Do You Believe in Magic? (12 page)

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Authors: Ann Macela

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Magic, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Contemporary

BOOK: Do You Believe in Magic?
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Tom Robbins leaned forward. “We still don’t know if Brenner is invading our computers on his own or if he’s in collusion with anyone at NatChem, do we?”
“No,” Herb answered. “That’s what we want Clay to find out. How we’ll proceed depends on that information.”
“Right,” Childress agreed. “And it will determine who we prosecute.”
“So,” Herb said, “Francie, you’ll set up the date for Saturday. Clay, you’ll be here on Thursday night to handle Brenner.”
“I’ll be here,” Childress said.
“Me, too,” Francie said. “I’m working late then, remember?” she added when Clay raised his eyebrows at her. He didn’t think she would miss the event, did he?
“Come about five on Thursday,” Herb said. “I’ll have some sandwiches sent in. I don’t trust this guy. I’ll bet he’ll try to get in early. After all, he doesn’t know what time Francie will be home. I want to nail this bastard to the wall.”
The meeting broke up, and Francie slipped out of Herb’s office while Clay and Childress were talking about recording devices. She breathed a sigh of relief as she went immediately to a meeting on another floor. If Clay came looking for her, he’d never find her there.
That evening Francie called Tamara after she returned home and invited her and Kevin for Saturday dinner. Tamara was ecstatic her friend was finally coming out of her “cocoon” and immediately accepted the invitation.
Francie waited until Tuesday morning, however, to call Clay, and she called him at home, not on his cell phone. It would be easier to keep her equilibrium if she didn’t speak to him directly, or so she told herself. As she had hoped, she got his answering machine. The sound of his voice sent a shiver through her, despite her resolve.
“Hi, it’s Francie,” she told the recorder in as perky a tone as she could manage. “I asked Tamara and Kevin over for Saturday night. Come about six. I’ll see you Thursday at the office.” There, she thought as she hung up. That should hold him. She’d screen her calls at home tonight to continue her avoidance plans.
 
Tuesday evening Clay entered the gym at the Downtown Y and headed for the court where his team would be playing. He noticed a women’s team on a far sideline waving at someone, and when he looked around to find their target, who should be walking toward him but Francie? She was waving at the women and not looking where she was going, so he deliberately stood in her way and had the satisfaction of having her run right into him.
“Clay!”
“Hi, Francie,” Clay said as he held her upper arms to steady her for a moment. “I didn’t know you played in the leagues here.” He grinned as he looked her up and down. Mercy, he pleaded to any higher being who happened to be listening. She looked gorgeous in a thin T-shirt and shorts. Long, long legs, a stunning body, and a face to match, with no eyeglasses to obscure the view. Man, would he like to get her alone, but here they stood in front of God and everybody.
Then he remembered how she seemed to be avoiding him. “I heard the message you left on my home machine. Why didn’t you call my cell?”
“Oh, uh, I couldn’t find your cell number,” she stammered. “Is six o’clock all right for Saturday?”
“Fine. I’ll bring some wine and dessert, how about it? Red or white?” She was not meeting his eyes, and she was fidgeting with her towel, and he definitely did not like it. What was the matter with her?
“I don’t know what I’m going to fix, probably something easy with pasta, so bring what you like to drink. Look . . .”
“Hey, Francie! Let’s go!” Whatever she had been about to say was interrupted by a woman on the court.
“I have to go.” She waved back at her teammate.
“I’ll see you later,” Clay said. “How about after the game?”
“Uh, no, I’m sorry. I’m going out with my team. It’s a regular thing.” She gave him what he thought was a nervous smile and started for the court.
“I’ll call you,” he said to her back and received a nod of her ponytail in return. Damn. His hands on his hips, he stood for a minute looking at her until he realized her entire team was staring at him. Not only that, but he was late for his own game. Afterward, he searched for her, first on the court, later in the lobby, but her game was long over and he couldn’t find her.
Francie didn’t answer her phone that night or the next; all he reached was her answering machine. Clay considered calling her at two in the morning, but decided it would only make her mad. He could bide his time. Thursday night would probably be filled with people, but Saturday . . . he’d be in her apartment, and they’d be by themselves at some point. He’d see to it. Then he’d get some answers about why she was avoiding him.
And maybe this damn itching imperative would leave him alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
 
