Always You (9 page)

“Well, your boy Emmitt Grayson has perfected his system,” George said. “Chiara, you said that you and Zhou Chen programmed sales data onto the master after you sold the R-GS chips? Well, the location and access information for each R-GS chip is encoded in what looks like inventory control numbers. As soon as an R-GS chip is used, the rootkit installs itself automatically, usually in the most basic level of the operating system. The files it contains are impossible to delete, and they’re invisible. I went through the secure files of at least twenty companies before you guys broke down my door, and not one of them sent up flags, closed me out or blocked my access. I read the private e-mails of the president of BioGenesis, one of the biggest medical research facilities in Asia.” George stared dreamily into space as he said, “Emmitt Grayson created a ghost, man. It’s the perfect spy tool.”

“If someone has the master chip, he has complete, undetectable access to whatever system uses the R-GS chips,” John said. He pushed away his lukewarm cup of coffee. “He can go in whenever he wants, and no one knows he’s there.”

“Can’t antivirus software detect the rootkits?” Chiara asked.

“Antivirus software hasn’t been invented yet that can detect Grayson’s bad boys,” George said, his respect for the technology evident.

Chiara breathed hard through her nose. “Investment whiz, my ass,” she sneered.

“Huh?” George grunted.

“A story ran on Emmitt Grayson in
American Investor
magazine a few months or so ago,” Chiara seethed. She nearly shook with anger. “Grayson had the thing blown up and framed and hung it in USITI’s lobby. It talks about his great investing instincts, and how he’s made such savvy choices for the past five years. He’s made millions in the stock market on top of the millions he makes peddling his spyware. He’s a thief, and a liar, and he’s made me a party to it!”

“Chi, calm down.” John reached across the table and took her trembling hands.

“He killed Zhou over this,” she whispered.

“Do you think your friend knew how the master chip worked?” George asked. “Maybe he wanted to keep it for himself. I would.”

“Zhou wasn’t like that,” Chiara said. “He was one of the most honorable men I ever knew. If he’d known how the master chip functioned, he would have—” Suddenly something clicked. “He would have confronted Grayson. He would have quit the job.” Her lower lip quivered, but she held back her tears. “He told me, John. Zhou told me what Grayson was up to. I just didn’t get it.”

John gripped her hands tighter without meaning to. “There’s one thing I still need to figure out.”

“Just one?” Chiara chuckled somberly. “There are about a dozen things I have to puzzle through, and I have to do it before I go back to work next week. What’s your thing?”

John held her gaze. “How did Zhou find out how the master chip worked?”

* * *

Chiara, in a gesture of thanks for his help, allowed George to hold her hand as they walked him back to his dormitory. She didn’t know George very well, despite the fact that he was John’s brother. The two Mahoneys couldn’t have been more different, and those differences were glaring in the sunlight.

John’s full, sensuous mouth was perfectly balanced by the strength of his jaw and the shape of his cheekbones. The same set of lips in George’s much narrower, longer face became cartoonish when they parted to reveal his big white teeth, although there was a certain sexiness to the younger Mahoney’s goofy smile.

John kept his hair short, neat, professional. George, perhaps in response to the numerous scalpings his mother had given him as a boy, grew his hair as long as he could. He was four inches shorter than John, but with his hair combed out as it was now, he was six inches taller than John. George’s afro was so big that when he turned his head, his hair seemed to lag a second or two behind.

His tight-fitting Royal Navy sweater emphasized the scrawniness of his arms, and as Chiara hooked her arm through his, she felt as though she were hanging onto a coat rack. John had inherited his father’s meaty build with none of the predisposition toward obesity. John worked out regularly to maintain his chiseled physique. George worked out, too, but managed only to become sinewy, like his mother.

And John wasn’t the only Mahoney in love with a Winters woman. Though George hadn’t mentioned her, Clara was the woman of his dreams. Despite the darkness of George’s room, Chiara had noticed the poster he’d tacked to the ceiling above his saggy, cluttered bed. The poster, signed by Clara Winters Holtz, announced a lecture on bioentanglement physics she’d delivered at Washington University two years ago. According to John, George had been infatuated with Clara ever since.

“So, uh, Chiara,” George said at the entrance to his dorm, clearly reading Chiara’s mind. “How’s your sister?”

“Still married and still twenty years older than you.”

“Never give up on a good thing, that’s what I always say,” George smiled.

John snorted. Clara and Chiara were the first and last of the Winters sisters. Though they were twelve years apart in age, they both had the same big, pretty, molasses-dark eyes, full-lipped, bow-shaped mouths and dimples in their cheeks and chin. They bore such a strong resemblance to each other that Cady, with her annoying habit of furnishing nicknames, had labeled them Pete and Repeat. John wondered if George was attracted to Clara because she looked like Chiara, a woman he could never have. Not that he could ever have Clara, either.

