by Lynn Bulock
“You’re right. I think there’s a carton of orange juice, something that used to be cheese, and an almost empty mustard jar in the whole refrigerator. And don’t even get me started on the pantry. If I had mice, they’d starve.” Jake’s grin was wry. “And you’re right about going home for a change, too.”
“I know I am. And this time I’m going to walk out with you to make sure you actually leave. You keep telling me you’re going home at night and then you don’t.” Holly knew she sounded stern, but she’d learned from the best. Her mom had taught high school English for more than a dozen years before she’d become the receptionist at the Sentinel. Nobody could do stern like a high school English teacher. Jake was just lucky he wasn’t chewing gum.
The next morning Holly took her time heading for the office for a change. It was what she’d “traded” Jake for by making him leave early the night before. “I’ll go home now, and have a decent dinner on the way there, if you don’t show up until at least nine tomorrow morning. Deal?” His blue eyes were sharp again after his little nap.
“Deal. I’ll even make it ten.” Holly hadn’t told him that she’d spend the time before she came in lining up his mother’s Christmas gift. If he thought she was actually doing something for herself, he’d be more tolerant of the late entry into the office. But if she spent all that time on herself, she’d feel worse, so this made more sense.
She knew from past experience that Jessica Mathers Vance would be at her desk fairly early most days, and she’d be the one to speak to about some kind of gift for the shelter to make in Liza Montgomery’s name. Although what Liza hadn’t already given the shelter, Holly couldn’t imagine. In the time that Holly had volunteered there, an anonymous benefactor had donated quite a bit over the years, and a few months ago the mayor’s wife had quietly revealed herself to be that benefactor.
Still, it was good of Jake to actually realize how close the shelter was to his mother’s heart, and to know that doing something for Galilee would make her happier than some more traditional Christmas present. Holly sighed. Her boss was thoughtful in many ways when he put his mind to it. The shame was that he didn’t put his mind to it very often. When he had time to spend outside the office, he spent it socializing with a variety of lovely young ladies like Zoe.
Of course, she reflected, Jake was free to spend his time any way he liked. She just wished he didn’t seem to like that empty party life so much. It wasn’t as if drinking had any draw for him that Holly could see. And the “big money” aspect of that kind of social life didn’t seem to interest him. What did pull Jake into that scene was the biggest mystery about the handsome, secretive man she worked with every day.
When Holly got to Jessica’s office she was surprised to see it empty. It looked like Jessica had been there and just stepped down the hall for something, so Holly stood there by the doorway and waited for a minute.
Jessica’s office was brighter than Holly remembered it. Looking around, she tried to decide what the difference was. There was a great photo of Sam, Jessica and her sweet daughter Amy on the desk. It must have been taken on their wedding day this last fall. All three were smiling broadly at whoever had taken the picture.
It wasn’t just a photo or two that made the room brighter, though. It seemed a warmer, happier place than it ever had before. Of course, Holly hadn’t been in here since Jessica had found her daughter after she’d disappeared, kidnapped by a baby-sitter. Nothing about Jessica’s life had been particularly bright when she was looking for her daughter. Now that Amy was back and Jessica had married Sam, her life was so different.
As Holly stood lost in thought, praising God for the changes in her friend’s life, Jessica hurried down the hall toward her. “Holly, good to see you. I hope you haven’t just been standing here in the hallway very long.” She motioned her into the office and they both sat down.
Holly waved away her concern. “Not long at all. Besides, I was enjoying looking at a desk where you can actually see the top of it.”
Jessica laughed. “Ouch. I don’t have to ask how things are going at work for you, then, do I?”
“Not exactly. Jake is working on stuff for Alistair Barclay’s trial, and it’s coming up soon. I guess that’s partially why I’m here.”
Jessica looked confused. “What does somebody as slimy as Barclay have to do with you being here?”
“Just his trial. It has us so busy, and Jake so completely swamped, that I came by to do two things. I need for you to take me off the volunteer schedule for a while until things get back to normal.”
“I can pass that word on to Susan, the shelter’s director. I hope this doesn’t mean you’ll miss the Christmas party.”
“Not if I can help it. I can’t make room for much on my schedule this month, but if I do anything, it will be the party here. It’s always such a good time.”
Holly had been volunteering at the shelter for most of the time she’d been back in Colorado Springs since leaving her job in Ohio. This was probably the fifth Christmas she’d been around the Galilee Women’s Shelter, and she didn’t have any intention of missing the best Christmas party in town. Mayor Montgomery might have a more elegant one, and Jake probably went to half a dozen most years that were flashier than this one, but nobody had one where more delighted kids squealed over their gifts.
“I really hope you can make it. This one is going to be such a special Christmas for me personally. Lots of firsts involved.” Jessica’s gray eyes shone with happiness.
“I guess so. I’ll just have to make it here for that,” Holly said. “And it ties in nicely with the other reason for my trip over here.”
“Oh? If you’re going off the volunteer schedule, it can’t be an offer of help for the party.”
