Chapter 33
“Is it just me, or was Mike giving off some very weird vibes in that meeting?”
Daniel agreed. They’d just gotten out of an all-division meeting led by the Vice President for National Sales, Mike McGee, and there was definitely something off about him.
Not that Daniel had been in that many meetings with the man, but there’d been enough over the last two years for him to have a sense of what to expect.
“It’s not just you, Red.” Kristin Chambers had never shed that nickname after the conference in Kansas City three and a half years ago.
Everyone else who’d been on the team had moved on; Daniel was the only person besides Kristin who knew why she was called that.
“I think there’s something going on that nobody in management wants to talk about. ”
“If you hear anything, you’ll tell me?”
She didn’t need to ask. “You know it. You keep your eyes open, too, okay?”
She nodded, and they went their separate ways; her down to the third floor, and Daniel to the office that had belonged to his boss when he’d first been hired by Quantum Networking Systems, and had been his for the last year and a half.
He’d just sat down at his desk when the phone rang. It was a Washington, DC number. He couldn’t think of anyone he knew there personally, or any vendors his team worked with who were based there. But some instinct told him to answer it anyway.
“Daniel Keller?”
He thought he recognized the voice, but he couldn’t think from where. It was a woman, and if he had to guess, not that much older than him. Maybe in her thirties?
“Yes, who’s this?”
“A voice from your past. I’m kind of hurt you don’t recognize me, actually.” But he heard humor rather than pouting there. Someone from college? But who would be calling after almost six years?
And then memory kicked in. He knew who she was.
The Ellis Hall computer lab, his senior year. A law student, a friend, and for six weeks or so, an almost-girlfriend. “Valerie Vance? Is that you?”
She laughed. “Yes, but I can’t talk on this line. I need you to get out of your office, and call me back in ten minutes at this number. Call on your personal cell, not your work phone.” And then she hung up.
What the hell? She sounded like someone in a spy movie. It was ridiculous. Silly. Stupid. Pick an adjective.
But in the few months he’d known her, she had been nothing but good to him, and never anything but truthful. She’d helped him get this job, and negotiate for a better salary—even after he’d broken up with her. Obviously he could trust her.
Ten minutes later, he was sitting on a bench in Cityfront Plaza, well away from anyone else, and he dialed the number back.
“You’re out of the office?”
“Yes, Valerie. I’m all alone in the park. What’s with the cloak and dagger stuff?”
There was silence for a moment. “Protecting myself. I could get fired for this. Disbarred, even. But—I helped you get your job. I feel like I owe it to you.”
That didn’t actually explain anything. “Owe me what?”
“Before I say anything, I need your promise, Daniel. You cannot breathe a word of this to anybody. Not friends, not family, and absolutely not coworkers. I need you to swear it to me.”
And now he knew.
Not the details of what she was about to say, but what they meant. Something was going on with upper management. Mike McGee knew, and he’d spent ninety minutes dancing around like he needed to pee because he couldn’t say anything about what he knew, and how it would impact everyone in the meeting.
“I swear, Valerie. But I think you can probably skip it. Just tell me—I need to get out now, before the layoffs start, don’t I?”
Nora , January 22
She was back in Mr. Brooks’ office again. Nora had been in here a dozen times the last couple of weeks. He’d been questioning her work in detail, making her explain herself in a way he hadn’t done since her first few months on the job.
“Mr. Brooks, can I ask you something?” He nodded. “Do you have a problem with my work? If there’s something you’re unhappy with, I’d rather you just come out and tell me.”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with your work, Nora. But your intuition could use some fine-tuning.”
What did that mean?
“Sir?”
“Must I spell it out to you?” She knew she had a blank expression on her face; it was probably all he could do not to laugh.
“Apparently I do. Jessica Waybourne is pregnant, I assume you’re aware of that?
” She nodded. Jessica was the editor of BioCurrent Monthly .
