Zenith Falling (6 page)

Joelle desperately wished she had a cell phone. She could call Nick and have him come out. This was ridiculous. What were all
these hoops she had to jump through? She was slouched in the reception chair for a good five minutes before a man, wearing a suit and his own headset came over to her and motioned for her to get up. As they started walking, Joelle was sure the bulge she saw in the man’s shoulder was a gun. Puzzled, annoyed, intimidated, Joelle obeyed as she was told.

She walked through a crowded inner area of cubicles and work stations. Then, rounding the corner, they came to a quiet hall, where her feet suddenly sank into deep
, lush carpet, and original paintings tastefully lined the walls. A half dozen, cherrywood doors were all shut tight to the hallway, making the whole area hushed, private, beautiful. But very eerie.

Finally, her
silent escort brought her to an ornate, dark-wood desk with the nameplate indicating it was Bev Richmond’s desk. There was a woman sitting there, tall and slender, beautifully dressed in a tailored suit with her hair piled atop her head.

“Mrs. Richmond?”

“Yes?” she said as she turned fully in her deep, cushy, black office chair. Mrs. Richmond started when she saw Joelle. The armed escort turned and left, all without a word to her. Joelle stared after him, then at the strange Mrs. Richmond.

“I’m here to see Nick Lassiter.”

“You don’t have an appointment.” Statement, not a question.

“No. I was in the area and decided to drop by.”

“Well, then, you won’t be seeing Mr. Lassiter.”

“But
–”

“No exceptions. He’s a busy man and he doesn’t have time for whatever you’re doing here. Are you a reporter? Are you trying to get a story on Mr. Lassiter? It won’t work. Now please
, leave.”

“No. No, I’m not a reporter. I’m just
–” Joelle struggled for a word, unprepared to feel like she was entering a restricted zone just to say hello to Nick. “Just please tell him that Joelle Williams is here to see him. He’ll know who I am.”

“I don’t care if he knows who you are, which I doubt. His schedule is full today.”

Joelle’s growing impatience, coupled with her anger at Trina, the stares and disdain she’d received thus far, suddenly culminated in her mind. She was aware of the people working down the hallway, now staring at her after Mrs. Richmond raised her voice. God, what was this place? A terrorist detention camp?

“I’ll wait then.”

“Fine. He won’t see you though. Be my guest, and waste your time.”

Joelle sat obediently in the chair Mrs. Richmond pointed at. Nearly saluting. Once seated, Joelle looked around until she glanced at the door near her, and read,
Nick Lassiter, President
.

Oh. Shit.
Nick was the boss. That’s why she had to navigate all the hurdles to get back here. Why she gleaned so many stares just for asking to see him. What the hell did Nick do? He said he worked on computers. Yeah, right, no one used armed escorts in an average computer company. None of this made any sense. Could her day get any stranger? She quietly, obligingly now, got up and started to walk down the hall, hoping that Mrs. Richmond never imparted to Nick that Joelle Williams even dropped by.

She was nearly to the end of the strange, silent hallway when a voice from behind her called her name.

“Joelle?”

Joelle stopped dead in her tracks.
Nick’s voice.
Nick had seen her.
Damn it.
She turned. Nick was down the hallway, exiting through one of the now opened cherry wood doors. A group of men, and two women spilled out behind him. Nick wore an expensive-looking, gray-colored suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Mrs. Richmond looked on, her eyes wide, as if she were stunned that Nick did indeed seem to know Joelle.

Joelle turn
ed and walked towards Nick, feeling as if her feet were suddenly encased in concrete. What else could she do? Turn and run down the hall as if she were afraid of him? But suddenly, stupidly, she almost did.

He seemed different here. He
was a grown-up, powerful-looking business tycoon, and not her friend’s older brother anymore, the person he was until this exact moment. Here he had authority, power and respect. He was totally at ease with the well-dressed people looking at them, and seemed to be surrounded by his personal empire, where people didn’t so much as speak to him without an appointment and screening from an armed guard.

Except, clueless, stupid, misfit Joelle.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was having coffee with your sister actually, and
–” Joelle’s voice wandered off. Her gaze was vacant as she stared at the walls. She could feel Nick watching her, as well as the people around them, judging what they saw, no doubt.

Nick walked towards her, gently taking her arm and guiding her towards his office door.

“Why don’t you come into my office?”

“No, you look pretty busy. I shouldn’t have dropped by. I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine. Come in.”

“Mr. Lassiter, you have a client meeting in ten minutes,” Mrs. Richmond reminded him, while staring at Joelle, with surprise in her eyes, but her face purposely blank.

