Numbers Never Lie (Crimson Romance) (2 page)

“Mister, I’m trying to be a Good Samaritan here, but you’re not making this easy. I don’t really want to see on the news tomorrow that some guy with a broken down car got ran over by a semi truck in the rain right after I walked away.
But
… I don’t really want to be on the news, either. So, would you
please
walk across the street with me to that coffee shop and get a stupid coffee? Once I leave, you can do whatever you choose. Of course, if you’re smart, you’ll leave that car where it is until the rain and lightning subside.”

Trev considered the offer. If he complied, Sophie Henderson would know his face, build, and pretty much everything she needed to identify him in the future, so his days of following her would be over. Did it matter? Maybe he should just go along with this and learn as much as possible. He had been under strict instructions to follow from a distance until they gleaned more information, but if he just played along that might actually speed up this gig. Funny, she didn’t really look like the criminal type, but then, they never do. Another lightning flash crossed the sky above them, followed by the associated loud thunderclap.

“Coffee sounds great right now, I guess.” He stood up from under the hood of the car and his head bumped the red fabric of the umbrella, sending drips running down his cheek. He dropped the hood down and turned toward the amber glow of the lights that came from the distant coffee shop.

“Thank you. You just saved my life.” Sophie said. She smiled and turned also, holding the umbrella above his head, her arm extended almost completely in order to get above his full length “We’ll see about that. No one in their right mind would be driving in this mess. Besides, I thought you intended to save
my
life.” He reached for the umbrella handle. “Here, let me hold that.”

She shot a glance sideways at him and released the handle. He noticed that keeping up with him required her to almost run alongside his lengthy stride. He contemplated slowing down, he wanted them out of this mess as soon as possible.

“Thanks.” She smiled as he opened the door to let her pass. The aroma of brewed coffee hit them instantly, along with the warmth of the heated room. He closed the umbrella, shook it, and entered behind her, propping the umbrella against the wall just inside the door so it wouldn’t drip all over the floor.

“You’re welcome.” His parents had forced him to open doors for women, children, the elderly, and pretty much anyone else as a child. He did it mechanically this time, thoughts on his job. And right now this woman represented his job. He’d screwed up and gotten too close.

Inside, Trev pulled off his hat and shook it over the floor mat. Water shot everywhere and while it was probably his last vestibule of transparency, the purpose for wearing it evaporated. It would look ridiculous now.

Sophie turned to him, smiling a huge toothy smile. “So, what’ll it be?”

Wow. He forced his eyes to remain steady. From a distance, she was noticeable but not really someone that would make you stop and stare. Up close, wow, he stopped and stared.

“Oh, um … ” He smiled at the clerk behind the counter. Stacy didn’t say anything and he appreciated that. Probably not wise for her to make it known he frequented this shop so much. Stacy was cute and he’d flirted with her a lot while he sat watching the building, pretending to read the paper. He thought about asking her out once but decided against it. “Medium latte, plain, please.”

He drank enough beverages in this shop to buy stock in it. He’d languished over two cups of coffee just this morning. The latte was his favorite but he didn’t drink too many because the milk didn’t always set well on an empty stomach. While he liked the coffee in this place, the food sucked — all that fancy muffin and croissant crap. He preferred cereal or eggs and bacon.

“I’ll have the same.” She echoed his order from behind.

Trev glanced around the room, noticing the people. He’d always been the observant type, a trait that adapted well to his investigative work. He never missed a detail, or at least not very often. Outside the window, Nate walked by and shot him an angry glance before moving on.

Sophie followed behind Trev and couldn’t see anything, so he just flashed him a smartass smile. The lady in the corner with two kids never looked up. She busily scolded the kids to stay off the furniture and sit still until Daddy showed up. Two men with laptops sat at tables by the back wall. One clasped a cell phone in one hand, talking animatedly with the other side of his conversation; his free hand moved and waved as if it helped to explain what he said. That epitomized stupidity since the person he was talking to couldn’t see his overzealous hand gestures. Maybe he just did it to look important to everyone in the coffee shop.