“Do you think you could take some time away from studying for finals to help us out?” John asked with a sarcastic twitch of an eyebrow.

George cast a guilty smile toward the sidewalk. “Man, you know I had finals last week, before break. I only told Moms that so I could make a quick getaway.”

“How do you think you did?” John asked, dreading the answer. George was one of the smartest people he knew, but one of the least self-directed.

“I’ve got my computer classes in the bag but I let some of my electives slide a little.”

“How little?” John asked.

“ ‘Bout halfway down the alphabet,” George grinned.

“Mother will kill you if you bring home anything less than a B, you know,” John warned.

George laughed. “I’ve been changing my transcripts since the ninth grade. I haven’t met a computer system I couldn’t hack into.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” John muttered.

“Who needs good grades anyway?” George wondered aloud. “It’s talent that matters. I’ve already turned down a job offer from some software outfit in Massachusetts. I’m holding out for a West Coast firm. That way I can pursue a part-time career in the film industry.”

“You want to be an actor?” Chiara said.

“Not just any actor.” George flexed his tiny muscles in a variety of poses.

John cracked his first smile of the day. “You’re not still stuck on becoming—”

“Buck Hardrive,” George announced, striking a Superman pose, “computer software designer by day, porn superstar by night.” He strutted toward the dorm entrance, imitating an electric guitar riff he’d heard in one of his favorite dirty movies.

“He can help us,” John said to Chiara as they waved goodbye to him.

“Do you think it’s wise to let him keep the chip?”

“We don’t have much of a choice. George is the only person I trust enough to hide it.”

“I’m afraid he’ll do something outlandish,” Chiara fretted, “like take two million dollars from Siyuri Robotics and donate it to his high school computer club.”

“He won’t do that.” John took her in a one armed hug and kissed the top of her head. “He knows how serious this is.”

Chiara didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the thought that her salvation rested on the narrow shoulders of Buck Hardrive.

Chiara’s early Friday morning flight to Chicago was right on schedule, which gave her enough time to retrieve her car from long-term parking and drive to USITI with only minutes to spare before her eight-thirty
a.m.
appointment with Emmitt Grayson. The new year was barely two days old, and Chiara was already dreading what it held in store.

There was no ladies’ lounge on the top floor of the building, only Grayson’s office and a spacious lobby for his receptionist, secretary and visitors. Chiara spent a moment in the ladies’ room on her own floor, the seventh, to check her appearance.

Full-length mirrors lined the shorter wall facing the door, which had always bothered Chiara. Visitors to the building were always caught off guard when they first entered the restroom and encountered their own reflections walking toward them. Chiara fixed her eyes on her reflection as she entered the lavatory, and she tried to see herself as Grayson would.

She wore white, the best choice for her coloring and one of her favorite colors. White represented purity and innocence, and in Asian cultures, mourning. She wanted to communicate all three when she sat down with Grayson. She’d combed her hair into a sleek chignon, careful not to make it too severe. Her makeup had been applied with a light hand, but she wore no color on her lips. Her only jewelry was a pair of brilliant, Cartier diamond earrings that John had given her for Christmas.

She studied her reflection closer and admitted that her honey complexion looked a bit wan. She tried to convince herself that the mild nausea swirling in her belly was a remnant of her bumpy flight, but she knew better. It was due to a couple of things, the least of which being her impending face-to-face with Emmitt Grayson.

“Face to frost,” Chiara mumbled to herself.

Emmitt Grayson had never been an easy person for her to get a handle on. Everything about him was cold and distant. When she tried to imagine him alone with Zhou, carrying out a murder, she couldn’t see it. Murder would have required a certain amount of passion and feeling, two things she was certain Grayson lacked.

But then maybe that’s why they call murder cold-blooded,
she reasoned. In which case, she had no trouble imagining Grayson slipping Zhou enough medication to put him out of commission forever.

Chiara smoothed the front of her slim, snug-fitting skirt. She turned slightly sideways and pressed her tailored jacket front over her abdomen. The wool Anna Sui design was alluring yet professional, and the right shade of white for January. Dressed to take on the world—or at least Emmitt Grayson—Chiara exited the ladies’ and took the elevator to the office in the clouds.

* * *

While Chiara had headed directly to the technical sales and public relations department, John had gone to his old digs in information systems. He’d only been gone three months, but his former officemates greeted him as though he’d been gone years. They filled him in on all the USITI goings-on, the feature story being that of the recent suicide of sales rep Chen Zhou. John knew that his co-workers were fishing for any inside information he could provide. They knew of his long history with Chiara and itched to know what she might have told him.

