The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  “I don’t know—black hair? Kind of pale for Texas?”

  “So are you.”

  “Couple of dirty goths—that’s us.” I twist in his arms, craning my neck to see his face. “Hey, this isn’t a problem for you, is it? Being seen with me?”

  “Being seen with you? No....” Brandon leans down to kiss my nose. “I mean, it might raise an eyebrow or two, back home. I’m supposed to be recovering from the crash, not, y’know...on vacation.” He takes my phone away and tosses it to the side. “Don’t worry about it. My face was pretty blurry. And there’s not a lot of crossover between our worlds.”

  Don’t worry about it sounds like good advice. I’ll have Wayne off my back soon enough. And it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong.

  I pull the sheet over both of us and squirm into the circle of his arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Brandon

  Neil keeps reading. “Miss Walker’s companion has been identified as new media mogul Brandon Shaw, who, after taking his father’s advertising business global—”

  “Okay—okay!” I shut off the pump and holster the nozzle, narrowing my eyes against the gasoline fumes. Lily’s over by the Slurpee machine. She sees me looking and waves. I wave back. “How bad can it be?”

  “Bad.” Neil’s playing with that stupid keychain of his, the one that doubles as a flashlight. Punctuating his words with irritable little clicks. “Fuck were you thinking?” Click. “I mean, one minute I’m telling the board you’re laid up. Physically and mentally devastated.” Click-click. “And now, here you are, hooking up with some singer, not a scratch on you. Plus, Anderson claims he’s got some video—did you chase some guy down Cesar Chavez? Snatch him off a bus?”

  “I...might have. Yeah.”

  Lily’s bobbing her head to the radio. I can hear it from here, a thin trickle of notes through the open window. Good stuff, nostalgic. I find myself nodding along to Atom Bomb Baby, drumming my fingers on the hood.

  “Hey! You listening?”

  “Sorry. Yeah. The video. I thought he was—”

  “They’re talking about a vote of no confidence. Having you declared incompetent. Three days from now—”

  “Wait, what?” I duck into the car, slamming the door to shut out the music. “On what grounds?”

  “Your obvious mental breakdown—what else?”

  Breakdown?

  “I mean, what are they supposed to think? You got that hacker sending out crazy e-mails, booking phantom meetings—and then you assault some stranger in broad daylight, hook up with... What was her last album called? The Queen of Hell?—and why haven’t you called my NTSB contact? They’re looking everywhere for you.”

  “Huh?” I left four messages....

  “Look, you’ve got to get back here, like...yesterday. Make your case. The cops are nowhere, on the hacker situation. All I’ve got is your word, and—”

  “What about the rest of the evidence? The coup, the embezzling, the—”

  “More proof you’re slipping! All that happening under your nose, and where are you? You need to be here, getting this shit under control.”

  “How?” Way he’s talking, it’s already too late.

  Neil’s exasperated sigh comes through so loud I can practically see him rolling his eyes. “You’ll have to come clean. Spill the whole scheme. I mean, technically, this is your plan working: you backed off. Anderson made his move. It doesn’t sound so crazy when you put it that way. Hell, if I’d been able to grab the hacker—if you’d kept off the radar—we’d be mopping him off the floor right now.” He sighs. “Why’d you have to... I mean, are you all right?”

  “What?”

  “This isn’t you, man. Beating up tourists, slumming with musicians... What’s going on?”

  Slumming? Lily’s swaying to the beat, waiting to pay for our snacks. She’s wearing my choker like it was made for her, one idle finger skimming the pearls. “It’s not like that. The man I chased—I thought he was the hacker. Kind of looked like him, from the back. And Lily—she’s....”

  “A high school dropout with a bad dye job?”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “Brandon—”

  “No. I’ll be back tomorrow night. Thursday morning at the latest. Handle what you can on your end. Call a meeting for Thursday, noon. Gather everything you’ve got—and for every problem, you lay out what we’re doing about it. Results, where you’ve got ‘em. We need to show we’re setting this to rights. If you can prove we’re nearly there, that’ll buy us some time.”

  “You’re really into her, aren’t you?”

