Lucky Charm

by Valerie Douglas

  She buried herself in her work as she had for the last two years, concentrating on the installation procedures, the steps to ensure a successful install.

  Matt was gone, away and safe. She hoped. She hoped all the guards had gone up to the third floor, leaving Matthew free to escape from the second.

  Whatever it was he was doing.

  His worry and concern for her in the elevator were troubling but somehow reassuring. For some reason he thought she was in danger simply by being here.

  In danger of what? She didn’t know. The thought sent a shiver through her.

  As she worked, she turned over in her mind some of the conversations she’d heard and overheard over the past months.

  People tended to forget she was there, as Jeremy and Tony had. She’d listened to whispered conversations in the hallways. Things that bothered her, a sense of things not being quite right, or being done in a way that wasn’t quite kosher. She remembered thinking something was odd in Fort Lauderdale. It had niggled at her then and it niggled at her now.

  She shook herself.

  Whatever was going on was none of her business. She didn’t really know anything or understand half of what she’d heard. What she needed to do was get her mind off Matt, whatever he was doing and concentrate on her job. Work always helped to keep her distracted. When an issue cropped up she was almost relieved. It kept her well occupied and her mind off other things. By the time she solved it, though, it was late. Not that she minded much, not tonight. The streets would be quiet at this hour.

  There had been no need to rent a car. She was staying in a lovely old hotel only a few blocks up the street. An easy walk. She simply had to find her way out of the building. Fortunately, this one wasn’t that difficult.

  Matt made his way quickly to the doors to the stairs, testing each door he passed in case he needed a bolt hole. Locked. Had they had time enough to see the elevator stop, to know what floor he was on? Ducking into an alcove, he flattened himself against the wall and listened. He heard the distant thunder of heavy feet on the stairs. They were moving fast.

  Bracing himself, he prepared for a fight.

  The sound of pounding feet went past the door. He heard the door on the next floor being flung open to bang against the wall.

  He wouldn’t look that gift horse in the mouth, he’d take it and run, going down the stairs as cautiously, quietly and quickly as he could.

  A quick glance through the window in the door showed no one in the lobby. He eased the door open a crack and took a look. Sure enough, the lobby was clear, except for a guard by the doors to make sure he didn’t escape that way. That man looked out into the night. Someone had slipped up, leaving the lobby so unguarded. He took advantage of the mistake and slipped out into the shadows by the banks of elevators. Moving quickly, he took the man out, slipping up behind him to put him in a sleeper hold.

  He was free.

  What had happened? He had a sneaking suspicion he knew.

  Ariel.

  Somehow she’d bailed him out once again, drawn them away. They hadn’t known on which floor he’d gotten off, giving chase. She’d given them one. She’d gotten them to think he’d gotten off somewhere else.

  How had she done it?

  The thought made him uneasy. Was she all right? Had she put herself at risk or had they asked? If so, how gently?

  Looking back and up at the towering black face of the building, he could see the lights on that floor were still lit.

  He fought the urge to go back in, make certain she was all right. He couldn’t. It was too much of a risk. They were on the alert for him, he wouldn’t be able to avoid them so easily a second time. All he could do was wait.

  It was late, very late, before the lights on that floor went out, one by one.

  Matt could almost follow Ariel’s progress through the rooms.

  From the shadows of an alley with a clear view of the main and service entrances, Matt watched with relief as Ariel stepped out of the building. Alone and apparently unharmed.

  What was it she was doing here so late? They had said in Florida she was some kind of trainer but the office tonight had been empty except for the three men. The two who’d tried to stall him appeared to have forgotten she was there but they hadn’t been surprised to see her.

  How could anyone let her walk these streets at this time of night by herself? A woman, alone at night. There was an air about her of familiarity with it, though, as if she were used to walking alone. Matt wanted to snatch her up, protect her against the dangers of the streets and break through that self-imposed isolation.

