Malcolm and Ives 02 - Trouble With Air and Magic (17 page)

He looked startled but with excellent coordination and quick reflexes, caught the ball before it could crash into the makeshift table and her teacups.

One more good reason she shouldn’t use her abilities—she lacked restraint.

“Energy patterns, I told you.” She didn’t expect belief, but he’d asked. “The place exudes negativity. I was nervous. I saw the security camera and was afraid we were being watched. Why does this bother you?”

“Because vandals slashed your tires, you think someone at the office hates you, your clients are disappearing, your brother is missing, and your mother was murdered. I follow patterns, and this one is making
me
nervous.” He sat on the sheet-covered metal table near the door and spun his ball again.

Dorrie nearly sputtered in her tea. “My
mother
? What in heaven’s name has Adams Engineering to do with my mother? She had a jealous competitor who went off his medication. They locked him up. I don’t see the connection.”

Not to Bo, please. She had mentioned her mother’s death to capture Conan’s interest, but she really didn’t want to believe her family was being hunted by madmen.

The anguish of her mother’s death was a living, breathing part of her, the reason she was who she was now. Conan talking about Mei weakened her defenses.

He began tossing the ball from hand to hand. “It’s part of the pattern. Computer programming is about sequential patterns the computer recognizes. Life isn’t precisely like that, but there’s order in every seemingly random snowflake. You want to tell me about your ability to calm cats and predict goons or wait for me to figure it out?”

She shrugged, took a sip of her tea, and sought a way to explain the impossible. Her father would have another stroke if Conan carried tales back to him, but she needed Conan’s help. It was obvious he’d spend more time examining her than looking for Bo if she didn’t divert him.

With resignation, she tried for a scientific explanation he might accept, one that wouldn’t have him telling her father she was insane. “As I said before, the universe is made up of energy. Everything in it possesses some life force. The sun’s heat is a form of energy. Gravity, your heart beating, the rise of the waves—they’re all energy forces. You sense patterns in random actions, perhaps. I sense patterns in the energy field around me. It’s like having a sixth sense.”

She waited to see if he would laugh, but she knew he wouldn’t. Conan would have a thousand questions. And she couldn’t answer ninety-nine percent of them—which was why everyone thought she was crazy if she tried to explain her abilities.

He tossed the ball from hand to hand and considered her explanation. He looked intrigued, of course. “You sensed the cat’s energy and somehow manipulated it?” he finally asked.

Dorrie wanted to laugh. Of all the angles he could have taken, the cat was what held his interest? “Something like that,” she admitted. She had no intention of telling him she compressed energy with her mind and shot it at her target. She wasn’t good at it and didn’t know how it worked. She just focused and things happened. Like a man dying. He didn’t need to know any of that. “Could we find another subject now, like what we have to do next to find our brothers?”

“One more question—how did you know there was a lower level to the Adams building?”

“Displaced earth energy. I’m not always right, you know. It’s all a matter of interpretation. I sensed there were people inside, too, even though it looked empty. Can you always tell from which way a wind blows?”

“Crosswinds.” He nodded as if he understood. “Ocean currents, sensing when the wave will rise and when it won’t. Experience as well as instinct is needed to differentiate. Got it. You need to practice identifying energies instead of moving gewgaws around.”

She shot another mental dart at his ball, bouncing it toward the door. How could anyone be so close to right and so wrong at the same time? “Go away, Oswin. I have work to do.”

He frowned at the ball as it rolled back to him. “I think you’re in danger. Maybe you know more than you think you do. Can you take a vacation from the office?”

“I’ve already told you, I’m a glorified flunky, a daddy’s girl who got stuck with a job she can’t do. People dislike me because of that, but there’s no inherent danger in being disliked,” she argued.

“Your clients and their money are missing. So is your brother. Unless you’re Jekyll and Hyde, someone else has to be responsible. And your mother’s killer is out on parole. That sounds damned dangerous to me.” He stood and began to pace again.

“On parole?” she squeaked, truly shocked. “He
killed
my mother and they let him go?”

