Heart Wish (A Hidden Beauty Novel Book 9)

by Mary Crawford

  “I didn’t say Tristan was actually going to charge Locate My Heart any fee. I just said the guarantee is part of Tristan’s usual and customary fee. This case is pro-bono — including providing the computer equipment needed to bring you up to snuff. With all the confidential information you guys handle, you absolutely need to have top-notch computer equipment capable of handling the software you require to keep your business safe. It’s as simple as that. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Jameson asks me with emphasis on his last words.

  I shrug away from him. “Of course, I understand what you’re saying. I’m not stupid. Unfortunately, I’m stuck between a boss who thinks we should still have rotary phones and several friends I went to high school with who are starting up cutting-edge tech firms who think the way we run things at Locate My Heart is several cards short of a full deck.” I throw my hands up in the air in frustration. “Common sense says I should take everything you are offering me and throw in my life savings just for a kicker. Still, the other part of me wonders if it’s going to make Colette even more anxious about working with you guys.”

  Jameson throws a reassuring glance in my direction. “I don’t know. Tristan’s an excellent salesperson. He’ll probably be able convince Colette that the whole thing was her idea to start with,” he answers with a mischievous grin. “Having said that, in this case, it might be better to ask forgiveness after the fact than to ask for permission up front. Don’t you think? If we can clean up all the grant data and get that turned in on time, we’d be her heroes.”

  Agitated, I pace around the room. It’s hard to see all the wreckage around me. In Jameson’s high-tech world, my little computer network might not seem like much, but it is the lifeblood of our organization and all I can think about is how much time it’s going to take to put it all back together — time I don’t really have.

  Defeated, I return to my stool in the corner of the room and face Jameson. “Right now, that’s all pie-in-the-sky thinking. I’ve still got hours and hours of work to do. There’s a missing baby boy out there who’s counting on me to make the smart decision and put politics aside. If the contract says we get new computers from Identity Bank, then so be it. Hook me up and put as much virus protection software as you can on those suckers. I don’t want to ever face this danger again. The next time these jerks decide to attack, they might not be kidding.”

  “Will do. I like someone who can see the big picture. I’m glad you’re taking this approach. If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll be right back,” he says as he gives me a courtly bow and walks out of the room.

  I’m not sure whether to follow him or stay rooted on my stool as he leaves the room. For as much as we clash when we are together, there’s something inherently comforting about his presence.

  I just wish I knew why he sometimes seems to hate me.

  Maybe it’s a military thing. My dad, Sergeant Norman Earl Kordes, was a soldier. Unpredictably, he would go to a cavernous dark place where no one could reach him — not even my persistently cheerful mother. Eventually, he just left. He told my mom he was going to go out and get some beer, and he never returned. We’ve searched for him for years, but we’ve never been successful. The police always insisted that as a grown man, he had the right to walk away from his family, even if he had a history of alcoholism and liver failure. My mom says he was never that way before he joined the service — but my mom says a lot of things she wishes were true.

  I look around the store room and see the guts of the organization I’m hoping to run someday. I have to admit to myself that perhaps I’m not so different from my mother. Maybe I’m so busy trying to right all the wrongs in the world I can’t see what’s plainly in front of my face. My son is dead, my ex-fiancé is married and has a whole new family, my father is missing and never came back to see how his children turned out, and my mother is heartbroken.

  As if all that wasn’t complicated enough, I’m in the midst of epically failing the biggest on-the-job interview I could ever face. The stakes are exponentially higher than my boss being mad at me or a handsome computer expert disliking me. If I make miscalculations, the families we serve will pay the price. I guess my Mom is not the only person who has a knack for being the queen of denial.

  Just as I’m about to break into tears, the storage door opens. Jameson enters as he holds the door with his very fine backside. He’s pulling an oversized dolly filled with computer equipment. He has a friendly, expectant grin on his face until he sees my expression. “Hey, what’s wrong? This is the good stuff. It’s like Christmas — well, if you’re a geek like me. What happened? I was just gone for a few minutes, and you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I shrug as I try to put a lid on my emotions. “Between you and me, all of this has been a little overwhelming.”

  Abruptly, Jameson drops the handle of the dolly and walks over to me. “I know it’s been a tough day, but there’s nothing going on with your files that we can’t fix. We’ll get it all put back together, I promise.”

  I draw in a hitching, stuttering breath. “Thank you, I guess I just needed to hear you say that again. It won’t solve everything, but it helps.”

  Jameson squats down beside me and says, “You know you didn’t do anything to cause this, right?”

  “I try to be careful, but you never know.”

  “I work with this stuff every day. Sometimes, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Hackers just randomly strike — sometimes just for the thrill of it.”

  Before I can stop myself, I blurt, “Why are you being so nice to me? I can’t figure you out. Earlier, you were acting like I was nothing better than used chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe. Now, you’re all teddy-bear-sweet. My head is spinning.” After the words escape from my mouth, I hide my face in my hands and peek through my fingers as I mutter, “Sorry! I need to go take a nap or something ... that was so rude.”