Trev sat at a small round table at the street side window so he could see his car. If someone happened to come along, the likelihood that they’d see the car in this downpour was slim. If it got hit, he would get his ass chewed out tomorrow. He silently prayed no one would come along.

“Aren’t you going to call a tow?” She came up beside him and set her cup on the table across from him.

“I thought I might just wait a little and see if the rain slows enough for me to get back out there.” He tipped his cup at her and added, “Thanks for the warm-up juice.”

“Thanks for letting me convince you to get out of the rain.” She slipped her wet jacket off her shoulders and hung it over the back of the chair before sitting on the tall stool. “So, you must be one of those guys that does all his car work himself, huh?”

“What?”

“You know. The car hood’s up, you don’t want to call a tow. Are you a closet mechanic?” Sophie hesitated, then added, “Or maybe you’re not a closet one but a real one?”

“Nope to both questions — but it’s late and I don’t think anyone’s going to come out in this weather. So I thought I’d take a look myself.” Trev hoped the rain would dry up soon so she’d leave and he could wait an acceptable amount of time before leaving himself. He found it increasingly uncomfortable to sit with her and not stare. He usually avoided the awkwardness of idle conversation with women — or anyone really. He shifted his eyes around the room briefly, then glanced in the direction of his car, and finally back to her.

“Okay.” She smiled over her cup and looked out the window. “So you’re not a mechanic. What
do
you do? And my name’s Sophie by the way.”

“Nothing all that exciting. I’m a consultant.” Calling himself a consultant proved an easy tactic to use in most cases. People consult in almost everything. Use that one and a lot of people just go “ahhh” and leave it alone. Besides, if you said anything more specific, you risked a lot of questions that just got annoying.

“Consulting in what?”

He barely contained a sigh.
Well, so much for that approach. Here come the questions. Come on rain, give me a break and stop.

“Oh, technology. I’m an IT consultant.”
No more questions. Please.

“Really? I’m in technology, too. I work down the street at Benton & Stanley.”

He already knew that. “No kidding? What do you do there?” The best tactic would be to get her talking about herself so that she didn’t ply him with any more questions.

“I manage the financial applications staff, but I’m also pretty good on the network side, so very often I get pulled into other areas. Technology is one of those things that if you’re good at it, you want to do a little bit of everything.”

“Yes, that’s certainly true. How long have you been there?” He knew the answer to that, too, but asked anyway.

“Six years.”

Interesting. Why would she lie about that?

“That is
if
you count the three years I consulted for them before they hired me.” She gave him a smile, then looked out the window again at the tendrils of water rushing down the glass.

Oh, okay, I’ll check on that part.

“How do you like it there? Do they treat you pretty good?”

“Sure, sure. Pretty much like any big company. Great benefits and lots of incentive programs to encourage productivity.”

“That must be great. Are you working on any good projects right now?”

He wondered if she’d mention anything about it, the reason he tracked her, even in a roundabout way.

“Not really. Financial applications are pretty boring. Not a lot of excitement there.” She waved a hand as if to dismiss the topic. “But enough about me. It looks like the rain is letting up a little and I need to get going. So, I enjoyed meeting you.” She held out a hand. It occurred to him that he hadn’t given her his name at about the same time that she waited for it.

“Trevor.” That was the name they wanted him to use on this one. Fortunately, it was pretty close to his real name and easy to work with. “Trevor Adams. And thank you for saving me from the lightning.” He winked and watched her pick up the mammoth red umbrella and head out the door before inserting the headphones into his ears and softly saying, “She’s on the run now, guys. I’d better stay here so she doesn’t think I’m stalking her. I guess someone else will need to pick up my spot on this one.”

“You’re a jackass.” Good old Nate. Leave it to him to state the obvious.

Trev picked up a paper from the stack on the table and started to glance through it. “Hey!” He jolted at the sound of the familiar voice. Damn, he wished she’d quit doing that. More importantly, why didn’t he ever see her coming?