“They called it manslaughter. He used insanity as a defense. My team is checking out the case now. I’m no legal expert. But I think you need to stay away from places where people expect to find you.”

Although she was appalled that a murderer had been set free, she didn’t see how that had anything to do with slashed tires or bad accounting. “I have to go in and sign off on time sheets or no one gets paid. I have to approve new clients and review old ones so they can receive checks. I’m not CEO of Ford by any means, but I do earn my salary. I can’t afford to quit. Only people with key cards to the elevator can reach the office. I’ll arrive when everyone else does and leave at the same time. No one can hurt me in a crowd.”

Conan frowned. He slammed the ball against a far wall. He stalked back, growled an expletive, and ran his hand through his hair. He looked like an infuriated lion. “I can’t be in two places at once. If you want me to find your brother, I need to be at my desk. I can’t follow you to work.”

“I didn’t ask you to follow me to work,” she said in surprise at his suggestion. “I have my life. You have yours. Go live it.” She just breathed easier knowing that he understood she wasn’t insane. Setting her teacup on the table, she rose. “Goodnight, Conan. I’ll see you in the morning if you’re up and functional before I leave.”

She returned to her bedroom and shut the door between them.

Toto glanced at her inquiringly but happy to see her, he didn’t question.

She liked that in a dog.

The next morning, Dorrie worried about leaving Toto alone in Conan’s basement while she went to the office. Her father had always had a live-in servant, but Delores had retired after Ryan had his stroke. A neighbor had been tending Toto since then.

She went upstairs to ask Conan, but he wasn’t up yet. He’d covered his desk in files again, with a small landslide of papers skittering across the wood floor in every breeze. She scooped them up, returned them to the correct boxes, and hurried to the kitchen. She didn’t have time to fix coffee but composed a note while eating cereal at the counter. She hoped Conan didn’t mind dog walking along with his computer security duties.

She was anticipating an ugly day with auditors and Zimmer and a weepy Tillie. In preparation, she was wearing her most officious suit—a tailored St. John knock-off in black with white piping. She’d laid on the mascara and eyeliner so she could glare without looking narrow-eyed. She was even wearing heels so she could look Zimmer in the face if he got cranky. She knew how to do the executive thing. She simply despised it with all her heart and soul.

She wore her hair slicked back and pinned down with ebony butterflies that should hold it for a few hours. At the office, she cautiously climbed out of the Prius in the parking garage, testing the
chi,
noting the cars around her and recognizing most. The unfamiliar white Lexus was probably the accountant. The garage was used by all the other offices in the building, so she really didn’t know most of the owners, only the cars parked here at eight.

She didn’t sense danger, just the usual disharmony. She’d hoped to arrive before the accountant, but Tillie’s motorcycle was here. Tillie would be showing the accountant around.

The receptionist wasn’t in yet. A few of the social workers were drinking coffee and warily watching the glass hallway Dorrie strode down. They knew something was wrong. Dorrie didn’t even bother acknowledging them. Blank face on, she listened to her heels clacking against the tile as she approached her office.

Tillie was waiting for her, expression grim. Tillie used to laugh through break-ups with her boyfriends. A grim Tillie was unnatural, particularly beneath the spiked red hair and accompanied by cheery clown earrings.

“They’re in the board room,” Tillie murmured as Dorrie handed her the wire money tree sculpture with shiny copper pennies on it. “Zimmer had them come in at seven. He won’t let me show them anything. He says I’m still fired.”

Dorrie could feel the hostile vibrations emanating from the boardroom. She not only had to struggle with antagonistic strangers and a disapproving board treasurer, but she had to fight the churning energy they created. She’d never wanted this job. She could quit.

Tillie’s nervous stance reminded Dorrie it wasn’t all about her. And then there were the other clients…and the missing money. She couldn’t walk away from problems.

She’d kowtowed to her father’s wishes for years. She drew the line at doing the same for his flunkies. Stiffening her newly-functioning spine, she set her mouth in a grim line to match Tillie’s.

“I won’t let them fire you,” Dorrie promised, struck by a sudden wild idea.

