Follow Me (Corrupted Hearts) (4 page)

“Yeah. I should be ready to start tomorrow.”

“Good. Let’s meet first thing in my office to go over the schematic and database structure.”

“Okay.”

He opened the door, then paused. “You’ve been with Cysnet for four years, China, and from your performance reviews, I can see you’ve been doing an excellent job. I’m looking forward to working with you on this.”

My face grew warm again, but for once it was from pleasure rather than embarrassment.

“Me, too, sir.”

“Call me Jackson.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, Jackson.” First-name basis with the boss? Um, yes, please.

“Have a good night, China.” He glanced at his watch. “I think
Supernatural
should be on in about sixty seconds.”

I looked over my shoulder at the clock. Hot damn, he was right. That warm fuzzy feeling of being back on my schedule curled inside my tummy. When I looked back, Jackson was already sliding into his silver Mercedes. I would’ve stuck around to watch him pull out of my driveway, but my fictional boyfriends Jensen and Jared wouldn’t wait.

It was only after the first commercial break that I wondered how he’d known what I watched on Monday nights.

The phone was buzzing. The phone shouldn’t be ringing. It was . . . I glanced at the clock by my bed . . . nearly midnight. I’d gone to bed at ten-thirty, like always. And now my cell phone was buzzing.

Only my Favorites could make my phone buzz when it was in Do Not Disturb mode, so I grabbed it. The caller ID said “Big Bro Oslo.”

“Yeah?” There was never a good reason for a call at this hour and my thoughts immediately went to my dad, who lived alone on our farm.

“Hey, Chi, sorry to wake you,” Oslo said, “but we have a problem.”

I sat up. “What’s wrong? Is Dad okay?”

“Yeah, Dad’s fine. It’s Mia.”

Mia was Oslo’s oldest daughter. He’d had her with his first wife, who’d up and left him so he’d filed for divorce. He’d remarried several years later and had two more kids, a girl and a boy, but Mia was sixteen whereas the next oldest was only seven.

“What’s wrong with Mia?”

“She’s decided she’s running away from home. We had a big argument about her grades and not applying herself to her studies. Next thing I know, she’s packed and gone.”

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, grimacing. “Did she leave a note or anything?”

“Yes, thank God, which is why I’m calling you. Apparently, she bought a plane ticket to Raleigh. She said she was going to go live with you.”

My eyes shot open. “Me?” I squeaked. Mia and I had always gotten along all right—after all, there were only a few years between us. But she wanted to come
live
with me? “Why me?”

“I don’t know, but she talks about you all the time. How you’re the only who understands her and there’s no other women in the family for her to talk to—”

“What about Heather?” Heather was Mia’s stepmom.

He sighed. “They haven’t been getting along lately either. I know it’s probably just a teenager stage, but I need you to go get her from the airport. Her flight lands in thirty minutes.”

“She flew here? Tonight?” I scrambled out of bed. The Raleigh-Durham airport wasn’t big, but I didn’t want Mia to be wandering around it alone at this hour.

“I know. Teenage spontaneity, i.e., stupidity.” Oslo sighed.

“All right. I’ll text you when I have her. What airline?”

He told me and I ended the call, shucking my pajamas in favor of jeans and my
Hooray Sports! Do the Thing, Win the Points
T-shirt. I grabbed my jacket, keys, and cell, and was out the door.

I lived halfway between the airport and downtown so it didn’t take long before I was pulling into short-term parking. Ten minutes later I was standing by baggage claim when Mia came around the corner.

“Aunt Chi!” she exclaimed, her face breaking into a wide smile as she hurried forward and flung her arms around me.

Mia was as different from me in looks as night and day. Whereas I had dark hair and pale skin that made a snowbank my best camouflage in the event of the zombie apocalypse, she was taller than me by two inches with pure golden-blonde hair that hung to her waist. Perfect white teeth and baby-blue eyes meant that she turned heads even at the young age of sixteen, though she was blissfully unaware of her own stunning beauty.

I hugged her back, her light cloud of perfume enveloping me. Mia was as girly as they came. From her carefully manicured nails to the collection of fashion magazines she adored. Smart as a whip, she aced her classes with ease then grew bored at the lack of anything to challenge her. Whereas I was into computers, her area of obsession was math.

“I’m so excited to come visit you,” she said, stepping back and flipping her hair easily over her shoulder using the move that had nearly sent me to the chiropractor earlier tonight.

“A little more warning would’ve been nice,” I said dryly. Mia also had a habit of ignoring unpleasant things. Perpetually cheerful, she simply refused to acknowledge anything that upset her. Even to the point of “running away,” apparently.

