“They’re corrupted. The software wouldn’t even recognize them.”
Corrupted? How the hell did her files get corrupted? It wasn’t possible. “Did you try opening them with FrameMaker?” Which was the program in which she’d created them.
“Of course I did, Lola.” Even over the Bluetooth, his sarcasm rang through.
“Okay, well, I’ll have to check them. Sorry about this.”
“Fine. But we’re getting down to the wire.”
“I’ll call you when I’ve got the problem resolved.”
“Make it snappy.”
She tapped the button, but she was sure he’d already disconnected. Dammit. She wanted to pound her head against the steering wheel. Instead, she turned on her blinker, gunned the engine, and zipped around the slowpoke in her way.
It was gone, all that delicious bliss, even the phantom scent of Gray in her head. You just couldn’t hold on to good things. She knew that; it was why she didn’t like relationships. They never lasted.
* * *
UNLOCKING THE FRONT DOOR AND STEPPING INSIDE, LOLA COULD hear them. Their laughter didn’t emanate from their room, which was first on her right, or the living room off to the left. It originated down the hall, and the only rooms down there were her bedroom and her office.
Lola began to seethe.
She was stealthy, tiptoeing so her sandals didn’t slap on the front entry tile. Like a secret agent, she crept along the wall before her office door, then stuck her head around the jamb.
Harry was seated at the computer, her computer. William was on his knees, elbows on the desktop, watching as Harry typed.
They hadn’t heard her unlock the front door. She whirled into the doorway, stood with her legs planted firmly apart, hands jammed on her hips. “What. Are you. Doing?” she snapped, three separate sentences booming across her office.
Harry jumped and hit William in the nose with his elbow, who in turn squealed and fell back on his butt.
“Aunt Lola.” Harry stared, his eyes as wide as fried eggs.
“This is my office.” She stabbed her chest. “And that is my computer.” She jabbed a finger toward her desk. “Why are you using it without my permission?”
“I—I—” Harry didn’t usually stammer.
“Step away from the keyboard. Now.” She wasn’t about to let them erase any evidence of what they’d been doing.
Harry stood, the chair flying out behind him and rolling into the wall. William scuttled away on his hands and knees, then slowly rose to his feet. They both held their hands in the air as if she were a cop with a gun on them.
She had a password for initial start-up but didn’t employ a screen saver password. Obviously she should have shut everything down when she left this morning. And obviously she needed to deploy her office door lock as well.
She advanced on them. William rubbed his nose, but it wasn’t swollen or bleeding. It wasn’t even red. Though Harry’s cheeks puffed in and out like a fish’s gills, not another word came out.
“The files I sent to my boss were corrupted. What have you done to my computer?” She had no clue how they could possibly have screwed up her files.
Finally, Harry fired a brain cell that worked his mouth. “We were just doing our online driving instruction, Aunt Lola. Your screen is so much bigger.”
Both her monitors were twenty-three inches as compared to their fifteen-inch laptop screens. And on the one they were using, she could indeed make out the driving school’s logo. But maybe they’d had time to toggle from another window.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t ever touch my stuff unless you have my permission.” She couldn’t remember what program she’d had open on her desktop when she left. She’d never considered it an issue. But she should have. “Have you used my computer before when I’m not home?”
God, they could have been sending spam emails from her account, surfing porn sites, infecting her computer with sneaky, dirty little viruses.
“We’re sorry, Aunt Lola. We only used it today. Because it was already booted.” Harry’s gaze was an earnest, plaintive, puppy-dog brown.
But he was such a good actor. He could play Oliver Twist with that sweet, angelic face begging for another bowl of gruel, when inside beat the heart of the Artful Dodger.
“I am going to run scans and check registries and follow your history trail like bread crumbs”—of course they’d probably erased everything from previous uses—“and if I find anything . . . ” She stared them down, left the threat hanging.
“You won’t, honest, Aunt Lola. We were just running the driving program, I swear.”
