LOVER COME HACK
Page 19
“You don’t have to make a special trip. Just scan the document and email it to me.”
“No can do. With this recent hacking, we’re not sending any attachments. Not worth taking a chance and alienating prospective buyers.”
“You emailed my paperwork to me. You said it was scrubbed and sanitized.”
“Some issues have come up since then and we’re being more cautious.”
Kip appeared to sense my mood toward him had changed. He said good-bye with something about an appointment across town and left. As soon as his car drove off, I went inside. I wanted to think about what he’d said, but I needed to check on the interior progress.
The hall was painted in Beach Party, a soft taupe-beige. Mismatched atomic-era wall sconces of similar sizes had been repainted with a highly reflective Dupli-Color chrome spray paint and mounted to the walls at four-foot intervals. Connie came out of the last apartment on the left. She wore a white hardhat with the Mad for Mod logo on the front.
“Hey, Mads!” she called out. “Nice hat.”
“You too,” I said.
“Effie and I made them last night. Bought the hats at Paintin’ Place and printed out stickers from my home computer. We’re not only going to have the best entry, we have the best-looking team too.”
“How’s it going?”
“Great. Your instructions made a huge difference. We painted and installed all the light fixtures. We just have to tear out the carpets, refinish the floors, and load in the furniture and then we’re done. Plenty of time before the judges show up on Monday morning.”
“Not exactly. I have a new plan for the exterior.” I tore the top page out of my sketch pad. “It’s going to be all hands on deck until the deadline.”
“All hands on deck?” said Joanie from the hallway behind me. “Then my timing is perfect.”
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at your store?”
“Joanie Loves Tchotchkes is closed for the day.”
I met her by the back door. “You shouldn’t take a loss in business because of me,” I said.
Joanie grinned. “Yesterday some hipster bought out my entire collection of Daileyware. That’s almost four hundred pieces of melamine. Sold. I can afford to close for the day and help you.”
“What did she want with four hundred pieces of melamine?”
“He, not she. He and his partner are opening a mid-mod ice cream parlor on Garland Road past the lake.”
The lake in mention was White Rock Lake. As various pockets of Dallas underwent turns toward the trendy and then not trendy, I’d watched buildings and businesses change hands with alarming regularity. Joanie’s store was out that way, and her kitschy business had benefitted from White Rock Lake being labeled the hot new spot to live. Many of the old, rundown businesses had changed hands and gotten face-lifts. As the apartment buildings flipped and underwent the most basic of remodels, new residents moved in and quickly populated the restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries in the area.
Hudson’s house was on the northwest side of White Rock Lake. After my recent visit to his house and our resulting conversation, I suspected I’d want to avoid that side of town.
“This guy didn’t even try to undercut my prices. Just bought it all. Pink, blue, yellow. That’s a lot of melamine. And he paid cash, which was perfect since I’m afraid to rely on the computers these days.”
“So you’re happy.”
“Not only am I happy, I’m flush. And that means you have a new investor.”
I held my hands out in front of me. “Joanie, I can’t.”
She jabbed her finger at me. In her bowling shirt, ratted hair, and tight jeans, she looked like someone I’d rather not mess with. “No way, José. You don’t get to say ‘yes’ to Nasty’s money and ‘no’ to mine.”
“It’s not that easy, Joanie. I listed you as part of my team. Investors can’t be part of the team. I’m the designer, Effie’s the project manager, and you, Connie, Ned, and Mitchell are the team. If we violate the conditions of our application, I can be disqualified, and I’m not losing this competition because of a technicality.”
Joanie looked uncomfortable. “Um, Mads, when Effie went to get you last night, we weren’t sure how soon you’d be back. We made an executive decision to add a member to your team. Ned’s still out of town and it seemed like we could use the help, and all things considered, I didn’t think you’d mind all that much.”
“You didn’t,” I said.
“I did.”
“Where is he?”
She twisted at the waist and pointed toward the room from which I’d knocked down the interior wall. I went back down the hallway. A cloud made up of freshly-sanded mud hung in the room, making it difficult to make out the figure on the ladder.
Difficult, but not impossible.
I picked up a pair of safety glasses and a particle mask and crossed the room. The man’s back was to me, and he operated a sander with one hand and the Shop-Vac with the other, making it loud enough that he didn’t hear me yelling. I pulled the power cord out of the wall and crossed my arms. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Tex glared down at me. “You have a lot of nerve.”
“Me? What did I do? You’re the one sanding my ceiling. Why?”
“Hudson James isn’t the only guy who can sand your ceiling.”
“I don’t need Hudson to sand my ceiling. I can sand my ceiling all by myself!”
“Oh yeah?” he said. He set the sander on the top of the ladder and climbed down. “Then why didn’t you? You’re running out of time, Night. You’re supposed to be working around the clock. That mud was dry. You could have sanded it last night.”
Several retorts sprung to my lips, everything from euphemisms about sanding my ceiling to witty banter to the kind of language you’d never hear in a Doris Day movie.