Thursday at five, Clay, Francie, Herb, and Bill Childress gathered in Herb’s office. “The operators in the computer room will call when Brenner hacks in,” Herb said. He pointed to the pile of deli sandwiches on his conference table. “Help yourselves. There are soft drinks on the credenza, but if you want coffee, I’ll get a carafe from the lunchroom.”
Nobody wanted coffee, and they all dug into the food. Conversation was nonexistent, which was just fine with Francie. She felt like she was still getting over seeing Clay at the Y. What a shock. No, several shocks. First, from literally running into him and feeling her own body zing to attention. Second, from all that barely clothed masculinity. Lord, have mercy, the man was as good-looking in shorts and a tank top as he was in a suit. Long legs, lean muscles, and a rangy build combined with black hair and silver eyes into a potent male presence. Last, from all the questions and teasing from her teammates she had to endure. Now, she just had to get through the evening.
They hadn’t been eating more than twenty minutes when Herb’s phone rang. He answered it, said, “We’ll be right there,” and turned to his visitors. “What did I tell you? Brenner’s early.”
They trooped down the hall and into the computer room. The operators were leaning over a terminal. Herb introduced Dick Fenimore, a tall, thin string bean of a man about twenty-five, with a shock of unruly red hair and wearing a T-shirt with a Nine Inch Nails logo, jeans, and running shoes; and Jim Kelly, a pudgy, already balding thirty-ish fellow in a Western shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots.
“Man,” Dick exclaimed to Clay, “this tracking program you installed is so cool. I’ve gotta learn how to program like this.”
“I can’t believe this guy,” Jim interjected with a West Texas twang. “He’s such a bonehead. Neither of us can figure out what he’s after. And what self-respecting hacker tries to dial in at five-thirty in the afternoon? Two in the morning I can understand, but five-thirty?”
“Move over, guys,” Clay said. “Let’s have some fun.” He sat down at the terminal and started hitting the keys.
Over the course of the next hour and a half, Clay toyed with Brenner, moving him around the system, cutting him off, letting him back in after several tries, and generally making the hacker’s life miserable.
With growing awe, Francie watched Clay manipulate Kevin. She knew she herself was no slouch with a program, but she had no idea how he had managed to do what he did. Remembering a phrase she had heard from a technical writer, she almost chuckled. “Flying fingers on the keyboard,” the writer had said, admonishing Francie to slow down in her explanation about the workings of a complicated program. The description fit Clay’s movements as he flipped between windows, typed in commands, ran the mouse pointer around the screen, and sent Kevin spinning off into the ether. If there were such an animal as a computer wizard, she thought, Clay Morgan was certainly one.
His abilities didn’t change any of her own feelings about him, she told herself as the group rose from their chairs. She still had to remember this was all business. Nothing personal.
After Clay locked Kevin out completely, the foursome went back to Herb’s office. “What do you think, Clay, Francie? What was Brenner after?” Herb asked as they took their seats.
“It looked to me like he was trying to find order entry and pricing again,” Francie answered.
“I agree,” Clay said. “He must have been doing some studying or research into your brand of software application, because he almost managed to open the order-entry system.”
“Now as I understand it, you have a computer copy of every move Brenner made tonight?” Childress asked.
“That’s correct, Bill,” Clay said, nodding. “And it shows Brenner was using Francie’s computer.”
Childress’s cell phone rang. The police lieutenant spoke into it for a few moments. “That was the officer we have watching Ms. Stevens’s apartment. He took photos of Brenner at the computer. He said the man looked ready to punch in the monitor a couple of times. Brenner just left, obviously angry, from the way he peeled out of the parking lot. You can go back home any time, Ms. Stevens.”
“Thanks,” she told him. Turning to Herb, she asked, “Do you need me any more tonight?”
“Your dinner with Brenner is set for Saturday night?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Francie replied.
“I’ll let you know how it goes, Herb,” Clay put in.
“Go on home, Francie,” Herb said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Anything else, Clay?”
“Nope. I’ll walk you out, Francie.” He held the door and followed her out, leaving Herb and Childress talking about the surveillance.
“This isn’t necessary, Clay,” Francie told him as they walked to her cubicle. She busied her hands with her notebook and pencil so he couldn’t hold one of them, but it didn’t help. He put his hand on the small of her back, and she could feel the energy flowing between them, even through her sweater.
“Why don’t we go out for a drink, or maybe some more to eat? I don’t know about you, but a hastily eaten sandwich is not my idea of dinner.”
She didn’t, wouldn’t, look at him and stepped away to enter her workspace. Why was she finding it so difficult to carry on a simple conversation? At least she’d prepared herself with an excuse just in case he had asked her out after dealing with Brenner. “Thanks, but I told Tamara I’d stop by her shop if I left work in time. She has a new shipment she wants to show me.” She pulled her purse and a book out of her desk drawer.
“How was your game on Tuesday?” Clay asked as they walked toward the elevator.
“We won, but it wasn’t easy.” Basketball seemed like a safe topic. She grinned widely. “The team we played took the championship from us last year, and this was a grudge match. How about you? How did your team do?”
“We won, too.”
“Good.”
They reached the lobby. She tried again to discourage him from accompanying her. “I’m in the parking garage across the street. You don’t have to . . .”
“Yes, I do,” Clay interrupted. “I’m in the same place.”
He didn’t say anything—for which she was grateful—as they exited the building, crossed the street, and entered the parking garage. Francie took her keys out of her purse. She could feel her anxiety increasing. What if he wanted to kiss her again?
At her car, Francie unlocked her door with the remote control and reached for the door handle, but Clay put his hand on hers.
“Please don’t do this,” she said, as his touch made her nerve endings vibrate.
“Francie, we need to talk.” His voice was low, and he raised her hand off the handle and cradled it between his larger ones. “About us. Our kiss last Saturday . . .”
“Clay, that can’t happen again.” She took her hand back and grasped her purse with it so tightly she probably made indentations in the leather.
He stared at her as if she’d grown horns. “What are you talking about?”
“I think we’ve had enough practice ‘being together.’ When we introduce you to Kevin, that should end our needing to ‘date’ or convince Tamara we’re a couple. This is all only business, after all. When you make the arrangements with Kevin, I can step out of the picture, and we can go back to our separate lives.”
“Our separate lives,” he repeated in a hollow tone. “What about us, our relationship?”
“Clay, there is no
us
. Don’t you see? This is all a charade, a play we’ve been putting on. Let’s just get through this . . . this
mess
with Kevin. I can’t think straight anymore, worrying about Tamara and trying to play a part. God, I hate deception.”

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