Out of Control (8 page)

Now he really looked panicked. Eyes wide, he stared at me. “Two weeks? That’s far
too long. If you don’t go right away, you’ll lose whatever chance we have. I called
Dylan’s office a few hours ago to find out if he’s home yet, and his receptionist
told me he’s due in Dallas tomorrow morning. You’d need to get into his office by
tomorrow, before he can get rid of any evidence. And the bids are due day after tomorrow.
If you wait two weeks, you won’t have that as an excuse to call him.”

I decided Cole was way too emotionally involved to see reason. What on earth would
Dylan leave lying around that would implicate him in the blowouts if he was, in fact,
guilty? Receipts for explosives? Not hardly. He’d undoubtedly gotten them on the black
market. Maybe a map of the wells he intended to blow? Why would it be in his office?
He’d have taken that with him.

No, it was a stupid idea. But I didn’t have the heart to say that to Cole. Instead,
I said with a tinge of totally fake regret, “Well, that’s it then. No choice, I have
to go to Venezuela, so I’m afraid I won’t be any help at all to you.” I looked at
Robichaud and willed him to come across the room and say he was ready to leave.

Like most men, he totally missed telepathic messages, along with hard looks and facial
tics. If I’d shouted across the room,
Yo, Robichaud, wouldja save my ass, here?
maybe he’d have taken the hint. As it was, he continued talking to Deke’s brother
as though I wasn’t winking and raising my eyebrows and giving tiny jerks of my head
toward the door.

“Suppose I told you I do have one small piece of information that implicates Dylan?”

Instantly, I shifted my focus away from clueless Robichaud and looked back at Cole.
“Like what?”

“An email he sent to Parnell. It’s vague, granted, but he mentions something about
shrimp.”

“Did you show it to the FBI?”

He nodded. “They blew it off. Said it didn’t mean anything.”

“What, exactly, did the email say?”

“That Dylan would buy Parnell a shrimp dinner when next he saw him, and they’d raise
a toast to the old days, to capitalism, and to Hakeem.” He smoothed his tie again.
“Considering Parnell came ashore from that platform on a shrimp boat, it seems too
much of a coincidence that Dylan mentions shrimp. And why mention capitalism?”

Why indeed. My mind raced. Could it be that Cole wasn’t being overly emotional, that
what he suggested made sense? What if Dylan really was the one behind the blowouts,
but he set up A.J. well enough that he was found guilty? Not that I really cared what
happened to A.J., but it would suck for a man to go to prison for something he didn’t
do, and the guilty man to go free. Not to mention that final nail in the coffin thing
with my family.

I looked toward Deke’s mom, crying into a wad of Kleenex. Hadn’t I promised myself,
and Deke, that I’d find whoever was responsible?
Truly
responsible?

Robichaud was saying goodbye to Deke’s brother. I watched them shake hands, saw the
sincerity on Nick’s face, took a hard look at his dark suit—which fit him perfectly—
and the startling white of his dress shirt in sharp relief against his tanned skin.
I knew without a doubt, if we went to Venezuela together we’d become lovers. Probably
the first night there. Chances were excellent that it would be a disaster in the end,
but I’d conveniently forget that the instant he kissed me.

If I begged off, kissing wouldn’t be an issue. He’d be gone for two weeks. Out of
sight, out of mind, right? I could go to Dallas and see what I might find out about
Dylan, put my mind at ease that he wasn’t involved, or get enough evidence against
him to turn over to the FBI. By the time Robichaud got back from South America, I’d
be on another fire, hopefully somewhere far away, like Asia.

The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea.

All I had to do was convince Trick I shouldn’t go to Venezuela. I hated to do it,
but I decided to plead stress from the platform blowout, the near death experience
at the hands of Parnell Harkness, and severe grief for Deke. Trick wouldn’t question
it. He’d give me a few days off without blinking. I never called in sick, or took
all of my vacation. He was always telling me I needed to take a break, that I worked
too hard.

Well, now I was going to do just what he told me. No way he’d argue.

I pulled a business card from my handbag and handed it to Cole. “If I decide to go,
I’ll call and let you know what I find.”

“Thank you,” he said softly, just before he turned and headed for Deke’s mom. Like
I said—big
cajones
.