John kept his comments bland and noninformative to the point of total boredom. When talk turned to promotions, firings and general gossip, John couldn’t stop his thoughts from wandering ten floors up, where Chiara was probably just sitting down to her meeting with Grayson.

Once George had uncovered the master chip’s capabilities, John had realized that he couldn’t go through with his original plan to return the chip to Grayson under the guise of a misdelivered package. Grayson would never believe it, and he would surely have assumed that Chiara had had something to do with the chip’s disappearance.

Chiara had come up with her own stopgap: to tender her resignation.

John planned to do the same, after a decent interval in which he would seek new employment. He couldn’t afford to just up and quit, despite his contempt for Emmitt Grayson and his devious software. He had practical considerations, such as a house to buy and the family he hoped to soon put in it.

Emmitt Grayson himself, as part of his determination to diversify his rapidly growing corporation, had recruited both him and Chiara straight out of George Washington University. Their starting salaries had been ridiculously high, the benefits amazing—what company offered four weeks of paid vacation, matching 401Ks and pension eligibility from day one?

The job had seemed too good to be true, and after they started working in the Chicago headquarters they started seeing things that, in hindsight, should have tipped them off as to the true character of their employer.

The ceilings were speckled with small black domes that concealed surveillance cameras, and those were the ones in plain sight. As Chiara had pointed out, John’s work in information systems made him a party to other forms of surveillance, such as the flagging of suspicious e-mails. There was a separate communications department devoted solely to monitoring phone calls. The party line was that calls were monitored to ensure customer satisfaction, but John was certain that all calls, not just those to customers, were monitored.

Too many USITI employees had become former employees after making the mistake of using their office computers to work on their resumés, or speaking to prospective new employers by phone from USITI.

While John regretted the way Chiara’s USITI career was ending, he was relieved that she was leaving. She loved traveling and introducing USITI’s products to new clients, but she’d always hated the office part of the job, where she was tied to her desk handling questions from the field and researching the potential new clients Grayson handpicked. Her departure would free her to move to St. Louis, something she’d seriously considered in light of John’s transfer.

Armed with the status report on the St. Louis office, John went into a meeting of his own with his Chicago counterpart. The work John had been so proud of suddenly meant nothing as he discussed it, knowing that far above his head Chiara was facing a situation that would change her life.

* * *

Grayson spent a long moment studying his clasped hands, which rested on his desk, before he turned his expressionless gaze on Chiara, who sat directly in front of him in one of his uncomfortable leather and chrome chairs. She met his eyes and held them, but to her shame she looked away first.

She softly cleared her throat. “It’s all there in my resignation letter, Mr. Grayson,” she began, her voice the only sound in the cavernous office. “But I thought I owed it to you to tell you in person. It’s time for me to move on. I’ve been planning to return to St. Louis, and—”

“Perfect,” he snapped. “As you know, we’re establishing a new base there, our first operation west of the Mississippi. It would be an excellent fit for you and extremely beneficial to USITI as well.”

She held his gaze and said, “I don’t want to work for USITI.”

She replayed her words in her mind and was satisfied that she’d spoken plainly, emotionlessly. There was nothing Grayson could read into her delivery, yet she was still alarmed by the intensity of the silence rising between them. To her relief, Grayson looked away first this time.

Chiara continued. “My employment contract—”

“Remains in effect for six more months,” Grayson spoke over her.

Chiara sat even straighter in her chair. “According to section seven, paragraph three, article nine, I can terminate my employment without thirty days’ notice if an extenuating circumstance, whether medical, physical or emotional, prevents me from being able to perform the duties to which I’m assigned.”
It’s good to have a sister who’s a lawyer
, Chiara thought smugly as Grayson’s nostrils flared.

He drew several long, deep breaths, his eyes slightly narrowing at Chiara. “And what might your extenuating circumstance be?”

“I’d rather not disclose it at this time.”

Grayson blinked in shock or surprise. “Then, pursuant to section seven, paragraph six, article two of your contract, I won’t allow you to leave USITI without suffering the consequences.”

Is that what happened to Zhou?
Chiara was tempted to ask. Instead she said, “I’m well aware of the consequences. I’ll forfeit my pension, severance pay, accrued sick and vacation pay, as well as any bonuses I’ve earned up to this point.”

“You’ve been with me for a long time, Chiara. Are you willing to lose thousands of dollars to prematurely depart USITI without even providing me with your reason for doing so?”

“Money isn’t the most important thing in the world to me,” she said.

“I see.”

“I don’t think you do.”

Grayson’s pale eyes suddenly seemed as dark and cold as the waters of the great lake behind him.

