Lucky Charm

by Valerie Douglas

  Looking up from half-lidded eyes, Darrin watched Matt’s face, saw him shift uncomfortably again.

  A sprite or elf. Ariel. Matt nodded at the image.

  Yes, she was that. Small and entrancing. He remembered that glance back into the room to see her sitting cross-legged on the bed, her black hair tumbled over her shoulders and curling over her ivory breasts, her trim waist, the dark triangle of hair between her smooth white thighs. The hardness that had begun to fade came back with a rush.

  Settling back, Matt considered his next move. First, he would try another way. Any other way than Ariel, then and only then, if there were no other choice, would he try to find her again. He’d gotten the distinct impression both that morning and on the street outside the bar in Fort Lauderdale that she didn’t want to get close. That loneliness, that sense of isolation and apartness. She kept herself that way, except for a brief moment of weakness one morning and a need to be touched so deep she’d thrown caution to the winds. So much pain and such a capacity for joy. So strong and yet so fragile.

  If it came down to it, for Bill he would do it but he would try to find another way first.

  “What else have you found out about Genesis?” Matt asked.

  Frowning, Darrin stared down into the depths of his drink.

  “Not much,” he said, frustrated. “Unlike Marathon, they’re not publicly traded. They’re very tight, very elite, with a large but selective clientele.”

  Swirling the scotch in the glass, he watched the warm, golden liquid flow as he let out a long, slow breath.

  “That,” he added, “is about all we know. I have Harry looking into it, into what financials we can find.”

  There was more and Darrin knew it. Something about the whole scenario – not just Bill’s death – bothered him like an itch he just couldn’t scratch.

  He had a pretty good idea what Matt suspected, what he himself did. But this time would be different. The bruise on Matt’s face wasn’t likely the only injury he’d taken. The high level of security was more than disturbing.

  “If Harry can’t find it,” Matt said, “then it’s buried deep.”

  Slowly, Darrin said, “It bothers me that we have to dig so deep. Folks that need to keep information that close to the vest usually have something to hide.”

  If there was anything that ever warned Matt when Darrin was disturbed or angry about something it was that slowness of speech, as if Darrin reined everything in so tightly he could only let it out in tightly controlled streams.

  Darrin was worried.

  In that, he wasn’t alone.

  *****

  Reluctantly Tom Genardi made the call he’d been dreaded. He’d put it off as long as he could. His people were having no luck catching this guy who kept asking awkward questions. If he didn’t inform his opposite number soon and Lovell found out, there would be hell to pay. The chances were good he’d inform upper management and then Tom would be out of far more than a job. Out of everything.

  Until now he’d had a cushy job with a cushy paycheck far beyond his pension from the LAPD and what he could’ve gotten running security for any other company. With millions of dollars at stake and all he knew, out was likely to be permanent. He’d really screwed up there.

  They couldn’t take the chance he’d talk about what he knew.

  The man he was about to call would be the one to do it, too.

  From his days on the job, he knew men like Lovell. Stone cold killers. It was in their eyes. Not merely cold but flat, dead and empty eyes. It was like looking into the eye of a shark. He’d killed a time or two himself but not with the cold calculation Lovell probably had. Not for the first time he wondered if the man even had enough emotion, enough humanity left to enjoy sex. Or even something as simple as food. He wasn’t quite sure and the very idea chilled him.

  “How can I help you, Tom?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked, coolly polite.

  Taking a deep breath, Genardi answered, “We still have a problem. My boys nearly had him but he got away.”

  He had no need to explain who they were talking about.

  “Do you have an ID on him yet?”

  Genardi laughed shortly. “Yeah, that was simple. We asked the widow. She said he was an old college buddy of her husband by the name of Matthew Morrison. He’s some kind of an accountant.”

  “Have you alerted your people in your other offices?”

  Girding himself, Genardi said, “That’s why I called.”

  There was no need to explain. He’d said it all in that one sentence.

  For a moment there was silence.

  Then, “Which?”

  “Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa.”

  Another silence, but Genardi could almost feel the frost of Lovell’s anger through the phone. “So he’s come across country. There are security cameras in the lobbies, am I correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pull the film, see if we can get a picture of the sonovabitch. Circulate it to all the managers of all the offices that are in on this. They’ll have a vested interest in containing him. We need to know more about him, too. See to it.”

  Silence.

  Then.

  “No more mistakes.”

  The warning in Lovell’s voice was clear.

  Jonathan Lovell flipped the disposable cell phone closed and tossed it onto his desk. In a day or so he’d dispose of it. Paranoid perhaps but better than being caught with something that could be traced, depending on what happened in the days ahead.

  Resting his elbows on his desk, he steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips as he thought.

  Genardi’s report was less than satisfactory.

  His counterpart with Marathon, Thomas Genardi was far too reliant on brute force. Instinct born of Lovell’s years first with the Marines, then the NYPD and finally as a consultant with the private security firm Viking in Afghanistan and Iraq told him the situation could be trouble. As Vice President of Security for Genesis Corp. trouble was what he’d been hired to prevent. Especially in this age of corporate walks of shame.

