by Casey Dawes
What if he was right? What if their issues had their root in Chris’s possibly undiagnosed social problems?
Problems similar to her daughter’s.
Like Kelly Anne, Chris was upset if things weren’t back in their place. Heaven forbid Findlay mix up his dress socks with the ones he wore to the gym. By the time Kelly Anne exhibited similar behaviors, Findlay was so used to it being the norm that she didn’t think it was odd.
The problem had been there with Chris all along. His parents had simply ignored it like she had, or “whipped him into shape” as parents faced with a difficult child often did before diagnosis and treatment advanced enough to catch up with the problem.
Like his family, she’d expected him to do things he had difficulty doing—like picking up on her emotions when she’d had a bad day. Maybe it just hadn’t been possible for him?
She pulled into the parking lot. There was a thread here. If she could just unravel it, maybe she and Chris could work things out—not to get back together but to be able to have a civil conversation and do what was best for their daughter.
Shoving the thoughts aside, she strode toward the building, the tendrils of impending winter sneaking under her collar.
Once she got her things settled in her cube, she went to see her temporary boss for an assignment. As Roger explained the changes he was trying to make in the system, the big picture slowly emerged. Roger was as vague in his description of what he wanted done as Wayne had been precise. “I know it’s way outside your normal line of duty,” Roger told her, “but if you’re anything like your dad, you’ll get it. Glad to have you here. We need someone sharp.”
Relief settled her shoulders. He didn’t view her as a burden but as a useful member of the team. Of course, he probably hadn’t heard the rumors. He looked the type that lived in his own imaginary world.
“Reese would like to see you before you leave,” Roger told Findlay near the end of the day.
Her old boyfriend was head down, poring through stacks of green and white barred computer paper.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yes.” His eyes were bloodshot. “Can you shut the door?”
Hard to believe they’d been sitting in his hotel room a few nights before.
“I asked Anita to send me the information we talked about—you know, finding out who had been here non-continuously. She was able to tell me from 2000 onward, but before that?” He picked up the listing and dropped it back on his desk with a thud. “I got this.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We have to get the rest of these things computerized. This is ridiculous.”
“I thought Sam had done that,” she said as she settled into his guest chair.
“Apparently, he was choosy with the information he input. Most recent start date went in. Any other information didn’t.”
“If you can get it on a printout, the data’s there somewhere,” she corrected. “You just can’t access it online.”
“Or we could hire a hacker,” he said.
“There is that.” She smiled at him.
He grinned back, relaxing the tension she’d been carrying since Seattle.
It shouldn’t matter.
But it did. A lot.
When she got done straightening out things with Chris, she was going to have to figure out what she was doing with Reese—if there was a future possible, and if that was what she truly wanted.
“I was hoping if we divided it . . . ” he said.
She checked her watch. “I can help for about twenty minutes. Mom’s got an appointment, and I need to pick up Kelly Anne.” She wanted to spend as much time with her daughter. The girl had been cranky since their return, going over and over again how she missed her daddy and she wanted to be with him and Cheryl.
Knife to her heart.
“That’ll have to do.” Reese’s voice brought her back to the present. He explained what he was doing and then handed her half the stack.
The office was filled with the sound of flipping pages as she scanned the data. People used to do this all the time. Hard to believe there was a time when smartphones didn’t exist.
Reese flicked a page back and forth and then returned to a page he’d marked with a paper clip.
“Gotcha,” he said.
She dropped her listing.
“Who?” she asked.
“I’m afraid it’s Wayne.”
“My boss?”
“Yep.”
Shock wrapped itself around her heart. Her father had been right. Straight-laced Wayne Johnson was a strange companion for an errant bookkeeper. Maybe he hadn’t been as conservative as everyone thought. Perhaps repentance came later.
“Why? And how do we prove it?”
“The why? People do dumb things when they’re in love . . . well, many people.” The smile was back as he stared at her for a few moments. He shook his head and said, “How? I have no idea.”
“The key lies in the old programs.”
“They would be long gone, wouldn’t they?”
“Probably. Who wants thirty-year-old programs? If the software hasn’t creaked to an ugly death by now, it will soon.”
“My father never throws anything away.” Reese propped his chin on his hands. “There are storage rooms in this building filled with paper. I’ve tried to get rid of it, but he goes nuts at the suggestion. Particularly . . . ”
He stared into space.
“What? Particularly what?”
“Not what, where. C’mon.”
“I can’t. My daughter.”
“It’s not far. Just point out what I’m looking for, and you can go. It’ll only take a few moments.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her past his open-mouthed secretary to the storage space.
Paper stacked on wooden shelves overwhelmed the room.
She pulled the nearest one and scanned it. Database dump.
Another area yielded programs, but none in the financial systems.
“Here.” The stack was larger than many of the others. “See, this is the name of the program.”
“Gobbledygook to me,” he said.
