the old neighborhood. She said she liked living here because she knew all the neighbors and her old ladies depended on her. He'd told her that she didn't have to work anymore-he had more money than he knew what to do with-but she said she liked her independence. He'd even offered to buy her a first-class salon that she could run any way she wanted, but she'd said she didn't want to work that hard.
As he reached down and shut off the Walkman, her eyes snapped open. 'Hi, baby.' She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and sat up a bit. Her stomach wrinkled a little as she moved, but she still had a great body for someone who was forty-nine.
'Don't you look snazzy,' she said, as she always did. 'If anybody had told me when you were eighteen that you'd be running around someday in eighty-dollar neckties, I'd have told them they were crazy.'
He took the webbed chair next to her, noticing as he sat that rust had formed around the screws on the arms. 'Clothes aren't important.'
'Try giving them up.'
He stretched out his legs, looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. 'Did you talk to Suzie?'
'She called me yesterday.'
'She's got this stupid-ass idea that she's moving out.'
'Uh-huh.'
'Well?'
'You want some spaghetti?'
'So what did you tell her?'
'I didn't tell her anything. Suzie's a grown woman.'
'So what did she say to you?'
'She said she's leaving you, Sammy.'
He pushed himself out of the chair. 'Yeah, well that's what she thinks. See, she wants a kid.'
'I know. She wants a husband, too. You're getting what you deserve, kiddo. I've been trying to tell you that for a long time.'
'You know, you really piss me off. You're my mother, not hers. You're always taking her side. Right from the beginning.'
'I'm my own woman, Sammy. I call it like I see it.'
He splayed his hand on his hip and glared at her. 'Yeah? Well, you see it all wrong. She's important to me, you know. I need her.'
Angela sighed and reached out to touch him. 'Oh, baby. You're so hard to love.'
'Databeck tendered an excellent offer, Susannah,' Leland Hayward said over lunch at a pretty cafe in Ghirardelli Square. The venture capitalist was still one of SysVal's most influential board members. In addition to Hayward and the four founding partners, SysVal's board consisted of bankers and investors who had been brought in as they needed expansion capital. They were, by nature, conservative men, and as Susannah had visited privately with each one over the past four days, she had been dismayed to discover how nervous they were. Even Hay-ward, who was accustomed to taking risks, was worried.
He sprinkled Sweet'N Low into his coffee and shook his head. 'You have to understand that when someone who's as much of a wildcatter as Sam starts getting cold feet and says we should sell, I have to listen.'
'The company is solid,' she insisted. 'There's no reason to sell.'
'You're behind schedule on the development of the Wildfire. You've just lost the contract with the state of California. That doesn't seem so solid to me.'
'We only lost the contract because of the rumors about the sale.'
'Maybe. Maybe not.'
Susannah understood only too well. If she or Mitch had expressed worry over the financial state of the company, the board members would have been concerned, but not frightened. But when a swashbuckler like Sam said he wanted out, the board was thrown into a panic.
They finished their coffee and prepared to leave. As Leland rose from his chair, he frowned. 'By the way, Susannah, I'm not too happy with your service people right now. They picked up my computer a few weeks ago when I was on vacation, and they haven't returned it or brought me a replacement.'
Susannah pulled out the small notebook she kept in her purse and jotted a reminder to herself. SysVal policy dictated that any employee who received a complaint was responsible for following through on it. No one at SysVal- from the Chairman of the Board to the newest member of the typing pool-was exempt.
'I liked that machine,' Leland went on. And then he chuckled. 'Having one of those Blaze III test models made me feel like a pioneer.'
Susannah looked at him curiously. 'You had one of the test models?'
'Sam gave it to me. He found out I hadn't been using a computer and said I was a disgrace to the company. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I can't get along without it.'
Susannah thought of her own missing computer and wondered if someone in Engineering had pulled in all thirteen of the original test models to troubleshoot them. She reassured Leland that she would have a replacement machine sent over that afternoon, and once again asked him to reconsider his position.
'I've learned to trust my instincts,' he said. 'And right now my instincts are telling me that SysVal is in trouble.'
She returned to her office frustrated and depressed. Her secretary handed her a pile of phone messages and she flicked through them, hoping to find something from Paige. For days, she had been leaving messages with the maid at Paige's villa in Sardinia, but so far she had heard nothing.
She was still thinking about her sister the next morning when Lydia Dubeck, an eager young MBA from Harvard who was one of the company's newest directors, poked her head into her office. 'It's the darndest thing, Susannah. No one in Engineering seems to know anything about a recall of those thirteen test models. There aren't any work orders, and no one has heard about any problems. I guess that's good news.'
Susannah was still troubled. 'Sam's assistants should have a list of all the people who have one of those computers. Have someone get hold of it and find out the status of every machine.'
But when Lydia caught up with her late that afternoon, she looked tired and irritated. 'I don't know what the big deal is. Sam's apparently the only one who has a list. You'd think it was some sort of state secret. None of his assistants will give it to me, and he was in one of his moods when I finally ran him down.'
Susannah didn't have to ask what that meant. Lydia had obviously received one of Sam's famous tongue- lashings. She thought for a moment, and decided that it was unwise to go into battle with Sam over something that was probably trivial, especially when a much bigger fight loomed ahead. 'Thanks for trying, Lydia. Forget it for now.'
She spent the rest of the afternoon in meetings. When the last one broke up at six, she decided to see if Mitch was still around so she could run some new ideas about financing the Wildfire past him.
His office was more formal than any of his partners' offices. The windows were draped in a cream and maroon stripe, the chairs deep-seated and comfortable. Various civic awards hung on the walls, along with framed photos of his children.
He was deeply engrossed in a meaty-looking report lying open on his desk, and she paused for a moment to study him. Gold cuff links glimmered discreetly at his wrists. His collar button was securely fastened, his necktie neatly knotted. As he looked up at her, the lenses of his hornrimmed glasses flashed in the light of his desk lamp. For a moment she tried to reconcile this bastion of corporate respectability with the man who had soul-kissed her sister.
'You want to go get some dinner?' she asked.
'Sorry. I'm meeting Jacqueline.' He quirked an eyebrow as she made a face at him. 'You're welcome to come with us, Susannah. Jacqueline enjoys your company.'
'Thanks, but I think I'll pass. I'm not in the mood to discuss dead philosophers tonight.' She settled down in the chair across from his desk and kicked off her heels. 'Are you going to marry her?'
He immediately turned stuffy. 'Really, Susannah.'
'Well, are you?'
The loudspeaker crackled in the hallway outside. 'Attention everyone. We have a lost pig in the building. Anyone spotting a two-hundred-pound porker answering to the name of Yoda should notify security at once.'
Mitch sighed and Susannah cast her eyes to the ceiling. 'Oh, Lord, I hope they're kidding,' she said.