She moved aside, then pointed to the door. “Go. Do not bother me for the next hour.” She glared a long moment. “Or there will be consequences.”
They scuttled out.
And she asked herself what consequences? She felt for anyone who was a parent with a child who just would not listen. What could you really do? You couldn’t beat them or starve them or lock them in a closet. So what made them behave if they simply didn’t feel like it?
“I’m never having children,” she muttered, then marched back out to the living room.
They were seated on the couch, laptops open, identical studious lines on their foreheads.
She held out both hands. “I want all cell phones, iPods, iPads, MP3s, video-game consoles.” Was there anything else? She had no idea. “You can work on your driving instructions until we leave for the lesson. Then I want the computers, too. You are in total blackout until tomorrow morning.”
When Harry opened his mouth to argue—if that’s what he intended to do—she cut him off. “And we’re having a chick flick marathon tonight on streaming.”
They grimaced, and she had the insane urge to laugh. But they handed over everything. Almost everything. Harry clutched his phone. “What if we have an emergency call from Mom?”
“If she can’t get hold of you, she’ll call my phone.”
He finally relinquished it, then swiped at his eye as if there might actually be a tear there. Lola wasn’t moved.
With an armload of their gadgets, she gave them one last glare and a parting shot. “And when I’m done checking my files, we’re going for a walk.”
They gaped. “Walk?”
Teenagers never seemed to walk anywhere, except if you counted cruising the mall. “Yes, a walk. You need exercise after working on your computers.”
“But we get five hours of exercise with Coach Barnett.” William groaned.
Lola smiled. “That’s tomorrow.”
Turning her back on them, she marched down the hall. She stored their devices in her office closet. And from now on she would lock the freaking door when she wasn’t sitting right there.
Forty-five minutes later, she’d found no ill effects on the computer. The twins had been in the online driving forum, so they hadn’t lied about that. The history showed nothing, but she deleted her history every time she logged out, so that didn’t mean anything. If they’d used her email program to send any funky emails, they’d deleted any evidence. The quick scan found no viruses, and she was running the full scan now. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with the FrameMaker files that she’d sent.
She dialed Paul Robinson and said she’d bring him a disk this afternoon after she’d dropped the boys off at the driving school.
“Look, we figured out the problem,” Paul said without an ounce of apology in his tone.
“What was wrong?”
“George loaded some new software on his computer, and it screwed things up.”
She stared at her computer screen without seeing it. “George messed up the files?”
“The files are fine. The software just wouldn’t recognize them. But it’s fixed now, so you don’t have to bring the disk down.”
George. Was this about the date she’d turned down? Had he done it on purpose to make her look bad? It couldn’t be. Because it made him look even worse than it did her.
She didn’t want to think about George. Or the twins. She didn’t want to think about the Fletcher project or Paul Robinson. She wanted to think about Gray and that glorious hour in his office. She wanted back the bliss she’d lost. She needed it back. So she called him. When he didn’t answer, she left a message in the softest, sexiest of voices, so soft he might not even be able to hear.
“God. You cannot possibly know how good that was.”
She was hooked. Completely. Now all she could do was hope the smackdown, when it came, wouldn’t cripple her forever.
18
OH YES, HE KNEW EXACTLY HOW GOOD IT WAS. GRAY FIGURED THAT his experience both before and after his marriage qualified as far more vast than Lola’s. So he knew their sexual connection was unique, their chemistry rare.
Which was why, in the middle of a product-review meeting when he should have been paying attention to his VP of development, Gray sent Lola a text reply to the voicemail she’d left earlier.
Very good, my naughty little slut. U performed well.
Seated at the head of the table, he kept the phone down on his lap, the sound on vibrate so there were no tones as he typed.
Jones, on the high side of fifty, his hair thinning, his paunch growing, was repetitive. Another time, Gray might have told him to skip the corporate history lesson and move on to the meat of the discussion, but for now he was content with the analysis.
