Between The Sheets

by Jeanie London

  Harold Snyder had become a friend during the years as a result of Rex’s continued interest in massage. Harold was both personable and respected for his knowledge in scientific research. He shared his knowledge freely—evidenced by the fact that he’d allowed Rex continued access to the research foundation’s intranet.

  Hopefully Harold could offer direction in following up on a suspicion Rex had about April. She was a lovely and intelligent woman and he disliked that she shied away from contact with people, that she preferred the solitude of the observation room to being out in the conference room with him.

  True, as his assistant, she needed to be behind the scenes, but Rex liked to know she was comfortable venturing out when the chance arose, maybe to try out sleeping styles again, or to help with the other hundred things that might come up during a project. And she wouldn’t be unless he could help her stay in the lower digits on her nervous scale.

  Contrary to what he’d told her, Rex wasn’t convinced that massage alone would do the trick. Scrolling on the computer screen, he maneuvered through the foundation’s Web site. He had access to areas about massage therapy, but tonight he was researching another topic, one he’d heard about only casually while under contract with the foundation.

  A few items of relevancy popped up in some common areas of the site, which helped him gather his thoughts and fed his growing suspicion that April suffered from something more than being “high-strung.”

  The official medical term for the malady was Electro Hypersensitivity, commonly referred to as EHS. A dictionary defined phrases such as electromagnetic compatibility and electrostatic discharge. In a nutshell, people stored and emitted electricity in their bodies, which could not only adversely affect electrical equipment but create biological allergies.

  He reviewed an area of the site that offered pages of clinical case histories and hosted a bulletin board where EHS sufferers who’d been treated by the foundation could connect via cyberspace to discuss their various issues and have an authority respond with medical advice. Rex scanned both, found the case histories of particular interest.

  Mabel R., an EHS sufferer whose new hearing aid exacerbated her sensitivity to the point she experienced crippling lethargy while at work in front of a telephone system.

  Tyrone F., an EHS sufferer who experienced episodes of sudden, almost violent “bursts of energy” upon retiring every night in his new apartment. Investigation revealed water pipes and power cables in adjoining walls where the bed was located. Water pipes carried an electric current. Once the bed was moved to another location, the manic episodes ceased.

  Joe H., an EHS sufferer who absorbed electrical signals from the computer, fed enough “garbage” back into the system to malfunction both computer and monitor.

  Glancing at April’s unique computer setup, Rex wondered if she hadn’t experienced similar troubles. She hadn’t mentioned anything that might lead him to believe she was aware this particular malady existed. He continued scanning the histories.

  The biological effects he read about in these cases ranged from lethargy to mania to every mood in between. Even more disturbing were the results of a study conducted by the National Agency for Cancer Study that linked EHS sufferers as more susceptible to human carcinogens.

  Logging off the medical research foundation’s intranet, Rex conducted a global search of the Web to find more sites of interest. What he found, though, was that Electro Hypersensitivity was an obscure topic. Other than a few oddball pages where people linked EHS to alien encounters, he found no medical sites of any particular use.

  Two o’clock had come and gone by the time he’d finished surfing. Rex sent the post off to Harold, received an automated reply stating that the director would be out of the office until the sixteenth. Bum timing. He would have to cool his heels for another week.

  Before shutting down his system, he logged on to the Luxurious Bedding Company server to see if his in-box would be flooded with e-mails. There were only a few new items, though, and nothing pressing enough to be dealt with tonight. Rex headed back to bed and the woman who awaited him there with a smile.

  10

  To: J.P. Mooney (mailto:john@mooneyinvestigators.com)

  Date: 16 Mar 2003 17:42:11-0200

  Subject: Checking In and Checking Up

  Hello Brother-in-law,

  I’m checking in with news of the investigation before I head to Florida tomorrow to check up on April. The investigation is moving too slowly for me although my security chief assures me that his people are working at the speed of light. I suppose given that we’re dealing with the backgrounds of well over a thousand employees I’ll take him at his word.

  So far they’ve narrowed the list considerably by focusing on staff who have prior connections to rival manufacturers in their work histories.

  The influx of suggestive posts mercifully slowed for a few days, giving us some much-needed respite around here. My network administrator, Jacqui Scott used the time to track network traffic and attempt to determine a pattern. The transmissions still appear to be originating from random terminals. The only commonality is that the posts forwarded all have to do with the Sensuous Collection. Not reassuring.

  However, Jacqui has been steadily monitoring all outbound traffic and hasn’t tracked a single post to a rival manufacturer or any other suspicious destination, which alleviates my worries somewhat, if not my concerns about the effects of sex on the brain on her judgment. And not only Jacqui’s judgment, but that of my marketing director, Charles Blackstone.

  Yesterday, I overheard her haranguing him and making sexual innuendoes through the open door of the employee break room, which convinced me that they’re involved. I suppose I should be grateful that the relationship appears to be curtailed to after-hours and I didn’t walk in on them going at it on the table. That God for small favors.

