by Jade Powers
“Fine. Friday it is. Anything else?” Bryce’s lips were pressed together in a thin line.
“Have you ever heard of Lauren Nuong?” Kendall asked.
Bryce shrugged, “Never heard of her.”
“She works for us now. She’s been seen talking to Lucas. Normally I wouldn’t care who my employees speak with, but I can’t have leaks from my research team. Find out what you can about their relationship. On Monday I want a report with substance.” Kendall turned toward his computer as if Bryce was no longer sitting there.
Taking it as his cue to leave, Bryce pushed up. The skin on his arms was covered with goose pimples. Kendall’s office was freezing. It matched the ice in his soul. Hiding his rage was not an easy thing. Bryce forced a smile when he walked by Barb, waving as he left the building.
He had become a true friend to Lucas. Between Kendall and Lucas, Bryce knew exactly who to trust...and it wasn’t the guy who dumped fifteen thousand in his bank account.
BRYCE CALLED LUCAS. He needed to talk outside of gaming. He had a terrible sense of destiny, that his decision here and now would affect his life, perhaps even lead to an early grave. Sometimes the right thing to do was dangerous.
It was just past five on Tuesday. Bryce and Lucas met at a café close to Lucas’ work. Bryce left the listening device in his car. Miami’s golden twilight bathed the city in a content glow. Most cities bustled, and Miami was no exception. But the Miami bustle had a relaxed vibe compared to other cities. Bryce watched a couple walk hand-in-hand down the sidewalk.
Lucas broached the subject before Bryce even got seated, “This is strange. Why not meet in my office? What’s going on?”
It was one of those pivotal moments in life, the choice that could land a person in jail, the choice that could lead to their death. Most people don’t even recognize the vital moments as they slam into their lives. Time has no care for corporal life, no concern for the frailties of the flesh. Bryce only hoped that Lucas would help. The alternative was betrayal. Either way, he risked a thin grave in the swamp.
Bryce leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “You heard of SpaceTech?”
Lucas tipped his head sideways like a golden retriever listening. He frowned, “What is this about?”
“I have a listening device in my car. The vice president of Spacetech, a guy by the name of Kendall, told me to put it in your office. My dad went missing several months back, and Kendall promised to help me find him if I do some odd jobs here and there for him.”
Lucas rubbed his eyes. “What a mess. Yeah, I’ve heard of the guy. So I’m the target.”
“I’m sorry. Is there anywhere you can put the thing that will make it look like you are being listened to, but you really know it’s there? I need help. The kidnappers made a ransom demand a few days ago, and we don’t have anything to trade. I think they’re tired of holding my dad. Sven’s afraid they’ve already killed him.”
Taking a swig of rum and coke, Lucas said, “How long has this been going on? Are you part of the gaming group artificially?”
There was no good method of confession. Finally, Bryce said, “Yeah. I was supposed to bug your office since the first week we met. You have no idea how sorry I am.” Bryce felt his collar grow hot. He added, “I liked you better than him. I couldn’t do it. Kendall knew I wasn’t giving him anything. He said he wanted a report of substance by Monday.”
Lucas rubbed his eyes, “Weirdly enough, I understand. McFarland wanted me to get close to this woman who works for Kendall. Lauren. The thing is I really like her. So he’s not getting what he wants either.”
“Would it be okay if I still come to group tomorrow?”
“Sure, man. Look, we’re still friends. You didn’t actually do anything to me.”
“I wish we could turn the tables and bug Kendall using his own device. That guy is up to something.”
“Maybe I can change the channels. You could hide it in his office somewhere. I’d be careful doing something like that. Kendall isn’t a man to cross lightly.”
“How long will it take?” Bryce checked his watch. He had to be at work in an hour.
Lucas said, “Depends on how he set it up. Let me take a crack at it. I’ll call you when it’s done.”
Between driving with the sun on the horizon and the stress of the day, by the time Bryce unlocked the apartment door, he had a blinding headache and his stomach churned. He’d only been on the job at the hotel for a month, not enough time to have established the kind of cred to call in sick.