The blinds were closed against the blast of August sun, and consequently the room was stuffy with male sweat and conflicting aftershaves. The coffee had started to stew on its warmer. He didn’t usually allow himself to become distracted, but the scent of her clung to his clothes, her taste lingered on his tongue, and the sound of her cries superseded Jones’s sonorous tones.
The phone vibrated in Gray’s hand. His heart actually began to beat faster in anticipation. There was definitely an added thrill with illicit sex. He could understand why employees succumbed to office affairs. Without dropping his gaze, he pushed the Menu button on the phone to open her reply.
Three seconds later, he glanced down to read.
I’m not the slut. U demanded I come there. U made me pull up my skirt. It was all U U U.
Returning to his view of Jones’s weathered visage, he smiled inwardly. Yes, it was all him. He’d commanded, she had obeyed. She’d allowed him every liberty. When she’d climaxed, she’d contracted so tightly around him, she’d dragged him down with her. What a way to go.
And she was right. It was so far from punishment for her nephews’ crimes. He no longer needed an excuse, not for her, not for himself.
Jones moved into the new-product release schedule, which was actually the point of the review. It was not simply an engineering or development matter. It was also about the reserves that were needed to adequately cover potential returns and allowances, which were higher in a product’s infancy. The question was how much and when to increase accruals. Overestimating requirements affected the bottom line in the current period. Underestimation, however, could mean a big lump-sum hit at quarter-end or year-end. Bannerman, his CFO, was conservative—as an accountant should be—compared with Gray’s more aggressive tendencies. Generally, they tempered each other.
He listened to the discussion as he typed on the phone’s small sliding keyboard.
Dirty bitch, don’t deny U loved it. U need more. U R obsessed with sex.
The brief sexual byplay via text made him feel alive. His skin seemed to hum like an electrical current buzzing just beneath the surface. He was semi-hard, ready. If she walked in the door, he’d take her on the conference table in front of his staff.
He decided to type exactly that.
She was back in a flash.
Naughty Coach. Look who’s obsessed.
Oh, yeah. He was. And to use her words, she couldn’t possibly know how good that felt.
U R my filthy little whore.
He loved the dirty talk, especially because of the place in which he sat, at the head of the table, chief executive officer in the middle of a meeting.
Jones and Bannerman were looking at him, waiting for his input. Gray slid his phone into his pocket.
“Ten percent is far too high,” he told them. “What’s the failure rate in QC, Reynolds?”
Reynolds was his head of manufacturing. Quality control was his bailiwick. Tall, dark-skinned, with classical features like a black Apollo, he was the youngest of Gray’s staff. But he knew his stuff. Gray had been impressed during the interview and had never had an occasion to revise that first opinion downward.
“We’re seeing two percent.” Which was pretty damn good. “There’s always a slight bump in the field, but ten percent failure rate isn’t supported by any of my data.”
They settled on three percent for August and the fourth quarter and moved on to other issues. When Gray had an occasion to check his texts later, he found another from Lola.
If I’m your whore, then where’s my payment?
Oh, she would have payment, most definitely. He started planning her remuneration right then.
And he was still considering his plans far into the evening. As he ate dinner. While he reviewed a couple of spreadsheets on his laptop. Exactly how much did she deserve? And would she like his payment, since it wouldn’t exactly fit under the heading of traditional?
He was returning from the master bathroom at the far end of the house. A noise in the kitchen pricked his ears, and while he wasn’t an alarmist, he padded lightly down the hall to investigate.
Rafe leaned both elbows on the breakfast bar, his hands supporting his chin. Gray’s keys, wallet, and cell phone lay on the tile counter in front of him.
“What are you doing?” he asked sharply.
Rafe jumped, slamming his hand down on the counter. It landed on the phone. Gray discerned a slight movement of a pinkie finger as if he might be hitting a button or two.
Then his son stammered, “I—I—well . . . ” He slapped his lips shut, opened them again. “I was just waiting for you. I heard you back in the bathroom.”
