The Heaven Trilogy (30 page)

He glanced at his hand around hers, and he pulled back self-consciously.

“Honestly? No,” she answered.

“Well, I do. And I could do it.” He gripped his right hand into a fist. “If it wasn’t for all these fools who keep sticking their noses in my business . . .” Now it was more rage than anger lacing his voice, and he shook slightly.

Lacy blinked and tilted her head. He was making no sense. “Excuse me. What are we talking about here?
Who
are we talking about? You still work at the bank, right?”

“The cop at the bookstore for one thing. I can’t shake him.”

“You can’t shake him? You’ve seen him again?”

“No, well yes—or maybe. I don’t know if I really saw him again, but he’s right there, you know. Riding along in my mind.”

“Come on, Kent. You’re overreacting now. For all you know, he was some kook pretending to be a cop. You don’t know anything about this investigation of theirs.”

He snapped his eyes to hers. “Pretending?”

“No, I don’t know. I’m just saying
you
don’t know. I’m not actually saying he was a kook, but there’s no reason to walk around in this fear of yours when you hardly know a thing about the man. You have nothing to hide.”

He blinked a few times quickly and bobbed his head. “Yeah. Hmm. Never thought of that.” His glassy eyes stared at her cup now. Poor guy was upside down.

“Cliff ’s driving me nuts. I could kill the guy.”

“Cliff, the new programmer? I thought you liked him. Now you’re talking about killing the kid?” Lacy stood and walked to the coffee machine. “You’re sounding scary, Kent.”

“Yeah, never mind. You’re right. I’m okay. I’m just . . .”

But he wasn’t okay. He was sitting with his back to her, rubbing his temples now. He was coming unglued. And by the sounds of it, not from his wife’s death, but from matters that followed no rhyme or reason. She should walk over there and knock some sense into his head. Or maybe go over there and hold him.

Her stomach hollowed at the thought.
A woman does not hold a man in a platonic relationship, Lacy. Shake his hand, maybe. But not hold him, as in, Let me put my hands on your face and stroke your cheek and run my fingers through your hair and tell you that everything—

Something hot burned her thumb.

“Ouch!” Lacy snatched her hand to her mouth and sucked on the thumb. She had overfilled the cup.

Kent turned to her. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Coffee burn.” She returned to her seat.

“Helen moved in with me,” he said.

Lacy sat back down. “Your mother-in-law? You’re kidding! I thought you two were at each other’s throats.”

“We were. We are. I’m not even sure how it happened—it just did. She’s staying in the sewing room.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.” He was shaking his head again, and this time a tear had managed to slip from his right eye. “I don’t know anything anymore, Lacy.” Kent suddenly dropped his head onto folded arms and started to sob quietly. The man was stretched beyond his capacities.

Lacy felt her heart contract beyond her control. If she wasn’t careful the tears would be coming from her eyes as well. And then one did, and she knew she could not just watch him without offering some comfort.

She waited as long as her resolve would allow. Then she stood unsteadily from her chair and stepped to his side. She stood over him for a brief moment, her hand lifted motionlessly above his head. His wavy blond hair rested against his head just as it had years ago, halfway down a strong neck.

Lacy had one last round with the inner voice that insisted she keep this relationship purely platonic. She told the voice to stretch its definition of
platonic.

And then she lowered her hand to his head and touched him.

She could feel the electrical impulse run through his body at her touch. Or was it running through
her
body? She knelt and put her arm around his shoulder. His sobs shook him gently.

“Shhhh.” Her cheek was now wet with tears. “It will be okay,” she whispered.

Kent turned into her then, and they held each other.

That’s all they did. Hold each other. But they held each other for a long time, and when Kent finally left an hour later, Lacy had all but decided that
platonic
was a word best left in the textbooks. Or maybe just erased altogether. It was a silly word.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

KENT DRAGGED himself to work Thursday morning, swallowing continually against the dread that churned in his gut. It reminded him of the time he’d been audited by the IRS three years earlier. He’d felt like a stranded Jew interrogated by the Gestapo. Only this time things were clearly worse. Then, he’d had nothing to hide beyond the moving deduction he’d possibly inflated. Now he had his whole life to hide.

