by Terry Odell
Shit. She hadn’t thought this one through. Would the doctor know CompSecure was defunct? She almost hung up the phone, but followed her gut feeling. “Mary Rogers with CompSecure. We worked for Dr. Einsel a number of years ago. I’d appreciate it if he’d have a few moments to talk with me about a security issue.” Almost afraid to breathe, she waited.
“One moment.”
She heard the phone clunk down and footsteps fading away. After what seemed like forever, Dr. Einsel’s voice came through the line.
“Ms. Rogers. What can I do for you? If I recall correctly, I worked with Casey Wallace.”
After taking a deep breath, she plunged into the story she’d created in the last half minute. “Casey’s no longer with the company. But customer satisfaction remains one of our highest priorities. By coincidence, I overheard your name in conversation and it sounded like a prominent woman thought word of a procedure had been leaked to the press.”
After a long pause that had her mouth turn dry, the doctor went on. “I’ve never had a complaint.” His tone was guarded.
“I know how important patient confidentiality is. I was afraid someone might have compromised CompSecure’s system in your office. If there were any problems with your computer security, I would certainly fix them—at no cost to you, of course.”
After another moment, he spoke again. “No, no, I never received one of the alerts Ms. Wallace told me I’d see if someone had been in the system without authorization. And I assure you, my staff would never leak any information.”
The way his voice drifted off had her wondering if he was hiding something or merely thinking. He continued, his voice both hesitant and defensive. “We did have one incident, but that was almost a year ago and couldn’t possibly be related to any recent cases. And it wasn’t a computer incident.”
Her heart rate shifted gears. “What happened?”
“It was a case of an inexperienced file clerk who left file cabinets unlocked and was slovenly in her work. She was dismissed and we haven’t had any other issues that would compromise our files. As I said, it was a minor incident, quickly rectified and had nothing to do with our computer system.”
“You’re right, Dr. Einsel. I shouldn’t be listening to cocktail party gossip. I probably misheard, anyway. Since it appears your computer system wasn’t compromised, I’ll let you get back to your weekend.”
She disconnected and paced the room. Calm down. Think.
Hollingsworth might have connected Casey to a nameless picture. But he hadn’t given any Kelli pictures to Blake. How had he made the connection? Did he have anything to do with the filing mishap? And even so, what had Casey ever done to Dwight Hollingsworth?
* * * * *
Blake set aside his papers and stepped to the refrigerator. Kelli had been working for two hours now, and if dinner was going to be on the evening’s schedule, he guessed he’d have to do something about it. He smiled when he set a package of chicken breasts and a carton of orange juice on the counter, then found an onion and the Dijon mustard he’d bought.
Okay, but now what? He started rooting through cabinets and drawers, trying to remember what he’d seen in the kitchen at Camp Getaway.
“Need some help, Windsor?”
He spun around at the sound of Kelli’s voice, cracking his head against an open cabinet door. “Crap!” Rubbing his head, he could tell she was trying not to laugh.
He saw her taking in his attempts to start cooking and when her expression softened, he had a sudden urge to use the kitchen counter for an entirely different course of action. “Umm … I thought I’d start dinner. Unless—?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“I think dinner’s the more sensible option.” But her smile gave him hope for dessert.
She stepped closer, brushing her hip against him while she found a frying pan. “You’ve got the right idea, anyway.” When she raised her eyes to meet his, she laughed. “About dinner. It’s always a good idea to get all the ingredients out and ready before you start cooking. There’s even a name for it. Mis en place.”
“I think I love it when you talk cooking.” He embraced her, making no effort to deny his arousal.
She lingered against him for a moment, then pulled away. “Down, boy. Hand me the garlic.”
He watched in fascination as Kelli gave the garlic clove a resounding whack with the side of the knife blade, slipped off the skin, then chopped it fine.
“You know how to dice an onion?” she asked. She poured some olive oil into the pan and adjusted the burner.
“I think I can manage.” He reached for the knife. “Dice means cut up into little bits, right?”
“Let me show you.” Kelli cut the onion in half, made a series of horizontal cuts, then vertical ones. “Don’t go all the way through the root, though, or it’ll fall apart. Then, all you do is cut crosswise and … voilà … dice!” She handed him the knife. “You can do the other half.”
He copied her moves and although his end product wasn’t quite as uniform as Kelli’s he thought he’d done a fine job. He blinked as the onion brought tears to his eyes.
“Not bad.” Kelli scraped the onion into the hot pan. “Work on your speed and you’ll be done before the fumes get to you.”
While they cooked, Kelli brought him up to speed on her findings. “I think Robert was a false trail. I’ve been looking at Dwight Hollingsworth’s personal records, but other than the doctor, I can’t see anywhere he and Casey would have crossed paths. I want to get back to Hollingsworth Industries after dinner. Now that I’m not looking for the Robert connection, something else might ring a bell.”
He settled in alongside Kelli, following directions, studying her moves and to his amazement, found himself working with her as though he’d been cooking for years.
Before he knew it, dinner was ready. Kelli gave him a questioning look when he carried the plates to the dining room instead of the kitchen table, but she seemed to understand this was something he needed to do.
