Executive Dirt: A Sedona O'Hala Mystery

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Executive Dirt: A Sedona O'Hala Mystery Page 1

by Maria Schneider




  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Executive Dirt

  Maria E. Schneider

  Copyright: 2015 © Maria E. Schneider

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A BearMountainBooks.com Production

  Executive Dirt Summary

  Sedona happily turns down Steve Huntington’s latest undercover project when Mark gets her a fantastic job testing advanced cell phones. But if the dead body of her co-worker is any indication, the new job may not prove to be any safer than Huntington’s covert assignments.

  Sedona finds herself knee-deep in dirt and tangled in clues that unravel faster than the baby bib she is supposed to be sewing for her niece. Her parents are in town to visit the new baby, and Mark has decided it’s time for Sedona to meet his mother. Can she somehow endure family interferences and stay alive long enough to solve the case?

  Chapter 1

  Sometimes you’re so busy climbing the corporate ladder, you forget whether there is an actual goal. Your original dream might have been to make enough money to travel the world, but then you buy the house and the car, and you keep climbing. Before you know it, your dream becomes climbing to the next rung on the ladder.

  I thought I’d already witnessed the worst of ladder climbing, but it turns out the shoving and clawing at an established company was mere child’s play. Ladder climbing at a startup had the usual politics, but there were flamboyant fools who created ladder rungs out of toothpicks in an inane attempt to crown themselves king.

  I worked at the Borgot startup thanks to Mark Huntington. His brother Steve Huntington kept offering me dangerous undercover jobs that involved ferreting out company malfeasance. Mark decided to find me a well-paying computer job that didn’t involve any investigating whatsoever. This new job kept Mark happy, and these days his happiness was tied pretty closely to mine.

  I have to admit, Borgot paid well for my skills as a computer technician. There was no need to even consider any job Huntington might offer. Besides, I always ended up fired when I accepted the jobs Huntington arranged.

  Borgot was very modern, with a goal of designing a multi-language product to compete with Apple’s Siri, the automated personal assistant voice. The technology part I liked. What I didn’t appreciate was the ultra-modern office space that consisted of six-foot cubicles. I’d always enjoyed being a lab rat, testing machines and then running the maze all over again to see if the results changed when equipment changed. But add a cubicle to the work conditions, and suddenly I was the rat in the maze, and it was my survival skills being tested instead of the machines.

  I wasn’t winning the race either. The noise and lack of privacy set my teeth on edge. Doll Baby on the other side of one wall took phone calls all day, flirting and giggling. When she wasn’t in her cube, she was sashaying all over the company cooing into her cell phone.

  A peal of laughter vibrated against the shared wall of our cubes. “Who can she possibly be flirting with at ten in the morning after five earlier calls?” I asked no one.

  Doll Baby, otherwise known as Monique, wasn’t the worst of my cube-mates. No, that prize went to the dork who had just walked in, late again. Joe Black plopped down at his desk across the cube “hallway” breathing as though he had run all the way inside. He heaved a few extra pants and then shouted, “Owhay, ayay oingday?”

  Perhaps it was some sort of cattle roundup call, or maybe he was having a stroke. Either way, I was not interested.

  “Did you hear me?” With ridiculous pride, he spread his arms as far as the cube walls allowed, which meant he nearly punched a hole through his computer monitor. “Igpay atinlay.”

  I didn’t even bother with a grimace. Ignoring him was easier.

  He clarified magnanimously, “Pig Latin. It’s a sign of higher intelligence. I can speak it faster than I can type and actually understand it quicker than most people can translate to a second language. They hired me because I’m a language expert. The phrases I’m contributing to the phone assistant are groundbreaking.”

  Joe “Dork” was balding badly. He had compensated for this by allowing the small amount of hair around his ears and along the back of his skull to grow long. He did not contain it in a neat ponytail. It wisped about his person as if it too wished it could leave him.

  His phone rang. Thank God for small miracles.

  Of course, the conversation was still broadcast loudly enough that even the cockroaches, needing daytime sleep, were probably leaving the building.

  “I moved out of my place, man. I couldn’t leave her on her own. The old lady was having a hard time with things, and shit, going over to her place to do the laundry, up the stairs and down the stairs, it was a pain in the ass. I had to move back in.”

  Before I, or anyone else forced to listen, could begin to marvel at Joe Dork actually having a girlfriend or wife, he clarified. “But she’s my mom! I couldn’t leave her in the lurch. She was going crazy trying to figure out what time to cook for me, too.” Another pause while he listened. Then suddenly he acted as though he had just realized half the place could hear the conversation.

  “Man, not now. I mean, I know it’s important, but she’s my mom. She isn’t going to spout anything even if she notices. Ottagay ebay arefulcay.”