“You are not seriously asking me why I wasn’t here working on my entry, are you? Are you the most insensitive man on the planet? Or is your ego so big that you honestly can’t deal with me not calling you for help?”
“Hey, Boss,” Effie called from the hallway. I turned toward her. “Um, I need to talk to you.”
“Not now, Effie.”
“But—”
“Fine.” I headed toward the door and then, not willing to just drop it, turned back to Tex. “Has anybody ever told you that you have a lot of nerve? You’re the one who’s responsible for me not sleeping in my own bed last night.”
Tex’s face turned red. “You made your decision?”
“I have now. I don’t want either one of you!”
“Real mature, Night.”
“Sorry if my maturity level is on the fritz. I’m a little off my game after spending the night in jail.”
“You were where?” Tex asked.
“Don’t act all surprised. I already know you and Nasty contacted Henning. I would have thought, after all this time, I’d at least earned a heads up that the police were on their way to arrest me.”
We glared at each other. I was so angry it took longer than it should have for Tex’s reaction to compute. And, full disclosure, it was Effie who made it perfectly clear.
“Boss?” she said. “I sort of lied to Captain Allen and told him you asked him to work with you here last night.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It was the only thing I could think of that would keep him from finding out the truth.”
THIRTY-ONE
My first instinct was to storm out, slam a few doors, and put distance between me and Tex and the situation. On the immaturity meter, that would have broken the device. And considering the four walls around me were all ones that needed to remain intact, grabbing the sledgehammer was also out of the question. I balled my fists up and considered my options. None held the satisfaction I wanted.
I kept my back to Tex and addressed Effie. “I was allowed a five-person team. I turned in five names. Theodore Rexford Allen was not one of those names.”
“Who’s Theodore Rexford All—” Effie’s eyes grew wide. “That’s Captain Allen’s name?” She looked past me. “Did people call you Teddy?”
Tex didn’t answer, and I didn’t turn around to see his expression. “Effie, did you or did you not put our application in jeopardy?”
“Hear me out, Boss. When I went to Republic Tower to get a copy of your designs, they asked me how it was going, and I said fine, because I wasn’t going to tell them the truth, you know?”
I nodded and spun my hand toward me in a small circle to indicate I wanted the rest of the story.
“But while I was there, Sterling Webster showed up and said he needed to file paperwork for a team member substitution. And then Captain Allen called to find out where you were, and I knew you did not want him to know what happened, so I said you were going through inventory and you’d be working here on the apartment complex all night.”
And Tex had shown up to help. Not knowing the only inventory I’d been doing was of the recent decisions that had led to me peeing in a cup for a drug panel.
“It’s okay, Boss,” Effie said. “You just have to file paperwork with the DIDI office to let them know you’re swapping out a team member. You can make the substitution until midnight tonight. Sterling was doing the exact same thing. It’s totally legit. It’s in the rulebook and everything.”
I turned around and glared at Tex and then turned back to Effie. “Show me,” I said.
Effie led me to the front, street facing unit where we’d set up a makeshift desk by propping a piece of plywood on two paint cans. She sat on a five-gallon drum of drywall mud, clicked through a couple of computer screens, and pointed at the monitor. “See? You have forty-eight hours before the end of the competition to change your team.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed the number. A man answered. “Dallas in Design Initiative, Gerry Rose speaking.”
I was surprised to have gotten the head of DIDI on the phone, but I didn’t let that derail my mission. “Gerry, this is Madison Night of Mad for Mod. I’m participating in the VIP competition. One of my initial team members hasn’t been available to work on our entry. Do I understand correctly that I can swap out a new team member in his place?”
“Sure,” Gerry said. “Just fill out the team member substitution form and drop a copy off at the office.”
“I can’t email it as an attachment?”
“These computer hackings have knocked us out twice so far. We’re not taking chances on any more attachments until this contest is over. If you don’t have a blank copy of the form, you can pick one up here, but you’ll need to come with the new team member because we’ll need her signature. We do require verifiable evidence that the original team member had no involvement. Is she sick or couldn’t get the time off?”
“She’s a he, and he was called out of town.”
“A copy of his hotel bill should be sufficient.”
“Okay.” I thanked him and hung up. Immediately, I called Ned’s cell phone and got his voice mail. I left him a brief message outlining my need for a copy of his hotel bill and why. “See you when you get back.” I hung up. Effie vacated my chair and I dropped into it. “I’ll take care of this,” I said to her. “You keep working.”
“What about Captain Allen?”
“Officially, he’s not a member of our team until I get this paperwork filled out and delivered to Republic Tower.” I held a pencil between my thumb and forefinger and tapped the eraser end on the surface of my desk. “Unofficially, you put that man to work.”
“Okay, Boss,” Effie said. She saluted her hard hat and left.
