by Kathryn Wise
“My mother’s working against what you and I are working for.”
Rachel instantly saw the face of Victoria Priestly, hunching like a vulture in Versace, eyeing everyone at the table as she spewed her dictates. Grayson stared at Rachel, reading her thoughts.
That can’t be right. “Are you telling me…?”
“Yes.” Grayson looked away, unable to hide his pain.
“Your mother’s Victoria Priestly?” Rachel asked.
Grayson nodded.
“Bloody hell,” Rachel whispered.
3Praying the Hours in Ordinary Life: (Art for Faith’s Sake) Lauralee Farrer and Clayton J. Schmit
Chapter Eleven
A Grace Given
“Let’s go outside on the balcony for a second. I need some air,” Grayson said.
“Yeah. Me too.” Even though she hid it well, Rachel felt anxious. Why would Priestly pretend not to know Grayson? And Grayson not know her? What kind of crazy tangled web of deceit was this? She didn’t understand.
Without a word, Rachel followed Grayson through the balcony doors and onto a beautiful outdoor patio furnished with a table, small fire pit, and several upholstered lounge chairs. Grayson sat down. Rachel chose the chair directly across from him. She wanted to launch an aggressive interrogation, but something held her back. Emotions were running high for both of them and her inclination toward silence in crisis compelled her to be quiet. Several minutes passed before either spoke.
“I know you have questions. I’m not very good at explaining this. It’s still confusing. I understand she’s extremely off-putting. My mother is a brilliant woman. It’s what made her so successful before, and what makes her so dangerous now. Honestly, I can’t help but wonder…”
Rachel waited. He looked unsure. Maybe he didn’t want to say anything that might make it worse. “It’s all right. We don’t know,” she said.
“That’s right…we don’t know…not yet.”
Rachel detected a hesitance in Grayson’s voice. She knew the feeling; wanting to avoid the hurt, pushing hope aside for fear of disappointment.
“I don’t know what to say. Of course, I have questions. Lots of them. But I’m not sure what to do right now.” She paused, gazing out across the sky to the two towers missing.
Grayson suddenly leaned forward in his chair. “How about we do what I always do?”
“What’s that?”
“Throw ourselves into our work. Let’s go back inside and see how far we get. I’ll get the tea kettle going,” Grayson said as he rose from the chair. “It’s chilly out here!”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Rachel said. She couldn’t take her eyes off the skyline. For the first time since she’d arrived, she felt afraid. She didn’t know why she felt afraid, exactly. Maybe it was the chilling audacity of Virtual Life to presume a place of dominance over the world’s main method of communication. Yeah…that was probably it. What else could it be?
The temperature was dropping, the shadows lengthening as they always did around that time in the afternoon. The 3 o’clock hour beckoned her to ponder things she’d once thought would be with her forever. Melancholy had started moving in.
No no no…no time for that. There’s too much to do right now.
Rachel opened the door and stuck her head in. “May I come in now?”
Grayson looked up, the familiar twinkle in his eye. He understood her attempt at levity. “Of course, come right in Ms. Vaughn. Please join me at the table.”
“Thank you, kind sir.” Rachel cleared her throat. “Grayson, there were some interesting developments today. May I do a quick brain dump with you first, just to get us both up to speed?”
“Absolutely, let’s do it. Here you go…I selected a tea for you. I hope you like Ginger Peach,” Grayson said, setting the steaming cup down in front of her.
“That’s my favorite, thank you. Okay, first, after you dropped me off, I had tea with Amir at a little place a few blocks from the hotel.”
Rachel began relaying the conversation to Grayson. He listened closely, but he didn’t seem surprised that Amir and Syed were friends. He also didn’t react to the news that Amir and Syed had worked with her parents.
“Grayson, why do I get the feeling you already knew all this before I told you?” Rachel asked.
Grayson smiled and let out a nervous chuckle. “Okay, you got me. I knew a little bit, but not everything. Let me put it this way. It’s like I’ve known what you data geeks call the ‘meta’ data, but not the actual data itself. A lot of what you’re telling me is news, but none of it is a surprise. For example, I knew Mr. Randal had made contact with Amir, but I didn’t know why.”
“I see.” Rachel paused, her mind firing off several more questions before settling on one.
“Are you okay?” Grayson asked.
“Processing. Please wait.”
Grayson snorted, her retort obviously tickling his funny bone and triggering a cathartic belly laugh. She couldn’t help laughing herself.
“Okay…okay…sorry. I didn’t mean that to be funny.”
“It’s cute! Don’t apologize,” Grayson said. “Go ahead, ask away.”
Rachel took a deep breath. “Okay, Grayson. Who am I to you?”
Grayson was taken aback by her question, but didn’t seem completely unprepared for it.
“Wow, what a question. From what I can tell, I think that…uh, let’s see. How do I say this?” He paused, looking up at a corner of the room. “I think…that you’re my given grace.”
His response nearly took her breath away.
“What exactly do you mean by that?” Rachel asked. She studied him, wanting to know if he was feeding her a line or not. She’d fallen for smart and attractive men before, but all her relationships had either abruptly ended in heartbreak or died from her intellectual boredom.