  The breeze tossed her hair and her dress. She went down the steps with unconscious grace and walked up the street with her head up, looking around alertly. Smart woman, broadcasting that she was paying attention and no victim. He found himself watching the sway of her hips and those lovely long and shapely white legs beneath her skirt.

  She walks in beauty like the night.

  The odd quote came out of nowhere but it suited her with her midnight black hair, her skin like moonlight and her beautiful deep blue eyes. He remembered her dancing in Fort Lauderdale, how sexy she’d looked with her hips swaying and her back straight as she kept time to the Latin beat.

  She looked sexy now.

  Unbidden, the image of her sitting on the bed that morning came back to him as it tended to do in unconscious moments when he wasn’t prepared for it.

  If he was going to do it, it had to be now.

  He’d debated it in the back of his mind as he’d waited – should he say anything?

  What was it that had gotten Bill killed? He still didn’t know. If he said nothing she was in there blind, she could stumble onto it the same way that Bill had and find herself dead.

  As much as he wanted to deny it, he also knew she was his one way in, she had access no one else did.

  He stepped out of the alley in plenty of time to allow her to see him.

  He watched her all the way to the door of the hotel, knowing he could reach her quickly if he needed to.

  The wind caught her hair and lifted it as the doors opened and he remembered the silky feel of it in his hands as he kissed her. He remembered how soft her lips had been and the way they had parted beneath his. She was driving him crazy and he didn’t know why.

  ‘Don’t break my heart, Matthew.’

  The worry and concern in her eyes hadn’t been for herself, he’d known what she meant. Don’t get hurt. She was worried about him, afraid for him. It was nice to know there was somebody besides Darrin who cared and he knew that was what she was truly afraid of, caring too much. Enough to get hurt.

  With an effort, he dragged his mind back to the task at hand.

  It was a quiet walk up empty streets, without even a breeze to rustle the leaves on the trees. The night was warm and close. The streetlights were designed to look like old-fashioned lantern-light, filtering romantically between the leaves, casting flickering shadows on the sidewalk. There didn’t seem to be another soul about.

  Ariel was thankful for the solitude, the peace and the silence.

  A woman walking alone could be a target but she’d done it in a lot of cities, some with much more dangerous reputations than this. It was a good hour for all kinds of crime. She kept her head up, looking alert. Perhaps she was a target but less of one if she looked as if she were paying attention. She wasn’t sure whether Birmingham had those kinds of problems but it was better not to take the chance.

  Like many downtowns in many cities, this one had died slowly, old stores that had been there since the city was founded had lost to the chains in the suburbs. A storefront reminded her of the old days of her small-town childhood.

  Now the windows were painted over.

  Some had been reborn as eateries and sandwich shops, art galleries, the inevitable souvenir shop and that sort of thing. Signs of revitalization were in the trees planted along the sidewalks and the flowers hung from lampposts but it was an ongoing struggle.<
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  Only the towering office buildings were really alive.

  As hard as she tried though while she walked back to her hotel the situation at Marathon wouldn’t fade away. The things she’d heard, Matthew’s arrival, all churned around in her mind.

  There was the sense of eyes on her. Again. Watching. Somewhere.

  She didn’t see anyone, it was something more felt than seen. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t write it off as imagination. She shivered a little, despite the warm night air.

  Someone else also watched but those eyes were benign and somehow reassuring. It was better not to think about who they might belong to.

  The facade of the old hotel harkened back to a much older era, an era when the hotel had been built and the ambience inside reflected it. Old Victorian, with flickering imitation lamplight outside and a parlor inside off the front desk and raucous noise from the English pub-style bar opposite.

  The hotel somehow managed to be warm and cozy, if a little claustrophobic with its narrow halls.

  Ariel found her room but decided not to get room service, it was simply too late. She did some yoga to unwind and watched a little TV. Anything to hold off her thoughts. She stayed up later than usual, trying to tire herself out. Trying not to think about Matthew Morrison. She wouldn’t wonder or worry about him. She wouldn’t think about her fear for him.