  After watching others take it neither J. Gordon Maxwell, CEO of Genesis – the brains behind the operation – nor Philip Alden, CEO of Marathon wanted to find themselves in the same position.

  Their instructions had been quite clear. Prevent such an occurrence. At any cost. Neither mentioned extreme prejudice in so many words but that was what they’d meant.

  J. Gordon Maxwell hobnobbed with the rich and famous in NY and LA with Alden at his heels. He schmoozed with old money in the Hamptons, threw sparkling parties. The man owned a mega-yacht as well as a castle in Great Britain. Lovell had been to both.

  He had a boat as well, a smaller one, in Costa Rica. He knew the value of keeping a bolt hole in case of emergencies.

  It was almost amusing. For all the outrage on the part of the populace – with every financier and investment broker stuffing their pockets with money, Senators and Congressmen up to the highest levels taking advantage of what they knew privately – still no one really wanted to regulate the financial industry that allowed it.

  Lovell couldn’t help but think that given that most people deserved exactly what they got. Screwed. They bought the convenient fiction that regulation would stifle industry and jobs when all it really did was keep people like Maxwell from getting richer.

  It was no real matter to him in any case.

  Genesis and Marathon had a nice little scam going here and all the right people were getting rich.

  Including him.

  Nor did he want to take that walk of shame himself, which he would. He could see the headlines all too well.

  It wouldn’t happen.

  Which brought him to this other situation. As much as it served their purposes, buying time, providing excuses, it had its own inherent risks.

  A distraction was therefore required.

  Pressing a button, he summoned a few of his own trusted people, gave them instructions
. It was time to do some checking on his own as well. He had little faith in Genardi

  .

  Chapter Eight

  Birmingham, Alabama, was a lovely city and Ariel liked it almost instantly. For the center of a city, the downtown area was pretty, even with the inevitable glass and steel towers but without the wretched stench of some. She’d visited a few, especially on the East Coast that absolutely reeked of odors both familiar and better left unidentified. Then there were the soft accents and the genteel manners that still held in the Deep South. And, finally, the entire office broke for lunch, no exceptions, especially not her. The staff wouldn’t hear of it. They insisted, despite her protests, on taking her along. It seemed as if many of the others did, too. It was amazing to see. Office workers poured from the buildings and crowded into the food court of the downtown mall or the numerous eateries.

  With the preparation done, though, she still had the installation to do that night. It was the least disruptive time and she had the option of working through some problems before anyone was affected. If she could find and fix them in time. By now she had a fairly extensive list of things she could check to try to eliminate the kind of problems she’d had before.

  At least this office hadn’t been like Tampa, which had been a disaster.

  The growing silence in the outer office told her it was emptying. As did the server, as she watched the employees sign out, their status beside their names changing as they logged off. She wouldn’t start until the last was gone, until there was no one on the network and no chance someone would log back on. She would be converting data, updating and changing files, anyone accessing those files in the conversion process risked the possibility of blowing up the installation. That had happened once, to disastrous result. If worst came to worst, she could force them off but she didn’t like to do that. It set a bad tone between her and the person she’d pushed off line.

  It was the sound of voices in the outer office that frustrated her. Someone was still here even though she’d made it absolutely clear that everyone needed to be off-line. Until everything was silent, she didn’t dare start the install. She wished fervently but silently that they would all go home. Even their software technician had left, once he was sure she knew what she was doing – the one drawback of southern gentlemen was that in their estimation sweet young thangs like her shouldn’t know such technical stuff. With a sigh of resignation, she considered getting something to drink from the vending machines on the ground floor while waiting for whoever was out there to finish. Usually she didn’t do that until the installation started. It pretty much ran on its own at that point.

  She stepped out of the computer room.

  The tableau before her stopped her for all of the second it took to register what she was seeing and then she kept walking as if she every right to be there.

  After all, she did.

  Jeremy Mayfield, the office manager, stood by the elevators. She’d met him first thing that morning. He was a big man. So was Tony Garza, one of the team leaders, now standing with his back to her. They’d been introduced that afternoon at the scheduling meeting. Another man was with them, one she hadn’t met yet.

  Standing in their midst was a familiar blond head with brilliant green eyes.

  Matt.

  Even wearing a suit and tie she recognized him instantly.

  What the hell was he doing here? she wondered. Why did he keep popping up everywhere? What was going on?

  The suit looked good on him, he looked like a prosperous executive. A very attractive, very sexy executive. The man was a chameleon, adapting to whatever he wore, wherever he was, although the jeans and t-shirt had somehow seemed more natural to him.

  Just the sight of him made her heart beat a little faster and sent a wave of warmth through her. It was vaguely unsettling. She was startled to find she was glad to see him and happier still that he was all right. For the moment.