And she was very pregnant. The last couple of times Nora saw her in the hallway, she was surprised the woman wasn’t on bed rest.
“And obviously you know—not firsthand, since you haven’t needed it yet—Livingston has a generous maternity leave policy. Starting next Friday—possibly sooner, she looks about to pop, if you’ll forgive the expression—you’ll be stepping in for her while she’s out for the next eight months.”
He wasn’t…?
Was he?
Had the last two weeks been a test? Making sure he could trust her before…?
“Are you saying you’re putting me in charge while she’s out?”
He clapped his hands. “Give the lady a cigar. Or whatever the equivalent these days is; you don’t really seem the cigar type to me.”
“You can save it for my father,” she said. At least he was down to one cigar twice a week instead of half a pack of cigarettes a day. “But—thank you so much!”
He launched into a rundown of the new responsibilities she’d have, in gory detail. She knew there was more to being an editor-in-chief than most people realized, but hearing it all laid out like this? It was… a lot.
“Two final reminders, Nora. First, this is temporary. When Jennifer returns, the job is hers again, and you go back to your current position. That said, if you excel—as I expect you to—you’ll be putting yourself in line for a permanent editorship.”
“Understood.”
“Second,” he added with an apologetic smile, “I’m afraid you’ll have to delay that cruise you won at last year’s Christmas party.”
That had been a shock; she’d never won anything before, let alone the best prize of the night. “That’s fine. I don’t have anybody to go with right now, anyway.”
And then, without warning, his name came into her mind, totally unbidden.
I wonder if Daniel would enjoy a cruise?
Daniel , January 23
It only took two hours at the public library for Daniel to confirm everything.
First was the easy part—he found Valerie in the Martindale-Hubble Law Directory . She was listed as an associate at Kane and Redfield, a big Washington, DC corporate law firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions.
The harder part was searching the Wall Street Journal archives using the library’s Lexis-Nexis terminal. It took most of those two hours, but eventually he found what he needed to know: Kane and Redfield had been retained to represent Comcast.
The final piece of the puzzle came in an article about a recent Comcast shareholder meeting. Buried near the end was a single sentence: they were planning a major acquisition to expand their business into fiber-optic networks.
They were going to buy QNS.
And Valerie was probably working on the deal.
Writing the contracts, helping to structure the merger or whatever else corporate lawyers did in these situations.
Which meant she hadn’t been kidding—talking to him about it was a real risk.
Definitely a fireable offense, and maybe even an actual crime.
But, technically, she hadn’t actually told him anything.
When he’d asked if he needed to leave before the layoffs started, she hadn’t answered. Her silence had been all the confirmation he needed, and he’d changed the subject immediately.
If—unlikely as it seemed—anyone had overheard them, all they would have heard was two old college friends catching each other up on their lives after graduation.
There was one other detail he hadn’t given any thought to at the time. He’d gotten a call last week from a headhunter at National Technical Recruiters. Based in Washington, DC.
The headhunter said he had a client who needed someone with his skills and experience, and Daniel, thinking it was just a cold call, had blown him off.
But what if there was more to it? What if Valerie had set it up?
She could easily have contacts with a company like that, and all she needed to do was give them his name and let them do the rest. And then, when she checked with them a week later and learned he’d ignored them, she’d thrown subtlety out the window and called him directly.
It was possible. And if it was true, that meant the job was real, and Daniel needed to call back today, while he still could. And he needed to let Red know what was going on, so she could make her own plans, too.
Nora , January 25
It wasn’t a usual practice for a reporter to buy her source a thank-you lunch, but Nora thought it was appropriate in this case.
Greg Sanders—Dr. Greg Sanders, as of three weeks ago, she really should remember to call him that—had spent hours with her, trying to explain the finer points of Quantum Theory.
Not really succeeding, if she was being honest, but she at least understood some of the terminology now.
The least she could do was treat him to Thai food.