His eyes had taken to leaking again—as they had those first few weeks after Gloria’s death. The tears came without warning, blurring traffic signals and dissolving his dashboard to a sea of strange symbols. A dull ache droned through his head—a reminder of the “nightcaps” he’d indulged himself in after returning from Boulder. If it wasn’t for the single thread of hope that strung through his mind, he might have stayed home. Downed some more nightcaps. Of course, he would have to tread lightly now that Helen had managed to work her way into his life. Things seemed to be coming apart at the seams again, and he had hardly begun this mad plan of his.

As it was, those words Lacy had spoken the previous evening triggered a new thought. A most desperate plan, really, but one to which he could cling for the moment. “For all you know he was some kook pretending to be a cop,” Lacy had said. It was true that the cop had not shown his badge, and everyone knew that a business card could be had in half an hour at Kinko’s. Still, he had known too much to be pretending. That was not it. But the comment had spawned another thought that centered around the word
kook
. And it had to do with Cliff, not the cop.

From all indications, it seemed that Cliff was on to him. Somehow that little snoop had gotten a hair up his nose and decided something needed exposing. So then why not undermine the kid? Showing him to be a kook might be a tad difficult; after all, the guy had already demonstrated his competence as a programmer. But that didn’t mean he was squeaky clean. For starters, he was a snowboarder, and snowboarders were not textbook examples of conformists. There had to be some dirt out there on Cliff. Just enough to spin some doubts. Even a rumor with no basis at all.
Did you know that Cliff is the ringleader for the Satanist priesthood that murdered that guy in Naperville?
Didn’t matter if there was such a priesthood or a murder or even a Naperville. Well, maybe it mattered a little.

By the time Kent got to work he knew precisely how he would spend his morning. He would spend it dragging Cliff into the dirt. And if need be, he would create the dirt himself with a few clicks of his mouse. Yes indeed, twenty years of hard study and work were gonna pay off this morning.

His ritual
Good mornings
came hard, like trying to speak with a mouthful of bile. But he managed them and rushed into his office, locking the door behind him. He made it halfway to his chair when the knock came. Kent grimaced and considered ignoring the fool—whichever fool it was. It didn’t matter; they were all fools. It was probably Cliff the hound out there, sniffing at his door.

Kent opened the door. Sure enough, Cliff stood proud, wearing his ear-to-ear pineapple-eating grin.

“Hey, Kent. What are you doing this morning?”

“Work, Cliff.” He could not hide his distaste. The realization that he was sneering at the man flew through his mind, but he was powerless to adjust his facial muscles.

Cliff seemed undeterred. “Mind if I come in, Kent? I’ve got some things you might want to look at. It’s amazing what you can find if you dig deep enough.” Cheese.

Kent’s right hand nearly flew out and slapped that smiling face on impulse. But he held it to a tremble by his side. Things had evidently just escalated. It could very possibly all come down to this moment, couldn’t it? This snowboard sniffer here may very well have the goods on him. Then a thought dropped into his mind.

“How about one o’clock? Can you hold off until then?”

Cliff hesitated and lost the grin. “I would prefer to meet now, actually.”

“I’m sure you would, but I have some urgent business to attend to right now, Cliff. How about one o’clock?”

“And what kind of urgent business is that, Kent?”

They stared at each other without speaking for a full ten seconds.

“One o’clock, Cliff. I’ll be right here at one.”

The programmer nodded slowly and stepped back without answering. Kent closed the door, immediately breathing heavily. He scrambled for the desk, frantic, his knees weak. It was the end. If he had any sense at all he would leave now. Just walk out and leave Niponbank to its own problems. He had not broken any laws yet; his coworkers could do little but gossip. He would become “that poor man who lost his wife and son and then his mind.” Too bad, too, because he showed so much promise. Borst’s right-hand man. The thought made him nauseous.

