Semiautomatic Marriage

by Leona Karr

  Chapter Seven

  Adam turned his head to see what had caused all color to drain from Carolyn’s face. “Easy does it,” he cautioned her when he saw Cliff coming toward them.

  “Hello, Caro. Long time no see,” he said, grinning at her and Adam. “Good party last night.”

  “Yes, it was,” Adam answered smoothly, giving Carolyn time to collect herself. “It was nice of Della to arrange the gathering. We’re looking forward to spending more time with the staff.”

  “I heard you were in the building this morning. I guess you’ll be wandering up to the lab to take a look.”

  “Maybe after lunch. Would you be available to show us around, Cliff?” Adam smiled broadly as if he was looking forward to the idea of seeing more of him.

  “I’m your man. Anything I can do to ingratiate myself with the boss is my style, right, Caro?”

  “I don’t know, is it?” she asked without blinking.

  Cliff laughed. He seemed a little taken back by her blunt question, as if he hadn’t expected her to take his flippant remark seriously. “You’ll have to step lively to keep up with this wife of yours,” he told Adam, and started to say something more when he was interrupted by a tall, too-thin young woman who appeared at his side.

  “I’m sorry, I’m late,” she told Cliff, slightly out of breath. “I got held up in packaging. Someday the Dragon Lady is going to push me too far.”

  Cliff gave her a warning look. “I don’t think you want to bring Della into this conversation, Susan. Meet Horizon’s new owner, Dr. Carolyn Leigh Lawrence.”

  “Omigosh.” Susan put a hand to her mouth, and her plain features reddened with embarrassment. She looked almost ill as she stammered, “I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I—”

  “I told you you should have gone to the reception last night, Susan,” Cliff chided.

  “I’m not very good in a crowd,” she said to Carolyn.

  “It’s all right,” Carolyn said quickly, trying to ease the situation. “To be honest, I met so many people last evening I’m not sure I’ll remember half of them. This is my husband, Adam Lawrence.”

  “I’m Susan Kimble. Nice to meet you both,” she responded, seeming more flustered than ever. She wiped nervous hands on her brown slacks and sent Cliff a beseeching look. “I work in the business office, and sometimes Cliff and I have lunch together. Don’t you think we’d better find a table?” she asked him as if anxious to end this embarrassment.

  Cliff waited just long enough to decide that no invitation to join Carolyn and Adam was forthcoming, then he nodded and smiled at the attractive waitress who arrived with Carolyn and Adam’s order.

  “We’ll see you later then,” he said as he guided Susan to an empty booth.

  “That was enlightening, wasn’t it,” Adam said in a matter-of-fact tone as he reached for a roll.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes it’s amazing how easy it is to learn things without even trying. We know that Della’s nickname is Dragon Lady, which isn’t surprising. And then there’s Susan. Not exactly a femme fatale. You have to wonder what Cliff’s motive is for taking her out to lunch.” He eyed Carolyn as he bit into the roll. “Any ideas?”

  “She has something he wants?”

  “Good guess. It might be interesting to find out what that is. Maybe she’s just an easy score, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Even though she seems to lack sophistication, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more depth to her than shows.”

  Carolyn marveled at Adam’s detached perspective. He seemed to have the ability to look at everything and everyone as if separate from his own feelings. Like our pretend marriage.

  The unbidden thought brought a strange kind of regret. Logically she should have been grateful that he was handling this almost impossible situation so impersonally. She’d let herself fall in love once, but now that her life was spinning off in a different direction, she didn’t need a man to fulfill it, certainly not one who was already taken. The warmth that coiled within her when Adam touched her and called her sweetheart was a weakness she would have to overcome. If all went well, she’d probably never see him again after this was over.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked softly, leaning toward her. “Do you know your blue eyes turn to a lovely shade of midnight when you’re deep in thought?”

  The caress in his voice startled her. They weren’t on display now. There was no reason for him to play the loving husband. A shock of dark hair had drifted down on his forehead, softening his strong features, and there was a sensitivity about him that was totally disarming and appealing. She didn’t doubt for a moment that more than one woman had responded to his masculine appeal, and it didn’t surprise her in the least that he had found someone to fill the emptiness his wife, Marietta, had left.

  “I was just thinking about Susan,” she lied, then added, truthfully, “She doesn’t look as if she’s the type to play the mating game the way some girls do. I’d like to warn her about Cliff. He has callously dumped more than one young nurse.”

  Adam gave his attention to the tasty avocado hamburger, while he silently wondered if the connection between Cliff and Susan was based on matters of the heart or something more mundane like money. And what was Cliff’s relationship with Della? He’d jumped on Susan fast enough when she referred to Della as the Dragon Lady. He kept such speculation to himself and tried to keep the topic of conversation general.

  Carolyn played with her spinach salad as she made superficial responses to his light conversation. Silently she wished she could still drive her own old car and head back to her cramped apartment. She wasn’t ready for this. If Adam hadn’t pushed her into this dangerous charade, she could have taken all the time she needed for a smooth and easy adjustment.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, catching her frown. “I have the feeling I’m not rating too high as a luncheon companion. Maybe we could get better acquainted. You know, pretend this is a first date.”

