Seasons of Love (3 page)

“Thanks. I apologize if I’ve not been myself.”

Zane stared down at the blond-streaked brunette. She wore too much makeup to his way of thinking. He felt sorry for her. With all that had happened, he had no idea if he would be able to keep her employed. They had no business to speak of yet. But Zane had been wooing his prospects.

“That’s all right. I understand. Now, about this woman you’re interested in. You really like her, don’t you?” She grinned at him like a Cheshire cat.

An image of John’s sister, Riley, played across his mind. Zane had never met her in person before the funeral, but John had recently displayed her picture in his office, even proudly placing it on his desk, which was usually off-limits to anything but his computers.

He chuckled. After Zane’s two attempts at talking to Riley, he decided her personality was sorely lacking in warmth. “I’m not sure that I like her. I don’t even know her.” He leaned against the desk. “Tell me. What do you suggest I do?”

“Well, if she won’t go to lunch with you, find a reason that you have to talk to her or be with her. It’s hard to know exactly because I don’t know the specifics.”

Zane stared at Chelsea. Of course he had an important reason to speak to Riley. That’s why he had invited her to lunch. Then it dawned on him. “Chelsea, you’re a genius.”

He was thinking in terms of business prospects. He didn’t need to do lunch with her. He only needed to go to the cranberry farm to speak with her.

“Oh, Mr. Baldwyn, you’re just saying that. But you know what I’ll do? I’ll pray for you.” She smiled up at him; then the phone rang, and she answered. “Cyphorensic Technologies. May I help you?”

Zane took that as his cue to leave and headed back to his office.
Pray for me?
He stifled his laugh until he’d closed his office door. “Crazy girl.” Did God actually answer prayers? Did He care about everyday life?

Zane pulled open the top drawer of his desk to grab his car keys then reconsidered. He paced across the Persian rug centered in the room. If he appeared at Sanderford Cranberry Farms, he’d need to have a very good reason. He couldn’t just tell her that he’d overheard something he shouldn’t have.

Maybe he did need Chelsea to pray, after all. Her proclamation brought a smile to his lips. He hadn’t considered praying in years, since he was a child, even. His mother had been consistent in her efforts to make sure he attended Sunday school and church. But that was where it all ended. He’d made himself into what he was today, no thanks to God.

He hurried out of his office and into John’s, flipping on the light as he strode through the door. John’s desk sat near the far wall, a computer credenza behind it. Pain gripped his stomach again, a manifestation of his grief at having lost his business partner and friend. He eased into John’s chair as if it were sacred. There had to be something in John’s office—a memento that he could deliver to Riley, giving him the excuse he needed to speak with her. Then he would know whether or not to broach the subject of the phone call.

Zane tried to rub the tension from his neck and face. It was no use. What difference did his knowledge of the call make anyway? Without a programmer to write the software, Cyphorensic Technologies could not continue forward. He’d been a vice president for a software company for years. But it had been a constant battle to do things his way. So he’d gone to work for another company as the CEO. Only this time the board of directors blocked his decisions. Zane started Cyphorensic so that no one could tell him how to run it. He’d funded the entire thing himself, planning for the months it could take before the company began to stand on its own.

Zane wasn’t a programmer. But he couldn’t let the company fall apart. As much as he hated to think of replacing John, he needed to hire a programmer as soon as possible. The new employee would not be a partner this time. Zane hoped he would find someone who could pick up where John had left off.

Zane spun around in the Aeron chair—the only chair for hard-core programmers, John had insisted. He stared at John’s special desk system, all designed for maximum efficiency, free of clutter and knickknacks. His laptop briefcase remained where Zane had seen him place it. The man was relentless, planning to stay late the night he died. But Zane had insisted otherwise because John needed to focus on his wife, his marriage.

Two more monitors sat on a table nearby, everything networked seamlessly. But John had preferred his laptop. Zane opened the black canvas case to pull out the lightweight computer. Though he’d not spent the countless hours that John had invested in writing thousands of lines of code, Zane knew enough to understand the documentation John placed within his program, explaining each segment. He unzipped the middle section of the case.