He was waiting for her at the restaurant. “I took a chance and ordered you a milk tea,” he said when she sat down.
“That’s exactly what I would have ordered,” she said. It wasn’t, but she appreciated the gesture. “I’m glad you could meet me. Starting this week, I’ll be at a different publication— BioCurrent Monthly . I’m stepping in as interim editor.”
“Congratulations!” He seemed to genuinely mean it. “So what is the Livingston Physics Review going to do without you?” There was something more than just congratulations in his voice, but she couldn’t put her finger on what she was hearing.
“We’ve got a meeting this afternoon to figure that out. If it’s okay, I’ll put whoever takes over for me in touch with you.”
He gave her a look that, again, she couldn’t quite interpret.
“Sure. That’s fine.” He hesitated. Was he annoyed?
Sad? Supportive? Something else? “I’m happy for you, but—I’m also glad you won’t be working on physics stories anymore.
I haven’t said anything, but I’ve been thinking about something for a while now… ”
It clicked for Nora then. She knew exactly what he couldn’t quite bring himself to say. He’d never expressed any interest in her before, because he knew she couldn’t date a source. But if she wasn’t going to be writing for the Physics Review , then he wasn’t a source anymore. And that meant…
“Greg, are you asking me out on a date?”
She probably shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that, but better to just rip the band-aid off.
To his credit, he didn’t look away from her; he met her eyes and steadied himself. “Yes.”
Did she want to date him, though? He was—well, not precisely handsome but close enough to it.
He had piercing brown eyes that lit up when he got deep into the weeds on a physics problem.
Just like—no, this was not the time to think about Daniel.
She owed Greg her full attention; it wasn’t fair to him to be thinking about her past. Whether she said yes or no, he deserved that much.
But would it be yes or no?
He was close to handsome. And obviously very smart. And funny, when he let down his guard and forgot to be self-conscious. And, anyway, it was only a first date he was asking her on. She didn’t need to make a lifelong decision or anything.
“Then I’m saying yes.”
Daniel , January 30
The headhunter had been for real, and the job they wanted him for was a perfect fit. The initial conversations had gone very well, and their client—Piedmont Integrated Systems, in Charlotte, North Carolina—wanted to meet him in person.
Just like QNS had in his senior year of college, they were going to fly him out for the interview.
This time, he wouldn’t need Valerie’s help to prepare.
He knew exactly what they were looking for—and he even knew some of the people already.
They’d been a vendor for a few months last year, until Mike McGee took over as the division Vice President and cancelled all the contracts.
If all went well, though—and there was no reason why it shouldn’t—he’d still owe Valerie the job.
“I’m going to go broke thanking her,” he muttered to himself as he dialed the phone. There was another reason he believed—knew—this job would work out. It was fate.
“Danny? What’s going on? You never call in the middle of the day.”
It was fate that the job was in Charlotte because Bianca just moved there herself two months ago.
“You’re not going to believe this, Bee, but I’m going to be in your neighborhood on Friday. I’ve got a job interview.”
“What?”
He told her the whole story.
“You’re going to buy that lawyer another expensive gift, aren’t you?”
He laughed. Of course she knew what he’d been thinking. “I tell you I’m probably going to be your next door neighbor in a few weeks, and that’s all you have to say?”
“Am I wrong?”
“No, you’re not wrong, Bee. And one other thing…”
Again, she was ahead of him. “Of course you can stay with me. Lucky for you, I just got a bed for the spare room last week. And you said Friday? That’s perfect, I’ve got a friend I’ve been meaning to invite over for dinner. She’s really sweet. You’ll love her.”
He should have expected that. “If this happens and I move to Charlotte, are you going to try and set me up with one of your single friends every week?” Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
He hadn’t had a first date in months; or a second date in two years.
And any friend of Bee’s already had a lot going for them just by virtue of her vouching for them.
“Looking forward to it, Bee. I love you.”
Maybe all this really was fate.