“Not exactly. At least not from me. But Jake needs to get his mom a meaningful Christmas gift, and he thought that contributing money for something here would be the best thing to do. Once you mentioned the party, I thought maybe I’d ask if you needed any more funding for it.”
“Always. Even with all the wonderful people like Liza Montgomery who give time and money to this place, there’s always more that can be done.” Jessica’s normally smooth forehead wrinkled. “Especially since we were counting on one hundred thousand dollars from Mr. Barclay that turned out to be nonexistent. We could hardly take money from him now. But maybe if you guys put people like him away, and others who help bring drugs into town, we’d have fewer clients to have to provide for in the first place.”
“Wouldn’t that be great?” Holly tried to imagine a world in which no woman felt the need to go to a place like Galilee. It was hard for her to do. Once her life had been sheltered enough that she hadn’t known places like this existed. Now she’d seen enough of the outside world’s ugliness, even before working for the FBI, that she knew just what some people were capable of. Silently, she thanked God that most people weren’t capable of terrible evil.
“It would. And we can always pray for it to happen.” In a flash, Holly knew what was different about Jessica, and about this office. It wasn’t just a physical brightness in the change of lightbulbs, or pictures of smiling people that made things in this office look different. It was Jessica’s new attitude, radiating from her because of her walk with the Lord. It wasn’t just displayed in things hanging on the wall, although when Holly looked around, she noticed a wonderful poster with words from the Psalms on the wall in a location where both Jessica and visitors to her office could see it as a reminder of God’s goodness.
Holly could feel herself smiling, reminded again about how good God was in every situation. “We sure can. And if you want to, we can pray together right now for that, and a little guidance on how to spend the rest of this Christmas present money from Jake in a way that will make his mom happy, honor the Lord and do the best things for the shelter.”
Half an hour later Holly was on her way to the office, buoyed up by the prayer time and discussion she’d had with Jessica, and the knowled
ge that she’d gotten this errand done quickly and so well. She stopped at the coffee shop in the lobby, never doubting for a moment that Jake hadn’t made coffee upstairs. He drank plenty when it was made, but didn’t bother making a pot just for himself. So she ordered a latte for herself and their largest cup of dark roast for Jake, complete with the three ice cubes he always had them put in the cup to bring the brew to his perfect drinking temperature. Going up the elevator took less time than usual, at what seemed like midmorning for her. When she got to her office, there was only one light on and her computer screen was dark, giving the front office an eerie, almost cavelike look. From his slightly open doorway, she could hear Jake talking to himself, and small metallic noises.
She set her coffee down along with her purse and knocked on his door. “Hey, Jake. You mind company as long as I come bearing coffee?”
“Come on in, Holly, as long as you can stand the mess in here.”
She started to say something glib about never minding the condition of his office, but froze a step into the place and forced her mouth closed to keep her shock from showing. “Uh, Jake? I think Barclay’s computer exploded.” The tower housing of the machine was in pieces and there were bits of the insides of the computer strung out over almost every flat surface in the room.
Jake laughed and took the coffee from her. He took a long drink before he said anything, setting the cup down on a small island of clear space on his desk. “I know. It’s not the commonest way to find somebody’s passwords, but I’m down to desperate measures. See, you can find the BIOS password by taking apart hardware, and I’m figuring that this will lead me to the other passwords I need to open the files he thought he’d hidden. I found them, just can’t open them.”
“Okay.” The room still looked like the elephant’s graveyard of computer parts. Holly trusted her boss to do the right thing in most situations, but this was a new one on her. “There sure looks like there’s more than one computer in all this.”
“There is. Somewhere along the line someone apparently expected this kind of interference. So when I opened up the tower, there were dummy circuits as well as the real thing. I looked around this morning until I found somebody with a similar unit and borrowed it for a little while to compare the innards.”
“This means that somewhere in this building is an agent who has no idea that his computer, which he loaned you, is now totally in pieces.”
Jake’s grin was a delight. “Well, yeah, but it’s Bob. He doesn’t use his computer all that much anyway, and I’m nearly to the point of putting it back together. He’ll never know what it went through. In fact, it will probably run smoother once he gets it back.”
Holly just shook her head. “As long as mine’s in one piece. Now give me your lunch order. I’ve already decided I’m going to run over to the café and bring stuff back about one. From now on we’re eating healthy and keeping to as regular hours as possible.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, throwing her a mock salute. “And thanks for the coffee. It really hit the spot.”
“You’re welcome.” Holly was surprised he even noticed. If she had this much hardware strung across her office, she wouldn’t have noticed a mere cup of coffee. She did the rest of her morning’s work to the accompanying tune of Jake putting the two computers back together and continuing to talk to himself while he did it. As far as Holly was concerned, there were few sweeter sounds outside the church choir.
Jake looked around at the piles of stuff in his office, wondering if he could really put it back together as easily as he’d told Holly that he could. She was a great assistant, and thought he could do anything. He hated to disabuse her of that notion. If anything would, it would be this case they were preparing for the prosecutors. Everybody knew that Barclay was working for La Mano Oscura, the drug ring that was bringing tons of junk into Colorado Springs. But Barclay had certainly hidden his connections well. So well that even though he’d ratted out his boss in Venezuela, Baltasar Escalante, there just wasn’t the trail leading back to Barclay that would let prosecutors convict him of the worst of the charges against him. They needed proof that matched Escalante’s files to Barclay.
