My words elicited a strangled protest combined with a grunt. “Let’s not mention my mother when we’re engaged in—do I need to find pliers to pry this off, or what?”
I reached back to study the problem. “I think you may have twisted the hook thingies more when you pulled on it.”
“Maybe my mother did this on purpose.”
“I did the hooks!” I protested. “But not on purpose. Well, not—”
Mark’s sigh could have blown the bra off if it hadn’t been sewn so tightly. He grabbed my shirt and pulled it off over my head, ripping the seams in the process.
“There’s more than one way to peel a banana,” he said, lifting the bra from the bottom and squishing my boobs down with the elastic. He kissed me again and worked his way down to make sure that any possible injuries were given proper attention while he carefully extracted me from the contraption.
It was possible I’d never have gotten out of the bra without his help.
Chapter 27
With all the excitement of delivering pillowcases, I had completely forgotten Monique’s promise of a team building exercise, but there was the email first thing the next morning, demanding my presence in the break room. “Like we don’t have enough work to do,” I muttered. I grabbed one of the test phones, assuming she had thought up some brilliant way to group test in order to speed up the schedule. “It won’t work,” I told the phone. “But new managers always think they have a better plan.”
There were already people milling in the break room, mostly huddled behind the counter or wedged against the fridge. There were two junior engineers, a lady from marketing, and an older guy who was part of the test team. He was a rickety fellow, and so far as I knew, didn’t own a single t-shirt that wasn’t torn in at least three places. Sometimes he even wore a shirt with one sleeve ripped completely off.
What was John, the CEO, doing here with us peons? And the one secretary in the whole company, Kay, was here, too. Watching them test phones would be interesting.
Roscoe was pointedly eating a poptart and ignoring an untouched plate piled high with rice cakes. Howard stood more in the open, staring at the far wall of the break room. He was yanking on the top of his dress shirt as though worried he had forgotten his tie, but Borgot was very casual. No one wore ties, not even the lawyers.
My eyes followed his stare. Along the far wall there was a long beam, waist high, supported by two Y supports on either end. A black guy in a black leotard was stretching along the length. He straightened, bounced on his toes and then lifted one muscular arm in a very convincing...ballet pose.
“Dear God, no,” I muttered, closing my eyes. I swung around hard and promptly hit Kovid square in the chest with my first step to freedom.
He was rooted to the spot, his mouth hanging wide, staring at the ballet beam and Mr. Stretch. Kovid grabbed my arm in an ineffective attempt to steady me while he sputtered an apology. “Sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“No problem. A ballet beam in an engineering company isn’t just riveting, it’s scary.”
Mr. Stretch stopped holding his ridiculous pose and called out, “Free your mind! Your body! You will be at one with your code.”
“At one with code?” I sneered.
Kovid’s eyes bulged. “I don’t want to be—”
We both hightailed it for the stairwell, bumping shoulders and promptly running smack into Lawrence. “It’s a good idea,” Lawrence said, patting his full head of blonde hair, a direct contrast to Mr. Stretch who sported dark hair that capped his head like a second skin. “This guy did some work at another company I worked for. Had an amazing effect on employee moral. Work output increased dramatically.”
“What, when you promised you wouldn’t hire a ballet teacher ever again if they made the shipment date?” I blurted out.
He snorted. “If it works, it works. If we don’t get this product to market soon, we’ll all be on the street looking for a job. Startups don’t have the luxury of falling back on old income. Come on, you two. Give it a try.”
I didn’t report to Lawrence. I opened my mouth to tell him so when Monique materialized from behind him. “How bad can it be?” She stepped sideways, right in front of me, her gaze determined. Of course, she wore her purple spandex pants, the ones with the yellow smiling, winking icon on her butt. Nothing like being prepared.
I had on jeans. So did every other engineer in the place except for the IT guy. He wore shorts even when it was twenty degrees outside. He had probably read the emails that arranged this disaster because he was nowhere to be seen.
Howard mumbled something about “idiotic, waste of...” but then Lawrence turned his eagle-eyed stare on him. Howard slugged back a drink of coffee and promptly choked. He used it as an excuse to head for the men’s bathroom, coughing and gagging the entire time as though he might die any second.
Great. Now I couldn’t use choking as an excuse. Kovid and I eyed each other. There were only so many excuses. Would he fake a heart attack before I did? Was I that desperate?
Mr. Stretch called out, “Everyone line up! We’ll limber up first. No one has to go on their toes. Nothing too difficult for beginners!”
Yes, I was that desperate.
Monique grabbed my arm and dragged me backwards to the ballet bar. “Will you just participate already?” she hissed in my ear. “We can’t expect the guys to do this if we don’t. And Lawrence said it worked miracles at his last company. We need a miracle!”
She was right about the miracle part, but I doubted we were saying the same prayer.
My thoughts on participating did a one-eighty when I spotted Mr. Stretch’s gym bag in the corner by the end of the pole supporting the ballet beam. The nylon bag was a light blue with yellow stripes, zipped up tight. The phone sitting on top of it was black—just like all the other Borgot prototypes. I wouldn’t have noticed it there except for the fact that a lot of Borgot phones had been turning up where they had no business being.
