Executive Dirt: A Sedona O'Hala Mystery

by Maria Schneider

  Clint snorted. “I didn’t check. We stepped over him on the way out. When they opened the trunk to let me out here, I planned to attack, but the guy with the gun stayed too far back.” He indicated Howard with a twist of his head. “He ordered me to walk back here. From what he said, he thought I’d just lay down in my own grave and wait to be shot.”

  Fortunately, Howard hadn’t known about Miley. She had startled him into firing early and often. She had also provided enough of a distraction to give Clint a chance to fight back.

  Sirens finally broke through what had once been a quiet neighborhood. I checked my fence, but Mr. Jackson wasn’t peering over. A smart man would cower behind his couch if he lived next to me.

  I hurried inside, leaned the robot arm next to the leg and unlocked the front door. Thinking fast, I went back to retrieve Mark’s gun. No need for it to be lying there on the back porch when the police arrived.

  I tucked it safely away.

  Mark dragged Howard inside. Since I wasn’t listening to anything the lady said, I set the squawking phone down and helped Mark tie Howard to one of the kitchen chairs.

  “There were two guys with Howard at the funeral,” I said. “They must have been Vince and Sosa.”

  Howard laughed. “While you all stood there staring at the corpse, Sosa and Vince snuck around back and tied up the driver. Sosa slapped on the driver’s jacket and Vince hid in the backseat.”

  “No wonder the hearse didn’t wait for Joe’s mother.”

  Mark shook his head. “And they drove off thinking they had the watch.”

  “If I’d known you put a fake on him, I’d have shot you first.” He struggled against his ties to no avail.

  I looked around for my robot arm. This guy deserved at least one more smack to the head. “Wouldn’t all this have been easier if you’d just started your own company, hired people to do the work and paid them?”

  “Sure, and get kicked out the second the real money gets involved. I saw what they did to Rohit.”

  Before either of us could reply, the front door slammed open. Sean came flying through the door. Behind him, we could see an ambulance pulling up to the curb.

  The police followed very soon after.

  Sean did a lot of yelling and swearing. Howard actually tried to hire him to be his lawyer.

  “He charges more than you’re worth,” I said. “He only takes on innocent clients.”

  Sean didn’t argue with me, but his eyes bulged. He made sure no one asked Brenda any questions. I thought he could have made the authorities leave me alone too, but all he did was glare at me while I gave my statement.

  Chapter 39

  It took another week for things to settle down at work. Rohit did own the code he had written, and he was willing to sell it to Borgot in exchange for leniency and a small amount of cash. Anything Howard had worked on while at Borgot belonged to Borgot, but his two friends had done most of the language coding. Sean had decided that he would represent Rohit, which made me proud, but also worried.

  When Mark came over for dinner Friday night, he handed me a list. “Sosa and Vince both worked for Clockworks. Rohit tutored both of them as well as Howard for two years in college. Rohit was thrilled to have been able to hire them at Clockworks.”

  I scanned the list. “No wonder Howard hired Cary and Joe to do deliveries. Rohit knew him. He might not have agreed to the deal if he knew who was trying to bilk him.”

  “It would also have made it very easy to point the finger at Howard if things fell apart. Rohit not knowing that Howard was behind the code drops was extra insurance for Howard and the others.” Mark handed me another sheet. “Howard was ready to file the patent on not only the languages, but the language use with the smartwatch. He didn’t intend for Rohit to find out he intended to submit the paperwork before Rohit ever got the watch to market.”

  I groaned. “He was totally hung up on patents. Did he even list Sosa and Vince?”

  “They were on the patent application, but Rohit wasn’t. Howard was listed as the major contributor, taking full credit for the design, invention and most of the implementation even though he didn’t code much of it.”

  “It should have listed him as the most warped. Who goes around stealing work and thinking they can patent it? Worse, he buried a dead guy in my yard just because I happened to have a good idea in a meeting!”

  “And he planned to bury another one there. He seemed to think it would keep the police focused on you because you kept tripping over dead bodies. He expected you to be at work for the patent meeting.”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t that interested. Only someone as obsessed as he was would believe I’d go in for a patent meeting on a Saturday morning. And since everyone but me received a cancellation notice shortly after the original email was sent out, no one else would have been inconvenienced. If I had complained, my lone griping would have been ignored.”

  Mark grinned. “I find you impossible to ignore.” He handed me the final package he was carrying. It was sloppily wrapped. It reminded me of my own wrapping skills, which ranged from that first very carefully wrapped Christmas gift to the last gift, the one that was rolled in wrinkled paper and secured with a lot of tape. On that scale, this gift was about the third one from the bottom.