She frowned. “Dad called you.”

“How else would I have known you were coming?”

“I just need a little vacation,” she said. “Please don’t send me back. They just don’t get me.” Her eyes begged me, and I sighed. I’d always had a weak spot for Mia. Kids and I didn’t generally get along, but she and I had clicked from the first moment I’d laid eyes on her little swaddled newborn body. To my seven-year-old eyes, she’d seemed like the most amazing and perfect thing I’d ever seen.

“All right,” I said. “But you’re calling your parents in the morning and we’ll discuss it.”

Her face lit up and she squeezed me again. “Thank you! I knew you’d understand.”

I texted Oslo as we waited for her suitcases—a duo of pink-and-white
Hello Kitty
–themed pieces—then led her to my car.

“No way! This is your car?”

That’s right. Mia hadn’t seen my Mustang, though I’d posted pics of it on Facebook.

“Your parents still won’t let you have a Facebook account?” I asked, unlocking the trunk for her suitcases.

“No. They said that ‘teenagers don’t appreciate the permanence of what’s posted on the Internet.’” I could tell by the way she said it that she was quoting, and it did sound like Oslo. Mia rolled her eyes. “I mean, like, whatever. I understand social media better than Dad or Heather.”

I silently agreed with her. Oslo had always been a reluctant tech user, and Heather still thought MySpace was cutting-edge.

Mia talked nonstop all the way to my place.

“. . . and this stupid football player asked to copy my homework. As if! Like some hulking hot guy who smiles at me is worth getting a zero for cheating. Then he got all pissy with me. Not surprised . . .”

She chattered as we parked, unloaded her luggage, and went inside. Only one thing interrupted her.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the floor in front of my fish tank.

I glanced down, then gasped. “Oh no! The Doctor!”

The little goldfish was lying on the hardwood, not moving. I scooped him up and dumped him back in the tank, hoping we hadn’t been too late. He did nothing for a moment, just began to sink, then twitched and flipped over. He wasn’t moving fast, but he was moving. I let out a sigh of relief.

“That was weird,” Mia said. “How’d he get out of the tank?”

“I have no idea. Maybe word has spread and he was trying to commit suicide before I kill him.”

She looked at me oddly. “You kill your goldfish?”

“Not intentionally. It just . . . happens.” I gave a helpless sort of shrug.

“Okay then.” She looked around. “So where do I sleep?”

“Umm.” I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I mean, I guess there’s the couch?”

Mia snorted. “I am
not
sleeping on a couch when I know you have three bedrooms.” She brushed past me and headed for the stairs. I hurried to catch up.

“But one of those is my bedroom, one is my office, and one is for storage.” Though
storage
probably wasn’t the right term . . .

“Then I’ll just make room in your office,” she said. “Don’t you have a futon in there or something?”

“It’s really not set up for sleeping,” I protested, nearly tripping on the top step. Mia could move fast when she wanted to.

“You’re being all OCD again, Aunt Chi.” She opened the door to my office. “See? I could set up an air mattress in here, no problem. Though that would probably give me nightmares.” Mia headed for the life-size Iron Man Mark 42 suit that stood in the corner. “Is it real?” She reached out—

“Don’t touch it!” I slid between her outstretched hand and the suit. “It cost me eight grand,” I said. “
And
it’s a limited edition.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “If that’s in here, then I’m afraid to ask what you have in storage.”

“No, wait—” But I was too late to stop her. She was out the door and had thrown open the storage room by the time I skidded to a halt behind her.

“Wow.”

I winced. Yes, I kept the Mark 42 in my office, but the masks for the Mark 17 and Mark 41 were in here . . . along with my life-size Boba Fett and my TARDIS. And that didn’t encompass the bookshelves lining the walls filled with other memorabilia.

“This is . . . amazing,” Mia breathed. “How long have you been collecting?”

“Since forever.” Which was true. I still had the metal
Star Wars: A New Hope
lunch box I’d bought when I was seven. I hadn’t used it, of course, because then it would no longer be New In Box. I’d taken my lunch to school in brown paper bags.

She headed for one particular corner as if drawn there by a magnet. I should’ve known she’d go there first.

“I have never seen a Harry Potter collection this good.” She stood on her toes to get a closer look at the Sorting Hat replica. “So what House are you?”

I hesitated, unable to ascertain if she was serious or if she was being sarcastic and making fun of me. That particular nuance was tough to distinguish. Oh well. If she was making fun of me, it wasn’t as though I wasn’t used to it.