His heart skipped. No laptop. He stuck his hand down into the dark case, just to be certain he wasn’t missing something. Nothing. He laid the briefcase on top of the credenza and leaned back into the chair, his hand over his mouth. He spun around again to face the desk.

A wireless mouse rested on a brown leather computer sleeve. Zane had mistaken it for a mouse pad at first. He sighed his relief and opened the sleeve. No laptop. He placed his elbows on the desk and rested his head in his hands as he tried to recall the events as they happened.

John had closed the laptop, pulled the cords and wrapped them up, then stuck it all in the laptop briefcase. Zane had stood on the other side of the desk and watched him, reminding him that he shouldn’t take his work home with him. He didn’t want his friend to do anything to further jeopardize his marriage for the sake of Cyphorensic. Zane had escorted him out to the parking lot and watched him drive away to pick up his wife for a romantic dinner.

Zane’s heart pounded, and his breathing grew rapid. He jumped up and tore over to the other computers. Except for the monitors, the hardware was gone.

He slid his cell from his pocket and phoned Sarah’s mother, who’d been named the estate executor, to question her about any computers in John’s house. John had promised Sarah he’d keep his work away from home. And true to John’s word, he’d done just that. All computers remained here, at Cyphorensic.

Not good.

He gasped in disbelief.

John’s words to his sister echoed in Zane’s mind….
“Riley, are you there?… Listen, I sent you something. Watch for it. It’s important.”

As John hung up the phone, and before Zane entered his office, John had said, “It might be a matter of life and death.”

As the words of that night reverberated in his head, Zane’s pulse hammered. What had John gotten himself into? Whatever it was, it appeared to involve Cyphorensic Technologies’ software, hence the stolen hardware. He yanked the phone to his ear and started to dial the police.

Wait.

He replaced the receiver. The last thing he needed at this juncture of the start-up company was to tie up Cyphorensic in some sort of technoscandal. John had some prior illegal cyber dealings, but he’d come clean. Zane trusted him. But what if something had changed?

His gut told him that whatever John had sent to Riley was related—maybe he’d even sent the software itself in an effort to keep it safe. Zane had to find out if Riley had received whatever John sent her.

Forget finding a memento to take to Riley. He rushed through the plate glass door of his fledgling company, ignoring Chelsea’s questioning calls, and hurried to his luxury car, sliding into the tan leather driver’s seat. As he turned the key in the ignition, he clenched his jaw in resolve. The suspicion that had bothered him since John’s accident wrapped around his mind, growing stronger. Something was amiss in the circumstances surrounding his partner’s death.

Zane clenched the steering wheel. He had to find out what his partner had deemed a matter of life and death and had sent to his sister. He floored the gas pedal and headed to Sanderford Cranberry Farms somewhere on Cranberry Highway.

Riley held Chad in her left arm and one of the inspirational pictures she’d brought from California in the right. It would serve as a daily reminder of her new life of peace. She almost laughed out loud. So far, things had been anything but peaceful.

She followed Grandpa through the door of the small, one-room cottage that served as the main office of Sanderford Cranberry Farms. He set a laundry basket full of Chad’s toys and a blue-jean quilt on the floor. Riley released her squirming nephew and placed the picture on top of a stack of boxes.

Grandpa flipped on the fluorescent lights while Riley opened the window shades. Give her sunshine over artificial lighting any day of the week. She smiled. After all the time she’d spent working in the skyscrapers of corporate America, that should become her new motto.

Though large maple and oak trees shaded the old structure, as she looked though the window, she had a clear view of the acres of cranberry beds, including the new ones that Grandpa worked to prepare.

The familiar light gray monolithic computer sat like a fossil on the corner of an old aluminum desk.

“When was the last time you turned this thing on, Grandpa?” Riley shoveled around the stacks of papers and musty cardboard boxes, stubbing her toe against one of the taupe filing cabinets. She pressed the Power button on the vintage CPU. The slumbering machine hummed and churned, beginning to boot up.