  I hefted it. “Clothes?”

  “I ripped your shirt.”

  “Oh, well. It wasn’t much of a shirt.”

  He grinned. “These are.”

  I tore the paper off. There were three soft and fluffy t-shirts inside. I shook one out. “Nice. Black is good.” I held it up against my chest.

  Mark reached over and unzipped a zipper under the left shoulder. “One pocket here and another large one down on the side.” He lifted the end to show me. “You can carry your phone. Maybe I won’t lose track of you if you actually carry your phone.”

  I inspected Mark from head to toe. His shirt was tucked in tight. There was no way to see if he had a hidden side pocket in his shirt. His jeans were snug against his very nice form.

  He caught me checking him out, not that I had tried to hide it. He pulled me in for a kiss, guiding my hands to his hips. “You’ll have to do quite a bit of searching to find out,” he said.

  His own hands were doing enough exploring that had I had anything in any shirt pocket, his questing hands would have discovered it.

  When he finally allowed some air between us, he said, “Your new shirts should fit well, but you can take them off easily in an emergency.”

  I laughed. “Was that what we had? An emergency?”

  He nodded, his eyes almost serious. “There was no time for scissors.”

  “I’m going to try one of these on.” As focused as I was on Mark, it was no wonder I forgot about the robot piece hanging off the side of the couch. When I turned, my foot caught under one hard edge. The robot leg crashed to the carpet, forcing Mark to jump back.

  I catapulted over it, my ankle twisting in the process. With a gasp, I stumbled free and fell into the recliner. The chair rocked back, threatening to flip me over the side. “Ow.” I lifted my foot with a wince.

  Mark sighed. “I’d ask if you hurt yourself, but it’s kind of obvious.” He picked up the robot parts and set them on the couch. “We need to get rid of this thing before your friends think up any other ideas.” Kneeling next to me, he unlaced my shoe. “You need a keeper.”

  I sniffled, but the sharp pain was already receding. “I already have one.” What was he if not my keeper? He was taking care of my foot, wasn’t he?

  He looked up at me. “A permanent one. Like a shadow, a…” His voice trailed off when we both realized at the same time that he was kneeling in front of me on one knee while holding my foot. He should have been holding my hand, not my foot, and a permanent keeper sort of implied a permanent relationship. Almost like, maybe marriage.

  I trained my gaze on my hands, my fingers suddenly clenched in my lap.

  “Why aren’t you looking at me?” He reached
up and bumped my chin gently.

  I peeked at him.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” I caught his eyes and held there.

  “I wonder what it would be like.” He finished untying my shoe and eased it off.

  I barely felt any pain in my foot. “Could be an interesting life.”

  He grinned and captured my face with both hands. He kissed me again.

  I forgot about my foot when I slid forward onto his lap. He fell over sideways and took me with him.

  “You’re something else, you know that?” he said.

  “You keep mentioning that. You’re something yourself.” My hair fell forward into my eyes. He fixed the problem by tucking it back.

  “Maybe I’ll ask someday. I wonder what you’d say?”

  I was shy again, although how that could be, I can’t imagine. I had no problem making my feelings known when it came to attacking his body. “That’s kind of a dumb question, isn’t it?”

  His eyes shaded to insecure for a fleeting second. “It is?”

  My shyness disappeared in an instant. “You have nothing to worry about,” I promised him quietly.

  His eyes brightened. “Hmm.” He kissed me again, and this time we didn’t stop to catch our breath. He was careful of my ankle, but nothing so paltry could keep me from him.

  I was pretty sure that Mark hadn’t exactly asked me to marry him, but that was okay. For now, barreling along in the direction we were headed together was enough.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Marissa and Renee for suggesting questions for the Borgot phone. Thanks to those on the Mobileread forum for always being willing to talk tech, answer questions and tear apart the newest technology—including the Pebble Smartwatch. Thank you, Frank Tuttle, for letting me use your name, and that of your cousin, Big Foot, in the book.

  A shoutout goes to the usual helpful culprits who keep me going during the days of blank pages and writing frustrations: Elisabeth, April, Dee and all those writers whose books inspire. A special thanks to Joan and LeAnn. Big smiley face for you two! A hat tip to Kevin, Wendie, the dogs and, if I must say so, the snake. A very special thanks to Kovid for Calibre. The tools you envisioned and created have been a great boon to writers and readers alike. Krittika has added her own special touch to helping authors as well.

  And to my husband who not only puts up with my rantings and ravings, he reads them too.