“Their naming conventions haven’t changed that much. Unusual, but good for us.” She grinned at him. “Even you should be able to read this.” She pointed to the fourth line in the listing.
He read it aloud.
“Wayne Johnson.”
“If you can pull any of these he wrote during the right time frame”—she pointed to the line with the date—“I can go through them and see if I can find anything.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Reese’s smile encouraged her. Was there hope?
But Wayne?
She liked him. He didn’t seem to have the right personality for the villain who’d driven her dad from the company. What possible reason could he have had?
“I’ll stack them in a conference room and declare it off limits.”
“It’s great to be the boss,” she said.
“Isn’t it?”
As she started to leave, he clasped her hand and pulled her back. Spinning her toward him, he pulled her close and kissed her.
She allowed hope into her heart.
Things were coming together. They were going to prove her father innocent, she’d get to save her job, and as for Reese? Maybe he was right. There might be a chance.
The only obstacle was dealing with Chris. She had to keep her daughter safe, but maybe the way to do that was to change her mind about his motives. If she’d been wrong about Wayne, the possibility of incorrect assumptions was endless.
No. She hadn’t been wrong about Chris. And anyone who said anything different wasn’t in her corner.
• • •
The next day, Findlay stayed late to look through the programs Wayne had written. She went through ten of them before the pattern emerged. She laid it out in a document on her laptop then went through five more to ensure she was correct.
Yep.
Flopping the program closed, she p
icked up her laptop and carefully locked the room behind her, the listing tucked under her arm.
She dashed into Reese’s office and placed the computer on one of the guest chairs before turning to the man rifling through the long, metal drawer.
“Ah, Findlay. He’s not here.” Sam turned and slammed the drawer shut.
What was Sam looking for in Reese’s office? His movements were jerky. Abrupt. Something was off.
“I’ll come back later,” she said.
He looked a moment too long at the green and white striped paper under her arm.
Had she read the situation all wrong? Could someone else have put Wayne’s name on that program?
“That’s okay,” Sam said. “Why don’t you have a seat? I wanted to talk with you anyway.”
“Really. I’ll come back later.”
“Sit.” His voice belonged to a stranger and so did his face. The mask had dropped, and the threat behind the simple command chilled her bones.
She sat, put the listing in her lap, and crossed her arms, the tension in her hands turning the skin white.
He closed and locked the door, dropped the blinds, and pulled the other guest chair around to face her.
“Let’s see. What do you have here?” he asked, sliding the papers away from her. He flipped to the title. “We retired this program years ago. Why would you be looking at it?” He looked at her, his expression cold in its neutrality. “This is one of the programs missing from the storage room,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”
Lie or not lie?
“No.”
“I see.” He templed his fingers.
Silence squeezed her.
“I liked your father,” he said. “I like you, too. You’re both so . . . upstanding.”
She bit her lower lip.
“Too bad you’re both too smart and persistent. Now you’re going to force my hand. I’ll have to leave town sooner than I’d planned. No matter. Everything’s set.”
Who was this man? Even though he’d been the obvious front-runner in their suspicions, what was his motive? And what did Wayne, if he was indeed the one who wrote the program now in Sam’s hand, have to do with it?
Reese would be disappointed. He’d always regarded Sam as a spare uncle.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“No matter. We’re just going to take a little ride so I can pack up my things and get out of town without anyone interfering.”
Kelly Anne. No matter what, she needed to survive for her daughter.
“Reese will be back soon.”
Sam shook his head. “I told him his father wanted to see him pronto. He always does what Daddy wants. You know that.”
Lies.
Focus. If she could stall Sam, maybe that would give Reese enough time to get back from his fool’s errand.
“What if I don’t go? What if I just walk out of the office?” She started to rise.
“It’s still the Wild West.” Pulling a small derringer from his inside jacket pocket, he chuckled, but it was mirthless. “Got to love concealed carry laws. By the time the guards get here, you’ll be unconscious and bleeding out with this little pistol in your hand.” He waved the derringer in her face. “Everyone will think you went the way your daddy went. I’ll finish up my plan and then quietly disappear.”
“Like you did to my father. Why are the programs in Wayne’s name then? Why didn’t they blame him?”
“Ah . . . so you have been looking.”
Crap. She hadn’t meant to reveal how much she knew.
“No matter. I didn’t really believe you. To answer your question, all the transfers—at least the ones I allowed them to see—went into your father’s account. I forged some instructions from him to Wayne, and everyone made the assumptions that I wanted them to, even your father’s oldest friend. That’s loyalty for you.” He glanced at his watch. “No time for diddling. Are you going quietly or not?”
More time. She needed more time to escape. She swallowed the sob in her throat.
“Quietly.”
“Told you. Smart girl. That your coat?” He pointed to the pile of down and nylon draped over the back of her chair.
She’d left it there before going to work on the programs.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go then.”