  Jameson fiddles with his baseball cap and then reaches out to gently pull my hands away from my face. “Don’t worry about it. You have every right. I’ve been known to confuse myself. Let me start checking the files you uploaded to the cloud — that will give us some time to talk. I owe you some explanations.”

  “You don’t have to,” I insist.

  “I want to. I think you’re making assumptions you shouldn’t be. I need to clear those up.”

  Jameson goes back to the dolly and starts lifting up boxes on to the counter he cleaned off earlier. “Obviously we couldn’t do an even exchange for you because the technology just doesn’t exist anymore. I tried to put myself in your shoes and determine what might be helpful. I got you two convertible tablets which you can use as either tablets or laptops and two desktops to leave back at your headquarters. With these new monitors, the desktop computers are easier on your eyes. They also have more storage space than you probably could use in this lifetime.”

  I watch in fascination as Jameson unboxes the computers quicker than anyone I have ever seen in my life. He holds one up for me to see. “I chose this one specifically for you because it will sync well with your phone and be powerful enough to work in the field.”

  My mouth falls open. “I don’t know how to tell you this — but I don’t even know how to use a Mac.”

  “These days, it’s not a huge transition. I can spend a couple of hours showing you how it’s done.”

  “Is that usually part of your job?” I ask impulsively.

  Jameson looks over his shoulder at me and winks. “Nope. Just one of the perks.”

  It’s been a while since a guy has rendered me utterly speechless, yet that’s how I find myself as I feel my face grow hot with embarrassment. “I’m just going to go read my book while you set stuff up,” I stammer awkwardly as I dig my novel out of my purse.

  After several minutes, Jameson clears his throat. “I think I’m ready for you now.” He flips a monitor toward me as he says, “Can you sign into your cloud service?” Jameson holds up an external hard drive. “I’m going to do
wnload your files onto this first and make sure they’re clean before we put them back on your system. If the files on your network were any indication, you likely have some run-of-the-mill adware and spyware on those files too. We might as well scrub your files before we put them on your new network. I want to perform a dry run here before I set them up at your office to make sure there are no glitches”

  “New network?” I ask.

  “Well, as you might’ve guessed, your networking protocols are about as outdated as your computer equipment. I’m going to upgrade that and introduce some file encryption technology to make your system safer and less penetrable.”

  I hold up my hand in a time-out symbol. “Wait! Before you do that, are any of these changes going to make it more difficult for Colette to access the information on the system? If they do, she might not be on board with this plan.”

  The lines at the corner of Jameson’s eyes crinkle with laughter. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that your boss is a tiny bit technology averse. So, I’ll program all these changes to occur behind the scenes, so she’s not even aware of them. She might have to do one more layer of sign in. I think that’s probably doable — even for a technophobe like her. If you want, I can arrange for that to be biometric, so she doesn’t have to type anything in.”

  “Okay, I just don’t want it to be so complicated she doesn’t feel comfortable using it.”

  “There might be some intricate, technical stuff going on behind the scenes, but that doesn’t mean that it has to have an impossibly complicated user interface. After all, not everyone is a computer expert.”

  “Thanks for being so understanding about this. It’s difficult working with so many people with varying levels of computer experience.”

  Jameson raises an eyebrow at me. “You should get extra brownie points for being so diplomatic. I’m surprised you were able to get any work done at all. I’m impressed that you thought to use an outside service to back up your files. A lot of people skip that step. In this case, it probably saved you a bunch of heartache. If that attack would’ve been legitimate, without those backups, you would’ve been lost.”

  “You keep surprising me. I honestly didn’t expect to get a compliment from you about the way I’ve handled this crisis. In fact, I figured you thought I was the world’s biggest idiot.”

  Jameson walks over to a dorm-type refrigerator he has stuck at the base of one of his makeshift tables. He holds out a can of soda and a bottle of water in my direction with a silent questioning look. “Water is fine, thanks,” I answer.

  Jameson unscrews the lid, then hands the bottle to me as he pulls up a stool to sit down next to me. “For the past few days, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to explain my bizarre behavior. I suppose the best way to explain it all is to just tell you as much of my story as I can.”

  “Okay, I appreciate that,” I answer with trepidation as I study the expressions flying across his face like quicksilver.

  “The other day you asked me about my family, and I dodged the question. I avoided it because there was a time in my life in which my family could’ve used a reputable, honest agency like Locate My Heart. Being here is a painful reminder of all I’ve lost.”

  I suck in a sharp breath of commiseration as I respond, “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry. Why didn’t Tyler say something to me? I could’ve asked for a different technician. I don’t want this to be a painful process for you. You shouldn’t have to torture yourself to do your job.”

  “To be honest, I was hoping I’d be able to compartmentalize a little better. It’s been four and a half years since Toby went missing. I thought maybe I would have developed some calluses over my pain, so I could approach this job with the proper perspective. Apparently, I hadn’t made as much progress as I hoped.”