  The latest posts contain utterly brilliant suggestions for making the company a more attractive place to work by providing sexual apparatus to new-hires at orientation. And the idea I’m personally considering implementing will cut down on employee absences by allotting time on the clock for sexual trysts in our newly remodeled fantasy dungeon/conference rooms.

  Even April has received a suggestive post through the dummy marketing assistant account you suggested I set up for her. A post about sex toys, I believe, which flooded her mailbox and gave her a chance to review the files that are being forwarded.

  She is my only sanity in this madness. She’s doing her job beautifully and from what Rex says, it turns out our girl has a knack for spotting potential liabilities. He hasn’t stopped praising her abilities or thanking me for sending her. The man sounds thoroughly enchanted! I can’t wait to see them in person.

  Do not lecture me about April’s reports of Rex prowling around late at night to work on his computer! I’ve taken enough flack from the board already and do not have the patience. I’m sure Rex has a perfectly valid explanation—some research for his analysis, I’ll wager. He is very thorough, which is one of the reasons he’s so tremendously valuable to me.

  I suggested tracking his transmissions but he’s using his own business account, not the Luxurious Bedding Company’s server. As I’m sure you’re already aware that means we have no legal right to monitor his activity without a warrant. As long as April is documenting the incidents we’ll be covered in the event his actions are questioned.

  So hold a good thought for me, brother-in-law. My security chief needs to come up with something concrete to follow up on soon because while his people are busy investigating at the speed of light, I’m left sitting in my ivory tower watching the world go mad around me.

  Wil

  John steepled his fingers before him and smiled at his computer monitor. He’d been waiting to hear back from Wilhemina about these new reports of Rex Holt’s nighttime prowling because April had been bugging him for permission to infiltrate the man’s system to find out what he was doing.

  When John had
questioned her about why she was so hot to investigate this guy when she was doing a good job by passing along her reports, she’d danced around so much that John suspected something was up.

  Do you think Rex Holt is guilty? He had asked her via e-mail.

  NO! came the reply.

  If Wilhemina still wasn’t worried about this guy’s integrity in light of this new information then that was good enough for John. Toggling between screens on his e-mail program, he replied to April’s last post with an equally emphatic “NO!”

  APRIL WATCHED Rex greet his first group of respondents in the Florida offices of Yodzis and Associates. They’d wrapped up their studies in Atlanta and had traveled south without mishap to continue with round two of their studies.

  As always, he was oh, so handsome with his burnished hair glinting in the overhead light as he circled the conference table, drawing the gaze of every woman in the room.

  And from those outside the room, too.

  She couldn’t help admiring the way he moved with his long strides and lean grace and when he peered through the observation window, as though he could sense her watching him, she found herself smiling, helpless to resist the impulse, even though he couldn’t see her.

  With each new dawn after a night spent in his arms, April found herself in over her head a little more, her emotions a little closer to the edge, her internal alarm increasing its decibel level.

  Her alarm was in the red zone because this fling wasn’t turning out to be as simple as she’d planned. Not only was she getting sucked in emotionally, but Rex had complicated issues further with his late-night visits to his computer.

  She’d awakened the minute he’d slipped out of bed on that very first night a week ago. She’d sneaked to the door to hear the sound of clicking keys and electronic blips and beeps. She’d considered following him under the pretense of getting a glass of water just to see how he’d react to her intrusion. If he knew that she could happen upon him, he might curtail his activities. But her job was to make him comfortable so he would go about his business as usual while she watched.

  So the real trick this past week had been not to jump to the obvious conclusion—that he was conducting some nefarious business in the dead of night. Business like sending information about the data he’d been compiling for the Sensuous Collection to a rival manufacturer.

  She didn’t think he was guilty, but heaven forbid they were all wrong….

  John had a credo he lived by and during the years he’d trained her he’d drummed that credo into her skull until she could hear his voice looping through her brain right now.

  Thou shalt not become emotionally involved with thy client.

  Rex wasn’t her client, yet John’s adage still applied—he’d just never mentioned this particular bit of wisdom in reference to suspects because he’d assumed the logic should have been obvious.

  In the dark, while Rex held her in his arms and coaxed responses from her body that she’d never dreamed herself capable of, she felt so right. As if for once she was in the right place at the right time and had managed to do exactly the right thing.

  In the harsh light of day, the right thing meant her surveillance was biased.

  An image of sitting on the witness stand, explaining to an entire courtroom—with John Patrick Mooney seated in the front row for moral support, of course—how she’d slept with the suspect, which rendered her testimony inadmissible…

  Conflict of interest.

  The blow to the agency’s reputation would be staggering, which was a horrible way to repay John for fostering her and giving her a place to live and a job and a family….

  April Accidentally strikes again, wreaking havoc on everyone unfortunate enough to cross her path.

  Darn good thing she’d had so much practice dealing with her own screwups. Otherwise she’d never have been able to function under the pressure of having a fling and trying not to fall in love with a man she believed wasn’t a criminal—but couldn’t be absolutely sure—while living her cover and conducting undercover surveillance.