“Ravenclaw, of course,” I said.

“Me, too!”

“Really?”

“
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, If you’ve a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind
,” she recited.

I grinned. She hadn’t been making fun of me.

“People always want to be Gryffindors,” she continued, “but I think that’s just because of Harry. Not everyone is a true Gryffindor, who are brave, yes, but reckless. I totally think Hermione should’ve been a Ravenclaw.”

“I know, right?”

“Every House gets a bad rap except Gryffindor. I’m always arguing on Reddit that each House is of value,
not
just Gryffindor.”

That launched more discussion as to the Houses chosen for more characters as Mia perused my extensive collection.

It was nice, really nice, to have someone who appreciated a fandom obsession. I had a theory—and thus far it was proven correct in about seven out of ten cases—that tech and science geeks were actually the most creative of all personalities. Not the Hollywood screenwriters or the actors on Broadway. Those who enthusiastically embraced the most outlandish and exotic ideas about life and fantasy were more often in a position to turn those imaginings into reality.

“Okay, so I’ll sleep with you tonight and we’ll get an air mattress tomorrow,” Mia said. “And so long as Tony doesn’t attack me in my sleep, I’ll let him stay.”

Good, because that suit weighed a ton and it had taken two burly deliverymen to get it upstairs for me. I’d tipped them well, but they’d still been muttering under their breath and giving me dirty looks when they left.

Mia and I hauled her luggage upstairs and she set up camp in my bathroom for over thirty minutes. I was just about to head to my guest bathroom to brush my teeth—again—when she finally emerged.

“It’s about time,” I grumbled, moving past her. I stopped short.

It looked like the makeup counter at Macy’s had blown up in my bathroom. Every available surface was covered with bottles and jars and tubes. I felt the kind of dismay every single guy must feel when his girlfriend decides to move in with him.

She’d left me a tiny little corner on the counter that held my electric toothbrush.

“Thanks heaps,” I muttered.

But it was way past my bedtime so I didn’t bother trying to move anything. It was deeply unsettling, as was climbing into bed with her beside me. She had pink earplugs in her ears and a black eye mask with
Fuck Off
embroidered on it.

Okay then.

I lay down on my back and tried to pull up the covers. She was lying on them. Grimacing, I tugged, but she was a dead weight as a soft snore emitted from her half-open mouth.

Staring at the ceiling, I plotted exactly how much my brother was going to pay for this, until I finally drifted off.

3

My Tuesday morning was immediately thrown off when I woke to find Mia already in the shower. I banged on the door.

“Hurry up! I have to get to work!”

“I’ll be right out!”

I stood there fuming and counting the seconds ticking by. After three hundred and fifty-two of them, I heard the water turn off. Another one hundred and ninety-six seconds later, and the door opened.

“You’re going to make me late,” I snapped. “I need to shower and get ready for work.”

Mia stared at me. “But . . . you don’t have to be at work for an hour.”

“Yes, but I still need to make my coffee, eat breakfast, and read the paper.”

“Did you make the coffee yet?”

“No. I make the coffee
after
I shower. Not before.”

More staring.

“Are you done in there or not?” I said impatiently.

“Yeah, sure, I’m done.” We exchanged places. “I’ll just go make the coffee.”

I yanked the almost-closed door back open. “Fill the coffeepot with the distilled water, not tap water, to the number ten line. The coffee is in the freezer. Use five rounded spoons—and I mean rounded, not heaping. Do you know the difference?”

She nodded.

“Five
rounded
spoons of grounds, then put the coffee back in the freezer.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Slightly mollified, I closed the door and rushed through my shower, trying to make up time. I pulled on my jeans, a navy-blue
Bad Wolf
T-shirt, and layered a white-and-navy plaid shirt over it. It was one of my favorites because it was so soft, a brushed-cotton flannel.

The smell of coffee, and that I was only three minutes off schedule, went the rest of the way to easing my mood. Until I walked into the kitchen.

“You opened the paper?”

Mia was sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in the fluffiest pink robe I’d ever seen, her hair still up in a towel. And she had the paper spread open in front of her.

“You said you read the paper, so I grabbed it off the stoop,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “I just took the entertainment section. Do you want it?”

“I don’t read the entertainment section.”

“Oh good. Then see? It all worked out.” She smiled.

No, it really wasn’t
all worked out
. I gritted my teeth and forced a smile.

“Is this your OCD thing again?” Mia asked, her smile fading into a look of sympathy that would have been appropriate for hearing news that I was afflicted with a fatal illness.