She waited for Tillie to leave, then punched Conan’s number in on her cell phone. When he answered sleepily but obviously awake, she almost smiled. “I don’t know how much he knows, but Zimmer is pre-empting the proceedings,” she announced curtly. “Got any fireworks you can throw at him from your end?”

She could almost see Conan’s eyebrows raise as he crossed to his desk, probably with coffee in hand, and tuned into the foundation’s computers through his secret gizmo. She knew she was either asking for trouble or to be laughed at, but she hoped and prayed she was right about Conan and his zigzag energy. It was hard being self-assured when she was so often wrong.

“I’ve got it covered,” he said confidently a moment later.

Dorrie let herself breathe again. She heard his keyboard clicking and the hint of amusement in his voice. She prayed that meant he wouldn’t actually blow up the computers.

As usual as she strode down the sunlit corridor, she pictured the floor-to-ceiling windows with gauzy drapery and bamboo shades. A little feng shui would counteract the depressing energy of poverty. Her father didn’t believe Dorrie could make the workplace more productive with what he called gimcrackery. If she won this battle, she would reward herself with gauzy window covers.

Those thoughts got her past the first wave of angry energy. She simply bulldozed through the rest to take her place in the boardroom. Glass walls were all that separated this room from the cubicles. Anyone passing by could see the gray suits, white shirts, and cold glares of officialdom parked in the armchairs. One suit worked at a laptop. Another stood behind Zimmer as he typed in commands to a wide screen computer. A third had spread work papers across the table. Dorrie pegged him for the accountant. At least his suit was tailored. The others looked like cops.

She was so taking Zimmer down if he was responsible for calling in the cops. The Foundation didn’t need this kind of publicity.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she announced, not smiling. Ryan Franklin had taught her not only to take the offensive, but be offensive about it. “Thank you for coming. We want this audit to be swift and
confidential
. Our security consultant has already identified the path of the missing funds. He only needs permission to enter the bank account, or he can provide the police with the details so they may do so.”

Ha
. Zimmer looked startled by that news, and his bald head flushed a dark red. He didn’t look any prettier when Dorrie reached over and took the keyboard away from him. She logged Zimmer out of the computer and logged in with her own password, swiveling the large screen monitor so everyone could see it.

Fireworks flashed across the screen in a colorful and abundant array, accompanied by the orchestral tunes of Tchaikovsky, complete with cannon booms. Every head in the room swiveled to watch.
Fireworks.
She’d asked for fireworks, and Conan had provided. Insane man. She almost,
almost,
smiled.

“That, gentlemen, is Conan Oswin, CEO of Oswin Technology, our security consultant,” she said in satisfaction, relaxing as most of the hostile energy dissolved into fascination. Sometimes, men were too easy.

Only Zimmer looked as if he’d have a stroke any minute. “We’re paying a consultant to play games?” he demanded.

“We’re paying a consultant to access our computers. He’s online now. Ask him what you will.”

Zimmer obviously had no idea how to do so. Dorrie handed the keyboard to the man who had been watching over her treasurer’s shoulder. “I’m Dorothea Franklin. And you?”

Recovering from their momentary shock, the men produced business cards. The two shabby gray suits were from the financial fraud unit of the police. As Dorrie had guessed, the man with the fancy leather briefcase was the auditor she had hired.

She watched in approval as the computer was transferred from Zimmer into the competent hands of the fraud unit.. She already knew what Conan had to say and didn’t need to linger. She left them discussing the various attributes of using Skype or Google Hang-out.

As if she were too busy to bother with the details of cleaning up what she’d already solved, she proceeded to cruise the cubicles, explaining the nature of the inquiries and requesting confidentiality. The employees’ usual level of hostility was overpowered by fear, probably for their jobs.

Since it didn’t look as if she had a chance of getting away, she hoped Conan remembered to take a refurbished laptop to Alexis later. It wouldn’t distract the kids from their grief, but it might save Amy from their unending questions for a little while longer.

She spent the morning fielding phone queries from concerned supporters who had heard about the police investigation. So much for requesting confidentiality. She might as well have plastered the news on Facebook and YouTube and let it go viral, damn Zimmer.