She did it one more time, producing a different error.
“Thank you,” Dan said, the words drawn out and thoughtful.
“I’ve checked over the field processing dozens of times,” Julie said. “I can’t find anything.”
“Then it’s probably not there,” Dan answered.
“I’ve gone over everything that happens from the start of the field entries. It all looks sound. I’ve done data dumps and didn’t find anything off. I’m flummoxed.”
He stared at the computer. “You’ve looked at everything in the code.”
“Pretty much.”
“Where haven’t you looked?”
“I’ve looked at all of it.”
“Start to finish? Every last line of code?”
“All of the relevant parts,” she said.
“What about the not-as-relevant parts?”
“But if they’re not relevant, then why would—? Oh. Wait.” A potential answer occurred to her. “It… Yes, it’s possible. The initial value arrays. It could be a flaw there.”
Maureen knew her well enough to scoot over, making room for Julie in front of the keyboard. She had to load a different part of the subsystem to get to the initial routines. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this. If one of them had the wrong starting value…” She scanned the lines of code, comparing some of them against the specs, giving special attention to the three arrays in particular that would affect the handling of the amounts and how those values were moved. Maureen and Dan remained quiet as she checked line by line. And there it was. Staring at her.
“Jiminy Christmas! You’re right. There’s a typo in the transfer line for the array of allowable values. It wouldn’t trip unless you entered certain numbers and then had to compare them against other values. Yeesh. I didn’t even think to look there. Rookie mistake. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me to check it.”
She looked back at Dan, who was smiling. “You would have, eventually,” he said.
“Yeah, maybe. Eventually. But I have to hand this over tomorrow. Thank you. How did you know?”
Dan blinked and looked surprised. “I didn’t. I was just trying to get you to think beyond the most obvious. You were way deep in the forest and forgetting the trees on the border.”
Maureen laughed. “That’s a good way to put it.”
Dan looked at his watch. “I need to go. I have a meeting in half an hour at the Spieler office. By the way, Jake is off at some training thing so I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet. I’ll tackle him when he gets back. I’ll see if I can find Kris, too. What time is the hand-over tomorrow? Are you doing a demo?”
Julie answered. “Three o’clock. We should have just enough time to clean it up and get it ready to be put on display. Yes, I will do a demo of it for Charles and whoever else is there. Will you be?”
“I’ll be there. See you tomorrow.”
He turned and left, walking away quickly.
Julie swiveled back toward the computer and caught Maureen giving her a look. “What? No! Don’t go there.”
Maureen’s smile widened. “How can I avoid it? He’s…well, something. More than just a pretty face, although the face is plenty good enough. The rest of him, too. But he’s smart and nice, too.”
“He’s also ambitious, a bit egotistical, and can be ruthless when necessary.”
“Well, of course. I’d be terrified of him if he was too perfect.”
“He’s definitely not that.” The words held a shade of bitterness.
“He’s human. With flaws, like the rest of us. It’s a shame it ended badly between you two. I get the impression he might want to change that. Is there any chance?”
“No. He broke my heart once and it took me a long time to recover. For a while I wasn’t sure I was going to. I won’t risk that again.”
But it occurred to her later, on the way home, that she now owed him a pretty big favor. If she asked him how she could thank him, she knew what he’d say. Julie spent half that night rolling the options over in her mind. A sneaky part of her wanted to accept the invitation to go biking on Saturday for the pure joy of the ride and the company. She’d missed doing that with him. She’d missed doing a lot of things with him. For a while their worlds had been so intertwined, she hardly knew how to handle it when the link had snapped so abruptly. Everything had seemed so empty and lonely and pointless for a long time. But she had gotten over it. Finally. She couldn’t risk going back there.
He wanted her to come and she owed him a debt. She really should go.
But...
The idea of resuming any kind of social connection with him terrified her. The attraction was still there, inside, pulling her toward him. She hadn’t met anyone else who understood her so well or intrigued her so much before or since their breakup. She could fall into him again so easily. And be devastated yet again at a breakup.
She wasn’t exaggerating when she’d told Maureen she’d barely survived the last time. Her life changed in a moment from joyful and full of promise to bleak, lonely, and hopeless. For weeks she wallowed in depression, despite the efforts of friends to pull her out of it. The pain had beaten at her in every way. She stopped eating except when hunger forced her to swallow something. Her confidence was battered and broken. The rounds of futile, pointless job interviews that followed didn’t help her self-esteem.
Being introduced by Kate to the other women in the No Brides Club had started the healing. They’d accepted her as she was and offered support and suggestions to help her find her way. Kate, especially, had listened to her moan and groan and whine for endless hours. Along with them she swore off romance and determined to concentrate on rebuilding her career. With their encouragement she’d decided to work on her own and develop the idea she’d had for improving the banking app. Then she’d met Frank Worth and her life began to turn around.
Working with Spieler again felt risky enough on its own. In this orbit, her life had once spun almost out of control. The shadow of that past betrayal hung over the present developments.
A social relationship with Dan would suck her even more deeply back into that world. She owed him for the help, but then he owed her for his failure to keep Kris away. Call that even.