He put his plate on the massive table in front of the chair he’d begrudgingly built all those years ago. It rocked slightly when he sat down and he wondered why nobody had ever fixed it.
Kelli took a seat across from him. She gave him a quick glance, then picked up her knife and fork. They’d finished their meal without uttering a word when Kelli broke the silence.
“Did it help?”
“What?”
“Eating in here. At his table.” She wiped her mouth on her napkin. “Don’t bottle it up. Talk to me.”
Her gray eyes caught his. In their depths was understanding. Encouragement. Strength. He pushed his plate aside.
His voice, when he found it, was thick. “I keep wondering why he kept this chair.”
“Why wouldn’t he? It’s a fine chair.”
“It’s a piece of crap compared to what he could produce. While I was building it, nothing I did was good enough. Nothing was right. I didn’t use the lathe right, my chisel was gouging, I didn’t sand it smooth enough. To listen to him, it’s a wonder he didn’t use it for firewood.”
Kelli’s gaze went beyond him, glazed into nothingness and there were tears in her eyes, although he could tell she was trying to hide them. One tear escaped and trickled down her cheek. He longed to wipe it away.
She pushed away from the table and went toward the living room. He carried the plates to the sink, then found Kelli on the couch, head in her hands.
“What did I say?” He lowered himself beside her. “Please, don’t cry.”
“You don’t see it, do you?”
He fisted his hands in his hair. This was uncharted woman territory. “See what?”
She scrubbed her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “My … Lucas … loved to draw. Paint. Make stuff out of Play-Doh. Do you think I’d throw it away because it wasn’t perfect?”
He sat there stunned, as if she’d zapped him with a high-voltage cattle prod. “Are you saying—?”
“When you love something—or someone—you
cherish it, flaws and all. Maybe you cherish it more because of the flaws.”
“He never … If he’d only said it … one time … that he—” He couldn’t go on past the golf ball in his throat.
“He loved you, Blake. I’m not saying what he did was right, but from what I’ve seen, he raised two fine sons and there had to be a lot of love for him to do that. Maybe he couldn’t say it. That’s not right. Not fair to kids, but you have to know, now, he loved you. The chair is proof.”
“Too goddamn late. For both of us. He thought I hated him. I thought he hated me.”
She pulled his face toward hers, so he was forced to look at her. With her hands on his jaws, she stared into his eyes. “You don’t believe that. You knew he didn’t hate you and he knew you didn’t hate him.”
“Maybe.” He took her hands and brought them to his lips.
“Promise me something.” Her voice was low, but there was an earnest desperation in her tone.
“What?”
“You won’t hide your feelings from me. You’ll be honest with me.”
Somehow he could have no secrets from Kelli. She read him and understood him, like no one he’d ever known. And when he realized that instead of making him wary, the power she held over him made him long to be closer to her, something grabbed his chest, like his heart was clamped in one of his father’s vises.
“You undo me, Sweetheart.” He sat beside her for several long moments, feeling the warmth where their thighs made contact. He slipped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against him. “I can’t seem to get close enough to you.”
“Like white on rice.” With a deep exhalation, she patted his chest. “But there’s work to be done.”
He drifted back to reality. “Speaking of work, I’ve been running numbers on the Whitaker account, but if you could spare the computer for a while, it would be a lot faster.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You going to decide which thirteen people lose their jobs?”
“Actually, I was looking for another solution. You made me think. I’ve gotten too complacent, solving problems the quick and easy way. Hollingsworth likes it, but he might have to give in a little more on this one.”
When her eyes brightened, his mood lifted, along with something else. Oh, yeah. If her smile could do that to him, he had it bad.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kelli followed Blake to the kitchen, where he picked up his papers from the table and she set up her laptop.
She touched his arm. “Do you think you can save those jobs at Whitaker?”
“I don’t know. Probably not all of them.”
In his eyes, she saw frustration. With her? Or his job? “But you’ll try?”
“Sweetheart, the real world isn’t like that. Whitaker made some stupid business decisions. He’s overextended and can’t support the staff he has now. That’s not my fault and it’s not Hollingsworth’s fault. If Whitaker—and Hollingsworth—will listen to what I think I can propose, there might be a compromise.”
His brow furrowed. “Hollingsworth doesn’t do a lot of compromising, but maybe he’ll ease up. His business dealings are bound to come under close scrutiny once he’s on the campaign trail. He’s not going to want to come across as a cold-blooded tyrant.”
Something flickered in Kelli’s brain. “Wait. Do you have a list of all of Hollingsworth’s holdings?”
Blake’s eyebrows arched. “A list? No. There are too many. He owns companies that own companies. Bits and pieces of other companies. Lots of fingers in lots of pies.”
“Anything you can give me? Save me hours of computer searching. Maybe days.”
“Sorry. Nothing that simple. Can you tell me why?”
“It’s what you said. Hollingsworth is going to be put under a microscope. Maybe there’s something going on he doesn’t want discovered.”
“And you know what this something is?”
She gave a wry laugh. “Not a clue. But if he thinks I know something, it must be big, or he wouldn’t have sent goons after me—and you, apparently by association. Like he thought I might have told you something.”