  The irony made her laugh. They’d slept in the same bed last night and were committed to a dangerous agenda, but she didn’t know much more about Adam’s personal habits and preferences than her mailman’s. Maybe less. She knew the bald-headed postal carrier loved sports and saw every Seattle Seahawks’ home game, and she didn’t even know if Adam liked sports. Books? Movies? Television? Any of the mundane things that brought two people together? But what did it matter? They had to stay focused on more important things, such as finding out if her grandfather’s death was an accident or a deliberate act.

  Adam watched her eyes shadow and her mouth tighten. He knew that the brief moment when they might have enjoyed a respite from the impending pressures was gone.

  She laid down her napkin and shook her head when the waitress inquired about dessert. Adam picked up the bill and they walked out of the restaurant together, his arm around her waist as if they were the newlyweds they pretended to be.

  Horizon’s research laboratory was on the second floor of the first building. Sterile conditions were enforced, and Carolyn and Adam were provided with masks, latex gloves and disposable plastic lab coats. Carolyn was used to hospital procedure, and so the personal protective equipment and speaking in muffled tones from behind a plastic mask felt natural to her. She was silently amused at Adam’s awkwardness and obvious discomfort. In some of the isolated sections, the technicians wore paper lab suits, hats, boots, gloves and masks. Her uncle Jasper appeared in sterile garb and quickly conducted them through the research laboratory.

  He made no effort to explain what experiments were being conducted as they passed long lines of black-topped benches and work areas. Numerous computers and printers were in evidence on the counters, and Carolyn knew that much of the lab equipment was automated for both input and output.

  Jasper set a pace that gave Carolyn little time to pause and see clearly what the laboratory assistants were doing, but she had no intention of letting her uncle shut her out of his department. Various chemic
als and substances mingled to create a distinctive lab odor, and she decided that she’d insist on being briefed on the research projects later.

  She didn’t recognize anyone from the gathering the night before. Jasper nodded to an office with windows on one side of the office. His name was embossed on the door. There were a few desks at the end of the rows of benches for the techs in the lab, and Carolyn saw Cliff’s name on one of them. Jasper led them out of the lab on the far side, where they discarded their sterile garb.

  “The production and packaging departments are in the next building,” he said as they passed through a glassed-in breezeway that connected with the second floor of the adjoining building. “And the shipping department is below, on the first floor.”

  They passed through security doors and entered the production room, which was painted the same white as the laboratory. Personnel wore white uniforms, plastic caps and masks. A hum of various machines and conveyor belts created a kind of factory ambiance as containers were filled with all kinds of pharmaceuticals.

  He introduced them to Nellie Ryan, the department head, whose windowed office provided a view of the busy production floor. Adam remembered her from the gathering at the mansion the night before. She was a large, freckled woman with a firm handshake. Her smile seemed genuine as she greeted them.

  Jasper shifted impatiently as she bragged about the efficiency of her department and readily answered questions from both Carolyn and Adam.

  “We have a sign-off for anyone who handles the containers of pills, capsules and liquids,” Irene explained. “Every lot is labeled and can be tracked with expiration date and lot number. All the controlled substances, such as morphine, are under constant monitoring, and the people working with them are kept isolated in a contained area.”

  Jasper seemed to have little interest outside his own realm, and Adam could see why Arthur Stanford had decided not to leave Horizon in his hands. Carolyn asked pointed questions and nodded in understanding. Her astute and inquiring mind would have pleased her grandfather, Adam thought. He could see her taking the reins of the company and successfully acting as its CEO—if the black marketing of Horizon’s drugs was stopped before disaster hit the company.

  Jasper hurried them into the packaging department next, obviously disgruntled with his role as tour guide. He made no attempt to use the occasion to get closer to Carolyn. If anything, he treated her presence like an unwanted intrusion. Della must have coerced him into doing the tour, Adam thought, knowing he’d have to make his own inspection later.

  A brisk matronly woman, Elinor Forbes, was the packaging manager. She nodded at the introductions and shook their hands politely, but the first words out of her mouth made it clear that this was her domain and she didn’t brook any interference. She’d been with the company for almost twenty-five years, and Arthur had left her some company stock in his will.

  Elinor quickly explained the packaging process, the weighing of contents, labeling and signing off of shipments as they were boxed for delivery downstairs to the shipping department.

  Adam listened carefully to her explanation of how the orders were filled. In every department he’d been trying to analyze how the illegal activity in the company could be done. He finally reasoned that if he could identify fraudulent shipments and then backtrack to where the orders came from, he had a chance of identifying who was masterminding the operation.

  They thanked Elinor for her time, and then Jasper suggested they finish the tour in the shipping department on the first floor.

  As Jasper introduced them to Nick Calhoun, the shipping manager, Adam thought he detected some undercurrent between the two men. Neither of them exchanged any pleasantries, but maybe that was just Jasper’s usual distant manner. He seemed to have little interaction with anyone outside his laboratory. Still, it could be a front, Adam reasoned. Jasper might have been screwing his father big time, knowing that his chance to inherit the company and property was a long shot.