  “Neil!” Fuck’s sake—focus!

  “Sorry. I’m listening. I’m on it. I just didn’t want you to think.... Hell, I thought you were having some fun. Blowing off steam. Didn’t mean to insult her, if you—”

  I hang up on him. Dick. I mean, he’s not—not usually—but once in a while, he gets his foot in his mouth, and doesn’t stop till it comes out the other end.

  Reflected sunlight flashes in my eyes. I lift my head. Lily’s backing through the door, laden with Sno Balls and sodas. High school dropout... Guess she’d have to be, to start touring at sixteen. Seems ridiculous to judge her for it, twelve years and an enviable career later.

  And...Anderson has a video? Of me chasing some redheaded nobody? How? Who’d have seen?—who’d have cared?

  “Hey. Didn’t know what you liked, so I got everything.” Lily flops into the passenger seat. A can of Pringles rolls out of her bag and lands in my lap. “You all right? You look weird.”

  “Peachy.” I sip my Slurpee: virulent blue. Tastes like...slightly sour sugar? For some reason, it reminds me of camping. Dad used to drag us every summer—two weeks in Tsawwassen; nothing to do. “You know, I—”

  “Hm?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.” I’ll have to fill her in on what’s happened, now my vacation’s cut short, but it’s a beautiful day. And I’ve never done this before, roadtripped the back country with someone I want to make memories with. Today has to count.

  So she’ll remember me.

  I shake my head. Neil was right about one thing: Lily’s everything I could want. This won’t be the last we see of each other. Not if I have anything to do with it.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lily

  “So the bad news is—Miss Walker?”

  “Hm?” Brandon’s leaving already. I knew it couldn’t last, knew we were living in a bubble, but.... I cross my legs and sit up straighter. “Sorry. Go on.”

  Schenck frowns. “Well, the bad news is, your contract’s—how should I put this? Crap. It’s crap. Who let you sign this?”

  My mom.... “It was a long time ago.”

  “Basically, this protects all the label’s interests and none of yours. They got one obligation to you, and that’s financial. Your health, your safety, your job satisfaction—none of that factors into it. As for your rights...you don’t have any.” He taps a line marked with an X. “This, right here—it’s a binding arbitration clause. Any kind of hostile working environment, anything short of a serious criminal complaint, you’ve signed away your right to sue.”

  “I don’t have one? A serious criminal complaint?”

  Schenck laces his fingers over his considerable belly, leaning back in his chair. “You might—but first off, you got one witness to your manager laying a hand on you. And Mr. Shaw being your, uh, boyfriend, his word comes with a big grain of salt.” He’s tapping his foot, a persistent, annoying sound. Like he can’t wait to get to the good part. “And let’s say you do get a conviction—your agreement’s with the label. Not with Wayne. They’ll sit on those rights forever. You’ll never record again.”

  I stare, numb. He said he could help me on the phone. “So that’s it?”

  “Not exactly.” A greasy smile spreads over his face. Puts me in mind of melting margarine. “What we’ll do is show the label didn’t fulfil their financial obligation. Now, you said your, uh—yo
ur drummer, Mr. Sawyer—he’s had some problems in that area?”

  Some problems. “To put it mildly.”

  “Okay, well, that’s great. I mean, not for Mr. Sawyer or his mother—but for you, it’s perfect.” He leans forward, grin practically splitting his face. “Bookkeeping mistakes are like cockroaches: you see one, you got fifty. You retain me, I’ll get a court order. Get my accountant on that label like white on rice. There’ll be something. Ninety-nine percent guarantee. You’ll be out of that contract by summer.”

  This guy’s slime, but he’s highly recommended slime. Any hesitation I might’ve felt melts away at the thought of that contract in tatters on the floor, and Wayne a distant memory. I reach out and shake Schenck’s hand.

  Half an hour later, I’m soaking in the Texas sun, half-dazed and jubilant. Free by summer? To sign anywhere, with anyone? Tour on my own schedule? Record when I want to? It seems too good to be true. I can’t let myself believe it, not till it’s real. Not till it’s done, and I’m—

  “There you are.”