Watching Nick walk toward me, I wondered how I’d explain things to him. No way would
I tell him my real reason for staying behind. He’d go all commando on me, and tell
me I was nuts. Maybe he’d be right, but now that Cole’s little conspiracy theory had
taken hold, I had to put my mind at ease that the FBI had the right man.

Since Robichaud wouldn’t know the real reason, he’d assume I was staying behind because
I was afraid. Let him, I decided. If he thought I was a fraidy cat, so much the better.
Maybe he wouldn’t want to kiss me again. That would be a good thing.

As we left the memorial, I wondered how many times I’d need to repeat that to myself
before I actually believed it.

…

I’m a good engineer, I can make a mean pot roast, and when the mood strikes, I’m not
half bad at seducing a man. But an actress I am not. After I told Trick I was bowing
out of the Venezuela job, and avoided Robichaud by leaving the office immediately,
I went home and started to plan what I would say when I called Dylan. All of my apologies
sounded thin and lame even in my own mind, and I suspected they’d sound more so when
said aloud. Dylan would immediately suspect me of lying. He might figure out what
I was after and destroy it. Even if I could sweet-talk him on the phone—highly doubtful—I
didn’t think I had it in me to suck it up in person. He made my skin crawl.

I plotted and planned and thought about it for several hours, but kept coming back
to the same place. The best way to look around Dylan’s office was to go when no one
was there. Even better to go before he got back from west Texas.

With a vague notion about how I’d get in after hours, I packed a small bag and headed
for the airport. I was able to get a seat on an eight o’clock flight, which landed
me at DFW around nine-thirty. After I rented a car, I took off for Dallas in the growing
darkness, to a cluster of brightly lit buildings west of the North Dallas Tollway.

I parked in the back, behind a row of shrubberies that segregated one parking lot
from another, gathered up my tools, and went to the service entrance of the building.
It was five stories tall, an older building set apart from the high rises that lined
the freeway. A rudimentary security system was easy to bypass. At least, after I climbed
up a drain pipe to reach the wires. The extra electrical engineering courses I’d taken
in college helped, but really, any burglar worth their salt would have had it just
as easy. Jimmying the door was more difficult, but my little hacksaw took care of
the problem.

Within ten minutes of arriving, I was inside the building. If my family could see
me now.

Well aware there are workaholics in the world, some of whom might be in the offices
I sneaked past, I took care to walk softly as I made my way toward the front to look
at the directory, gripping a tiny flashlight in one latex gloved hand and my tool
bag in the other. That done, I went to the stairwell, climbed to the second floor,
and turned left. Arroyo Petroleum’s office was dead center in the hallway, a set of
glass doors all that stood between me and the reception area. I bent to the floor
and worked the lock, popping it open so easily I wondered why they bothered.

Once inside, I wandered around a bit, glancing in each office, discounting them one
by one as too small, or too sparse to be Dylan’s. A.J. was president, but Dylan had
the dough. Naturally, he’d have the best office. The corner office turned out to be
A.J.’s. I knew because of the name plate on the gigantic desk. The room was large,
decorated in masculine leather and dark wood, nothing out of place, neat as a pin.

I walked around his office and noticed a photograph of a dark-haired woman in riding
clothes standing next to a horse. She was passably pretty, if a guy was into east
coast girls with pale skin and a broomstick up their ass. I wondered how rich her
daddy was.

Disgusted with myself for giving A.J.’s latest pigeon a second thought, I set the
picture down and left his office. Next door was Dylan’s office. Had to be. It looked
just as I imagined Enron’s offices looked the night they tried to shred everything.
Files and papers were stacked willy-nilly on the floor, on the desk, in the bookshelves,
on the chairs and sofa, anywhere there was a flat surface. Jesus. It would take the
next twenty years to go through all of it.

I focused on his desk, scanning the myriad notes and phone messages scattered between
cigars still in wrappers and receipts and at least five issues of
Penthouse
and
Hustler
. I glanced at his chair and literally shuddered. No way I’d touch it. Who knew what
evil germs and unmentionables lurked there?

Thirty minutes later, I admitted defeat. There was absolutely nothing that would tie
Dylan to the blowouts.