The only way Rafe could have heard the water running as Gray washed his hands was if he’d walked all the way back to the open master bedroom door. Just as Gray hadn’t heard him enter, Rafe wouldn’t have been able to hear him if all he’d done was come in and enter the kitchen. Why hadn’t he called out to say he was here?
“Were you looking at my phone?” He hadn’t erased the string of texts to Lola. He hadn’t mentioned her name, and it should show only her cell number.
“Of course I wasn’t,” Rafe said too quickly. “I was just thinking.”
He was lying. He’d probably been trying to figure out who had been here that night last week when he’d dropped by unexpectedly. Rafe was checking up on him.
Gray entered the room, stepped to the opposite side of the counter. The screen was once again blank. He didn’t have an extended time on the lighted screen.
He could call Rafe a liar, but it was counterproductive at this point. It would only create another argument between them, which he was loath to do after the good weekend they’d had. Saturday evening they’d enjoyed pizza and a movie. Sunday they’d gone for a hike in Edgewood Park. Rafe had shown no signs of his usual sullenness.
He was probably waiting until the new car was insured and the registration sticker on the license plates, then he’d revert to his usual attitude.
“Did your mom mention anything about the insurance?”
Rafe ran his thumbnail along a line of tile grout. “Yes. That’s all done.”
“Good.”
Finally Rafe looked up. “The guys really like the car. You were right, Dad. It’s pretty cool.”
Something warm and tender wrapped itself around Gray’s insides. He’d been stupid to fight getting the car. The aftereffect of the purchase was this truce between them. Maybe it wouldn’t last, but he wasn’t going to question it now.
“You want to stay for a movie? I got the new Jason Statham.” Rafe liked the high
-action actor.
He was still fingering the grout. “I kinda told Mom I wouldn’t be that long.”
“All right, I can save it. Thanks for stopping by and letting me know about the guys.” It didn’t matter which guys. It only mattered that Rafe had actually admitted his father was right about something.
These days, that was a huge step between them.
* * *
THE EMAIL WAS TIME-STAMPED WITH 9:45 AM PST. TUESDAY. THE subject line read YOU, and the address was a generic gmail account. She would normally have discounted it as spam. Except that the letter had arrived in this morning’s mail. Lola’s sixth sense was telling her the letter and the email were connected.
“Okay,” she said softly, “bite the bullet.”
She double-clicked the mouse, and the email filled one of her twenty-three-inch screens.
BITCH WHORE SLUT. Over and over on the page. All caps, in different sizes and different colors. It was actually quite creative.
But it wasn’t funny. And she couldn’t dismiss it. Not after the letter had come in this morning’s ten o’clock mail.
That was still lying on the desk beside her. Mailed in Menlo Park on Monday, it had taken one day to arrive. The address had been typed rather than handwritten. The return label was phony, no name, just a street address. And she was pretty damn sure there was no road named Ho Lane in Menlo Park. Ho as in whore. At least that was her interpretation based on the contents of the letter. It was also typed, no signature. Short and to the point, she’d read the missive enough times to memorize it.
I know who you are, Bitch, and I know what you’re doing.
That sounded like a melodramatic old movie.
You can’t treat people like this. You’ll be sorry for what you’ve done. You will pay. And you’ll never hurt anyone like this again. I promise you.
And on the monitor, each epithet in the email seemed to pulsate, especially those in red.
Who takes that kind of time to color and size each word separately?
It wasn’t at all like George. He’d never said a bad word in front of her, never acted like a drama queen, certainly never to the extent of the letter. That was total drama queen. She’d always thought of George as . . . a nerd. How mean was that? Maybe he’d sensed the thoughts she’d had about him, and when she’d rebuffed him, he’d gone off the deep end. Maybe he’d even sabotaged the files she’d sent and only confessed when Frank, or even Paul, figured out George was responsible.
The Naughty Corner Page 16