Bryce grabbed his Seahawks baseball cap. The Washington State based football team hadn’t made a great showing in recent years, but he was a loyal fan. He wore that cap to work every day, mostly because his coworkers razzed him so bad the first day. After that it was personal.
Today, Bryce would be lucky to survive the day. His migraine grew so bad that he saw spots instead of scenery as he turned up the path. The whole day was long and painful. Toward the end of the day one of the guys needed help carrying a broken cabinet, Bryce took off his cap and set it on top of a dresser. When the day was done, he drove home, having forgotten it.
When Bryce stumbled through the door, Gail saw how pale he was. She said, “Are you okay?”
She became an instant support, her arm around his waist. He said, “I went to work with a migraine. I just need some sleep.”
They walked together to his sleeping bag. Usually when Bryce entered the room, he was struck with a sense of emptiness, the lack of things he normally associated with himself. His computer, dresser, bed, most of his clothes, roller blades, Nintendo, Playstation, basketball...all of these things remained at home, at his parent’s house all the way across the country. Today, his tunnel vision was so acute that he saw only the sleeping bag.
Gail helped him to the sleeping bag. He said “Thanks.”
His head barely hit the pillow, and Bryce was asleep. With it, he took the stresses of the day, the tension of his plan, and the deep terror that Kendall was going to catch him planting the device.
ON THURSDAY MORNING, Bryce finished his shift at the hotel. He’d lost a fine hat. No one knew where it went, and he couldn’t remember where he put it down. He stayed up to make Gail breakfast. Before she left for work, they did their ritual hug. He said, “I’m going to SpaceTech. If I’m not here when you get home, call the police.”
“Bryce, don’t talk like that.” Gail’s hands were on his shoulders, her long blonde hair twirled into a half bun. She hardly ever wore makeup, but then she didn’t need it. It struck his heart as he watched her. He wanted to protect her from the world. Gail didn’t need protecting and that was a draw, too. Her eyes were gorgeous, the way they crinkled when she smiled.
“I had to say it. Nothing is going to happen. I’m just overreacting,” Bryce said. It was a bit of a back pedal, but his whole feeling of terror was ridiculous. Seeing Gail’s worry lessened his fear.
“Just be careful.” Gail pulled him in for a kiss. It did things to Bryce that gave him courage. He wanted to haul her into the bedroom and have a day to remember.
“I will, Love.” Bryce let Gail pull away first.
Gail smiled at his endearment and lifted her purse higher onto her shoulder. “I better go. I’m going to be late.”
She didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want her to go. The real world sucked. Bryce closed the door behind her, feeling maudlin and mopey. It was nearly eight-thirty. If he left now, he could get to SpaceTech by nine.
The listening device, fresh from Lucas, looked no different than it had before. Bryce lifted it out of the plastic grocery bag, unwrapped the tin foil, then the t-shirt. That was his make-shift buffer all those months while he decided what to do.
He’d give planting it in Kendall’s office a try. It’s not like they could kidnap his dad twice. Maybe Lucas would hear something useful. Bryce wrapped it back in the foil and stuffed the listening device in his pocket.
He breezed into SpaceTech, waved hi to the rec
eptionist at the front desk who called him up. They knew him now.
Barb was at her desk when Bryce strolled in. He said, “Is Kendall here? I’d like to talk to him.”
“He’s not in for another twenty minutes. You can wait here,” Barb was clearly perturbed by his presence since he was much earlier than his normal reporting schedule. She had been sipping her coffee and flipping through a magazine. Busted. Now she shoved the magazine into a drawer and turned to her computer, ignoring Bryce.
It was a bad time to realize that his plan was terrible. He didn’t have a means of escaping notice. With Barb sitting there, and then Kendall, there would be no chance to slip the device anywhere. Lucas told him what to say, things Kendall would already know or suspect, so at least he had the bare bones of a reason to be there, but without a moment unseen, he couldn’t hide that bug anywhere.