“Mr. Randal and the people with him…I know this is obvious. They’re more than what they appear to be. I’m not saying I know exactly who they are, but when it comes to me, they have always provided what I need when I need it. I’ve never had to ask. And it’s not just in terms of getting the job done. It’s also what I need. What I need emotionally and spiritually. It’s like they’re looking out for my soul. Before I received this assignment, I thought that part of my life was over; my mother was gone. We had been close…”
Grayson’s voice trailed off. Rachel felt it; a slightly familiar strain of pain.
“As the assignment went on and she began harassing me, I started to struggle. I never said anything about it, but then you showed up. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.”
“Grayson, I think I understand.” Rachel thought about it before continuing. “Maybe we’re kindred spirits. Maybe it’s one of the reasons we’ve been brought together. I feel like you’re a grace given for me too; a comforter…a source of strength and courage.”
Grayson sat back, his face glowing as the words washed over him.
“I don’t understand much, but I think I see a little bit of what’s going on here,” Rachel said, wagging two fingers back and forth between them.
Grayson got a mischievous look on his face. “Would you like to dance?”
“What? It’s 3:30 in the afternoon! Don’t you think we ought to get to work?”
It was too late. Grayson had already turned on the music, and Junior Walker and The All-Stars had taken center stage. She’d always wanted to do some old-school dance moves to Shotgun.
“All right. One dance. But that’s it!”
Oh my gosh. That was fun. I feel so much better!” Rachel said.
“Girl, you can move! You’re great. Let’s have another,” Grayson said between gasps for air.
Rachel took her jacket off, careful to check that the key case was safe and sound in the interior pocket. She was anxious to finish the brain dumping process.
“I’d love to, but not now. There’s more I need to tell you.”
Grayson nodded and motioned her to the table,
unable to speak while he caught his breath.
“Dang, Grayson. That was nothing! You need to get into shape,” Rachel said, teasing him a little.
“Yeah. Okay, Frannie Fitness.” Grayson said.
“Ha ha, very funny. All right, we need to focus. I need to tell you more about today.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Something happened as I was leaving the tea house today. When I stepped out onto the sidewalk, I was shoved. Hard. I started falling face first into the concrete but managed to break my fall. Then someone pulled me up. When I turned around there was no-one there. I swear I felt it…a hand around my upper arm, pulling me up as if I were as light as a feather.”
Grayson poured his hot tea into a glass of ice cubes. “Do you want yours iced?”
“Did you hear what I said?” Rachel asked, wondering why Grayson looked so nonchalant.
“Yes, of course. I listen to every word you say.” Grayson said. “That’s a little weird, I’ll give you that.”
“Is this just standard fare in your world? Invisible hands helping you out of a bad spot?”
“Uh…yeh.”
Rachel scowled. Grayson was a little too coy with whatever information he had. But that was fine. She’d play along.
“Okay, then how about this? Whoever bumped into me apologized, but I didn’t see who it was. The foot traffic was too heavy to pick him out of the crowd. So I waited, thinking there was a good chance he would turn around and look.”
“Good strategy. Impressive.”
“Stop. I’m serious. This is a serious incident. Anyway, all of a sudden it was like someone had pressed a button. The people walking went into slow-motion, and the lights went dim. It got pretty dark. The only source of light was from an area about 50 yards away in the direction of whoever shoved me.”
“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” Grayson said.
“That’s not all. Then the crowd parted, and a path opened up down the middle of the sidewalk. A man standing at the end of the path turned around and looked at me. As soon as he did, I couldn’t see anything. I’d gone blind.”
Grayson shed his nonchalant demeanor and seemed to be paying closer attention to her story, his piercing eyes squinting as if his thoughts could only race while she spoke.
“Then, a second later, my sight came back. He was still standing there looking at me.” Rachel felt her chest get tight. She started breathing faster. “Sorry…this is weird.” She took in a deep breath and continued. “His face had a soft glow to it. I felt like we were alone, just him and me. I didn’t know what to make of it. He looked familiar.”
“You’ve seen him before? Recently?”
“Yeah…very recently. I keep wanting to place him in the conference room at Virtual Life, but not at the table. Really, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember. You were there. Do you have any idea who he might be?”
Grayson sat still: no blinks, no body movement. Just a blank stare. Is he even breathing?
“Are you okay?”
He abruptly leaned forward. “What else?” Grayson asked, his voice carrying an intensity she hadn’t heard before.
“What do you mean, what else?”
“What else happened?”
“I yelled out to him, but as soon as I did, everything went back to normal time. And the lights went back on. I lost him in the crowd. I tried to find him again, but he was gone. Next thing I knew, Charles is there with my coat. We walked back to the hotel together.”
“Where was Amir all this time?”
“He was still in the teahouse buying tea to bring home.”
Grayson stared at Rachel. She wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but it definitely wasn’t anything romantic or playful. He looked calm, yet sober; very sober. The apartment went quiet as if someone had turned off the sounds of the city below. And as the two of them waited, a full silence blanketed the room.
