“Same thing you guys thought.” Em sipped her coffee and stared out the window. “Find a way to spoon-feed her everything else, but don’t play the Sarah card. Not yet at least.”
“Sure.” It all sounded so easy.
“There’s that gray Honda again.” Sarah pointed out the window as an Accord slowly cruised by.
“Are you sure it’s the same one?”
“The license plate matches, and the dent in the passenger’s door appears to be identical. I’d guess it’s the same car.
James had been the one who wanted her opinion. It could have been the best idea he’d ever had. Em had already identified the problem, identified the starting point, solved the immediate problem, and recognized the enemy. Was it any wonder I loved this girl?
She went home in the BMW, and James and I drove home in the truck. There was no GPS under the truck. I slid under and checked the undercarriage myself. James was strangely silent as he drove, and I kept thinking about Em’s insight.
We’d driven for about five minutes, the brakes grinding and the engine sounding rough when he said, “I’d thought of that, you know. Just tell Carol Conroy what she needs to know. Nothing more. It was pretty much where I was going with it.”
“Yeah. I’d thought of it too. But it’s always nice to hear someone confirm your thoughts, right?”
“My thoughts exactly, compadre. Just because we’ve got a high-tech surveillance system in place, doesn’t mean we have to share everything with her. We can control what she knows.”
“True.” But then I was taking Carol Conroy’s money under false pretenses. And it was a lot of money. But if I leveled with her, then I’d probably lose the entire gig. And was it legal to bug Sandy Conroy’s office in the first place? I wanted to go somewhere and just scream for about five minutes.
When we walked in the door, James pointed at the computer. “Turn it on, amigo. We need to see how the day ended.”
I hit the power key, awakening the computer from hibernation mode, and the warm glow on the screen showed me the password box. James and I used Beercity on our ancient PC. The company code on the laptop was Password. It was my boss Michael’s brilliant idea. I always figured that Beercity was a lot harder to crack than Password, but Michael was the boss. I punched in Password, and in a moment the screen glowed.
Conroy pulled the door open and Sarah walked in. She stood still for a moment and he stalked back to his desk, sitting down and staring at her. Slowly she walked to the sole chair in front of his massive wooden desk. She sat down, pulling her dress down to her knees.
“What?”
“You scare me.”
“Sandy, I scare you?”
“You start with your insecurities, your ‘do you love me, I love you’ little whines, then it moves on to demands. ‘When is this going to be over? When are you leaving her?’ I can’t have this, Sarah. It’s got to stop.”
“And all I’d like is some reassurance.” She sounded shaky.
“You’ve got it. I tell you that every time. You’ve got all the assurance you need. Every minute. But it’s all I can say at this moment. There are things going on you’re not aware of, and if you’ll just let me work through them, it will be all right in the end. Do you understand?”
She stood, walked to the desk, and put both hands on the oak, gripping it tightly. “Obviously no. I don’t understand. You just told me that I wasn’t aware of certain things. If you can’t share with me, then-”
Conroy jumped up, almost knocking his chair over. “Stop it. Stop. You’re driving me crazy. Maybe this was a bad idea.”
She was close to tears, I could hear it in her voice. Wavering, higher pitched, choked, she said, “I have turned everything over and-”
“What? What did you turn over? The fact that you were a call girl, and you’ve put that on hold for a while? You’ve quit turning tricks because of me? Is that what you turned over?”
She screamed, picked up a ceramic coffee cup, and threw it at the wall behind him. The cup smashed to pieces.
Conroy was out from behind the desk in a second, holding her by the shoulders. “I’m sorry. Sarah, I’m truly sorry. I know, I know how tough this has been on you. Ralph’s suicide, Carol, and everything else. Please, baby, be patient. Understand I’m going through a lot right now.”
She sobbed softly, pressing her body against him.
Conroy brushed at her hair with his hand. He stroked her back, pulling her closer and I felt like a shit. How could I watch this?
“Tonight. You and me baby-”The screen went blank.
“What?” James’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “Power go out? What?”
“The card ran out of time.”
“Damn!”
“James. She doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. I was hoping we could get some information from her, but-”
“Wasn’t quite what I was hoping for either, but one heck of a show, eh, Kemo Sabe? One heck of a show.”
I had to agree with him. The movie ended with a bang.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
T he package arrived at Synco Systems at seven a.m. the next morning. Addressed to Skip Moore and stamped CONFIDENTIAL. I could only hope that it was a box of smoke detectors or motion detectors, but that wasn’t meant to be.
“Skip.” Andy Wireman walked up and put his hand on my shoulder. “Your runner seems to be a little bit upset with how things went yesterday.”
I hated confrontation, but “Andy, where did you get the authority to put him in charge?”
“Skip, Michael called the shot. I had nothing to do with it.”
Michael. What an idiot. Putting someone like J.J. in charge. And I knew the only reason it got under my skin was that I almost wasn’t able to get my smoke detector installed. That, and the fact that I was supposed to be in charge. Not some handyman.
“So Jim tells me that you put a smoke detector in the president’s office?”
“He wanted temporary protection, Andy. Conroy even thanked me last night. He said if that office burned up, this company would be in a lot of trouble. This is my project. Title being-well, person in charge, and I’ve got the authority to-”
“Hey, man, I’m with you. We’re on the same exact page, okay? It was a very smart move. And if it makes you feel any better, this morning your neighbor, Mr. Jobs, is back at being a runner and there’s no problem. Just wanted you to know.”
“Thanks, Andy.”
I carried my confidential package to a quiet corner of the computer room, and I used a packing knife to cut through the tape and paper on the large box. Feng was busy instructing two of our installers, and the doors to Sarah’s and Sandy Conroy’s offices were closed. My guess was that they had not come in yet. Still making amends for the lover’s spat they had yesterday.
“Dude,” James walked up, “the office isn’t open. I can’t get the card in place if the office is locked. We need to get this thing back up there.”
I’d forgotten to tell him. And it was a great moment, the kind a supervisor likes to spring on his employee. “No problem, James. You go up to Feng, tell him that you want to work some more on the smoke detector, and he’ll let you in. He’ll watch you reinstall the card and won’t say a word. He also won’t have a clue as to what you’re doing.”
James studied me for a moment. “I’m serious, Skip. I’d like to get this put back in, but I can’t get into Sandy’s