The minutes ticked away slowly with Bryce feeling more and more frustrated. Somehow he thought that Barb would show him into Kendall’s office to sit. It was always the first thing she did, invite him into the office.
Barb tipped her coffee cup. He could see her glance at him and then into her empty cup. Her expression was positively dark. Bryce wondered that she just might trample him to get her coffee from the break room.
She wasn’t going anywhere. He needed a diversion, a distraction of some kind. He had a scab on the side of his leg, just above his ankle. If he ripped off the scab, maybe he could bleed enough to say, “I’m bleeding, do you have any Band Aids®?”
And then Barb would open a drawer and fish out a bandage. This was impossible. How could he get alone in Kendall’s office? He couldn’t think of a single thing. Kendall strolled in ten minutes later with Bryce no closer to having a solution. Now it was too late.
“So soon? I thought we had a standing arrangement,” Kendall said. Bryce couldn’t figure him out. It felt like Kendall’s unhappiness was a form of messing with him, just to see what Bryce would do.
“I have information.”
“After all this time, how apropos.” Kendall said dryly. He pulled out a set of keys and unlocked his door. Bryce hadn’t even considered that he might have it locked. Had he tried the bleeding idea and Barb had left her desk, he still would have been locked out.
Bryce followed him into the room, taking his normal seat. The listening device was unwieldy and Bryce could feel it resting against his leg in his pocket. The file cabinet was metal. He could slip it onto the back toward the bottom. No one would see it unless they moved the cabinet. That would work well enough if he could get Kendall out of the office for a few minutes.
Kendall turned the blinds behind his desk, letting golden light filter in. “I have a meeting. You have five minutes. Tell me what you found.”
“Lucas works for McFarland, but he’s not a spy. He hacks into computers.” Bryce parroted the words that Lucas provided for him, hoping they weren’t too far off the mark.
“He has some interest in Lauren. What about that?”
“He likes her. Lucas isn’t interested in her role in your company. She just started. He would rather crawl through your networks and mine data that way. But yes, he is totally into Lauren.” Bryce was grateful for the air conditioning that kept Kendall’s office at a cool sixty-eight degrees. Any warmer and sweat would be trickling down his neck. He already felt the heat under his armpits and on his forehead.
This was one of the worst ideas he had ever had...and some of his plans were atrocious.
“Did you plant the listening device yet?” Kendall asked. Just the mention of the device shocked Bryce. For a moment he had a strange sense of paranoia, as if Kendall knew his plans and was messing with him.
“No. I haven’t had the chance,” Bryce said.
Barb bustled in, “Sir? There’s something you should see.”
The minute Kendall passed through the doors, Bryce pulled the device out of his pocket, crossed the three steps to the file cabinet and knelt with his hand way at the back until the device connected with a minor thump. He looked over his shoulder, fearing that Kendall would run in to see what the noise was about. Not the most imaginative place and perhaps not the most useful, but it was the only chance he would get.
Bryce hurried back to his chair in three large steps, his breath catching. It was too late now. He couldn’t change his mind.
Kendall spent a bare three minutes in front of Barb’s computer before returning. Fortunately, it had only taken a second to plant the device. Kendall said, “I have business. I’m sorry we need to cut this short.”
Bryce stood, “I understand. Have you heard anything about my dad?”
A quick flash of annoyance crossed Kendall’s face. If Bryce hadn’t been watching him carefully he would have missed it. Kendall quickly schooled his expression and said, “Nothing at all.”
Bryce stepped out of the elevator with adrenaline pumping through his body. His hands felt like punching. His legs felt like running. He strolled across the foyer with a sense of accomplishment. He’d never stood up to anyone before, not really. This was the first time.
Chapter 8
GAIL NOTICED THE TWO men in her driver’s side mirror when she released the emergency brake. They were across the parking lot, and they were definitely watching her. The reasons why made no sense. She wasn’t involved in any crazy spy tech stuff, but the fact that the two suited men were there gave Bryce’s story credibility.