  My sorry brain translated without any explicit commands from me. “Gotta be careful?” I did not want to know what Dork had to be careful of. His mother killing him? I would wear earplugs tomorrow whether or not they stuck out my ears and made me look funny.

  Joe glanced down at his geek watch as though he had a pressing meeting. “Okay, okay. I won’t take it home with me. She’ll never see it. Onay usinessbay atyay omehay.”

  He wouldn’t take his business home with him? Of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t do any actual work. He was chronically late. He mostly showed up at meetings to crack bad jokes.

  Dork’s chair squeaked loudly in protest as he swiveled. His too obvious search for listeners was a tad on the desperate side.

  Doll Baby sashayed past our cube openings. She actually wore those very words across the back of her pink hot-pants. Right across her butt. Her other favorite tights had a smiley face, one of those big yellow internet smileys, only hers was winking, of course.

  I glued my eyes determinedly to my computer screen.

  Joe Dork’s next Pig Latin phrase was something about g
iving it back next week.

  I continued to concentrate on my test report, but as soon as Joe hung up, he kicked the drawer of his desk as if that would somehow solve whatever problem had called him on the phone. He checked the time on his watch again, but caught the glare I shot in his direction.

  “What?” he asked on an escaped belch.

  A snarl escaped my lips. “Could you be quiet, already?”

  He dropped his arm and pulled his sleeve down. “A man has to take care of his business.”

  I snorted in disgust.

  He rolled his chair back warily as I stood and stalked past on the way to the break room.

  Why couldn’t he be just an ordinary, brilliant geek? Why did I have to sit next to a geek wannabe? Real geeks had talent. He had nothing but inane phrases and gadgets from a dime store, nothing he had created himself.

  In the break room, I snatched up a kolache and a chocolate milk. The only reason management provided free food was to keep us here as many hours as possible. If they could have, the company would have brought in cots so that we could catch an hour or two of sleep before hitting the workload again.

  I returned to my cubicle, heaving a sigh of relief when I saw that Joe Dork was no longer in his cube. Thank God. I hoped the loser would stay gone or bury himself somewhere.

  How was I supposed to know that he looked better alive and was a whole lot less trouble?

  Chapter 2

  Steve Huntington learned about corrupt corporate behavior because his own company, the one he had babied from the ground up, was robbed blind. He now teamed with his just-younger brother, Mark. They were highly paid to investigate corporate shenanigans, and despite my best efforts, I’d ended up helping a time or two.

  Huntington is smooth as glass and rich enough that you tend not to notice he is peeling back layers of a corporation, infiltrating himself right next to the other suits and extracting those who have decided on devious and illegal means to enrich their own pockets.

  His brother Mark is, by my standards, even more attractive than Steve. Of course, I’m dating Mark, so I’m biased, but where Huntington—that is Steve—slides into the enemy camp like polish on an executive desk, Mark is more a mysterious shadow that darts in with deadly efficiency and, more often than not, leaves not a trace. He is a fascinating enigma with secrets, yet he is safety in a storm.

  Me? I’m just an engineer. I honestly have no real love of intrigue. Huntington claims to this day that I excel at undercover work because everyone ignores me. There is a less-than-subtle intended insult in that assessment.

  When he knocked on my door on this almost-spring April evening, I was immediately suspicious. Why was he visiting me?

  He was Mark’s brother, so I let him in.

  “Huntington.”

  “Just call me Steve, would you? I brought you a sewing machine.”

  My eyes bugged out, but he kept talking. After the birth of my niece, Huntington had teased me about sewing. It had certainly seemed like a joke at the time, because I can barely sew a button on a blouse, but here he was babbling about infiltration and a matching baby bumpo or bumper something-or-other for Brenda, my sister-in-law.

  “You want me to what?”

  Huntington almost always looked smug, so the superior tilt to his head was nothing new. He flashed his baby blues in what he probably thought was innocence, but that was the one expression he could not possibly pull off, not even to a complete stranger, and we were far past that.

  “How hard can it be? I need to obtain info about a guy who has been involved in some high-end burglaries, and his mother is in a sewing group. I promised Mark no more dangerous assignments for you so this time all you have to do is attend a few quilting parties and get in good with a bunch of old ladies.” He held up a soft sided case, one that looked like it might hold bowling equipment. Even bowling, which I would have also turned down, would be better than sewing.

  “I don’t sew.”

  “So learn. How—”

  My snarling lip stopped him short of professing how easy it would be. “Why don’t you join the group if it’s so all-fired easy?” I suggested. “This is the age of enlightenment. I bet the ladies would love to offer you a sewing lesson or two.”

  His pleased-with-himself attitude flew out the still open door. His eyes narrowed, hiding nearly all the blue. “I’m all for equality, but that would not work. I don’t see them confiding in me.”