“But I told him you weren’t Casey and he bought it.”
“You think he bought it.”
He rubbed his temples. “I’m getting another headache. Can I do anything? Whitaker can wait, I guess.”
She got up and paced. “Let me mull this over for a while. Go count your beans, crunch your numbers, whatever. I’ll let you know if something comes to me.”
The kitchen grew too small to contain her impatient pacing. She expanded her path to include the dining room, then added the living room.
How had Hollingsworth connected her to Casey? Did it matter? Was it enough to assume he had? Did he consider her a threat to his gubernatorial campaign? Had he believed Blake? If not, was he desperate enough to send yet another thug after them?
She felt hand on her shoulders and bit back a scream. “Windsor. Didn’t I tell you not to sneak up on me?”
“Sweetheart, I hardly think calling your name five times counts as sneaking.” He held out a sheet of paper. “Here. I don’t have your computer skills, but I can Google a little and I played a hunch.”
“What?” She snatched the paper from his hands and took it to the brightly lighted kitchen. “Jesus H. Christ. I never saw this. I would never have approved this. Shit, shit, double-shit on a stick.”
“You think Jack Stockbridge set you up?”
Kelli sank to a chair, still staring at the printout of a publicity brochure for Camp Getaway. “No. All he knew was I didn’t want to work with people—especially male people. I’m sure he suspected something had happened in my past, but he never pressed. He accepted my eccentricities and let me do my work.” She tilted her head at Blake. “Kept an eye out for me.”
Blake grimaced. “So he had no idea about Robert?”
“I’m sure he didn’t. He’s an honest man. If he knew I’d killed someone, I’m sure it would have come up.” She looked at Blake. The concern in his eyes both warmed and unnerved her. “I don’t even know if Stockbridge would have seen this brochure. Marketing and PR would have done it—they got a picture of me from some preliminary site visits.” She stared at the photo again and read the caption.
Environmental Biologist Kelli Carpenter works to make sure no endangered species will be disturbed by Camp Getaway.
She was pictured crouched beside a rhododendron bush. The Sherman trap she’d tucked under the branches hadn’t been captured by the camera, but her profile had. Like an “after” picture in a plastic surgeon’s photo album.
Camp Getaway was Thornton’s project.
She rubbed her eyes and Blake crouched down beside the chair. He laid a hand on her knee. “What can I do?”
Kelli shook off her exhaustion. “Let me know when it’s my turn on the computer.”
“It’s all yours. I’ve downloaded everything I need. Files are printing now. I’ll work from hard copies.” He stood and twisted his back muscles. “If you don’t need me, I’m going to work out for a while to clear my brain. Maybe I’ll come up with some ideas.”
“Wait.” She reached for his hands and he helped her up. “It looks like whatever’s going on is all because of me. I think you should go back to work and put as much distance between us as possible. I’ll figure out what happened and see if I can fix it. You’ve been caught in the middle of something that can’t possibly have anything to do with you.”
Blake took her fingers and placed them against his midsection, where Scumbag’s knife had done its damage. “I’m in this, Kelli. Whether or not it was part of someone’s plan, I’m not leaving you.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he pressed his fingers to her lips. “Shh. I’m going outside. I’ll be back in half an hour, forty-five minutes, tops.”
She covered his hand with hers and kissed his fingers. When he traced her mouth with the pad of his forefinger, she shuddered at the pleasure of his touch. Refusing the de
sire to forget everything except Blake for the next few hours, she gave his hands a final squeeze.
“Take an hour. I should know something by then.”
Blake turned and walked away. At the door, he stopped and swiveled his head to give her a smile that melted her insides to jelly. She savored the feeling for several heartbeats, then picked up her laptop and took it to the office.
After setting up a program to search for Thornton on Stacey’s computer, she carried her laptop to the recliner, plugged it in and started going through the Hollingsworth files she’d collected.
The sheer volume of data overwhelmed her. There had to be something to narrow down the useful from the meaningless. Maybe once she had something about Thornton’s holdings, she could cross-reference them. That could take forever. Where to start? Phone records? Private or business? Bank records? Hunt for hidden bank accounts?
There had to be a connection between Thornton to Hollingsworth. All she had to do was find it. She scrolled through endless files.
Sometime later, she looked up to find Blake had returned. Shirtless and glistening with sweat, he was breathing heavily, but his face looked relaxed.
He crossed the room and leaned over her. “Got anything new?”
“Does a headache count?” She massaged her temples.
“I need a shower.” He grinned. “Want to join me? I could use someone to wash my back.”
What she wanted was a bed. An empty bed. Sleep. “I have to check the other computer.”
He stepped away and she trudged to the desk. There was too much data to deal with. “Help me think, Windsor. What do we have?”
He took her hand and pulled her away from the desk. “We can talk in the shower as easily as out here.”
Following him to the bedroom, where he stripped off his pants, she protested. “I had a bath while you were shopping. And I’m not in the mood for back-washing, if that’s what you’re calling it. It’s like I’ve got a million bugs crawling all over me, inside and out. I’m one huge itch.”
“I can probably figure out a way to scratch it.” He gave her a crooked smile and went into the bathroom.