  “Of course, you haven’t. No one would expect you to make that type of recovery. Once you lose someone, it stays with you forever — especially when you don’t have any answers. That’s why places like Locate My Heart exist. Of course, we would love to have a happy, positive outcome for every family. Sadly, we know that’s not possible. In the cases where we can’t have an idealistic storybook ending, we can at least provide families with some answers. Some answers are better than none.”

  “Answers. It would be nice to have some. Deep down, I wonder if I’ve given up. Toby disappeared when I was serving overseas. He was a quiet kid. The kind who loved to study. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be an archaeologist or paleontologist. His nose was never out of reference books. He’d spend hours at the library. One day, Toby told my mom he had a research paper due for school. It was the last one before spring break. He was really excited about going on vacation. He sent me a letter telling me all about the upcoming trip my family had scheduled to go fossil digging in Utah. When you’re not quite thirteen years old, that’s pretty much the epitome of cool.”

  I smile softly. “I don’t know. I think it’s pretty much my definition of cool now. That may say more about me than you probably want to know.”

  Jameson grins. “I remember reading that letter to all my buddies in the unit. Everyone there thought it sounded like a great time too. The next thing I knew, I got a call from my parents. Toby went to the library and no one saw him again.”

  Even though I know the direction the story is going, I still let out a soft gasp as I absorb the news.

  A pained look crosses Jameson’s face. “Of course, I was deployed in a place that I was not allowed to talk about and totally helpless to do anything. My mom was very much like the woman you’re dealing with now. She almost died of a broken heart. No one was listening to my parents. They all assumed that because my brother was virtually a teenager, he must’ve been a dysfunctional, drug or alcohol using kid who hated his parents and his life. Nothing could be further from the truth. My little brother was the most studious, conscientious, well-adjusted child I’ve ever seen in my life. He would’ve never done that to my parents — especially with me being stationed overseas. He felt like it was his responsibility to step into my shoes when I was deployed.”

  “I didn’t live here back then, but were you able to get much media coverage for his case?” I ask, slipping into my professional mode as naturally as I breathe.

  “I was getting this information second hand from family, friends, and my distraught, overwhelmed father, but it didn’t seem like we were getting very much of the right kind of coverage. My parents weren’t viewed as true victims of a crime. The media treated my parents as if they’d done something to my brother to cause him to disappear or run away. Some of them were even worse. A few of them threw around bizarre innuendos. One went so far as to suggest my parents had used some of my military connections to have something done to my little brother because they were tired of being older parents.”

  I hold my hand over my stomach as I feel it turn over in disgust. “I’d like to say I am surprised, but sadly, I’m not. I’ve heard so many stories like this and had to play interference with less-than-honest news outlets. Some of them want to produce a story more than they want to get the facts correct. I can totally see that happening. It’s inexcusable that no one stepped up to do the right thing for your family.”

  Jameson’s jaw sets and the expression in his eyes grows as hard as flint, “Oh, I wouldn’t say no one stepped forward. Every form of con man and slime-ball you could imagine emerged from the woodwork to take advantage of my parent’s pain and suffering. It was grotesque. There were TV producers trying to make a name for themselves, mediums and fortune tellers just hoping to get a few minutes of time in the spotlight, payday loan places hoping to score a predatory short-term loan to help fund the cost of a search. There were offers of agents and representation and crazy offers from tabloid magazines for my parents to ‘tell the real story’ for obscene amounts of money. Apparently, they thought because my parents were educators, there must have been a dark side to the story. Because my brother disappeared in the Pacific Northwe
st and my parents were teachers, the tabloids seemed to want to make a connection like the Mary Kay Letourneau story where the teacher fell in love with her twelve-year-old student. The gossip rags were trying to find some disgusting motive for this when there wasn't one. ”

  “That’s awful,” I whisper under my breath.

  “My mother became so ill that I was granted compassionate leave from the military, so I could come home and take care of my family. I had always planned to be a lifer in the military, but, you need to step up and take care of your family first.”

  I nod my head in agreement. “It’s true. It’s hard to set aside your dreams when reality comes crashing in.” I start to dig around in my purse for my notepad and a pen. After I locate it, I take a deep breath and try to relax into my professional mode. It is often hard for me to separate my personal feelings about a case from my professional ones.

  Clearing my throat nervously, I question Jameson. “Just so I understand, your brother went to the library one day, four and a half years ago, and never came home? To complicate matters, the law enforcement community misunderstood his social situation and assumed things to be true about him that were not, correct? In all this time, no one has located your brother?”

  Jameson visibly flinches at my words. He scrubs a hand down his face and over his beard as he interrupts my assessment of his case, “As brutal and blunt as that assessment is, it is totally accurate.”

  I set my notebook and my pen down on the counter next to me. Looking him straight in the eye, I say, “I know you don’t have any reason to trust me or anything my organization stands for. Still, with your permission, I would like to offer the services of Locate My Heart to you and your family. It’s about time someone listened to your side of things. We need to bring your brother home — one way or another.”

  Jameson bows his head for a moment. He looks up at me with tears in his eyes as he whispers in a broken voice, “Maybe that’s the part I’m most afraid of. If we don’t have any answers, I can pretend he is okay. It’s the ‘one way or another’ that scares the living crap out of me.”