  He had that right. They might be more than willing to trade sewing for some manly chores, and a few would be thrilled to flirt with him, but Huntington did not inspire confidences. Not that you’d worry he would tell, but Huntington’s personality ranged from impatient, competent businessman to shark. Sympathetic and helpful were not guises he could wear easily.

  He shut the door with his foot and strode over to my small kitchen table. He set the bag on the table. “Top of the line for a beginner model. It’s all computerized. You’re good with computers.”

  “Radar’s better. Why don’t you hire him for this job?” Radar sewing had to be near the top of the most mind-boggling suggestions I’d ever proposed. He was a highly intelligent computer geek, and as such, his idea of fashion usually included items that were old and frayed at best. He’d even worn his t-shirt inside out to work without noticing because he simply did not care about clothing.

  Huntington took a deep breath to answer and actually choked, the puff of air coming out in a cough. “Radar.” He would have discarded the idea even faster had his brain not locked up at the idea. “Look, this is not a big deal. All you have to do is befriend one lady and get her talking about her son. Women love to talk about their kids. Once you’re in, I’ll provide a few pertinent questions. You don’t even have to sew anything.”

  That’s where he was wrong. My mother sewed. My grandmother had been an esteemed member of a crochet club. Hobbyists did not know the meaning of “I’m not interested in learning.” They were zealous. They believed the world could and should be converted to their hobby. “Huntington—”

  “Steve.”

  “Huntington—”

  “How do you plan to address me if you marry my brother Mark? You’ll then be Huntington. You won’t be able to call me that.”

  The idea of marriage was not foreign to me, but I’d learn to sew before I’d discuss marriage with Huntington, especially before such an idea was even on the table with Mark. “My own name will work just fine in all situations,” I snapped.

  He frowned.

  Before either of us could continue the argument, there was a rumble from the front drive, followed by a loud knock on the front door.

  Huntington, who lacked the basic social graces to let me answer my own door, leaped to the doorknob.

  A guy in jeans and a shirt smudged with dirt waited outside. “Delivery for O’Hala. You want this stuff on the front porch or out back?”

  “Out back,” Huntington instructed.

  “No, you don’t!” Okay, I had no idea what was in the delivery, but if Huntington was granting permission for someone to cart it to my backyard, it had to be a bad idea.

  Huntington, once again feigning innocence, turned to me. “You want the plants on the front porch? I don’t think the neighbors will like that.”

  “What are you up to?” I demanded, peering around his large shoulders. A white delivery van was in my driveway. The kid with the clipboard was already heading around the back of the truck.

  “A long time ago, I promised you plants, remember?”

  “That was for your condo, not my house!” Of all my requests at the time, it was the only one he had promised to fulfill. And the plants weren’t for me personally, they were to make his condo, which I was using for a case at the time, look as though someone lived in it. “Have you lost your mind?” My father was an agricultural scientist who had made it a point of sharing his vast knowledge with all family members, thus the two plants being carted to my porch were easily identifiable as tomato starts. Dad taught at
the university, and gardening was not just his profession, it was his passion. The only thing that superseded it was my mother, and there were times she had to take a sledgehammer approach to drag his attention away from a leafy frond.

  “It’s too cold out for tomatoes to be planted!” I protested.

  “You want them inside?” the kid asked.

  “I don’t want them at all!” Instead of being nestled in small growing pots, someone had taken the trouble to plant them in large ceramic pots. The seedlings were only about six inches tall.

  The kid shrugged. “We’ve been paid. I can take them away.”

  “No, we want them,” Huntington intervened. “But I think I’ll order a rack so they can be kept in at night for a while.”

  I flapped my arms. “Why not just install a greenhouse in the backyard? Why not buy the lot next to me and tear down the house so I’ll have room for a half-acre plot? Maybe you should buy me a farm. Or a ranch.”

  While I was ranting, the kid didn’t waste time. Four more plants arrived on my stoop, two of which were pepper plants. He didn’t bother to have me sign for them. He simply continued to unload more.

  I stared down at the delicate greenery. “These will not survive unless you plan on building a screened-in porch with plexiglass windows.” I stomped inside and slammed the door, leaving Huntington to his delivery.

  I pretended not to hear him call through the door. “The lady in question is in a gardening group too.”

  Chapter 3

  Huntington didn’t stick around. As soon as the guy was finished unloading the pots of potential vegetables, Huntington climbed into a sleek, black car. The midnight beauty pulled away from the curb without even a whisper of a sound. It was no wonder I hadn’t heard him drive up. His current car was a gorgeous stealth model.

  The plants on my porch waved back and forth in the gentle, but cold, breeze. Spring had not yet sprung in Denton, Colorado, especially at night.

  I sighed. “Huntington, you are a pain in the ass.”

 

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