While waiting for Ned to call back, I studied the screen. An assortment of company logos was displayed on the contest page alongside the Mad for Mod daisy. I recognized most of them as belonging to various designers around Dallas. The same stylized rose from Sterling Webster’s brushed aluminum cover I’d seen the day I dropped off my application was the opposite of the simple daisy that I’d designed myself. The contrast told any prospective client what they needed to know about the two of us: my designs were pure, simple, and organic, and Sterling’s designs were overworked and overdesigned. His inflated client prices were needed to offset expenses like aluminum binder covers and dye-cut business cards.
I really wanted to beat him at his own game. I wanted the in-crowd of the design community to acknowledge that one woman’s vision was as good as a conglomerate. I wanted to win for all the little people out there.
A stack of file folders from Mad for Mod sat on the corner of Effie’s makeshift desk next to a portable printer. I found the file with the VIP paperwork. I didn’t have a blank copy of the form, but it would be better time management to keep Tex working while I dropped off the paperwork than to take him with me to Republic Tower. As I flipped through the contents of the folder, I discovered a note on Jane’s Posh Pit stationary.
Von—Here’s what I’m sending Madison. Too harsh? –Jane
The note was paperclipped to a printed out copy of an email. The email. The note that I’d received from Jane that had gotten me upset enough to confront her face to face.
For the past week, I’d been entrenched in Jane’s murder. I’d convinced myself that she’d had some ulterior motive for sending that email, that she hadn’t really wanted to cut me out of her life. I’d started to remember her as the friend she was and not the antagonistic woman I’d encountered in the lobby the morning she was killed.
But there was no denying the truth anymore. This note was the proof. I didn’t know why Jane had been killed, but now I knew the email was real. If Jane could speak from the dead, she’d probably tell me to butt out of the investigation into her murder.
Fine. Everything I’d done to try to get answers had led to my worst night ever, and I had no reason to stay involved. Jane had made it clear she didn’t want me in her life. I balled the email and the note in a wad and threw them into the empty box we’d been using for trash. I never wanted to be reminded of that email exchange again.
I crossed out the original information on the form and wrote in Tex’s name. I was annoyed by the mundanity of the task, but until I received Ned’s hotel reservation bill, there was nothing else I could do.
After completing the paperwork with still no word from Ned, I went in search of Connie. I found her on the second floor, sewing café curtains at a makeshift sewing station in the middle of my old apartment.
“Hey, Mads. What do you think?” She held up a curtain panel. My storage facility had been bursting with vintage fabrics acquired from various estate sales, and they’d been sorted into four piles to coordinate with the four different paint colors we’d been using. Connie’s curtain panel-in-progress was a turquoise bark cloth with a Polynesian print.
“They look great. I don’t want to interrupt you, but you haven’t heard from Ned, have you?”
“No. He said he’d be on the road today, so I don’t expect to hear from him until tonight. Why?”
I explained the situation. “I have until five to drop the paperwork off at Republic Tower, and I’m afraid if I don’t have proof that Ned’s been out of town, we’re going to either be disqualified or we won’t have enough people to get the job done.”
“No worries,” Connie said. “He booked the trip on our credit card. I’ll print out the bank statement. That’ll work, right?”
“You’re a lifesaver,” I said. Connie switched off the sewing machine and headed downstairs. I heard her voice on the back stairs. “Are you coming?” she called.
“I’ll be down in a second. Go ahead and use my computer.”
I wasn’t worried about Connie needing me to log onto my computer. Before she’d started her surprisingly successfu
l Etsy business, she worked for me part time. She knew my filing system, my passwords, and my preference for yellow highlighters. She also knew I hadn’t been in this apartment unit for a long time, so she’d understand my need to get reacquainted with the four walls.
My design had opted to use one solid color throughout the furnished rental, and in this apartment, the walls had been painted Cherry Red, a pinkish red hue that immediately lifted my spirits. Using Effie’s new sortable inventory database, I had easily accessed the furniture, appliances, knickknacks, and objects d’art to use based on color. The hardwood floors in this one unit had been exposed before I’d moved out but had benefitted from a recent buffing and glowed brightly against the white trim. When we placed rugs, loaded in the pink sofa, added Danish Modern furniture, framed floor plans, and other knickknacks, the unit would be a thing of beauty. I’d probably never be able to live in the space without remembering everything that had happened there, but that was just me.
I peeked my head into the pink bathroom and then left the apartment and returned downstairs. I heard Connie yelling before I reached my office.
“I can’t believe you lied to me,” she said “Don’t bother coming home. There is no home. We’re through!”
I rounded the corner in time to see Connie throw her phone against the wall.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What happened?”
She could barely get the words out between irregular breaths. “There’s not a single charge on our credit card which is weird. I called the office and found out Ned didn’t go on a trip to promote a new band. He went to Shreveport with his secretary. And it’s not the first time. He’s been cheating on me for who knows how long.”
Immediately I thought of the faked computer files and corrupted databases. “Connie, this virus has been doing some crazy things. Give Ned a chance to talk. I wouldn’t trust something you saw online.”
“I just gave him a chance to talk,” she said. She kicked the file cabinet behind my desk and then looked up at me. “The office connected me to the emergency number Ned gave them. He confessed to everything: the affair, the lies, and the fact that our marriage is over.”