  I jump back, throat closing around a shriek. Wayne—what’s he doing here? “How’d you find me?”

  “That’s for me to know.” He’s smirking, smug and cocksure. Sidling up on me, creeping in for the grab. I stand my ground. He can’t hurt me here. The street’s bustling with late commuters and early tourists. There’s even a cop car down the block, idling outside a Taco Bell.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Well, I got plenty to say to you.” That nasty grin’s growing: he’s here to gloat. He’s got something up his sleeve, some awful bombshell—I don’t want to know. It’s too late, anyway. I’ve done what I came here to do. Soon, he’ll be out of my life.

  “I have to—”

  “That man of yours—he’s gone and got himself in a whole mess of trouble.”

  Brandon? I laugh, airy and casual. “Funny—last I saw, he was eating strawberry pancakes on the terrace. What’d he do, stain his shirt?”

  Wayne reaches for me as I turn away, fingertips raking my sleeve. I yank my arm out of reach.

  “This here’s Neil,” he calls. I keep walking—nope. Don’t care. Don’t want to know. “Brandon’s best friend.”

  That stops me in my tracks. He’s lying. Has to be. I turn around in spite of myself, taking in the man unfolding himself from the limo cozied up to the curb. He’s tall and blond, impeccably dressed. There’s something reassuring about him—those warm green eyes, that disarming smile. A lot like Brandon himself. I could picture those two being friends.

  “You the one who drank him under the table the other night?”

  Neil laughs. “Guilty as charged.” A look of consternation crosses his face. “Was he all right? It’s so rare he drinks at all, I forgot what a lightweight he is.”

  “Not even a hangover.” I feel the sudden urge to defend Brandon’s honor. “Not sure what Wayne’s been telling you, but I don’t see what trouble he could be in. I’ve spent most of the last week and a half with him, and he seems fine to me.”

  Neil glances at Wayne, visibly uncomfortable. “I, uh.... Listen, I’m sorry you’ve gotten caught up in all this, but....”

  Wayne nods. “Show her.”

  “I take it you weren’t around for this?” Neil holds out his phone, open to a video file.

  “This is...?”

  “Just watch it.”

  Brandon dashes across the screen, shouting something, face contorted with fury. A short, middle-aged man flees before him, nearly bowling over a muumuu-draped tourist in his haste. The picture jolts and blurs as the cameraman follows the chase, steadying just in time to catch Brandon dragging his quarry off a bus. He spins him around, barging into his space, and the clip cuts off.

  “What—?”

  Wayne crosses his arms, leaning back on the limo. “You got yourself in bed with a psycho. One who’s fixin’ to hurt a whole lot of people. And if you wanna keep the stink off you—not to mention the rest of us—you’ll come talk to us. Now.”

  “Who was that man? In the video?”

  Neil shrugs, looking helpless. “We honestly don’t know. Maybe no one at all. Since the crash... Listen, there’s a lot more where that came from. Would you be willing to sit down with us? See if we can get some of these pieces to match up?”

  There’s...more? It hardly seems possible. Brandon’s idea of acting out is taking a vacation. Eating junk food. Letting go of his worries for a second. Not whatever the hell that was. There has to be some reasonable explanation. That man stole his wallet, or—

  “Miss Walker?” Neil reaches out, stopping just short of touching my arm. “I understand your hesitation, but this isn’t like him, and... I think we both want the same thing here. To figure out what’s happening. Make sure Brandon’s all right.”

  Wayne might be a snake, but this guy seems sincere. I nod my head, mind made up. “Whatever I can do to help.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Brandon

  He’s in the Four Seasons bar again: my nemesis. The hacker. No mistaking him this time. I’d know that scrubby beard anywhere, that beaky little face. He’s even drinking mojitos, saving up the lime wedges to suck at the end.

  I slide into the seat across from him, brows raised.

  “Mr. Shaw!” He drops a lime slice in his lap. A blotchy flush suffuses his face. “Come to bust me, huh?”