“What I mean is that you don’t know me well enough to know what’s important to me,” Chiara explained. “Our relationship has been strictly business and strictly professional.”

“When do you plan to leave?”

“In two weeks. I’ve scheduled some vacation time, so I won’t be in the office. I thought a clean break would be best.”

“Two weeks,” he echoed, stretching the ‘s’ into a long, sibilant syllable. “Perhaps in that time I can persuade you to reconsider your resignation.”

“I won’t.” She uncrossed her legs in preparation to stand.

“Of course you realize, Chiara, that your sudden departure casts suspicion in your direction regarding my missing master chip. USITI has done everything possible to recover the chip, to no avail. We’re left with one conclusion: that Chen Zhou lost it, destroyed it…or gave it to someone else.”

Chiara settled back into her seat.
This is it,
she told herself.
Here we go.
“Are you accusing me of stealing your chip, Mr. Grayson?”

“I’m simply recommending that you remain at USITI until the unpleasantness surrounding Chen’s death and the mystery of the missing chip is resolved,” he said smoothly. “Otherwise, USITI has no choice but to pursue it as a criminal matter, a case of corporate embezzlement.”

“I didn’t steal your chip!” Chiara said, too forcefully.

“Can you prove that you didn’t?”

“Can you prove that I did? I believe the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused.”

“Indeed you’re right,” Grayson grinned. “And to that end, USITI is handling this situation internally. The last thing I want is for our clients to learn that we’ve had a severe breach of security. I’ll find that chip, and when I do, the guilty party will be punished to the furthest extent of the law.” He reached under his desk, his sudden movement startling Chiara’s heart into her throat. He withdrew a white business card from an unseen compartment and slid it across his mirrored desktop. “There’s a car waiting for you downstairs, Chiara. You’ll be taken to USITI Security. Give this card to the receptionist. She’ll direct you from there.”

Her fingers trembled as she picked up the card and looked at it. It bore a single sequence of numbers. “What is this?”

“A mere formality.” Grayson smiled, but it had no warmth and it failed to reach his eyes.

* * *

A separate building twenty minutes away from USITI headquarters housed security. A wide, semicircular driveway allowed access to the ten-story structure, which was square and all glass on the outside. It appeared as though one could see all that went on inside from the outside, but Chiara knew otherwise. There was nothing open about USITI Security, and what went on there was a mystery to all but the few who worked there.

Chiara’s driver had kept his silence through the drive to security, and he maintained it even as he opened her door for her and escorted her to the reception desk in the glassed-in lobby. He didn’t leave her side until the receptionist had taken Chiara’s card, studied it, and directed her to an elevator that would take her to the sixth floor.

The doors opened onto a floor decorated all in white and chrome. It was fashionably sterile, empty and impersonal, like a laboratory. Chiara had little chance to really look around because a second receptionist rounded a desk and approached her. The woman wore a white lab coat, a mid-length black skirt and sensible black pumps. She looked more like some sort of medical assistant rather than a receptionist, and Chiara’s heart began to jump when the woman peeled her white wool coat from her shoulders and took her handbag. She quickly stowed them behind the reception desk and then returned to Chiara.

Though the woman smiled, it seemed like a mask, and Chiara recoiled when she attempted to take her arm.

“Follow me, then, right to this room here,” she said briskly. “Just go in and have a seat. The examiner will be right with you.”

“Examiner?” Chiara said.

The woman gave her a tiny shove into a small gray room and shut the door. “Someone will be right with you, Miss Winters,” came the woman’s voice through a speaker system set somewhere in the walls. “Please have a seat.”

Chiara eyed a squarish, gunmetal gray table and matching metal chair. She turned around and reached for the doorknob only to find that there wasn’t one. “You have got to be kidding me,” she murmured.

She wanted to kick herself for allowing the woman to take her handbag because her cell phone was in it. But after looking around the room and finding the surveillance camera mounted in one corner of the high ceiling, it occurred to her that she probably wouldn’t have been able to get a signal to call out anyway.

Besides, who would she call? The police? And tell them what? That she was being held against her will at work?

She managed to calm herself a little, but her nerves prickled sharply once again when the door opened and a man entered. With his broad chest, big belly, and bushy mustache, he looked like a bulldog ambling on its back legs. He didn’t look at Chiara as he toddled into the room, followed by another man in a white lab coat who pushed in a cushioned leather swivel chair on casters.

The man in the lab coat parked the swivel chair on the other side of the table. “Miss?” he prompted, escorting Chiara to the metal chair and encouraging her to sit with a less than gentle push to her shoulders. The bulky man plopped onto the cushioned chair, and he used a yellowing handkerchief to mop the sweat from his balding pink pate.