Nothing Personal (31 page)

“Desiree.”

He was saying her name in his dream, and he was whirling, carried to the surface of consciousness, then back underneath, now rising again.

“Desiree.”

A long time, or a short one, and a hand was touching his, a woman’s voice in his ears. “Alec. Sweetie. I’m here.”

He opened his eyes, tried to turn his head, but it hurt, so he didn’t.

“Alec.”

Her face was above his now, and it was his mom.

“Desiree,” he said again.

“
Sweetie, she’s all right, and so are you.” Her hand was clutching his, and there were tears on her cheeks.

“Where . . . What . . .”

“You were in an accident,” she said. “A car accident. You’ve just come out of surgery, but you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be just fine.”

She was crying, and h
e wanted to do something about it, but it seemed too hard. So he shut his eyes again and drifted some more, and after a while, she was walking beside his bed, which was rolling now, pushed by somebody he couldn’t see, through brightly lit corridors, into a big elevator, down another corridor and into a room, and he was being shoved onto another bed, which got through the fog in his head, because it hurt.

He could see now that his
right arm had tubes leading to it, and his other arm was encased in plaster from bicep to fingertips. His entire body ached, but the pain was gentle, held at a distance, and everything around him kept approaching and receding, coming in and out of focus. The white walls, the TV mounted in the opposite corner, a nurse doing something to the plastic bag hanging on the metal stand at his right side. And his mom.

“Desiree,” he said again. “Where . . . is she?”

“Here,” she promised. “In the hospital.”

“OK?”

“She’s going to be fine.”

He shut his eyes
, because keeping them open was too much work, and the nurse was talking to his mother, leaving the room, and he opened his eyes again and his father was there, and Gabe too, filling the space between his bed and the empty one beyond.

But
he was still so tired, still floating. And Desiree was all right. So he just closed his eyes and let them talk.

Desiree’s wheelchair came to a stop as Dixie paused outside Alec’s door and called out, “Knock, knock. Visitor for the patient.”

The two solid fi
gures blocking Desiree’s view turned, shifted, and she saw him. His black hair was still the same, but that was all. His face was almost unrecognizable, his left eye puffed shut, the fierce red bruising extending up his forehead, down his cheek. Adhesive tape across his nose, his lips swollen and marked by black lines of stitching. But none of that mattered, because he was alive.

Gabe and Dave moved
to the end of the bed where Susie sat, and Dixie wheeled Desiree close, close enough so she could reach a hand out for Alec’s where it lay on the bed, the fingers taped to a device that was probably measuring his pulse, tubes running to the crook of his elbow and fastened with more tape. She touched his hand, and he looked at her out of his one good eye and tried to smile.

“Hey,” he said, his voice weak, “you should see the other guy.”

She laughed, and it hurt, so she stopped. “We both made it,” she said. “Because of you.”

“We’ll leave the two of you alone for a while,” Dave decided.
“Come back in a few minutes.”

“Grandma,” Desiree realized, “you should go rest.”

“Gabe’s found us a hotel,” Susie promised. “I’ll take her there right now.”

“I’ll see you later tonight,
honey,” Dixie said, bending to touch her papery cheek gently to Desiree’s, squeezing her hand. “You take care.”

“Where are we?” Alec asked when the others had left.

“Los Gatos. It was a short ride. I guess you don’t remember it.”

“No. What day?”

“Tuesday afternoon. It’s been about six hours since the accident.” She didn’t tell him how long those hours had been for her. She’d share that later, when he was in shape to hear it.

He looked at her from the corner of his one good eye. “You look . . . bad.
In a wheelchair.”

She would have laughed
, if she could have. “Just to get down here to see you, because walking hurts. Some bruises, a couple cracked ribs, a mild concussion that’s more like a bad headache, that’s all. They’ll discharge me any time now. You’re a whole lot more beat up than I am.”

He tried to shift, winced. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Let’s see. One concussion,
not
mild. Two broken bones in your left arm, which now has a pin in it—that was your surgery. Three broken ribs, which are probably going to hurt the most. And a whole lot of bruising. You don’t look pretty, but you’re going to be all right.”

He was barely listening. “We still don’t know,” he said. “What happened. The code.”

“Yes, we do. I called Ron a half hour ago, told him what happened, and he told me that the code had been accessed. It’s all over.”

“Good.” He
closed his eye and sighed. “That you’re on it. Because I’m falling asleep again.”

“You rest,” she said
, holding his hand a little more tightly. “I’ve got this.”

“The car, though.” The blue
eye opened again. “Can’t have been an accident.”

“No. Too coincidental, and too extreme. He did it.”

She caught the shift in his expression as he looked beyond her. She tried to turn to the door, was stopped again by the sharp pain in her side. But she didn’t need to turn after all, because here was Brandon, advancing into the room, hesitating at the sight of her.

“Rae,” he said with surprise.
“You’re mobile, then?”

“Oh, yeah.”
Her throbbing skull and aching ribs were telling her that it was past time for another pain pill, but that didn’t matter. “And Alec’s better off than he looks too. It’d take more than a little car accident to do the two of us in. We’re hard to kill.”

“Man.
” Brandon sprawled into the chair Susie had vacated near the foot of the bed with a sigh. “You look like shit.”

“Feel like it too,” Alec said.

“I’m so relieved. I thought I was going to be out of a job.” Brandon laughed a little, ran both hands over the thighs of his dark indigo jeans. “No, seriously,” he went on after a moment, “I was just . . .” He shook his head. “What a relief. I came as soon as I heard. It’s so good to see you guys.”