  I stare him down: I’ve earned this, the chance to watch him squirm. And squirm he does, busy fingers shredding his napkin. He’s looking everywhere but at me, weaselly eyes darting from one corner to the next.

  “Sorry about your plane. I heard, uh.... That’s a raw deal. They figure out what happened?”

  My plane? “That’s all you have to say to me?”

  He hangs his head. “What do you want me to say? We never got anywhere—isn’t that enough?” A defiant note’s creeping into his voice, shrill and strident. “Three months trailing after you, humiliating myself with your clients, and what have I got to show for it? Bupks.”

  My clients? Humiliating himself? “Wait, you—what are you talking about?”

  “You know who I am, right?”

  “The asshole hacking my phone?”

  His blush fades, replaced with what looks like genuine confusion. “I’m Frank Peavey.” He scowls when I don’t react. “From Peavey, Taft, Orvis, and Oppenheimer?”

  “Uh....”

  “Your competition?”

  “You’re from...PTOO?”

  “It’s Pea-Tea-Oh-Oh. Not Puh-too.”

  I choke back a laugh. PTOO—the small-potatoes ad shop with the spitty name—my competition? “What were you doing? Trying to...steal my clients?”

  “Steal?” He’s practically spitting himself. “You guys are putting us out of business!” People are starting to look our way, but Peavey’s on a roll, all brimstone and fury. “You sweep into town, suck up everything but the crumbs, and leave the table bare. What are we supposed to do? Lie down and take it?”

  “But if you’re not....” I frown. Of course a hacker would be a slippery bastard. “Do you have a card?”

  He whips one out and slaps it on the table: Frank Peavey – Director * International Sales – Peavey, Taft, Orvis, & Oppenheimer.

  Come to think of it, the name does ring a bell. So, if he’s not the hacker....

  “What? Nothing to say for yourself?”

  I tuck his card into my pocket, surging to my feet. “I’ll call you. About, uh...leaving more meat on the table.” This changes everything. Neil needs to know we’re chasing the wrong guy. What if we’re looking for a stranger, when the real culprit’s under our—

  I stop short, one hand on the door. What if there is no hacker? What if I’m meant to come barreling into the office, raving about imaginary cyberattacks, just in time to clinch that vote of no confidence? If there even is a vote?

  Neil wouldn’t do that. They must be gaslighting him. Manipulating him. They—

  They.

  I d
o sound paranoid. The whole thing does, almost like it was designed to. Exactly like it was designed to.

  Neil.

  I check my watch. Got a while before my flight. I head out to the street, dialing Neil’s number on the way. Four rings, five, and he picks up—“Brandon? You at the airport?”

  I pause, mouth open. Is this where I confront him? This is Neil. My best friend since we were six. Hearing his voice, my suspicion seems ridiculous. What am I hanging it on—a case of mistaken identity? An awkward moment in a hotel bar? “Uh....”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just—flying again. Feels wrong, getting back on a plane....” It’s not a lie. I’m not crazy about the idea.

  “You’ll be fine. Take half a Benadryl, close your eyes, and before you know it, you’ll be back on terra firma.”

  “Right....” I can’t let this go. “Uh, that hacker—did they find anything yet?”

  “Yep!” Neil’s moving around. I can hear voices in the background, a man and a woman, muffled and indistinguishable. “Everything’s in place. They’ve got records going back months: texts, e-mails, charges to your corporate card. You’d have been so screwed—it’s incredible, the work he put into it.”

  “Who is he? The same guy I kept seeing?—the redhead?” I hold my breath. If he says yes....

  “No, uh—he’s....” Something clunks, down the line. “Listen, someone just walked in. I’ve got to go, but I’ll meet you at the airport. We’ll go over everything in the cab.” There’s a loud click, a thud I can’t place. “I’m confident, Brandon. Got three guys on your side, ready to testify. And the paperwork—that’s solid. We’re going to kick ass.”

  “Wait—”

  He’s already hung up. I stare at my phone, reeling. He’s stressed—that’s all. Or...or he’s done with me. Moving on to the next phase of his plan.

  My phone vibrates, interrupting my jumbled thoughts.

  Lily.

  Chapter Thirty-One