This was the first time Gail really had to examine her own long-buried beliefs that maybe Bryce had been embellishing his story to come off the humble hero. She shivered and slowly backed out, trying to watch for cars and pedestrians while keeping a firm eye on those men.
Driving home, she took a circuitous route, but when she parked in her apartment lot, those same two men and that same car were waiting across the lot.
Her chest felt tight, and she ran up the stairs two at a time, fumbling with the lock and finally pushing the door open with shaking hands. She slammed the door shut and locked all three locks before she could breathe again.
The house smelled like roast and onions. Bryce was sitting at the kitchen table, one hand in his hair, tugging it back with a pad of paper and pen scribbling furiously. He looked up when the door slammed, and his eyes went wide, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Gail swallowed hard. She threw her purse on the counter. “Two guys followed me from work. I drove in circles. I thought I lost them, but they were in the parking lot when I pulled in. Are you in trouble?”
Bryce groaned, “Yeah. I think so. Kendall must know I lied.”
“Wait? Is this the guy you said no one should cross? And you lied to him?”
“And planted his own listening device in his office. I thought I was being brave.” Bryce stared at the ceiling. “It sounds stupid, now. I thought I would save my dad. Kendall would say something about him. Lucas would pick it up on audio, and I’d rescue him.”
“What happened? Did he catch you planting it?” Gail’s voice really could go rather shrill when she was upset. She unclipped her hair, and that beautiful long blonde hair tumbled out. But there would be no fun tonight.
“No. His secretary pulled him away. I planted it and left. That was two weeks ago”
“So you don’t know if the two are related,” Gail closed her eyes. She was exhausted. Today had been horrible. Her boss had yelled at her for missing one of the sequences. They would have to redo the whole thing. Now she was being followed, and if they followed Gail to her mom’s house, they might hurt Jana.
Bryce shrugged, “I don’t. But I’m certain they belong to one of the tech groups. I’m sorry. I didn’t think I was important enough for anyone to pay attention to me. I thought once I ditched the sphere my dad hid, I’d be free to look for him.” Bryce put his pen down. He reached over and took Gail’s hand. “I spoke with Sven. Drake is in the middle of a huge corporate operation, but he said that there might be hope for your sister.”
Gail pulled up a chair and settled in, “I
guess that’s something.”
“I’ll talk to Lucas tomorrow and see if he can find out who’s tailing us.”
“So you were tailed, too?” Gail looked even more frightened.
Bryce pressed his lips together and shook his head, “Actually no. I just figured they were after me.”
Gail lifted her chin. “They’re going to have a fight on their hands if they try anything.”
“You’ve got mace and you know how to use it,” Bryce joked. He squeezed her hand.
“Damn right I do.” Gail felt better for remembering her own strength. Just let them come at her.
That evening after dinner, Bryce and Gail snuggled together on the couch, Bryce just behind Gail. She was tucked into his arms where she belonged. He felt her breathing and wondered how long they would last. He hoped forever.
He moved his hands to the part of her back where she held all of the day’s tension, that spot just between her shoulder blades. He massaged the knots out of her muscles. Gail said, “I didn’t realize I was so tense.”
“It’s been a rough day,” Bryce said. He closed his eyes and let the sounds of the television fade.
When his hand was sore from movement, he stopped and drew Gail closer. They fell asleep together, like two little bunnies tight in a burrow.
FRIDAY NIGHT WAS GAME night. Bryce grabbed a couple bags of Smart Popcorn and Doritos and a two liter bottle of Coke on his way out. Every now and then someone brought snacks. It wasn’t planned. Some nights they went without. Two weeks ago, one of the wives baked chocolate cupcakes for her nephew’s birthday, letting her husband take the leftovers to game night, and the four men ate cupcakes and drank root beer.
Bryce arrived early. Lucas was still unboxing his roleplaying books. He was carrying a stack from his office to the conference room when he saw Bryce.
“I picked up some information. Kendall is a nasty piece of work. Would you be able to go back in and retrieve the bug?” Lucas grabbed a stack of plastic cups and plates out of the cabinet.
