dark-haired and beautiful, with full breasts and long thin legs. She saw Susannah before Sam did. As she jumped up from the edge of the bed, her emery board hung in midair like a conductor's baton. Sam's gaze traveled from the ceiling to Susannah. He didn't show a flicker of expression.
She breathed in the thick, stale scent of marijuana and sex. Her stomach curled. A layer of dust covered the black lacquered furniture. The blinds were shut tight against the outside world. On the floor around the bed abandoned food cartons were mixed with dirty dishes. The painting Sam had bought her leaned with its face against the wall, a hole the size of a fist punched through the canvas.
'Get out of here,' she said harshly to the woman.
The woman opened her mouth to protest, but apparently decided Susannah was too formidable to oppose. She glanced hesitantly toward Sam. He paid no attention to her; his gaze remained fixed on Susannah.
Susannah was dimly aware of the woman scrambling to get into her clothes and stumbling past her. Only when she heard the sound of the front door closing did she step farther into the room. 'What are you doing to yourself?'
He turned his head to the ceiling.
She kicked away a damp bath towel. 'Hiding is a coward's game. It won't solve anything.'
'Unless you want to fuck, get out of here.'
She didn't flinch from his vulgarity, even though the thought of going to bed with him repelled her. It wasn't just that he was sleeping with other women; she simply could no longer bear the idea of his touch. 'Your mother is worried about you. We're all worried.'
'Sure you are.'
He sounded like a surly little boy. Whatever lingering elements of respect she had held for him crumbled away. His childishness, his infidelity, his self-pity had all diminished him.
'Are you going to spend the rest of your life sulking because you didn't get your way?'
For a moment he didn't move, but then he began to lever himself slowly out of bed. The dim light coming through the windows cast a blue-black shadow over his unshaven jaw. His hair was tousled, his arms hung at his sides. He began moving toward her, and she could feel his rage. She told herself not to underestimate him.
'You're not anything without me,' he sneered.
'Do you have any idea how tired I am of dealing with your hostility?'
His nostrils flared and his hard dark eyes glittered with anger. 'You're
The words hurt. She told herself they weren't true-she didn't believe them-but she was insecure enough that they still pricked.
'Madam President,' he scoffed. 'You think you've made so many contributions to SysVal. What a fucking joke. SysVal was always mine! You were so goddamn laughable the other night, I could hardly believe it. Talking about 'mission' and 'adventure' like you invented the words. Jesus, I wanted to puke.'
She opened her mouth to defend herself, only to discover that she had no urge to do so. He was as pathetic as an overindulged child.
'I came to see if you were all right,' she said. 'Now that I know it's just self-pity bothering you, I'm leaving.'
She turned to go, but he snatched her arm. 'You got one more chance. I'm giving you one more chance to come with me.'
'On a new adventure?' she shot back scornfully.
'Yeah. A new one. A better one. As soon as the word got out that I was leaving SysVal, every investor in this country wanted a piece of me. They're standing in line begging me to take their money. I'm the golden boy, babe. The goddamn dream child of capitalism.'
His words sounded like braggadocio, but she knew they were true. An investor had even tried calling her that morning in hopes of locating him. She shook off his grasp. 'You don't have the vaguest idea what the real adventure is. It's not just starting something-that's for kids. The real adventure is seeing it through. You bailed out at the toughest part, Sam. In your marriage and in your job.'
For a moment she thought he was going to hit her, but she didn't flinch. Sam was a bully, and bullies had to be faced down.
'Get out of here,' he said contemptuously. 'Get out of here and learn what life's all about. Maybe then I
She stared at him for one long moment. 'I'm not coming back. Not ever.'
Turning away from him, she left the house. As she stepped out into the cool, eucalyptus-scented air, she felt a sense of release. Whatever bonds of love and need had been tying her to Sam were finally destroyed. She was done forever with loving little boys.
Chapter 30
Hal Lundeen, SysVal's head of security, was one of the company's few employees over the age of forty. A former Oakland city cop, he was a confirmed pessimist who believed that no matter how bad a situation was, it could only get worse. The hunt for SysVal's saboteur was proving his adage.
It was December now, and he had been driving himself hard since October, when Susannah Faulconer had first called him into her office and told him about the sabotaged ROM chip. Every piece of evidence Lundeen had been able to gather pointed to Edward Fiella, He even thought he knew how the switch had been made. Fiella had apparently spilled a cup of coffee just as the messenger had arrived to pick up the ROM chip instructions that were to be delivered to Dayle-Wells. That's when the substitution had taken place. Unfortunately, finding Fiella had proved a lot more difficult than any of them had ever imagined.
Lundeen looked uncomfortable as he took a seat and gazed at the woman behind the desk. She wasn't going to be at all happy with what he had to tell her. 'I'm afraid I've got some bad news about Fiella.'
'Terrific,' she muttered. 'Did you lose him again?'
'Not exactly. We finally traced him to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, we were about ten days too late.'
'He took off again?'
'No. Uh… he's dead.'
'Dead!'
'Yeah. He was killed in an auto accident ten days ago.'
'Oh, no.' She rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. 'What happened?'
'A couple of drunk teenagers ran a stop sign. He was dead when the cops pulled him out of his car. Just one of those things.'
'We can't seem to buy a piece of luck, can we? Did you find out anything else about him?'
'Yeah. The car the cops pulled him out of was a Mercedes 380 SL convertible. He bought it new a few weeks after he left SysVal.'
'That's an expensive car. I didn't see any mention of it on his credit report.'
'Funny thing about that. He paid cash.'
She slid the pen between her fingers as she took in the implications of what he had said. 'That pretty much eliminates the possibility that he was just a hacker sabotaging the chip for kicks, doesn't it?'
'I'd say so, Miss Faulconer. I'd say it blows that theory right out of the water.'
Since only a founding partner could purchase another founding partner's shares, she, Mitch, and Yank had been forced to buy Sam out. The Blaze HI recall had severely depressed the price of Sam's fifteen percent, but the buyout was still costing each of them millions.
Susannah had been hit the hardest because she couldn't tap into any of the assets she and Sam owned jointly until her divorce was final. As a result, she was forced to deplete all of her financial reserves. She replaced her BMW with a Ford compact, and was staying in SysVal's town-house condominium on a semipermanent basis because she couldn't afford to buy anything else for a while. It was the way of the Valley, she joked ruefully to Mitch. A millionaire one day, a pauper the next.