What was he doing with one of our phones? It couldn’t be part of his pay package.
My gaze swung around wildly, wondering who had set it there. Or had he stolen it? Not likely. He wouldn’t leave it in plain view if he had filched it off a desk. But sitting where it was, it would be very easy for him to pick up and nonchalantly walk out with it. What then?
I needed that phone. Mr. Stretch, who was now introducing himself as Clint Lewis, needed to be followed. I couldn’t follow him, but maybe I could steal the stolen phone. I never carried a phone on my belt, but I had brought one of the test phones, under the very mistaken assumption that the team building exercise might include actual work or something that would forward the company objectives.
I scooted over to the beam, my sudden enthusiasm propelling me to the front of the class. With a determined grunt, I propped my leg up on the bar. “Ow.” My plan to grab the contraband during a stretch needed a serious adjustment. The seams of my jeans barely allowed for this position. My leg didn’t feel so lucky and leaning over without stretchier pants was impossible.
Clint twirled around and clapped his hands at me. “Excellent. Excellent!” Ballet was obviously a muscle builder because the guy was built like a truck.
Thankfully, Monique took up a graceful position behind me. I’ll bet her smiling butt pants were something to behold from the other side. I closed my eyes. Once again, Huntington owed me a raise.
I wished Mark’s mom, LeAnn, was here. Between the two of us, we could manage a distraction long enough to ensure one of us could retrieve the phone. Plus, if she was here, maybe she could somehow shut Clint up. He was giving instructions at the top of his sing-song voice while spinning around the group helping “position” everyone.
When he started an old fashioned boom box playing the sound track from “Flashdance,” I dropped my leg and leaned over, intending to fake a cramp. Unfortunately, my thigh cooperated a little too realistically. “Aaaargh.”
I sat down hard. The phone was within reach, but Clint
rushed over to push against the toe of my sneaker. I glared at him. The cramp wasn’t in my calf. There was no way I was telling him that the side of my thigh was the problem.
I squawked and scooted back, hitting his bag.
“Oh Sedona, quit being such a prima donna,” Monique yodeled. “This isn’t hard at all, is it guys?”
What guys? The CEO was standing at the very end of the beam with Lawrence. He was leaned against it casually as though that counted as exercise. Kovid gripped the bar with both hands and looked like he was hoping to snap it with his bare hands.
Roscoe faced the CEO and Lawrence. He was in full spout mode about his great code. Two others had taken positions at the beam; one was our overweight project coordinator, but he merely stared at the beam as though it would exercise itself. Monique’s replacement in marketing, Heather, was pretending to stretch near the snack counter while she talked to the CEO’s secretary, Kay. Kay wore pretty red heels so apparently she was exempt.
“This is insane,” I muttered. Clint still knelt nearby, ready to offer help I didn’t want. From this close, his bulging arm muscles were even more evident—a threat if there ever was one. I scooted away another scoot. “I’m fine. I’ll recover in a minute. You just go on herding the insane.”
Hazel eyes, hinting at a mixed heritage, flashed laughter and far more intelligence at that moment than the quirky, hyperactive ballet teacher he was playing at. Perhaps he was laughing at me, or perhaps at the fact that he was getting paid, who knows how much, to coerce a bunch of gangly engineers into standing next to a ballet beam. We came to an agreement sitting there, me with a snarl and he with a grin.
With a nod that said he would leave me alone, he stood to usher Heather to the beam. Kay was used to ignoring pesky, inane requests. She gave him a steely-eyed glare and while pretending to finger the crimson garnet necklace she wore, she flipped him off. Her dark brown ponytail wagged a dismissal as she pranced off down the hall, the sound of her red heels lost underneath the music. Not even her boss was willing to suggest she stay.
Kovid gladly stepped back from the bar to make room for Heather. The fat project coordinator behind Kovid gasped in alarm, wiped his brow and rushed the snack counter. Instinctively, he grabbed a rice cake and stuffed it in his mouth. Then, with a garbled gag he darted away.
While everyone watched him enviously, I shoved the Borgot phone in my back pocket.
I rolled to a standing position, dropping my own Borgot test phone near the bag.
Clint called out another set of instructions that was soundly ignored by one and all.
I limped to the other side of Monique.
The CEO tired of Roscoe shouting above the music. He gave the beam a friendly pat, waved at us and headed down the hallway with a, “Good work, keep it going.”
Lawrence muttered something about, “This really did help at our old company, although I don’t see how.”
“Yeah, you should have thought of that before you hired this guy,” I grumbled darkly.
Clint was now dancing with Monique. “You want to stretch your arms when you do this,” he called out. “Everyone grab a partner.”
“Anyone touches me, dies,” I promised.
With Monique occupied, the CEO gone and no one closing in, I bolted for the stairwell like the devil was on my tail.
Radar needed to see this phone.
Chapter 28
I hit the first floor, raced to the opposite end of the building and took the stairs back up. Luckily, everyone was hiding from everyone else because no one wanted to be dragged to the break room where music was still blaring. I stayed low, collected my backpack and scurried back out. From now on I’d carry my car keys in my pocket.