Grandpa released a deep sigh. “I’m trying, Riley. It was part of my plan to grow the farm—get modernized. But I’ve struggled with using the thing. Millie from the church was coming for a while to get it running. She tried to enter information into the accounting software she took the liberty of buying for me, but she said it was too slow. And your brother’s wife, Sarah, looked at it for me. She said she’d come back to help me, and she did spend one morning that next week. She said I needed a newer computer, though.”

“Well, no kidding. This is a 486 processor.”

“It’s all Greek to me. And that Millie, I thought she always had her eye on me, even when your grandmother was alive. She offered to help, and, well… I was desperate. Makes me feel sick.”

“I’m sure that Millie honestly wanted to help you, Grandpa. You shouldn’t feel guilty for accepting it.” Memories of her grandmother and the time Riley had spent with her making cranberry recipes played across her mind.

“Well, I do. Your grandmother suffered the last few years of her life when the cancer got her.” Grandpa lowered himself into a chair on the other side of the desk and stared at his hands. “I can’t tell you how much it breaks my heart to lose John and his pretty wife like that, when we’d only just found him. And with your mother gone, too… I had hoped that the farm would continue on in the family like it has all these generations.” He lifted his gaze to Riley. “But I look around and everyone has gone off to bigger and better things. Your aunt’s in Chicago with her family. There’s no one left. I thought if I expanded and turned it into something big, like Farrington Cranberries, I wouldn’t need to pass it on to family, except I’m too old and too tired to do it.”

He sat up and stared at Riley, a big smile forced on his face. “But now you’re here.”

Riley kept her mouth closed. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t possible, but what did she know? “Haven’t they moved into all processing, including distribution?”

“Yes. It’s crazy thinking, isn’t it? The least I could do, though, is increase the business by adding more beds and maybe diversify into something else. I should have done that years ago in order to keep up. I was just set in my ways. I’m not telling you this to disrespect the memory of your grandmother in any way, but her illness… Well, it depleted the savings.”

“We don’t have to talk about this right now if it’s too painful.” Riley’s heart ached for the loss of her grandmother. She hated seeing her grandfather like this. As she watched the monitor come to life, she felt pleased that her grandfather had made the attempt, but she couldn’t stand to see him disappointed.

“No,” he said, “I need to bring you up to speed. I planned to create more bogs and purchased a dozer to do the job. After I figured how much I would have to pay someone else to do it, well, I realized I could do it myself and bought a 1982 model.”

“That’s great!”
Over twenty years old?

“You haven’t heard the rest. It has mechanical problems. Worthless. I took out a loan on it, and now with the two bad growing seasons in a row, I’m struggling to pay for the thing.” Grandpa frowned. “I should have told you all of this before you committed to come here. I’m sorry.”

Riley rushed around the desk to place her hand on her grandfather’s shoulder. “No, you did the right thing. Me being here is the right thing.” She watched Chad playing on the floor, and her insides rolled with anguish. “We’re going to grow this farm. I’m going to help you make it happen. For you. For Chad.”

Though the loss of her brother remained at the forefront of her mind, joy surged inside at the thought of building something worthwhile. Chad had lost his parents. He was part of her family now. She wanted to be the best mother she could be, and she would build this business for him. And for her brother.

“Aunt Wiley!” Chad maneuvered his way over to her and raised his arms. She picked him up. He pointed behind her, and she spun around to see a large poster of the Sanderford Farms brand—a huge cranberry stood out in the middle of it. “Cwanbewy?”

“That’s right, sweetie. It’s a cranberry. We’re on a cranberry farm.” Chad jumped down and toddled over to touch the picture hanging on the wall, but he couldn’t reach it.

Riley turned to smile at her grandfather but continued to speak to Chad. “When I was a little girl, my grandfather used to tell me all about the cranberries. Do you know where the word
cranberry
comes from? Some of the first people to settle our country—the Germans, for one—called it a crane berry at first because when the vines are blooming, they look like a crane. That’s a type of bird.”

“Cwane?” The child gave his best effort to pronounce the word. Riley thought Chad spoke well for his age.

“That’s right. Eventually, the word changed to
cranberry
.”