Chapter 30 #2
Everything had gone well—better than he could have hoped, honestly.
The panel was great—he’d more than held his own with the people from Comcast and AT she’d miss a lot at the conference, but this was absolutely a cover story. Even if Mr. Brooks fired her for making a snap decision without consulting him—or anybody—back home, he’d have to give her the cover first.
She had his home number, for emergencies, and this certainly qualified.
But she had another call to make before that. Daniel would understand; how could he not? This was a career-making opportunity. She could hear him now: I can’t believe you just asked him to take you with him on his jet! You’re amazing, Nora. Didn’t I tell you you’d be a star?
She had to settle for imagining his words; when she called his cell phone, she got a computerized voice telling her no one was available and to leave a message.
Maybe he was at an early dinner with his team, or maybe the phone battery had run out. Either way, he’d get her message soon enough, and he could call her back here in the room.
So she might as well order room service and wait for that call back.
Daniel , two hours later
Still no word from Nora. He was starting to worry that something had happened to her. She could be sick, or injured. She might be in the hospital.
What else could explain it? Even if she’d been slammed with interviews all day, she would’ve checked her pager. She would’ve found a phone. Wouldn’t she?
The silver lining—if you could call it that—was that his increasing anxiety was helping his bowling. He was throwing the ball harder than he could ever recall doing, thanks to all the nervous energy. He actually bowled a 160 the last game, which was an all-time high for him, by a lot.
Nobody on the team asked if he’d heard from her. And every time he checked the cell phone for messages, they all pretended not to notice.
After the fourth game, Blue suggested going back to the Marriott for a late dinner at the hotel restaurant.
It seemed as good an idea as any, so Daniel settled up the bill using the company card—he could explain it to Mr. Kincaid as team-building—and took Red back in a taxi while the rest of the team walked the five blocks.
When they got there, everyone else sat down at an open table in the hotel restaurant, leaving only one seat for Daniel—a seat with a clear view of the big revolving door they’d just come through.
He didn’t thank them; if they were going to the trouble of not calling attention to how badly he was missing Nora, then he wasn’t going to mention it either.
He’d mention it in their evaluations back at the office, under the headings of “team spirit” and “going above and beyond.”
They lingered for nearly two hours—dinner, dessert, coffee and bad jokes. Every time the revolving door turned, he looked up. But Nora never came through it.
Where was she?