the right one. Despite what Norton had told him, Dean Edwards was in the office today.
“Can I help you?”
Hannibal spun to stare into a pair of thick glasses wedged between a bulbous nose and a thatch of straw colored flyaway hair. The man was three inches shorter than Hannibal and seemed to be stooping even lower, as if he was cringing away from an expected attack.
“I was just waiting for…”
“Ms. Kitteridge?” The newcomer asked. “Get in line there, pizo. It’s always a trial getting in to see the boss.”
“Pizo?” Hannibal held out his hand. “I’ve hardly heard that since I left the base in Berlin. Hannibal Jones, and really, I’m waiting for a chance to talk to Dean Edwards.”
“Oscar Peters,” the shorter man said, giving Hannibal’s hand a vigorous shaking. He wore jeans with a dress shirt and tie, and a pair of expensive Adidas Salvations. “As a matter of fact, Dean works for me. Good man. You another Army brat?”
“Afraid so,” Hannibal said. “How long has Dean been with you?”
“Dean’s pretty new,” Oscar said. “Why are you looking for him? You’re not an old friend, are you?”
“Afraid not.” Hannibal handed Oscar a card and Oscar, unlike most people, read it before slipping it into his shirt pocket. “I see. And is Dean in some sort of trouble?”
From behind Hannibal a strong female voice said “Nothing to worry about.” Hannibal turned and was suddenly thankful for his sunglasses. No one could see his eyes widen as he took in the lady facing him. She was a tall woman of flawless detail. Her hair wasn’t red; it was a deep, blood-tinged auburn. Her skin wasn’t just fair, but creamy clear and so light as to approach translucence. Her nose and cheekbones could have been carved by Michelangelo, and her eyes weren’t just brown, they were polished onyx. Her perfectly tailored Donna Karan suit covered a shape seldom seen away from a fashion runway. And she wore a pair of heels that added three inches to her height, bringing her nearly to Hannibal’s eye level.
“Mister Jones, I’m Joan Kitteridge. Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“Actually I would,” Hannibal said. “It’s a private matter and I think Mister Edwards would like it to stay that way. If I could just have five minutes with him.”
Joan nodded, her face clouded with a very convincing veil of concern. As she looked at Hannibal her whole attention seemed focused on him. “Of course. Dean will take you down to the conference room. But afterwards, would you be kind enough to stop by my office?” Then the spotlight of her attention turned to Oscar Peters, and Hannibal felt left in shadows. “Were you waiting to speak to me Oscar? Come on in.”
The door shut out all sound when Hannibal closed it behind himself. Comfortable armed swivel chairs surrounded the long conference table, with lesser chairs lined up around three walls of the room. a projection screen and a flat television screen teamed up to dominate the front of the room. If Hannibal stretched his arms out as far as he could, his fingertips might touch the opposite edges of the TV. Dean never even looked at the table, but went straight to a chair near the far corner. His usual seat, Hannibal assumed. Dean wore the company uniform du jour: dress shirt and tie, designer jeans and a pair of exotic Brooks Radius SC running shoes. He sat as he must at company meetings, waiting for someone to tell him what he should know. So Hannibal did, in a few words as possible.
“Bea Collins cares about you. She doesn’t know why you walked out of her life without warning. Bea is a good woman and, in my estimation, deserves better. Now, I don’t have any evidence of you having committed any crimes at this time…”
“Crimes?”
Hannibal rounded the table and zoomed in on Dean like a telescopic rifle site. “I stopped digging but I can pick that shovel back up again. Right now, that’s not my job. So here are your choices. You can disappear again, abandon your lucrative job and the life you’ve got started here and start over someplace else. Or, you can do the right thing.”
Dean had trouble keeping his eyes on Hannibal’s through the sunglasses. In fact, he glanced around nervously, looking at everything but Hannibal. “The right thing. And you think you know what the right thing is, is that it? I won’t go back to her Mister Jones.”
“Lucky for her,” Hannibal said, standing over Dean as if the boy were on the witness stand in a courtroom drama. “But you need to meet with Bea and give her some sort of explanation for disappearing. You might even consider the truth.”
Hannibal pressed ahead, even as all his instincts were shouting this was wrong. Dean Edwards was soft in the middle, no hidden core. This man didn’t have what it took to run a confidence game. He barely had the confidence to run his own life. His hands were locked together, his thumbs rubbing each other. Despite his nervousness he had the strength to stick to his intentions this time.
“You don’t understand. I care about Bea. Very much. But I had to go. I won’t get her involved in…in my life.” Then Dean stared at the platter sized triangular device at the center of the table. Hannibal glanced at it as well, realizing too late that it was a microphone of some type, designed to pick up comments from around the room. Good for meetings, but bad for confidentiality. And it occurred to Hannibal that whatever Dean’s problem was, it could have something to do with his work. And it could catch up to Bea whether he wanted it to or not. He nodded his understanding to Dean, slipped him one of his cards, and backed off a bit.
“Why don’t I pick you up from work tonight and we can work out the details. Five o’clock okay?”
Dean nodded and Hannibal turned to leave. He figured he could open Dean up more later, maybe in Bea’s presence. He planned to take as much time as needed to explain what he learned earlier that day and all it might imply. But as he stepped out of the room Oscar took his arm.
“Ms. Kitteridge would like a word with you,” Oscar said, steering Hannibal toward the corner office. “She says it’s pretty important.”
Joan Kitteridge’s three-sided desk was a cockpit pinning her against the wall. Between her computer keyboard and monitor, her intercom, television remote control, her mouse, her joystick, her surge protector lined with lighted switches and a control panel for her peripherals, it looked as if she could control the planet from her seat.
Oscar had stopped at the door. Mark Norton waved Hannibal in and toward the leather sofa along the far wall, below the windows. Hannibal lowered himself onto it. Mark stood at the door, not as relaxed as he was trying to appear. Joan leaned forward, hooking titian locks out of her eye with a thumb as she spoke.
“Mister Jones, I’ll come to the point. Dean Edwards is a valued employee here. Talented and hard working. It appears he’s in some sort of trouble, and I want to know if you’re part of it. If you represent a problem that can be solved with money, we may be able to help make it go away.”
Hannibal looked hard at the Chief Executive Officer of Kitteridge Computer Systems. Behind her husky voice, this woman was a world away from Dean Edwards. He sensed layer behind layer, like a steel-skinned onion. The kind of woman who could run a multimillion-dollar company.
“Let me make a few things clear,” Hannibal said. “First, I’m not here to cause trouble. I was asked to find Mister Edwards and I have. And I have no intention of trying to make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. But I think he may have made a bad mistake and I could help him correct it. Now, what makes you think he’s in trouble?”
While Hannibal spoke, Joan sat still as a wax figure, absorbing his words. Mark didn’t watch Hannibal. His eyes were drawn to his boss’ magnetism. He fidgeted a bit.
When Hannibal finished, Joan sat for another ten seconds, then said, “I see.” She stood to lean toward him, unwilling to leave the enclosure of her control center. “I think it was pretty obvious to all of us who know him that Dean was scared when he came in to work this morning. Scared of something. From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to be you. But when I questioned him, he wouldn’t tell me anything. I worry about my people, Mister Jones.”
“Isn’t that a little maternal?”
“Some of these people need a little looking after,” she answered, not smiling at all. “They don’t live much in this world where you and I function, Mister Jones. That’s why they’re so good at dealing with the imaginary universe they’re in.”