  Sleep didn’t come easily and her dreams were sweet torture.

  Chapter Nine

  If anyone at Marathon was suspicious about what had happened the previous night, no one said anything when Ariel arrived the next morning. At least, not to her. She couldn’t ignore the fact that Jeremy and Tony watched her more closely than the other office managers had, nor was it something she could chalk up to an overactive imagination. They did. Every time she turned around it seemed as if one or the other of them studied her with speculation in their eyes.

  Nor had the other watching eyes gone away. It was constant. So much so that now she was fairly certain she could identify two of them. Their faces were always there. A man across the street from the hotel and another who sat alone in the bar nursing a beer. Unfamiliar faces that had become familiar as she kept seeing them.

  She also sensed another set of eyes watching and suspected she knew who that was, too. It was unsettling to realize she found it reassuring. Somehow, though, it made her feel a little less alone.

  Those other eyes weren’t reassuring. It was an odd and uncomfortable feeling to sense someone watching her all the time but she tried to ignore it. She only had to hang on for a few more days. If she acted normal and did nothing else suspicious or unusual, it would be okay, she would be gone. If she gave them nothing else to wonder about, nothing to suspect, soon enough she could put it all behind her.

  She couldn’t help but wonder, What was going on? It was increasingly clear something was. No matter how hard she tried not to, she wondered how Matthew was and what he was doing. She didn’t doubt it was something to do with Marathon and Marathon didn’t want him to find whatever it was he was looking for. What was it they were so afraid she’d see or learn? She was beginning to regret some of the questions she’d already asked, except she couldn’t not ask them, there were too many anomalies. Too many numbers didn’t add up. The answers they gave her either sounded like excuses, or subtle criticism of the software.

  Fortunately, there were few problems with the software installation and the one glitch they found during training she and Birmingham’s tech managed to resolve. The rest went very smoothly. The training, too, went well, at least partly because of southern manners. They were almost too polite. She went to lunch with the staff each day and enjoyed it. Unlike Fort Lauderdale no one offered invitations for afterward and she found she wasn’t sorry about it. It was better to keep a little distance. It had been a mistake to let anyone get that close.

  By the time Thursday arrived, she was grateful to be moving on to New Orleans, if only to escape the weight of those watching eyes.

  Birmingham was a smaller office than many of the others, so they hadn’t needed her for as many days. She’d managed to get the extra day scheduled as a travel day without drawing undue attention from the home office. There they thought she was flying home for the weekend. It was what she normally would have done. With hour-long layovers between flights, it would have taken nearly all day to get there.

  Instead, she would spend the extra day in New Orleans and she needed it. She worked on commission so it was her time to spend. A little relief and relaxation. The air of tension in the office, both in the offices here and in D.C. had worn on her. That and all the watching eyes.

  She’d rented a car and planned to drive to Louisiana. The weather was supposed to be beautiful so she’d splurged and gotten a convertible on her own dime. Damn the cost, she’d eat it if she had to but it should be offset by the lack of airfare to and from. The convertible reminded her of Matthew but the feel of the wind in her hair and a great car to drive was worth it. Not that the memory of him was really unpleasant. Something about the excitement of it had stirred feelings she hadn’t been able, or hadn’t allowed herself, to feel for a long time. She had a sense of reawakening, of a coming back to life.

  From a vantage point in a nearby coffee shop Matt had a clear view of the main entrances to this Marathon office. He was still trying to find a way past their security. It didn’t seem promising but he hoped for more success than he’d had with the others. There was a delivery door at the back of the building but it was locked and guarded. Open the door and the alarm would go off. There were enough entrances and plenty of places to hide inside but a limited number of exits from the floor once he was inside.