“Of course not.” I faked a laugh.
Yes, Aunt Chi was weird
. Passing her by, I poured myself a cup of coffee. This whole wrench in my routine was upsetting, but Mia wasn’t just anyone—she was family. Surely I could suck it up for a few days . . . even if she
had
opened the paper first and removed a section.

We drank our coffee in mutually agreed silence, each perusing the paper. Thankfully, she hadn’t taken any of the other sections and twenty-six minutes later, it was time for me to go.

“Call your dad today,” I reminded her as I gathered my stuff. “Try to talk things out. You can’t stay here indefinitely.”

“All right, all right,” she grumbled.

“How much school are you missing anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I can’t catch up. Besides, I brought my books with me so I won’t fall behind.”

She was unconcerned, and with good cause. Mia would probably be ahead of the class by the time she returned home.

“I’ll call you later,” I said as I headed for the door. “And don’t eat all my Fig Newtons.” They were my guilty pleasure and I had two of them every night before bed along with a cup of chamomile tea.

She mumbled something about “gross” and “disgusting,” but I was already outside. It took exactly thirteen minutes to drive between work and home. Unfortunately, traffic interfered 93.6 percent of the time on my drive to work, but only 17.8 eight percent of the time on my way home since I rarely left before 6:00 p.m.

Today was one of the 93.6 percent days and it took twenty-seven minutes to reach the offices of Cysnet, which still put me there two minutes before eight o’clock.

I was in my warm, fuzzy place as I settled into my chair with my Red Bull and logged in. I was just about to put in my earbuds and crank the tunes when Jackson suddenly loomed over my cube wall.

I choked and Red Bull came out my nose, which burned like hell.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Jackson said, handing me a white handkerchief from inside his sport coat. “Why don’t you come on into my office when you’re . . . ah . . . done here?”

He disappeared, striding toward his office, while I mopped up my face and keyboard. Damn, was I cursed to always look like a complete klutz in front of him?

I locked my computer and grabbed my notebook and my favorite pen. Unfolding myself from my chair, I hesitated, then picked up my Red Bull. I still needed the caffeine.

The handkerchief—a real honest-to-God handkerchief—was stained now and had my slobber on it. It even had his initials embroidered on the corner—JMK. I wondered what the M stood for. It needed to be washed before I could return it, otherwise that was just
ew
.

So when Jackson said “first thing in the morning,” apparently he really meant first thing in the morning. He was seated behind his desk when I tapped on his open door. Glancing up from his computer, he gestured me inside.

“Go ahead and close the door, please.”

I pulled the frosted glass door closed and the edges fit snugly into the rubber casing, providing a solid seal. This helped prevent anyone from overhearing anything said in Jackson’s office. I also knew that his office, just like those of other senior management, was set up with a high-tech audio masking system. Laser listening devices could be used through glass windows from a good distance away, but I had no doubt that Jackson was aware of that fact and was protected.

“Have a seat.” This time he pointed to one of the two chairs in front of his desk, so there was no internal debate on where to sit.

“Give me just a minute to finish this,” he said.

“Sure. Take your time.”

His fingers sped over the keyboard, drawing my eye. People viewed IT and computers as technical, and they were. But coming up with ways to solve problems and accomplish tasks using technology required a unique kind of mind—one that was both intensely creative but also methodically logical.

Jackson was a genius in both areas. Perhaps he was more akin to an artist than anything else in the work he did.

I surreptitiously admired him as he worked. He’d discarded his sport coat and was wearing black slacks and a black shirt with thin gold and burgundy pinstripes. It looked really good on him and I could tell it was made from quality material. The creases on his sleeves told me his dry cleaner was as fastidious about his clothes as Jackson was.

His eyes were intent on the screen, the set of his jaw hard, and I was glad I wasn’t on the receiving end of whatever e-mail he was typing. Speaking of jaw, it was smooth, probably from his morning shave. I wondered if he was one of those exercise nuts who worked out in the morning . . .

That led to vivid Harlequin-inspired images of Jackson inside my head. He was pumping iron, shirtless, with sweat glistening on his chest—all it needed was a wind machine and sound track . . . what would suit him working out? AC/DC? Def Leppard? Bon Jovi?
Mmmm . . . You give love a bad name . . . yeah . . .

I was abruptly yanked from my fantasy by Jackson saying, “All right, that’s done.” His gaze swung to meet mine.

I felt a rush of heat to my cheeks. Dammit. Thank God telepathy didn’t exist.

“Yeah, great!” I said brightly, smiling for all I was worth.