At two in the morning, when she was still tossing and turning, she got up and had a glass of wine. While sipping it she realized that she had to make a decision if she wanted to get any sleep that night.
So… She’d tell him no. She couldn’t.
CHAPTER 8
J ulie put on one of her three power suits for the presentation of the second stage—not the Boss one she saved for meetings with the highest stakes—but a nice one from Macy’s that had only cost half an arm instead of an arm and a leg. With it she wore stacked two-inch heels instead of the killer pumps. The clothing wasn’t full armor but bolstered her enough to make her feel ready for the meeting that afternoon.
She didn’t see Dan all morning while she and Maureen put the finishing touches on the interface, including adding a nice swirl image in the corner where a logo would go and organizing the layout into a neater format.
Presentations of her software always made her nervous. Even when she’d been showing them to Frank and some of the other Cummings executives, she couldn’t help the niggling doubt suggesting this might be the one time it wouldn’t work the way it was supposed to, or that the executives would decide they didn’t like the way it looked or functioned. So far, it hadn’t happened, but today’s audience would be more hostile and less understanding of blips or quirks.
When she got to the office that once belonged to Frank Worth and was now being used occasionally by Charles Quigley, she found Kris Thomas and Dan were both present, along with another person she didn’t know. Quigley introduced him as Marketing Manager Sam Bryson. He nodded but didn’t offer to shake hands.
Despite the nerves, Julie got right to the point, explaining what the app was supposed to do and showing them the interface as it would appear
on several different devices. She demonstrated how data was entered through the interface and producing a print-out of the entered values as they were passed to the back end for processing so they could compare them with what she’d typed in.
Her hands shook only slightly as she repeated the effort on other devices to establish that they would all produce the same result. She pointed out where logos could be put in and other ways the screens could be customized. Everyone remained silent throughout the demo. Mercifully it went smoothly, and everything worked properly.
At the end, she produced copies of the standard agreement for sign-off on stage two of the project. She scribbled her name on each copy and handed them to Quigley. He signed and returned one copy to her. She then gave him an invoice for the amount due in the agreement for completion of this stage. He handed it to Kris. “Get this to accounts payable.” He turned to her. “You can turn the code over to Dan.” Then he stood up to end the meeting.
As the others filed out, Dan turned to her and said, “Got a minute?”
“Sure.”
She followed him to his office and for a few minutes they discussed the mechanics of the transfer of code and how the storage area for it would be protected. Once they had that settled, he said, “I realize you’re not eager for any social relationship with me and I understand it. I hope at some point I can change your mind, but for now…” He looked up as someone tapped at the office door. “Later,” he said to the newcomer. She nodded and turned away.
He sighed. “There’s no privacy here and we need to talk. There are some things you need to know. But I’m squeezed for time. I have a commitment tonight and the bike ride tomorrow already scheduled. So, I have a suggestion. Come on the bike ride with me and we’ll find a time to talk privately for a bit. You’ll enjoy it, but you can think of it as a business meeting combined with a nice outing with friends. I promise I’ll keep it to just that.”
“You—” When he put it that way… Julie was still torn. “I haven’t been cycling in a long time and last weekend reminded me how much I enjoy it. I want to do some more. And it is more fun with other people. But—” She stopped and breathed in and out.
“You have something else scheduled Saturday?”
“No. I just don’t want to…to mislead you.”
“Into thinking there might be more between us?”
She nodded and looked down at his hands. Strong hands, well-kept but not fussed over. Nails clean and trimmed. No rings. A red scratch crossed the back of his left hand and a small scar showed on his right index finger. They roused vivid memories of the way his hands had felt cupping her face as he kissed her. She shook it off and looked up.
“It’s all right. I understand.” The words came out strained but sincere. “This would be purely business and light friendship. Maybe we can at least find some sort of friendship again. I’ll settle for that. For now, at least.”
“It’s all I have to give. Maybe more than I have.”
He drew a sharp breath. “It’s all you have to give me.”
“Yes. All right. What time tomorrow?” She owed him a favor. That’s all it was, she told herself.
“I’m meeting my friends at ten. I could bike over to your place and get you.”
“Are you still on Seventh Street in Brooklyn?”
He nodded.
“That’s pretty far out of your way. Makes more sense for me to ride over and meet you at your place and we go on from there. I’ll be there about nine-thirty.”
“All right. I’ll pack a picnic. The others are bringing some food as well.”
“I’ll pick up some fruit and maybe a few doughnuts.”
He said a quiet “thank you” as she stood up and turned toward the door. She was angry again. Angry at herself. And a little at him. He was manipulating her, and she was letting him do it.
DAN WATCHED Julie leave the room and couldn’t decide whether to cheer or to bang his fist on the table in frustration. At least she’d said yes to the bike trip and maybe was willing to consider a friendship. If he wanted more, it was up to him to earn it. And even if he did, she’d offered no guarantees she’d ever completely forgive him.
