Chapter 35

Late that night, well, morning really, Eric was back in his sister’s house staring out his bedroom window at the unmelted ice that now represented the backyard. Had he imagined California? Minutes after the quake, they had fled to L.A.X.—Finnigan, Aki, Eric, and Hiroshi the dog, for whom a ticket was purchased so he could sit in first class, rather than travel as part of the baggage.

Aki was worried about leaving Mister Ed behind with the servants, afraid that the aftershocks would finish off the house and bury the bird in the rubble. But the structure looked sound enough to Eric—who was maybe taking his title of engineer a little too seriously. He had gone back in the house several times immediately after the quake, packing suitcases for all three of them and bringing Aki his laptop.

A limousine dropped Finnigan and Aki off at the Essex House on Central Park South, where they had been met by Eric’s pal, California, who had agreed to do a couple of days’ body-guarding of the rock star. Eric had barely a chance to slap his buddy’s hand before he had to jump back in the limo for a ride to Larchmont. He felt entirely disoriented.

Helen had left a message. She had to speak to Eric. He called immediately from his sister’s den.

“Where were you? Shacking up with your new girlfriend?” she wanted to know. “I left a message on Friday.”

“What do you want?” he asked curtly. New girlfriend, indeed!

“Can you meet me at, say seven this morning in my office? I need to talk to you about business.”

Her voice was cool, and he could see she was careful to emphasize that nothing personal was intended in the request. He almost formed a sentence asking her if she had enjoyed fucking Ryan, but no words emerged. He hoped he could avoid saying anything tomorrow as well, but he didn’t trust his ability to keep silent.

Sure, he was being unfair and stupid. She had never promised him anything. Yeah, he was operating from a double standard. He had slept with Kita in Japan. But that was different, he felt. Why was it different? He couldn’t quite define it except that they had faced death together and Ryan was a sleazy drunk.

He felt frustrated and cranky, misunderstood. He was thirty-two years old without a home of his own, without a wife, and without a real job. The prospects for any of these appeared dim. Finnigan, he thought, could pick up from his twenty-million-dollar home at a moment’s notice and fly to another city to take refuge in an expensive hotel until such time as someone else cleaned up the mess. Things weren’t so simple for Eric.

He hated being jealous of the people he protected—their position, their privilege. Finnigan had his problems, too. He didn’t appear to have anyone sleeping in his bed, either.

That was it. That was the crux of the matter. It wasn’t the money part. It was the relationship part. Why was it she had slept with Ryan? Why couldn’t he and Helen get anything going between them? He was thirty-two years old; he wanted a solid relationship in his life.

He was running on California time and had trouble getting a catnap. Once he thought he felt the house begin to shake. He jumped up, but everything was quiet. Damn, he wasn’t supposed to have nerves.

He got out of bed at five-thirty and was at the office about an hour later, stalking the halls, waiting for Helen. He went into his cubicle and booted up the computer. He had the flash drive that Aki had prepared but decided not to load it on the system. Someone else might filch it in the meantime. He hadn’t forgotten that something had happened here before Morgan had even approached him. What was it that had occurred? Either information had been stolen from Westlake or Westlake had stolen some other company’s information—depending on whose story you believed.

He kept buzzing her office. She wasn’t there at seven, but his line rang at ten after. She was in. He went to meet with her.

The first thing he thought upon seeing her was that she looked tired. The second thing he thought was that he wanted to close the door and make love to her. He closed the door and sat in the visitor’s chair, just staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“You called this meeting,” he reminded her.

“Yes. Look at the logs. Someone used the system administrator’s password about a week ago and was roaming around the network, looking through all the files.” She pointed triumphantly at the printouts.

He didn’t have to look. “That was me,” he agreed, unsurprised. “I’m glad to hear that you noticed.”

“You? What were you doing messing around with the system?”

“I wasn’t messing around. I copied the payroll data in order to sell it to an information broker. Three thousand bucks,” he told her.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, whatever were you thinking?”

“I was a little short last week.” His eyes were still on her. He could feel her body against his, the touch of her hands, her lips.

“No, really.”

“I was going to approach you and Ryan about this,” he said. “But I got caught up in this thing and it moved too fast. Now, I’m waiting for this cop I know to negotiate an investigation with the feds. I should have come to you last week, but I didn’t much feel like speaking to you.” He gave her a dirty look. “It’s all going to have to come out though—with management, too. Some information brokers are hitting on Westlake and I’m supposed to be stealing stuff for them. I went in with a wire one time to talk to them and recorded a conversation myself at the next meeting. I sent that tape to my cop pal, Steinberg. Right now, he’s dealing with the federales.”

She was flabbergasted, irked. “You ought to have come to me and Ryan first. You’re such a… You think you can handle everything on your own, even though it involves other people’s interests.”

“The thing I want to know,” he said. “The only thing I wonder about is why you fucked Ryan. WHY? It’s none of my business, right? I know, it’s none of my business.” He was being such an asshole, and worse, he had tears in his eyes. Jesus, he was a total baby.

She was stunned. The breath went out of her. “I was drunk, that’s all. That’s the only reason. Did he tell you that? I think I’ll kill him.” Her own eyes seemed to be wet as well.

“He didn’t tell me anything. I was bugging his office and heard you two talk about it. I had a receiver in there because I thought maybe he was the one who had sold the information to Moritomo—or whatever the hell is going on. But then I found out—he’s not smart enough for that. He’s no genius. All he wants to do is tread water and collect his salary.” He stood up and she did too.

Her eyes glinted. “What I do isn’t your business,” she agreed with him, “but I’m sorry. I knew your coming here wouldn’t be any good. I’m sorry it had to turn out this way.”

He came around to her side of the desk, brushing against her. “I don’t know why it has to be like this,” he said huskily. “Why can’t you just like me?” He put his hands around her waist, then drew her into him a little.

“I do like you,” she said. “I like you.”

He kissed her and held her, not letting her go, crushing her against him before he released her. “I hate the way you treat me,” he said. “I hate that you act like you couldn’t care less. It freaks me out completely.”

He brought her out from behind the desk and dropped down onto the floor, pulling her gently with him, on top of him. His hands were over her body, and he was kissing her on her face and neck.

“We can’t do this,” she protested haltingly.

“No one’s here,” he said. “It’s still dark out.” He pulled at her wool pants.

“I’d better lock the door.”

He let her go and she stood up and went and turned the bolt while he pulled off his sweater. She came back and stood over him as he ran his hands over her legs and brought her down to him again. He was hard against her and enfolded her in his arms. “I want it to work between us,” he said. “I think it can.”

He wasn’t terribly good at this undercover thing. He had been a top-rate soldier and—except for the minor matter of having a client snatched during his watch—a thoroughly competent executive protector.

Investigations, however, were subtle, and he lacked both the experience and some of the skills. Maybe, at times, he even failed to follow the rules of good common sense. The thought occurred to him later Tuesday morning that he had never talked to Dr. Sommers—not really—and that Sommers, of all people, held a very important key to resolving some of Eric’s confusion.