He gave me that odd look again, the one I couldn’t decipher. I figured it either meant:
She’s just so weird
or
I’m a bit gassy today
.

“Here’s the database schematic I sketched out last night,” he said, handing me a trifolded piece of paper. I opened it to its full length, pushing my glasses up my nose as I inspected the tiny print. There were roughly a hundred tables or more on the sheet. “It’s pretty rough,” Jackson continued, “but I thought that would give us a starting point in addressing some of the issues they’re having.”

Picking up a small remote, he dimmed the lights slightly, then a projector above us came on. The database he’d just given me was displayed on the opposite wall. Another button and the walls on either side of a large whiteboard folded up like an accordion, making the whiteboard huge.

“We can set up the rest here,” he said.

Okay then. Time to get to work. I could almost feel my brain shutting down the social/personal interaction section—which was underdeveloped anyway—and the technical part of my brain taking over, immersing itself in the labyrinth of connections.

For the next three hours, we discussed primary keys, inner joins, outer joins, and reference tables. By the time my stomach growled so loudly even Jackson could hear it, the database had grown to three times the original draft he’d created.

“Did you get breakfast?” he asked, glancing at his watch.

I thought of Randall and the bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin probably cold and congealed on my desk.

“Not today,” I said.

“Then let’s grab an early lunch.” He hit the same buttons and the wall closed over the whiteboard, the lights came on, and the projector turned off. The fan still whirred, cooling the machine.

“Back in an hour?” I gathered up my things, my Red Bull can long since empty.

“We should be. There’s a Mexican joint right around the corner. I go there a lot. You’ll like it, if you like Mexican. You do, don’t you?”

I stared at him, my mouth agape. We were going to lunch? Together?

He was still looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“Um, yeah. Of course! I mean, who doesn’t?” I laughed awkwardly. “I mean, I practically live at Taco Bell.”

There was that look again. That had been an appropriate response, right? Taco Bell was Mexican. Sort of.

“Well, hopefully it’ll be better than Taco Bell.” Jackson slipped on his sport coat and held the door for me. I put my notebook back down and walked out of the office. I heard the snick of the lock as he secured the door behind us.

My nerves hit full force as we headed to the parking garage. I fell into step behind him as he walked toward his car. Now his car . . . his car I could appreciate without getting his weird look. It had been hard for me to get a good look at it last night in the dark, and he parked on a special level reserved for management. As we got closer, I could see why.

“Oh my God. Is that the 2017 Cabriolet?” I asked, my voice filled with awe.

Jackson glanced at me, his lips twisted in a little smile and a question in his eyes. “You know it?”

“Mercedes stopped making the Cabriolet in 1971,” I said. “Is this the AMG S63?”

“Yep.” He reached for the handle and the door automatically unlocked.

I stood on the passenger side, staring at the most beautiful car I’d ever seen. “Wow,” I breathed. I heard a slight chuckle as Jackson got in.

Sliding inside the car was as close to a religious experience as I’d ever had. The interior was brick red with leather seats and black trim. Jackson flipped a switch and the soft top folded back on the convertible. The purr of the engine made my eyes drift close.

“This car can do zero to sixty in three point nine seconds,” I said. “It has five hundred seventy-seven horsepower and a peak torque of six hundred sixty-four pounds per foot.”

The car didn’t move and Jackson didn’t say anything, so after a moment, I opened my eyes to find him looking at me.

Oh no. Had I said something wrong?
I went over my last few sentences in my head, but could find nothing offensive about them. And he was still staring. I pushed my glasses up my nose and cleared my throat.

“Really amazing that you got your hands on one early,” I said, pulling my lips back in my best smile imitation. I wished I was one of those people who could pull off a genuine smile on demand, but experience had shown I just sucked at it. But societal convention meant I had to try. A lot.

Jackson visibly winced. “Why do you do that?” he asked.

My fake smile disappeared. “Do what?”

He backed out of the spot, talking as he drove. “Use that awful fake smile.”

“People expect smiles. It makes them feel more comfortable.” My mother had drilled that into me before her death.

“Screw what people expect. Their expectations aren’t your responsibility to fulfill.”

I blinked at him. That had always been what I thought, but had never dared to speak aloud.

“And you certainly don’t have to fake it with me,” he continued. “I value honesty more than worrying about expectations.”

He slipped on a pair of designer sunglasses that, combined with being behind the wheel of such an amazing car, made him look incredibly sexy. Mia would probably say he was
smoking hot
. As if Jackson needed help in that department. Unfortunately, I felt like the frumpy little sister in the passenger seat next to him.