“Yeah?” He lowered the paper. A smile came to his lips on noticing the lip gloss applied to her mouth and the newly smoothed curls.

“Send me your information and if we ever need anyone for any projects down the road, I’ll give you a call.” She handed him a business card, adding, “Sophie
Henderson
, by the way.” She shot one last comment over her shoulder before pushing out the door. “Drive safely!”

Trev silently applauded himself. He knew her name, her birthday. Shit, he even had her dress size, but she had no way of knowing that. Under normal circumstances, he would ask her name and maybe even get a number, he didn’t think to do so. An error on his part, but it served its purpose. Maybe she offered the card because she
wanted
him to know who she was. If he evaluated it logically, there might be an opportunity to keep going with this. Yeah, the more he thought about it the more he imagined it might be fun. Nate sounded tired and muttered into his ear, “Let’s debrief on this tomorrow morning over at the office … say around nine? We’re obviously going to have to make some changes.”

“No problem. See you then.”

“Trev?”
It’s a good thing Trev can be a nickname for my real name as well as my cover or things would be pretty confusing,
he thought.

“What?”

“Don’t fuck this up. We’ve been working on this too long.”

“Kiss my ass.” If the guy weren’t his best friend in the world, he’d probably hate him right now. He just didn’t know when to shut up.

• • •

Sophie hurried away from the coffee shop, her big umbrella offering protection from the rain. A slight chill coursed through her. Oh, how stupid! She’d left her jacket on the back of the chair! Oh well, there was no way she’d go back in there again — she already felt foolish for giving him her business card. Going back a
third
time would simply further the awkwardness. She didn’t really like that jacket, anyway. Sure, it had sentimental value but pride overshadowed sentiment at the moment. The well-intentioned gift was one she certainly wouldn’t have bought herself. It didn’t look all that great on her — it was time for something different. She hugged herself tightly under the umbrella and headed to the parking lot where her car sat alone waiting for her to rescue it from this gut-splattering downpour.

“Interesting,” she said to herself two hours later as she sat at the kitchen barstool in her apartment looking at the reports she’d tucked into her satchel before leaving the office. “These numbers don’t make sense.” She sipped from a steaming hot cup of tea as she peered at the papers in front of her on the counter.

Sophie noticed the differences between the data in the old financial system and the reports out of the new one yesterday but thought she’d made a mistake in running the reports. They weren’t yet ready to pilot the new software and the official migration was still a ways off, but she’d attempted a data conversion on her own two nights ago just to see how it would run. She should have waited for the vendor to be there and work with her. Sophie’s hardheaded reputation about technical things was well earned; she always wanted to try as much as possible on her own so she fully understood it and prepared for any problems. According to the documented plan from the vendor, the conversion process went easy, but the reports she ran to reconcile it to their old system didn’t match at all.

She printed copies of all the financial reports from each system so she could go over them and see what she’d done wrong. She probably just didn’t select the report correctly.

She set the sheaf of papers down in order, side by side, old next to new, and highlighted the discrepancies so she could find a common denominator. At eleven o’clock, she gave up and went to bed. She would call the vendor tomorrow and ask if he could take a look.

• • •

Two days later, Sophie was standing in line at the deli near her office when her cell phone jolted her back to reality. Her thoughts had been diverted to work, as usual, and how she’d forgotten to call Jim Doyle, the account representative from Futurenet Finance, about the report discrepancies. Maybe it didn’t matter since he’d be here next week anyway.

The display on her phone indicated the call forwarded from her desk phone to her cell. “Sophie Henderson,” came her standard greeting.

“Ms. Henderson, this is Trevor Adams.” When she paused for a moment trying to place the name, he continued, “You brought me in out of the rain the other evening.”

“Oh, yes … yes. Sorry, my mind was on work and I wasn’t paying attention.” She smiled into the phone.

“You left your jacket on the chair at the coffee shop and I thought I’d drop it by for you if that’s okay.”