  That day and every day, he watched Ariel leave with the rest of the Marathon staff for lunch. They seemed to accept her, laughing and joking with her. She seemed more at ease, lighter. She had a warmth about her that drew people to her. As hard as he tried not to, he found himself envying their time with her.

  He watched each evening, too, to be sure she reached her hotel safely. She might believe herself alone but she wasn’t, not as long as he was nearby.

  He was no closer to finding a way past Marathon’s security, though. Not legally. He wouldn’t blow the investigation by doing something stupid. As simple as it was, a guard at the elevators, a scanner for employee badges, it was effective.

  He’d have to be more careful, too. They clearly knew his face. That made it more difficult.

  There seemed to be no way around it, not without bringing another person into it to provide a distraction or a diversion. He knew some of his people would be more than glad to help but he couldn’t bring them in on this, couldn’t ask them to take the risk for what was essentially a far more private investigation than usual. He wasn’t just walking the edge but going right over it and he knew it. Trespassing at the very least, pushing the boundaries of breaking and entering. It was a chance he was willing to take but he couldn’t ask it of someone else.

  Matt had considered trying to take the guards out. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought about it. One on one, he could probably do it but it was dicey. If only one proved to be tougher than he expected he’d find himself in trouble again. He’d already learned his lesson there. With no backup if he made a mistake there would be no one to stand for Bill. No one but Darrin, who’d have another grief laid at his doorstep. Matt wouldn’t do that unless he had no other choice. If he could find another way, though, he might have to chance it.

  Even if he was successful, he’d have limited time for discovery, and he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. All he had were suspicions, a phone call and a dead friend.

  In every city he visited Marathon was considered a paragon, the one sure place to invest, as safe as houses, some said. That bothered him. Nothing was that good, not in the current economy. Look at the housing market, the basis for that old saying. There was no such thing as a sure thing, investing always held some degree of risk and the last ‘sure�
� thing had proven it. From Enron to Madoff to Stanford, not to mention the dozens of other minor scams and cons, there was always someone ready and willing to take advantage, to try to game the system.

  Some of what he’d heard from Carly and the others in Fort Lauderdale had definitely raised red flags for him but nothing specific, nothing actionable. Nothing he could go to the authorities or even the Securities and Exchange Commission or the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with.

  He’d found ways to socialize with Marathon employees in most of the cities he’d visited and heard the same vaguely disturbing hints of unusual business practices. Again, nothing concrete.

  Yet somehow Bill had discovered something that someone at Marathon considered important enough to kill to keep secret.

  Watching Ariel walk back to her hotel, he wondered once more what it was she did for Marathon. Could he use her? Put her at risk? Considering Bill’s fate?

  For all she seemed somehow solitary, alone, and on the surface didn’t seem uncomfortable, underneath it all he knew differently. He’d felt the joy and the passion, the tenderness, had heard the longing and felt the need.

  He was getting desperate but he wasn’t so desperate as to put Ariel at risk. Not yet.

  Lovell looked at the picture on his computer screen. Such a pretty little thing with that curly black hair and blue eyes. She was, however, becoming an issue.

  According to Genardi Mayfield in Birmingham said her interference in the situation with Morrison appeared to be a coincidence. None of Lovell’s own people had reported any contact between the two. At least they hadn’t seen any.

  It might be perfectly innocent. Still, there was the chance they were under investigation and she was deep undercover. Unlikely or his connections in Washington and elsewhere would have informed him of it, but the probability existed however low it might be. If the probability existed then it needed to be addressed.

  According to Genardi she was already asking questions. There was simply too much danger she might notice something she shouldn’t. Especially with Morrison wandering around loose. That concerned him. As did the chance that her actions in regards to Mr. Morrison hadn’t been mere coincidence. She needed to be reminded to keep her mind on her work and not to interfere in things she didn’t understand. She was a woman and women could be nosy. Perhaps a warning was in order. Somewhere away from Marathon. Enough to impress on her that the world was not always a safe place, especially for a woman traveling alone.