While Jake toyed with all the options for opening those files on Barclay’s hard drive that could provide that proof, he put Bob’s computer back together. It wasn’t a difficult job. During college and in the twelve years since he’d built far more complicated computers himself from parts. In fact, he preferred building his own because it allowed him to look at the circuit boards fairly quickly and see whether or not someone had tampered with anything.
By the time Bob’s tower was back together, Holly was at his door again. “Okay, I’m double checking your lunch order before I go over to Aunt Lidia’s and get it.”
Jake glanced at the watch his long-sleeved shirt hid. “Man, time flies when you’re having fun.”
“So does the snow. It’s been snowing off and on all morning since I came in. Can I borrow your car keys to take Big Red on the lunch run? I’ll be nice to him, I promise.”
Jake fished around in his pocket. As late as he’d made Holly come in, her Jeep was more than likely in a parking space she’d lose if she left it for lunch now. Especially on a snowy day. Since his spot was reserved, it made more sense to let her drive his vehicle. “Sure. And the soup and sandwich I ordered earlier are fine, unless they have apple pie left this late. Then get me a piece of that, too.”
Holly caught the keys he tossed her and grinned. “Already done. I had Aunt Lidia save two slices so they’d be there this late. Otherwise it was no chance. I’ll be back in twenty or so.”
“See you then.” He started putting the screws back into Bob’s tower housing, ready to take it back to the other agent. As he’d told Holly, no one would ever know that the machine had been in pieces on his floor and desk half an hour ago.
He’d dropped the unit off in Bob’s office and was back, reassembling parts of Barclay’s when Holly came in with the bags and bundles that made up lunch. He could hear her rattling around in the outer office, and expected to hear one of her always cheerful greetings. Instead she was standing silently at his doorway a moment later, and she looked upset.
“Hey, you’re back. What’s up?” He laid down his tools and came to the doorway to greet her. His normally smiling assistant looked on the brink of tears.
“I was careful like always, and I parked in one of the café’s twenty-minute spots right in front. I took my eyes off your car only for a minute or two inside.” Her lip was trembling.
“It can’t be that bad, because you drove back here, right? What happened, did somebody hit Red?” If so, they would have come out the worse for wear unless they were driving the biggest truck or SUV on the market. He couldn’t see what Holly was this worked up about.
“Worse. Somebody scratched the paint all the way down the passenger side. It wasn’t a little thing like an accidental door ding, either, Jake. Looked like a screwdriver blade or a key, drawn all the way from front to back.” She covered her face with her hands, and Jake thought the usually calm and reserved Holly Vance was going to sob on him. “It’s all my fault. I should have just taken my old Jeep. Nobody’d even notice if that happened to it.”
“Hey, it isn’t your fault. It was probably some thoughtless kid, or somebody with a kid’s intelligence anyway, just looking for a little stupid fun. Could have happened anywhere, no matter who was driving.”
Holly seemed to calm down a little. “I still feel bad. You drive such nice cars, and keep them up so well. It isn’t fair that somebody would do this to one of them.”
Jake shrugged. “A whole lot of life isn’t fair. Now let’s have lunch and afterward I’ll go down to the parking garage and take a look. It might not be as bad as you’re making it out to be.”
Her dubious expression said that it was going to be bad, but Jake still wasn’t prepared for the depth of the damage when he stood in the garage half an hour later. The gouge was deep, and ran an easy ei
ght feet across the front fender and both passenger side doors. There was no way this could have been anything but a deliberate, malicious act.
He went back up to the office where Holly was still cleaning up the remains of their lunch. She hadn’t done more than pick at hers, even though Jake had tried to reassure her that this was no big deal. He tried to stay nonchalant even as he asked her questions now.
“Anybody parked next to you on the passenger side when you went in?”
“Nobody. I remember, because there was still snow in the space as if no one had been in it for a while. Even when I came out, there were no fresh tracks over there.”
“Did you happen to see any vehicles peel out in a hurry?” Jake was forming a picture in his mind, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Hard to tell. In this kind of weather there’s always somebody seeing what their truck or SUV will do, the old man against machine thing.” Holly had lived here for most of her life, Jake knew. She was familiar with the macho contests that seemed to go on every time it snowed. “I don’t know, maybe…”
“Go on. It doesn’t hurt to be wrong once in a while.”
Her brow wrinkled. “I’m not sure. There might have been a dark-blue SUV pulling out across the street. If I didn’t know better, I would have said the driver of that one didn’t want me to see him.”
“It’s something. Not anything I’d bring to the police, or even put on the insurance report I’m going to file, but it’s something.” It was the kind of something, Jake decided, that made him want to talk to Rose D’Arcy again. And this time he’d tell her that her suspicions that somebody might be out to get him could be on the money after all.