Chapter Twelve
The Pitch
Grayson went into the den to get his portfolio containing the staff roster and candidate resumes. Rachel took the last sip of tea while thinking through different strategies for pitching their proposal to the execs the next morning. It was getting late and even though they’d already covered a lot of ground, the mountain of work in front of them felt daunting. They only needed one simple and elegant solution, one that nobody in their right mind would object to. Those kinds of solutions were the hardest to define; she often found that people make things more complicated than they need to be.
“Earth to Rachel. Where are you?” Grayson said as he walked back into the living area.
“Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about how we’re going to pitch this. We don’t want to leave any room for an objection on Priestly’s… Sorry. Mrs. Priestly’s part. It’s paramount that we get beyond the job offer and start establishing the team; a team that includes Syed Haddad. I suspect he’s our key to learning how Virtual Life has been causing all these disruptions to service. No pun intended.”
Grayson looked preoccupied. “It’s all right. You can call her Priestly. That’s what I call her. Anyway, to me, she’s not the same person. And yes, I agree with you about Syed Haddad.”
Rachel was reminded of Grayson’s vulnerability. He sat down and placed the staff roster on the table in front of her alongside a pile of resumes. “Syed’s is the first resume on the stack,” Grayson said.
They worked through the roster, selecting six possible candidates for what she thought would be a three or four person team. Two were from Calista Lawrence’s division, including Syed Haddad, and the other four were from George Kendall’s organization. It was a relief to finish the tedious part of the afternoon’s work.
“Great. That’s done. Remember, Trader made a commitment to make Syed available for an interview, so this shouldn’t be a problem. But we need to make sure they only have one option when we select him. Approve.”
“I like it. But I’m also getting hungry. What time do you want to break for dinner? We can talk strategy over a fine piece of halibut. And maybe a glass of wine…and a little dessert,” Grayson said, nudging her elbow a little as he spoke.
“Dinner sounds fabulous. How about 5? That gives us almost an hour to finish comparing notes.”
“Party pooper.”
“Hey! We’ve got work to do-” Rachel suddenly remembered she hadn’t told Grayson about Calista Lawrence’s unannounced visit. “Good grief, how could I forget? I had an unexpected visitor today…Calista Lawrence. She came pounding on my hotel room door.”
“Pounding?”
“Yeah…pounding and then that fast incessant knocking that makes you nervous.”
“Really.” Grayson narrowed his eyes and smirked as if running a stream of possible theories through his mind. “That’s very interesting. What’d she want?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t answer the door. I wasn’t about to let her in without knowing why she was there or how she knew my room number. She was obviously upset about something. Inviting her in would have been too risky, not to mention bad form for a pro like me. Anyway, I managed to sneak a phone call to Amir. Charles came up to the floor to find out what was going on and when he got there, I heard her try to finagle her way inside by claiming to be my mother. Charles was having none of her nonsense. He escorted her out. For all I know, he eighty-sixed her from the joint.”
“You know, as refined and educated as you are, sometimes I feel like I’m talking to some tough street-wise chick,” Grayson said.
“Yeah, well sometimes it comes out. I’ve had some colorful seasons in my life.”
Grayson nodded in an understanding way. “It’s kind of cool.”
“Stay focused…please,” Rachel said.
Grayson sat up straight. “So, Calista showed up. Interesting development. I’m not sure about her. She acts like she’s ‘all in’ on whatever game Virtual Life is playing in the market. But once in a while the sparks really fly between her and my mother…er, Priestly. Did you notice t
hat in the meeting today?”
Rachel laughed. “How could I not? I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Calista is Syed’s direct boss. Today she said he’s being considered for a transfer, and then Priestly interrupted her to say Syed could be made available. Calista didn’t look very happy. Kind of ticked off. There’s definitely something going on there.”
“Yeah, you got me on that one. I rarely understand what’s going on between women.”
Rachel laughed. “You’re a man! How could you?”
“Get to work, Ms. Vaughn.”
Grayson picked up and began studying Syed’s resume again when he suddenly slapped his hand down on the table. “I think I know who the man on the street might be.”
Nonplussed, Rachel gasped. “You do? Who?”
“You said he looked familiar, right? Do you remember when Syed was escorted out of the room?” Rachel nodded. “A staff person was standing next to the exit door. He was wearing a uniform. Like a maintenance uniform. I noticed him because he looked out of place.”
Grayson’s wheels were turning, but Rachel wasn’t sure he was on the right track. “I don’t get it. What’s the connection?” Rachel asked.
“What was the man on the street wearing?”
Rachel could hardly remember what Amir wore at the tea house, let alone the attire of a glowing-face man standing in the dark 50 yards away.
“Give me a minute. I need to switch gears,” she said.
Rachel closed her eyes and began practicing a refocusing technique she’d learned while serving in the Middle East. She breathed deeply, paying attention to different parts of her body, relaxing her muscles as she worked one by one from the bottom of her feet to the top of her head. It helped her relax enough to concentrate and allow insights and images to emerge from her subconscious.
“His attire wasn’t anything unusual. There were lots of business people in the crowd…a whole bunch of suits. I don’t think he was wearing a suit. At least not a nice one. It wasn’t black. I remember it as dowdy, but nothing more specific. He was dressed like someone I might easily overlook,” Rachel said.