“Push it back,” Nick answered. With that, he opened his door, held it for Joelle and shut it on his astonished secretary’s face.

Nick’s office was
magnificent with floor-to-ceiling windows that took up one entire wall, offering a view that overlooked the city, and even included a glimpse of the water. She could see people scurrying around, and in traffic, which looked like dotted confetti from that distance as well as ships in the harbor. The sky filled up the windows with a soft, warm blue. The space was unreasonably large, with one desk on the right, occupying nearly the entire width of his office, and behind it, another desk holding a massive computer with three different flat screens surrounding it. The other end of the office had a couch, chair and coffee table, arranged to promote relaxation and exploit the panoramic view. This office, however, did not suggest relaxing, it seemed to ooze power, money, and status.

Her black boots sank into the pristine, immaculate,
beige carpet; carpet that deserved to have only pointy high heels, not black combat boots stomping over it. Nick Lassiter was huge, influential, and important. It took her until that very moment for her thick-skulled brain to get that. Nick seemed to be the guru of some kind of an empire here.

“Sit down. Care for anything to drink? Coffee?”

“Water.” Maybe water would lubricate her vocal chords so she could get some kind of sound past them.

Nick walked over to his private bar and took out a sparkling crystal glass before pouring water from a pitcher stowed in the mini-refrigerator. The pitcher was so clear and prismatic,
the sun shone through it in patterns of rainbows. He handed the glass to her as he sat behind his desk. She sat down in one of the leather chairs that were as comfortable as any  she’d ever sat in, opposite his desk.

She
lifted her eyes to find Nick watching her as she squirmed and took a drink. His eyes, shit! They really were a beautiful, translucent blue that made her pulse skitter, and she dug her fingers into her leg.

“I shouldn’t have come here,”
she spoke in a hushed, reverent whisper demonstrating her inability at normal speech.

“
Oh? Why’s that?” he asked, his tone quite casual, as he rocked his chair back.

“I had no idea it would be like this. I met with Trina around the corner, and afterwards, I looked up and recognized the street of your business card. I thought
–”

He jerked the chair forward, his eyes sharpening suddenly on her face.
“You thought what?”

“I’d drop by and see about paying you back. I didn’t expect this. I thought a quick walk past your cubicle or something. Not, well, not this.”

“Is that why you’re so nervous?”

Nervous? She was terrified. Of him.
Of this place. Of why she was here.

“Well, your staff
seemed to think I might pull a gun on them or something. And your secretary? She thought I was trying to sneak in as a reporter.”

“She’s very protective of my time.”

“Yeah, like a barracuda. Protective of your time? She acted like I was hiding a bomb or something. What exactly do you do here?”

“We consult.”

“Yeah, I see, that’s why you need armed escorts? What do you consult on?”

“Computers.”

“I know I don’t look like the women you work with, but I’m not completely stupid. Obviously, you must do more than just consult on broken computers.”

“I didn’t mean to insult your intelligence,” he said, frowning
as he rested his elbows on his massive, wooden desk. Then he continued, “The consulting we do here is kept very quiet.”

“Why?”

“As in top secret.”

She was puzzled. Confused. And very intrigued. What was it Nick did? Who was Nick? And for
God sakes,
what
was she doing here?

He
finally smiled and leaned back again in his chair, as if relaxing suddenly. But why? She didn’t know. “You want some idea of the types of things we might consult on?”

She nodded.

“Let’s say a company suspected one of their employees was stealing from them. They’d hire us to look into said employee’s computers, electronics, phones, and more or less, the employee’s entire background. And the secrecy concerns the means with which we do it. We sometimes might not use what are considered the ‘usual channels’ to obtain information. We also work for certain government agencies, investigating people of interest, whom we aren’t exactly always authorized to be investigating.”

“You hack stuff? You’re like a cyber investigator?”

He smiled and shrugged noncommittally. “No, and you’re definitely not stupid.”

“Really? You know how to hack into stuff?”

“I know how to do lots of stuff. So do my key employees. The rest of the staff is administrative primarily to manage the office, the employees and the payroll information.”

Joelle’s mind was spinning. “And you appear to do quite well with your company that no one knows what you do?”

“Yes. Specific services. We’re quiet, discreet, and considered the best in the business.”

“And it’s your own company?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t mention that you were the owner of your company, or that your company’s car mechanics were really your mechanics. You made it seem like you were just some
manager who worked in an office.”

He flashed a grin at her.
“What was I supposed to do? Offer you my resume? I do work in a office, and mostly with computers.”