This whole notion of stealing twenty million dollars had been foolishness from the beginning. Insane! You just don’t think up things like that and expect to pull them off. He grabbed a tissue from a box on his desk and wiped at the sweat wetting his collar.

On the other hand, if he did leave he might very well kill himself. Drink himself to death.

Kent wiped his palms on his slacks and stabbed at the keyboard. A moment later he was into the human resources secure-data files. If anyone caught him in the files without authorization, he would be fired on the spot. He ran a query on Cliff Monroe. A small hourglass blinked lazily on his screen. This exercise now seemed like a stupid idea too. What did he expect to do? Run out into the hall, ranting and raving about the programmer who was really a werewolf ? Maybe the bimbos in the lobby would believe him.
Honest, gals! He’s a werewolf ! Spread the word—quick, before my one o’clock meeting with him.

A record popped on the screen, showing a home address on Platte Street in Dallas, a social security number, and some other basics. According to the record, Cliff had been employed exactly one week before his transfer to Denver in response to a request placed by Markus Borst. The reason was listed as “Replacement.” So Borst had not expected to see him back.
Surprise, Baldy! Here I am!

The rest of Cliff ’s record noted a basic education with high scores, and a list of previous employers. The kid had worked with the best, according to his short history.
Well, not for long, fella.

Kent glanced back at the door quickly.
Here goes nothing
. He deleted the employment history from Cliff ’s record with a single keystroke. Then he quickly changed the file number so that no corresponding paper file would match this record, and he saved the modifications. In the space of ten seconds he had erased Cliff ’s history and lost the hard copy file. At least for a while.

He leaned back. Simple enough, if you knew what you were doing. Although the crashing of his heart belied that fact. Now the real test.

Kent picked up the phone and dialed Dallas. He was patched through to a Mary in human resources.

“Good morning, Mary. Kent Anthony here from IS in Denver. I’m checking on the qualifications of an employee. A Cliff Monroe, file number 3678B. Can you pull that up for me?”

He stared at the modified file on his screen.

“Yes, what can I help you with?”

“I’m trying to determine his employment history. Can you tell me where he worked before taking a job with us?”

“Just a second . . .” Kent heard the faint sound of keys clicking. “Hmm. Actually, it looks like he has no history. This must be his first job.”

“You’re kidding! Isn’t that a bit odd for a high-level programmer? Can you tell me who hired him?”

Mary clicked for a minute and then flipped through some papers before answering. “Looks like Bob Malcom hired him.”

“Bob? Maybe I should talk to Bob. He works there?”

“Sure. Talk to Bob. Does seem a bit odd, doesn’t it?”

“Can you transfer me?”

“Sure, hold on.”

It took a full five minutes of refusing to leave a message and holding to finally get the man on the phone.

“Bob Malcom.”

“Bob, this is Kent Anthony from Denver. I’m looking into the employment history of a Cliff Monroe . . .” He went through the spiel again and let Bob look around a bit. But in the end it was the same.

“Hmm. You’re right. It does say that I hired him, but, you know, I don’t remember . . . Hold on. Let me look at my log.”

Kent leaned back. He bit at his index fingernail and stared at the screen.

Bob’s voice crackled again. “Yep, we hired him. So it says. How long did you say he’s been working there?”

Kent scooted to the edge of his seat. “Six weeks.”

“On what kind of project?”

“AFPS.”

“The new processing system? And you have management control over him?” Suddenly Bob’s voice rang with a note of concern.

“No, I’m not his direct supervisor; I’m just running a query to understand his qualifications for a project he’s working on for me. And yes, it
is
the new processing system. Is there a problem with that?”

“Not necessarily. But you can never be too careful.” He paused as if thinking things through.

It sounded too good to be true. Kent was trembling again, but now with waves of relief at this sudden turn of fortunes. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just saying you can never be too careful. It’s odd we sent someone without an employment history to such a sensitive assignment. You never know. Look, I’m not ready to say that Mr. Monroe is anything but what he appears to be; I’m just saying until we know for sure, we should be careful. Corporate espionage is big business these days, and with the implementation of that system of yours up there—who knows? I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you have Mr. Monroe give me a call?”