She threw her coat over her arm and walked to the door, praying he wouldn’t notice the laptop she’d left on the other chair. Hopefully, Reese could quickly figure out her easy password.
No one looked at them as they rapidly walked out of the building to Sam’s nondescript SUV. It resembled every other Montana vehicle, its color muted by sand left from driving the snowy roads.
Maybe someone . . . Li? . . . would see her car in the parking lot and come looking for her.
“Get in,” he said. “You’re driving.”
Should she resist?
“Don’t,” he said. “We’re out of sight here. I’d think nothing of bashing in your pretty little head in. Messy, but effective.”
She hesitated.
“I’m not a violent man, but I’ll do what I have to. You have a little girl. Be a shame if anything happened to her mommy.”
She moved.
He directed her to his house, well up Rattlesnake Canyon.
A few deer crossed in front of her, causing her to slam the brakes.
“Easy now. The car may look like shit, but everything’s in prime working order.”
The hills closed around them as they went up the canyon. She flicked on the lights to combat the growing darkness, but it didn’t ease the shadows that lined the edge of the road, like shape-shifters ready to pounce.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why’d I do it?”
“Yeah. Why did you ruin my father’s life?”
“Because I could. He and Brian, even Sally, they thought they were so smart. But they needed me. Problem was, even after I’d saved their company, they treated me like an illegitimate half-brother never allowed into the inner circle. I did what I did to get back at them, attacking the weakest link. Losing Sally to Brian left your father a little unsure of his manhood. I simply twisted the knife in that wound whenever I could. By the time I gave him the final shove, it was easy. His suicide was a nice bonus.”
Bile rose in her throat. The man had no morals. None at all.
Another slick patch slowed her down.
“Brian broke under the guilt. Stopped taking care of himself. Had an affair, throwing his marriage on the rocks. I’d counted on Sally taking a powder, but she was made of stronger stuff than the men she’d gone into business with.”
The tree limbs brushed against the sides of the SUV as she navigated up the rocky drive to a sprawling two-level.
“I’m going to miss this place.” Sam grabbed the keys from the ignition and jumped out. His knuckles were white as he gripped her arm and yanked her from the truck. “Had to come back, didn’t you? If you’d stayed in Seattle, I wouldn’t have to do this.”
“If you’d left me alone, I wouldn’t have gone looking,” she retorted.
He barked a laugh.
“I would have if it hadn’t been so much fun to destroy you. That, and kick Brian’s whelp in the stomach once more. Poor Reese, looking so lovesick.” Sam’s chuckle was macabre.
Once inside the house, he opened the first inside door.
“In here. It shouldn’t take me long.”
The door closed, leaving slivers of yellow outlining its shape.
Findley tried the knob. It didn’t budge.
Of course not.
Anything she could use as a weapon?
A few coats on wooden hangers, two pairs of boots, a stray glove, and an unbent wire hanger.
Probably used to unlock a car.
Nothing.
Unless.
She picked up the hanger. Slipping off her coat, she threaded the wire up the left sleeve and down the back of the coat. It took a few minutes to
bend it in strategic places like her elbow, but it was there. Putting her coat back on, she tested the theory.
It wouldn’t work quickly, but if she threw enough force behind it and hit a strategic spot, it would give her additional leverage.
The lock clicked open.
“Out.” Sam’s smile was gone.
Time was running out. Once again, his movements were jerky. If he were agitated, he might do something rash.
He was behind her now. If she turned, he’d grab her before she could stab him. Once they were inside the truck cab?
Probably not. The quarters were too tight.
She’d have to wait for the right opportunity. It would show up. It had to.
He shoved her in the driver’s seat and walked around to the other side.
She could leap out and run, but the snow was deep on either side of the packed-down drive. He’d be on her in no time.
The tires crunched through the snow as she made her way back down the valley and onto the interstate headed east.
They went through the pass and beyond Bonner. Not a lot of traffic on the dark road: an occasional trucker, pickup, and an out-of-state sedan breaking the already fast eighty-mile-an-hour speed limit.
“Next exit,” he said.
She turned off the highway.
“There’s nothing here.”
“Go through the underpass and turn right at the T intersection.”
Think, Findlay. Think.
The road curved away from the interstate and past a road construction site. Snow-covered piles of gravel and sand loomed around them.
“Oof,” she said. She hadn’t seen the pavement switch to dirt, or the pothole immediately after.
“Be careful, you dumb twit. I don’t want to have to fix an axle.”
Concentrating on the road took away her ability to think of ways to escape. Looked like she’d have to wing it.
Within a few moments they were beyond any shred of civilization. Massive pines grew close and the road narrowed, giving way to about six inches of snow. The four-wheel drive handled it, but she had to slow down even further.
“In here. Don’t worry. The tires are high enough to clear it.”
She pulled into a slim opening in the trees with barely enough room to open the door. Once again, he pulled the keys from the ignition.
“Get out,” he said.