She snorted. “You could have said something a little more accurate.
Like you run a secret organization that needs armed guards to protect its super-secret spy missions that are only permitted with prior secret government authorization.”

He outright laughed a loud guffaw. She dropped her eyes, but a small smile curved on her lips. He shook his head. “The majority of our clients are simply running generic background checks or doing routine investigations for job applicants.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Except for you. You do all the super-secret hacking, don’t you?”

He pressed his lips together, trying, without much success not to smile in amusement. Yeah, he did that. “It is my company,” he replied with an offhand shrug.

“Again, not the impression you initially gave me of what you do.”

His smile faded, and his eyes cooled.
“Why? Does my profession somehow change something between us?”

She was simply miffed he hadn’t told her,
or been more up-front with her. If she’d sensed anything like the truth, she wouldn’t have dropped in as though she were visiting a friend at the local supermarket. She would never have wandered into some kind of office that required security clearance to enter.

“Why the high security?”

“Not everyone gets an armed guard called on them,” he replied.

Her brow furrowed and she tapped her finger against her thigh before sighing and said,
“Oh. Just me. Because of how I look? I guess that was my first clue I was in the wrong place.”

“So you’ve said. And you got security called on you simply because you weren’t recognized, and you asked for me. It wasn’t because of you, or how you appear. I’ll leave word next time, and  you can waltz in as if you own the place.”

“I won’t come back. I really shouldn’t have come here now.”

“So you keep saying, why not?”

“Your sister–”

He sighed,
and leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. His chair squeaked ever so slightly. “She wasn’t exactly nice to you.”

“You talked to her?” Trina already reported their meeting to her busy brother? Joelle started to get up and collect her bag. “I should go. I didn’t know you’d already heard from Trina. I wasn’t here to talk about that, or her opinion of me. I just wanted to see about paying you back. I’m sorry for coming, and for interrupting whatever secret spy stuff you were doing.”

“Joelle, stop,” Nick said in a calm, reasonable tone. “Sit back down. My sister is pretty impressed with herself right now. You don’t have anything to apologize to me for. Sounds to me like Trina owes you an apology.”

Joelle
paused, and ended up in an eye lock with Nick. Unsure what to do, she sat back down, but their gazes remain locked. “No, she shouldn’t apologize. I erroneously assumed you would have told Trina what I was like now, and she’d be prepared for me. I was a shock to her, that’s all. Look, I got the total from the mechanic for my car. It needs a lot of work. I know you put it on your corporate accounts, but isn’t that illegal or something?”

“No, I put it on my personal account.”

“Oh. Well, I have a little money that I can give you right away. I pawned my mom’s wedding ring. It’s not like she needs it. Anyway, if I could just get your address, I could mail you a check each week until I pay it off.”

He frowned and shook his head.
“You didn’t have to sell your mom’s ring. I told you there was no hurry.”

“Yes, I did. I want it over as soon as possible. I know how pathetic I must seem.”

He reclined in his chair again, as he stared at her. “You seemed to be in trouble. There’s a difference.”

“I do. I do seem pathetic. Believe me
, I am well aware of how I appear. But thank you, for helping me the other night.”

“I told you, it’s not that big of a deal.
You seem like you already have plenty to stress you out. So just take this money, and check me off your list. Consider it a gift, and you can repay it whenever you can afford to.”

She didn’t know what to say. Why was he being so kind to her? Finally, she gratefully nodded her acceptance. What else could she do? She certainly didn’t have the money.

“I didn’t plan on coming to see you,” she explained. “But it just seemed like I needed to reassure you, I don’t know, let you know how much it meant to me. That I didn’t take it lightly.”

“The last thing I would expect you to do is take things lightly
. You’ve never been one take anything lightly, even as a teenager.” What did that mean? She couldn’t bear to keep eye contact with him any longer. It made her skin flash from hot to cold and left her stomach churning with nerves.

“I also thought
–”

“Thought what?”

“That maybe you might suspect I was pulling a scam on you.”

“Like your mother?
” His voice was low and kind. He knew her family’s history. “No, I didn’t think that.”

“Why not? Why d
idn’t you think that?”

“Because you didn’t expect for us to meet up again, nor could you have known I’d be passing by the church again that night
, now, could you? Quit worrying so much about it. I’m not.”

The words sounded so soothing, and simple to follow. Yet
, it felt like so much more to her. Too much. Why was that? Was it because they were being spoken to her by someone who shouldn’t be so kind to her? Or so soothing to her? Rob said things like that to her, but she couldn’t believe him. He didn’t know or care what she worried about, or even understand the kinds of things she fretted over.