  But she was doing her job. It was her only bright spot. She was proving herself capable as Rex’s assistant, successfully living her cover. Rex was particularly pleased with her ability to pinpoint potential liabilities, and she was just as pleased that he’d managed to find such an unexpected positive in her screwups.

  She was documenting to protect two people she cared about and would have the information to support Wilhemina’s judgment and prove Rex’s innocence in the event he was ever questioned.

  In an effort to shake things up and satisfy these niggling doubts, she casually mentioned one of his late-night jaunts. She’d hoped for a simple explanation to absolve him of any suspicions, but he’d just shrugged and claimed he hadn’t been able to sleep.

  That explanation explained one night, not three.

  The only thing left to do had been to ask John’s permission to infiltrate Rex’s system to find out exactly what he’d been doing. John had ultimately denied her request and she wasn’t happy. He was crippling her in the one area she had any real competency, which seemed so stupid. Not that she couldn’t squelch her doubts about Rex. She could, because even though she didn’t know what he was doing on the computer at night, in her heart she knew he wasn’t guilty.

  And the result was that she had to face the fact that it wasn’t so much that she thought Rex might be guilty as it was she didn’t trust her own judgment about him. Like Wilhemina, she believed he had some reasonable explanation for working at night and not mentioning it. But April was afraid to trust herself.

  It was a sobering truth and one she decided she had to address right away. If she didn’t believe in herself, no one would. So, with a new conviction to listen to her gut instincts, she threw herself into her role, assisting Rex in a series of consumer confusion studies, blind testing and accompanied shopping experiments in the Yodzis and Associates’ offices that overlooked Tampa Bay.

  Rex had seated himself at the head of the table and started up a discussion about a pillow—another version of the Hidden Secrets Pillow—with an inside compartment to hold the Kama Sutra Sports Set game spinner and other sexy goodies.

  When a sharp knock on the door sounded, April motioned to her Tampa assistant, a young woman named Camille, to let their visitor in.

  The door opened and a familiar voice said, “Hello, April. We made it.”

  “Finally,” a male voice added.

  Wilhemina entered the room with her marketing director. “You remember Charles Blackstone.” She inclined her head in greeting to Camille.

  “Of course,” April said, motioning him inside. “Please come in and close the door.”

  She slanted a glance toward Rex to see if he or his respondents had been distracted by the light, noticed a few of the womens’ gaze dart toward the window. “Good trip, I trust.”

  Charles extended his hand and April took it, frowning when she got a shock. Charles laughed but didn’t let go.

  “Coming to Florida in the winter is worth a little turbulence,” he said with a smarmy smile.

  Withdrawing her hand, April took a step back and caught her heel on the rubber mat surrounding her computer station. She managed to steady herself on the podium and greeted Wilhemina, who said, “It wasn’t bad, thank you, April. A direct flight, which is always a pleasure.”

  To look at Wilhemina, no one would ever have known they were two strays adopted by the same family. She presented herself as a professional who was greeting an employee and Charles Blackstone seemed to be buying it no problem. April wasn’t surprised. The man was a dime a dozen, in her opinion. His eyes roved too freely and lingered just a little too long for her tastes.

  If she were picking a suspect to fit the profile of the stalker, she’d have put this man on the top of her list.

  “Rex is hard at work as usual,” Wilhemina commented, glancing through the window at the man of the moment. “So what do you think about him? Has he impressed y
ou as much as I told you he would?”

  Wilhemina was referring to a lot more than Rex’s marketing studies, so April just said, “He’s very gifted at what he does.”

  Then she went back to her computer to look up information on competitive lines of sex toy pillows that she anticipated Rex would want, given his current line of questioning.

  Wilhemina only lifted an arched brow and April experienced a surge of satisfaction that she’d thwarted what was only the first attempt to find out if April had taken her Auntie Wil’s advice and gone for it.

  Her corporate guests observed the focus groups until Rex’s schedule segued into a completion technique session. He led a small group in making up a bed with the Kama Sutra Sports Set, gauging their reactions not only to the product but to the ease of assembling the product. He invited Charles to help.

  “Camille,” April said. “Would you go assemble the folders from the telephone interviews that Mr. Holt wants to take with him tonight. I’ll keep an eye on the equipment.”

  Camille left and the door had barely shut when Wilhemina got straight to the point. “My dear girl, you’re positively glowing. Do I take that to mean you took my suggestion?”

  April had thought she’d be prepared for this question, but darned if she didn’t blush to the roots of her hair, which of course, Wilhemina took as a yes.

  “Oh, my dear, I’m so thrilled for you. Rex is completely wonderful, isn’t he?” She clasped April’s hands, rushing on before April had a chance to deny her presumption or answer her question. “And you’ve been completely wonderful, too. You’re doing such a thorough job. I told John he didn’t have to worry about you. You’d be fine if he’d just toss you out of the nest and give you a chance to fly.”

  Well, if that didn’t just come as a mixed bag. While she appreciated Wilhemina’s confidence in her abilities, knowing John had to be coerced to give her this case wasn’t exactly reassuring, given that she was proving his concerns well founded by sleeping with the suspect.