He tapped his pen on the desk in rapid rhythm. He still didn’t know exactly what he should’ve done three years ago. Every bit of evidence indicated Julie was the only one who could possibly have leaked that code, even though she’d denied it. She’d sworn she hadn’t but couldn’t offer any alternative scenarios. He remembered trying to tell her that he’d help with whatever issue had precipitated her actions. The offer just seemed to infuriate her more and brought on the argument that led to their break-up.
She still claimed innocence and blamed him for not believing her at the time. But it would’ve been a lie if he’d said he was positive she hadn’t been behind the leaks. Was that really what she’d wanted? A declaration of confidence he didn’t really mean? Surely, she knew him better than to want or expect that.
Dan tossed the pen on the desk and went to look for Kris Thomas.
He found her going over some reports and tapped on the door to get her attention. She looked up, set down the papers, and nodded. “What’s up?” she asked.
“That’s my question.” He pushed the door closed behind him and sat. “What’s going on with you and Julie Harrison? She said you’d been bugging her and her co-worker, complaining about their clothes and their hours.”
Kris’s mouth twisted in a frown and eyebrows went up. “She complained to you? I didn’t think she’d be that petty. I’m just concerned that they set a bad example for the rest of our employees with their casual attitude toward working hours and wardrobe. We do have a dress code and set times.”
“And it’s always been enforced very liberally. There’s no need for people who don’t work in the public eye to dress up all the time. And the set times only apply to certain people. They’re all meant to increase productivity. Your harassing the C&W people is likely to interfere with productivity rather than enhance it. So what’s really going on?”
She raised her chin to look down at him. “I’m trying to maintain standards in the company.”
“Even where they’re not needed?”
“We have regulations for a reason. It’s not our job to decide we don’t need to enforce them in certain circumstances.”
“Isn’t it? We make those kinds of decisions every day. This seems more personal.”
“To you, maybe. I see it as a company thing.” She gave him a challenging look.
“I see.” And he was starting to get the picture. But how to approach it? “It bothers you that someone you feel betrayed this company three years ago is now getting another chance?”
She sniffed. “Not just another chance. She gets treated like a princess! Gets to dictate the terms of her working here. Tells us who can and can’t approach her. Comes and goes when she pleases. Along with her assistant who keeps her own hours.”
“I can understand why that rubs you the wrong way. It feels like she’s been rewarded for her crimes instead of punished for them. I don’t blame you for being upset about it. But…” He changed to a sterner tone. “The company has staked its future on the products she has developed and will develop. Which is why you’ve got to take your personal feelings out of this. Like it or not, we need her.”
She made a harsh sound. “I still don’t see why we couldn’t get someone else to develop the same ideas.”
“Because the ideas are mostly hers to begin with. And she is very good at turning ideas into functioning apps in new and creative ways. Come on, Kris, you know how it goes. In any company, the talented people you rely on get a lot of leeway. That’s the way it is. The way it’s likely to stay. So can we please move on from this and let her do her job without anyone leaning on her or her people?”
Kris gave him a hard stare. “You’ve still got it pretty bad for her, don’t you? I would’ve thought after everything and all this time you’d be over her.”
“My feelings,
whatever they are, are not the issue here. This is business, and I want to see this company succeed. I’ve always assumed that was true for you, too.” He stood, facing her. “If it’s still true for you, then you’ll back off and let her do her job. Leave her and her co-workers alone.”
He let that stand as his exit line and hurried out of the office. His watch said five-twenty by then and the office had gotten quiet as nearly everyone had left. He detoured by Julie’s cubicle but the space was bare and empty. Maureen’s desk, next to hers, was equally deserted.
He grabbed the carton full of three-year-old reports he’d pulled out of the archive storage room and headed for home. He hoped something in those reports would provide a lead on the mystery of the leaked code.
THE KNOCK on the door of his townhouse came at nine-twenty the next morning. Julie looked fabulous in tight cycling jersey and shorts, hair pulled back from her face in a short pony tail. If she wore any makeup, it was so subtle he couldn’t see it. And she looked terrific without it.
She followed him into the living room and looked around. He hadn’t made many changes in three years so no doubt it looked familiar to her. Unpleasantly familiar, to judge by her expression. But her tone was bland, giving nothing away, when she said, “The forecast said sunny with highs in the low eighties today. Sounds like a perfect day for a ride.”
“It does.” He stopped. “This could be a pretty long ride. I know you’ve done the first part of this ride before, but I don’t think you’ve ever done the other part. The part that goes into Queens along the bay?”
“No.”
“Will you be okay with that long a ride?”
“As long as there aren’t too many hills, I’ll be fine.”
“It’s mostly flat, and we don’t plan to rush, so I don’t think it will be very strenuous.” He gathered up the bag with his water bottles, picnic gear, and a couple of other essentials. “My bike’s in the back. I’ll meet you out front.”
Her new bike was a high-end model, sleek and expensive. He whistled and checked out some of the design features before they set out. The air was still cool and traffic relatively slow before ten on a Saturday morning. They zipped along the streets, heading for the point where they’d meet his friends.
No Time for Surprises (The No Brides Club Book 6) Page 6