning.

“How can you be so certain he’s okay if you don’t know where he is?”

He studied me for a moment, as if I were an interesting form of lower life—the middle-income species. “The truth is, Ms. McMullen, J.D. has been working very hard for a long while. He deserves a vacation. If he feels it necessary to take that vacation now, I’m more than happy to give him some leeway.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

He smiled. “Generous, I am not. But I am highly intelligent, and I know what my employees need. J.D. and I have worked extremely well together in the past and will again in the future. So if he wants a couple more days on the strip, that’s perfectly acceptable.”

I let his words sink in. They permeated my skin like toxins, pushing up new suspicions in their wake. “Is he with someone?” I asked. Was he gay? Was
Will & Grace
all a lie?

He shook his head, looking almost regretful. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

Anger shot through me. “Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s been nice meeting you,” he said, and opened the door. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful, but I assure you, our J.D. is perfectly safe.”

I jerked to my feet. “Is it someone he met in Vegas?”

Impatience ticked in his jaw. “I take my employees’ privacy very seriously, Ms. McMullen. I hope you will respect that,” he said, and practically pushing me out, closed the door behind me.

I saw the world through a red haze. Damn Solberg’s worthless hide! He was cheating on Laney. What the hell was wrong with men? Four months ago he couldn’t get a date with an organ grinder’s monkey, and now . . . Well, now it looked like he could, didn’t it?