A Taste of Tragedy (16 page)

Sofia
always saved Sundays for herself, a day to relieve the stress of the previous week and rejuvenate her spirit for the week to come. She slept until seven, hours later than her usual wake up time, enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee on her small balcony, and read all sections of the newspaper including the fluff.

After reading the paper, she jogged to the gym, located three miles away, for an extended workout. She tried to allow an hour every day for martial arts to release pent up anxiety and keep her reflexes sharp, but Sundays were reserved for a complete traditional routine, including strength training, yoga, and cardio.

With a more rigorous workout than normal complete, she stepped out onto the street and began her jog home. As she rounded the corner of the block leading to her condo, she felt her cell phone vibrate.

Cursing the intrusion on her day through clenched teeth, she pulled the device out of the small pocket sewn inside her running shorts. She had no friends and no family, so a call on Sunday couldn’t be good. The lack of caller ID on the display confirmed her suspicion that it wasn’t Justine or anyone else she worked with at BCF.

“Yes,” she gasped as she slowed to a walk.

“My darling, you leave me breathless as well.”

She wished she could take pleasure in the flirtatious greeting from a wealthy and handsome man, but there was no point. J.R. was not the sincere, one-woman, settle-down-and-have-a-family type of man, and she had no desire to be another one of his toys he pulled off the shelf whenever he got bored. Unfortunately,
Sofia
feared she had become just that, and she mentally chastised herself for wishing it could be more. Some women could have it all, but she wasn’t naïve enough to think she could be one of them.

“I’m nearly finished with my run. Can this wait?” She knew the answer. J.R. never waited for anyone, but she had to try to establish boundaries wherever she could.

“You don’t sound as if you’re still basking in the glow of our latest tryst.”

She knew it could be dangerous to offend him, but she had to find a way to reestablish a more professional balance of power.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a tryst. The entire group was called together for an emergency meeting to strategize on how to minimize the potential damage from the developing situation in
Arizona
.”

“Yes, but you’re the only one who stayed over to, shall we say, socialize.”

Sofia
took a deep breath. She regretted not flying home that day right after the meeting. J.R. had insisted she stay and she had caved to his desires, as usual. The worst part was that she suspected the others knew about her and J.R. They had probably lost all respect for her, mistakenly believing it was her body, not her
brains, that
had gained J.R.’s trust and respect.

“What do you want?”

“You know better than anyone else what I want, but since that is impossible to accomplish long distance, I’ll get to the point. Our member in
Arizona
appears to be in over his head. I need you to go and clean up his mess and make sure he doesn’t continue to put us all in jeopardy. As you keep reminding us, we are no longer operating off the radar after the mishaps in
Wyoming
and
Utah
.”

“A capable resource is already in place to monitor the situation in
Arizona
and take care of any mishaps?”

“Yes, but clearly that resource could use a little guidance from his mentor, or we wouldn’t be in this situation. I need you to watch, report back to me, and reeducate your former employee on giving due attention to the smallest details, since those are often the ones that come back to haunt us. I’m losing faith in local management to contain the situation. You make much more rational decisions, and I trust your judgment to take action as necessary.”

Sofia
grimaced
. If I make such good decisions, how did I let myself get mixed up with J.R. on a personal level?

She was even beginning to question their business relationship. He seemed so sincere behind closed doors, but in her experience, all men did while they were getting what they wanted. Eventually, though, they tired of the same woman and moved on to someone new and younger. As far as business was concerned, she feared how much he would ask of her and how far she would go to please him.

Sofia
sighed, resigned to the reality of her position. There was no point in arguing further. If she refused to go, there would likely be someone at her office on Monday morning “monitoring the situation.”

“How soon do I need to be there?”

“Well, first thing in the morning, of course. Now, they couldn’t run a manufacturing facility without a production manager, could they?”

“That’s not enough time to develop a cover.”

“Just use Candace Rogers. We went to all that work to create that profile and you barely used it. Besides, that name hasn’t been released widely to law enforcement or I would know.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea? Just because they haven’t put out an APB yet doesn’t mean they haven’t connected the dots. Maybe they’re playing their cards a little closer to their chests after learning about the bogus investigator reports.”

“You worry too much. If they have made the connection, by the time they post an All-Points Bulletin and some law enforcement officer actually pays attention and figures out you’re in Arizona, you’ll be gone and we won’t use the alias again. This has to be taken care of in the next few days. There really is no point in letting this situation drag on.”

“Very well.”
Sofia
capitulated.

“I’ll have my private plane fly you out, which will reduce the risk of going through airport security. Be ready in two hours.”

Sofia
ended the call and finished running the last few blocks to her condo. She had a lot to do in a very short period of time.

Dawn hadn’t broken, yet Aaron was already hiding in the scrub next to Morgan’s house. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of creeping around in the dark in rattlesnake country, but he needed to make this quick. His ears were tuned in to every sound of the desert, and his eyes had adjusted well to the light of the fading stars and moon, eliminating any need for artificial light.

As he crouched in the cover of the shadows, his stocking feet absorbed the coolness from the dirt. The feeling took him back to his first theft. The cheap rubber soles of his only shoes had worn through, rubbing a hole through his socks. At first, the flesh on the balls of his feet blistered. Eventually, the skin had calloused over, eliminating any feeling of pain, cold, or heat. But that didn’t make his situation fair.

He’d desperately needed new footwear and had picked out a target. Every day, he’d watched the same teen, and nearly every day, the young man had on a different pair of sneakers. He studied his usual route and the shoes. He was sure they would fit. One evening, he followed the guy until they reached a spot with few others around.