On instinct, I went back to A.J.’s office and looked around a bit more. When I opened
one of his desk drawers, I was surprised to find it empty. The others were also empty.
Turning, I opened the drawers and doors of the long credenza behind his desk. Totally
empty. Not even a box of Kleenex.

That’s when I noticed there was no computer. Granted, he might use a laptop and tote
it around with him, but there was no printer, no cables. Nothing to indicate he used
a computer.

My curiosity flying off the page, I got up and went round the rest of the office,
looking inside the large armoire on the west wall. If I yelled into the interior,
it would have echoed.

Standing in the middle of the huge room, I scanned the perimeter and concluded the
only thing in the office besides the furniture, a collection of oil and gas technical
books, and some decorative items on the bookshelves, was the picture of the horsey
girl.

Had the FBI had taken everything? They’d no doubt come and searched, but why would
they confiscate every single thing? There weren’t any office supplies in the desk.
Not even a pen. Weird. Very, very weird.

While I was contemplating what it meant, I heard a noise. I stepped to the doorway
and cocked my head, listening intently. Someone was in the reception area.

Hell.

Turning quickly, I went to the armoire and climbed inside, shutting the door behind
me, hoping the magnetic click of the catch wasn’t as loud as it seemed.

I wondered if it was Dylan. Had he returned to Dallas earlier than expected? The receptionist
said he’d be back in the morning, but she’d undoubtedly meant that’s when he’d be
in the office. Of course he’d come back to Dallas tonight.

After a while, I realized I had no way of knowing when whoever it was left, hidden
as I was in the armoire. It wasn’t as though anyone’d come into A.J.’s office. There
was nothing there to come in for. I gently opened the door and poked my head out,
listening for any sound at all.

Nothing.

Braver, I climbed out and crept to the office doorway. There was no light in the hall.
Maybe they’d left already?

Then I saw a shadow, moving away from Dylan’s office doorway, toward the front. I
froze and stopped breathing. I couldn’t actually see the man, but in the silhouette
made by the faint light coming from the hallway outside the glass doors, I saw that
he had a beard.

When I heard the glass doors open, then close, and the click of the lock, I finally
let out the breath I’d been holding. I waited several minutes before creeping into
the hall and padding quickly back to Dylan’s office. It looked exactly as before.
At the desk, I shined my little flashlight across the top, looking to see if things
had been disturbed. Had the bearded man been searching, as well? If so, for what?
And who was he? Maybe an employee. But what was he doing in Dylan’s office, in the
dark?

Then I noticed something next to one of the magazines, half-hidden by the front cover
model, who had extreme boobs. I bent to look, sucking in a startled breath when I
saw the name,
Drake
.

Shoving Ms. Boobs out of the way, I picked up a sheaf of copy paper, stapled together
in one corner, the pages wrinkled and bent as if they’d been looked through many times.
It was a dossier of my family, with grainy black and white photocopies accompanying
brief, sterile descriptions. My parents, and me, and each of my three sisters, along
with their husbands. And their children. So my oldest sister, Wynne, finally got her
wish and had a baby. A daughter. I stared at the little girl, seeing my own features
in her young face. Her name was Blair.

I wanted to sit down on Dylan’s nasty chair and cry. Real bad I wanted to cry.

But I’d done enough of that this week—this lifetime—and the middle of a B&E job was
not the time or place to revisit old ghosts. Or new ones. I focused and made myself
concentrate on the pages stapled behind those about me and my family. Apparently,
the coveted Alaskan production A.J. had planned to bid on was being offered by none
other than Drake Oil and Gas.

Oh. My. God.

So much for Cole’s idea about me offering to invest with Dylan. If my family already
owned the leases, why the hell would we invest with him? I was very glad I’d decided
not to call Dylan.

I stood there and let things run through my mind, and suddenly it all made sense.
I’d been introduced to A.J. by a guy at my father’s company, Tom Plank. My father
had no idea Tom was the reason I hooked up with A.J. Had he known, I was certain he
would have fired Tom, which is precisely why I’d never told him. I realized now that
Tom must be the inside guy who was supposed to leak the bid amounts to A.J. so he
could outbid everyone else and win the production leases for Arroyo.