  “I’ll leave you to look around,” he told Carolyn and Adam as he left them in the shipping department and made a hasty retreat back to his laboratory.

  Nick Calhoun was a stocky man with a round, ruddy face and a ready smile. “Ain’t you the pretty one,” he told Carolyn, giving her a frank appraisal. “Imagine that. Arthur’s long-lost granddaughter. I never would have believed it. But here you are.” His eyes twinkled at Adam. “You got yourself a gold-plated wife, that’s for sure. Sorry I didn’t get up to the house to meet you folks last night. My poker-game buddies don’t take my absence lightly.” He shook his balding head. “They took me for twenty bucks, though. I guess I should have accepted the Dragon Lady’s invite.” He didn’t hesitate to use the unflattering nickname.

  “If I’d had half a chance, I would have missed the gala affair myself,” Adam confided with a friendly grin. “A poker game sounds a lot better.”

  “Maybe you’d like to join me and the boys sometime?” Nick offered with a speculative glint in his eye.

  “Sounds great. Okay, sweetheart?” Adam asked in husbandly fashion.

  She nodded agreeably, knowing exactly what he was up to. The deception didn’t sit easily with her. She hated to manipulate people, and Nick seemed like a nice man, friendly and sincere. Adam was playing him and she knew he was depending on her to keep the doors open for his investigation, so she swallowed the bad taste in her mouth.

  “Will you show us around, Mr. Calhoun?” she asked.

  “Nick,” he corrected her. “Sure thing. I think I’m going to like having a new boss lady. And a pretty one at that.” His bushy eyebrows raised in approval as he grinned at her. Then he turned to Adam. “I hear you’re some kind of efficiency expert. We could probably use some of that.”

  With the air of a commander-in-chief, Nick walked them through the busy loading dock area where trucks were lined up, waiting to be loaded with boxed orders waiting on racks of iron shelves for delivery. Then he took them into his small, crowded office and showed them the delivery schedules.

  Adam asked some pointed questions that didn’t resonate with anything in Carolyn’s background. She knew nothing about the intricacies of transporting merchandise. As far as she was concerned, the post office was the way and means of sending anything. She realized with a sickening feeling that without Adam alerting her, the illegal traffic in black-market drugs would have gone on right under her nose.

  “Do you handle all this paperwork yourself?” Adam asked, shaking his head. “I’d think you’d need a secretary or two.”

  “Can’t find good help,” Nick said flatly. “Once in a while we hire someone to catch up on the filing, or Nellie comes down after hours and gives me a hand. She’s a whiz on the computer.”

  Adam picked up something in the man’s tone that indicated the pair had more than a business relationship. Nick’s next words confirmed it.

  “Nellie was at the shindig last night. Nellie Ryan. You probably noticed her. She’s got freckles and a smile bigger than all-get-out.”

  “We just had a nice visit with her upstairs,” Carolyn said. “She’s a nice woman, and seems to have the production department running smoothly.”

  “You’d better believe it. Nothing gets by Nellie. She’s got a sixth sense that’ll drive a man crazy. I ought to know. We’ve been dating on and off for a couple of years now. She’s one smart lady.”

  “And I bet she has a good disposition to put up with you, Nick,” Adam teased.

  Nick grinned as he tucked in his shirt over his ample belly. “Well, we get along pretty good. Say, why don’t you two drop by the Galloping Goose after work? We could lift a few beers and get better acquainted. A lot of the workers at Horizon stop in there before going home.”

  “Sounds good to me. We’d like that, wouldn’t we, honey?” Adam said before Carolyn had time to think of a polite refusal. Hanging out in a smoke-filled bar wouldn’t be her favorite way to pass the time, but he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to mingle. Tongues got looser with
every bottle of beer. Nick’s congeniality and being seen in the Irishman’s company might grease the hinges on some other doors for him.

  “Sounds lovely,” Carolyn lied with a forced smile. “I look forward to it.”

  “Wait’ll I tell Nellie we’re going to down a few with the boss lady herself.” He winked at Adam. “This place is looking up.”

  They left the shipping department and made their way back to the other building. Carolyn didn’t say anything about the impromptu beer date until they were back in her office.

  “Was that date with Nick necessary?” she asked as she dropped down onto the leather couch, and leaned her head back against the cushion. “I’ve never liked going to bars. The smell of beer turns me off, and after I’ve had a couple, I just want to go somewhere and sleep.”

  He laughed and sat down beside her. “I’ll remember that and make sure you end up in the right bed.”

  She knew he was being facetious, but his nearness was a poignant reminder that if she couldn’t hold her booze, he would be the one to put her to bed.

  As she turned and looked into his arresting face, she was startled to realize that the thought was not all that displeasing. Maybe she was just feeling off balance and needed a shoulder to lean on. She was tired of going it alone all the time. What did she care if he had someone he called Angel waiting in the wings?

  “I’m game,” she said.

  “I think your education has been sorely lacking if you’ve never been to a bar and done Karaoke,” he said, letting his arm slip behind her.