I drove out of the parking lot, afraid someone might follow me. After several checks in the rear view mirror, I pulled into the first available gas station to call Mark and Radar.
“I don’t know if Clint left Borgot yet,” I told Mark. “It might be interesting to see where he takes that phone or find out if he keeps it.”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s a black guy in black tights. How many of them can there be coming out of Borgot?”
Mark laughed. “Last name Lewis?” he verified.
“That’s what he said.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
Radar showed up shortly after I arrived at home. He had barely sat down at the kitchen table when he stopped to rub his hands together gleefully. “This has an SD card in it and there’s code on it, just like your test units.”
“I’m going to assume you mean the units I gave to you, not test units you had no business looking at.”
He just grinned and held up the small card he had taken from the phone I had just retrieved from Clint Lewis. “This phone is not only running the latest translation code that includes Spanish and Italian, the storage card has the raw computer code, module by module.”
“And whoever has that storage card can import it anywhere—like another phone.”
He nodded. “And sell it as their very own code or add the code needed to work with a smartwatch.”
There was a quick tap at the front door, followed by Mark coming in. Since we weren’t expecting anyone else, he locked it behind him.
“Did you find him?” I asked Mark before he even unzipped his jacket.
“I found a Clint Lewis. He runs a karate dojo downtown. According to the website, he’s an ex-marine.”
“What?”
He nodded. “The ballet must be a side thing.”
The guy had been in good shape. And that second or two when our eyes met after I fell...maybe Mr. Lewis was more than he appeared to be. “Did you catch him leaving the building?”
Mark shook his head. “No, but since I know where he works, I can question him later.”
“That’s a good idea. We can ask him what he was doing with the phone.”
Mark ignored my hint and focused on Radar. “What did you find?”
Radar relayed the information. “The storage card in this phone contains the code for the Borgot assistant and translation modules. There’s nothing to support a smartwatch, but the person on the other end could be adding that code. Once the smartwatch code modules are added, presto, you not only beat Borgot to market with more translation features, you have a smartwatch that supports translations as well.”
“Joe must have been delivering code drops, and he somehow wrapped his slimy hands around one of the smartwatches,” I said.
Radar nodded. “Someone also added the smartwatch code to his personal phone, the one you ended up with, which is why it worked with the watch. The drops weren’t perfectly synched because his phone didn’t have the language modules updated.” He turned back to the phone. “Give me a few more minutes with this thing,” he said.
It took him longer than a few minutes, but the results were what we expected. “This looks like close to the final code drop. The Spanish translations are much more complete. This could be good enough for someone to use in production, although I obviously can’t test it thoroughly, and the only watch we have is an early prototype.”
“I say we have a little chat with Clint,” I suggested. “Let’s find out what he knows. Maybe he is coding the watch part of this project, and needed the latest language modules. Without Joe or Cary, he had to go in and pick up the code himself.”
Mark sighed.
Radar stood. “You guys go ahead. I want to take this home and delve into the code. I’ll test it more to see how well it works with Joe’s smartwatch. I may have better luck getting it to work with one of mine, but either way, this raw code is very valuable.”
Radar followed us out. I was pleased to see that Mark had driven his SUV and not one of the motorcycles. It would be easier for him to take me along to talk to Clint.
***
Clint lived above his karate dojo studio. I had expected Mark to argue with me when I insisted on coming along, but as we climbed in his SUV all he said wa
s, “You know, Steve wouldn’t have even told you he found this Clint guy, never mind taken you along to question him.”
“I’m not dating Steve,” I replied. “And neither are you.”
He drove in silence for a while. “He keeps hiring you.”
“That is a problem,” I agreed.
Denton wasn’t that large and nothing was terribly far. The dojo was a few blocks over from Abba’s studio, the one where I had been a member. Given the fact someone disliked me enough to bury a dead guy in my yard, I should probably still be attending karate practice regularly.
The sign on Clint’s dojo door listed the first afternoon class starting at five. I had taken karate long enough to recognize the validity of the hours. One morning class for pros, one for beginners who were people like me—not really all that good at karate, but needed a few self-defense moves and the exercise. Evening was a repeat for various levels of expertise.
The front door was locked, but another sign requested, “deliveries in the back.”
We walked around to an alley that was wide enough for a truck, found the door, and rang a bell.
Whoever was upstairs buzzed the door open.
A very short hallway directly in front of us led to a door that probably led to the dojo and the front of the building. We tried the door first, but it was locked so Mark opted for the stairs on our right. He took them two at a time ahead of me, his sneakers never scuffing enough to make a sound. The only time I was that quiet was barefoot and on carpet. I exerted an effort to stifle what felt like a clumsy stomp.
Clint opened the door after the first knock. He was vastly more manly in sweatpants and a tight black t-shirt. He was shorter than Mark by at least six inches and where Mark had a fluid grace, Clint exhibited more of a stone wall strength.
He assessed Mark quietly, without a smile.
That changed when he noticed me on the landing next to Mark. His lips quirked sideways into a half grin. “Don’t tell me you’re mad about falling off that beam and dragged your boyfriend here to beat me up.”
Executive Dirt: A Sedona O'Hala Mystery Page 15