“Who told you?” Rae asked.
“About the accident?”

“Huh?” He blinked at her. “
Who? Joe. He called me. Didn’t realize you’d sprung the trap, I guess. Still pretending. But then,” he caught himself, “that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you two are all right.”

“Interesting,” she said thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize he knew yet.” She looked at Alec.

He moved his head a fraction as if to shake it, stopped. “No. My dad said he’d call. A few minutes ago.”

“You mean . . .” Brandon hesitated a moment. “No. It can’t be. Even he wouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what?” she asked.

“You’re suggesting that he caused your accident? No way,” Brandon insisted. “I don’t believe it.”

“No,” she said. “Neither do I. Joe wouldn’t do that, and he didn’t. Give it up, Brandon. We all know how you knew.”

“What?”

“You knew,” she said, “because you did it.”

“What?”
He stared at her in disbelief.

She paid no attention to that, because Brandon was good at lying. So good at pretending. But she wasn’t buying it, not anymore. “
I don’t know how,” she said, “but they’ll find out. You knew where we were, how? You didn’t follow us, or we’d have noticed. It was too rural up there, too empty. So it had to be some kind of tracking device on Alec’s car, which they’ll find too, because I’ve already told them to look for it. They’ll take that car apart, I’ll make sure of that. You knew that we were on top of a mountain, and you tampered with Alec’s brakes, which you’d probably been thinking about for a while. I don’t know if it was always part of your plan, or if it just seemed like the finishing touch, but it’ll come out in the investigation, because as soon as the police get you in that room and start to question you, you’re going to cave.”

“You’re crazy
.” He made as if to rise, seemed to change his mind, sat back down again, stuck his legs out in front of him, leaned back in his chair. “Why the hell would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know
.” She kept her own posture relaxed with an effort even as her mind raced. She’d had six long hours to think this out, though. She might not know exactly how he had done it—yet—but she knew why. Her hands curled and moved inside the pockets of her robe, wanting to hit him. To beat him for what he’d done. Everything he’d done. Everything he was. “Because you wanted to cover up the theft of some computer code, maybe, get rid of the people who’d foolishly given you the password, so they couldn’t tell anyone that they’d done it? Pretty pathetic attempt, though, as usual. A Mercedes is a well-built car. Not like, you know, that second-best thing you’ve got, that little BMW.”

She saw him flush, w
as glad her taunt had hit home. “I think you’d better have them check you for brain damage,” he said. “Because you’re nuts. And dude,” he told Alec, “I’m sure she’s a firecracker in the sack and all, but seriously, you can do better.”

“No
,” Alec said. “I can’t. Shut up.”

Brandon laughed.
“What, you tell her you’re in love? That how you got in? I don’t think that’s going to last long. Not once she finds out what a dog you are, catches you sniffing after that next piece of tail.”

Desiree barely heard them.
“But then,” she went on after staring down at her lap, thinking some more, “maybe you figured that even if you didn’t kill us, it would be enough just to muddy the waters, give yourself an excuse to quit. All that delay and confusion, you know, with Alec injured, that cloud still hanging over his head, and Joe’s too now? Maybe you’d have got lucky and we both
would
have had brain damage. So unfortunate for us, and for the company, and for you, of course, having to move on after all your hard work. You could’ve just slipped away, wouldn’t even have had to hide. You’re here now to make sure we don’t know, to see if you need to get out right away, do that hiding after all. Or to make sure we haven’t found out yet that the code’s been taken. If we had, what? You’d be joining us in mourning the fact that Joe was too smart, that he figured it out, that he somehow got the undamaged code after all. Too bad it’s too late. Too bad we’ve already figured it out, because as usual, you haven’t been smart enough.”

“You think it’s too late?”
He laughed again. “You already gave me access, remember? Maybe you two are the ones who aren’t smart enough, did you think of that? If it
was
me, and I’m not saying it was, that code would be long gone, nothing you could do about it, and no way to pin it on me.”

“Why?” Alec asked
, and as much as she knew talking hurt, asking this question had to hurt more. “Why, when you’ve been my partner for so long? When you’ve gotten so much from working with me?”

“So much?
Brandon stared at him. “So
much?”
The mocking laughter was gone. “What do you mean, so much? What have you ever given me besides your leftovers? Joe’s your partner. Joe’s the best, and I’m some guy tagging along, getting the crumbs. You got any chick you wanted, and I got her fat friend. Rae was too good to have lunch with me, but as soon as you snapped your fingers, she was lying down and begging you for it, wasn’t she? Because you’ve always made sure you got all the money, and all the credit too. You’re the one doing the interviews, giving the presentations, taking your shirt off on the reality show. You live in the Millennium Tower, and where am I? Some second-class place, always.
Always.
Because for every million you got, you gave me maybe, what, a fifth? A tenth?
Maybe,
if I was a very good boy and kissed your ass enough. No matter how much I did for you, I was never going to hit the big time, never going to be the one raking in fifteen mill at one shot, because you were there taking it all.”

“
Because you didn’t earn it,” Alec said. “You want fifteen million, you go have the idea. You go build the company. You didn’t earn it, and you don’t deserve it.”

“
Like hell I don’t. You
owe
me, and you know it. And now you’re trying to pin this on me, but you won’t, because I’m too smart for that. Because I’m one step ahead of you, and I always have been.”

He smiled, and it was ugly, the mask fully fallen away now, the envy that had twisted his soul for so long right there to see
, the boyish features distorted into something nasty and vicious. He made Desiree sick. Her nostrils were full of the stink of him, and her stomach curled in disgust.