Walking up to the young man, he shoved his finger, concealed in his sweatshirt pocket, into his side and demanded the shoes. The terrified young man, thinking he had a gun in his ribs, quickly kicked out of the shoes and darted off the moment Aaron lowered his hand. It had been too easy, and had started him on the path toward his destiny and Sofia.

The sound of the garage door raising broke through Aaron’s thoughts. He waited patiently as Morgan backed her car out, turned around, and the headlights disappeared down the lane. After several more minutes, he could no longer hear the vehicle’s motor. It was time to move.

He crept out of his hiding place and jogged to the house. His visual inspection of the exterior of the home the previous day revealed no security cameras, so he didn’t bother to conceal his movements as he made his way to the sliding glass door at the back of the house.

Climbing the three stairs leading up to the raised deck, he pulled on a thin pair of gloves. It took only moments to pop the lock on the sliding doors. Inserting a wedge in the track was such an easy way to add a layer of security to these types of doors that it always surprised him how few people bothered.

Once inside, he punched the power button on the computer and quickly searched the rest of the house while the machine booted up. He found nothing interesting except for a photo on the mantel of her in a man’s embrace. They looked so happy and in love that it made him wonder if she was widowed. If she was divorced, it seemed odd she would keep the picture displayed. It didn’t really matter. He doubted he would ever learn about her personal life.

After locating no information relating to the e-mails or the MFHG3 sample, he focused his attention on the computer. Looking through all the folders in the documents on the hard drive he found the three messages in a folder labeled “Important.” He was pleased to see that she had her e-mail set to stay logged in, so a simple click on sent messages revealed that she hadn’t sent any new e-mails to anyone since the time she would have discovered Stan’s messages.

Aaron retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and tapped the first programmed number.

“The bad news is she did download the e-mails to her computer here, the good news is it doesn’t look like she’s sent them to anyone. I’ll delete the files and damage the system.”

“Good work. Get back here as soon as you can. I’ve got a bad feeling that J.R. isn’t going to let us handle this in-house after I told him yesterday that I suspected she took a sample from the plant.”

Aaron disconnected, stowed the phone, and focused on the machine on the counter. With several clicks the files were gone. After accessing a few more locations on her computer, he was confident he had wiped out all the automated backup copies that might exist.

He had good computer skills, but as an extra measure of insurance, after powering the computer down, he held it under the faucet, making sure to run water over the ports, keyboard, drives, and any other openings that might allow water inside the computer. He shook the excess water off the machine, figuring the rest would dry before she returned, and placed it on the counter exactly as he had found it.

A few adjustments with the tools in his pocket, and he was able to repair the latch to disguise the fact it had been breached. Locking the sliding glass doors from the inside, Aaron let himself out the front door, locking it behind him.

Jogging to the trailhead parking lot where he had left his rental car, Aaron glanced at his watch. If he didn’t get stuck in traffic when he reached the city, he should arrive an hour or so behind Morgan. He would call once he was on the road and make up some excuse for being late. He doubted she would question him since it was well known, especially to her, that he ultimately reported to
Preston
.

*
 
*
 
*

Unlike the previous Sunday night, Morgan had slept like a baby. Spending the entire day outside exploring the hills had pushed all the fear about her job out of her mind, and ample quantities of fresh air always seemed to tire her out completely.

This time, her drive into Phoenix on Monday morning seemed like a minor inconvenience for the opportunity to spend a wonderful weekend in Sedona. She had found contentment in talking to old friends like Joe and Susan and exploring the hills behind her house. She felt grounded again, her priorities falling back into place.

Maybe being married to Nick had made her more suspicious of people than normal. Hopefully, she would hear back from him soon, and he could put her concerns to rest once and for all. She wanted nothing more than to focus on building a life here. She normally enjoyed her career, but it would no longer rule her life. If she got a second shot at personal happiness, she wouldn’t blow it again.

Morgan drove straight to GCF. She parked her car in the underground garage and made her way up to her office. Aaron’s desk looked just as it had when she left Friday, which she found odd. She had no idea how early he came in, but he always looked as if he had been at work for hours by the time she arrived. Rather than being concerned for his safety or upset with him for being late, she felt relieved. His presence unnerved her, and she doubted she would ever be able to trust him after the desk key incident.

Logging on to her computer, Morgan scanned her calendar for the day and week and checked her e-mail. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary—a meeting with the financial team in the morning to go over her marketing budget for the rest of the year, and then a meeting with marketing later in the day to break the bad news she was sure to get from the finance folks. From her experience, budget meetings seldom went the way she hoped.

Her direct line rang. Knowing Aaron still wasn’t at his desk, she answered.

“Ms. Hunter, sorry, I’m running a little late. When I got up this morning, I realized I had no hot water. I notified the building superintendent and he assured me it would be fixed today. Anyway, to make a long story short, I went down to my gym to shower for work and then back to my apartment to dress, and now I’m stuck in the worst of morning rush hour traffic. As you know, I usually try to get there well before the traffic snarls heat up.”

“No problem. You put in plenty of hours, so it’s not an issue. Thanks for calling.” Morgan hung up the phone and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Something was going to have to be done about Aaron. She couldn’t be effective if her assistant had her on pins and needles. Knowing everything she did and said would be reported to her boss was unacceptable.

It was clear where Aaron’s loyalties rested. Maybe she could trade assistants with
Preston
or another vice president. That would be a very touchy subject, so it would have to wait until all the other questions running through her mind were settled.