  “Maybe there’s something I can do to help you,” Jeremy Mayfield was saying.

  The words were simple, polite, but the tone was anything but. Especially ground out in a low almost threatening voice.

  Shaking his head, Matt stepped sideways, trying to reach the elevators. “No, thank you, I’ve had my questions answered.”

  The other men shifted to block his exit.

  The tension between the four men was obvious. Ariel frowned a little. It looked as if Matt was trying to leave while Jeremy, Tony and the other man were just as plainly trying to prevent him. They’d put themselves between him and the elevator. Why? Everyone else was gone but her.

  Something was very wrong. That was strange enough, but there was something about their attitude, about the way they stood and their air of expectancy, as if they waited for something or someone.

  Matt’s shoulders were set, his body tight, as if prepared for a fight.

  She kept walking toward them as if nothing unusual was happening. In the next moment they all suddenly became aware of her.

  Both Jeremy and Tony looked suddenly startled and surprised, suddenly reminded of her presence in the office. It was clear they’d forgotten she was here. It wasn’t the first time something like it had happened to her. She was usually tucked out of sight in the computer room. Out of sight, out of mind.

  Whatever was going on, it was clear Matt wanted out. All right, she would get him out. The simplest way possible, through the front doors. It wouldn’t do for them to think that she knew him, though. That would raise uncomfortable questions.

  Blithely, she continued on her way, going past the men to punch the down button on the elevator. All of them were suddenly silent, staring at her with various expressions on their faces. Jeremy, Tony and the other man were clearly caught off guard. Matt had gone even more tense, trying to conceal his alarm.

  The elevator doors slid open.

  “Hey, Jeremy, Tony. Is anyone else going down?” she asked, looking from one to the other innocently and expectantly as she stepped into the empty elevator. Only at the last moment did she look at Matt, keeping her expression bland.

  Stunned, Matt just stared at her, trying not to show he recognized her. Not in front of these men.

  Ariel.

  It was her, no doubt about it. Those black-lashed blue eyes and that firm rosy mouth were unmistakable.

  She wore a loose, pretty, casual dress that flowed over her curves, a pattern of dark blue flowers on a pale blue background that made her blue eyes seem radiant in the fluorescent lighting. She was as lovely as he remembered. The last image he had of her from that morning, kneeling on the bed, popped back into his mind.

  What was she doing here? He’d thought she was in Florida.

  It seemed he didn’t need to find her, instead somehow she’d found him.

  The opportunity she offered, though, was too good to refuse. A chance to escape. Matt had no doubt the three men were stalling to keep him on this floor long enough for security to arrive.

  At that moment the other elevator activated. He could hear it rise, although he couldn’t see the indicators. It was a long way up, there were a lot of floors between the ground and Marathon’s floor but even so there wasn’t much time.

  If the pattern held, there would be three big bruisers, plus Mayfield, the man Ariel called Tony, and this other man. Three against one would be bad enough, although none of these looked fit enough to hold against him for long, but once security arrived it would be a different matter. Six against one wasn’t good odds even for him.

  This time Matt had decided to try that more direct approach.

  He’d made an appointment like any other client, using a fictitious name Darrin and the company had set up for him. He’d been talking to one of the financial advisors, spinning him a tale of looking for investments to keep the man occupied until it got close to closing time. He’d hoped to duck into an empty office, a storage closet, office restroom or something, hoping they’d think he’d gone, forgotten in the confusion as everyone went home. Then Mayfield had
walked by and Matt had seen a glimmer in his eye, a shift in the set of his shoulders, and instinct told him his cover was blown. Somehow Mayfield recognized him, there had been that unmistakable flicker of recognition in his eyes as he passed.

  Matt had done his homework, he’d known going in who the major players in this office were. He knew who Mayfield was and knew that if something was going on, as regional manager Mayfield was high enough to possibly be in the know. As soon as he saw the man step into his office and immediately pick up the phone, Matt knew it was time to go.

  Making an excuse to the advisor, Matt had tried to leave quietly, unobtrusively, but had found the other man – Tony – standing guard at the elevator. Somehow he’d missed the signal between them while he’d been making his excuses to the salesman. Then Mayfield and the other man joined them. Between them they’d blocked his path out, putting themselves between him and the exits, asking questions he’d already answered. The only way past them was by force, which would draw attention he didn’t want.

  It was obvious they didn’t really want to go up against him but they would if pushed to it, just long enough for security to arrive.

  There was a remote chance they’d already called the cops. He could be charged with trespassing. It wasn’t likely but it was possible. That would be awkward and uncomfortable. He had the sense from the lack of security cameras and the quiet way they went about things, that they didn’t want that kind of attention any more than he did. Especially since he couldn’t tell the cops what he was doing here, not without some kind of proof.

  And that was the one thing he didn’t have. All he had was a phone call in the dead of night, and a friend dead in the morning.

  Darrin would bail him out but undoubtedly Marathon would seek an injunction against them both, barring them from coming within a hundred yards of the place.