When The Devil Whistles (12 page)

Allie didn’t doubt that Connor would beat Blue Sea, but so what? Her whistleblower career would be over and she doubted Connor could get enough money out of Blue Sea to make up for her loss. He could live with that, of course. There were plenty of other corporate dragons for him to slay, and she knew he didn’t need the money.

The problem was that she
did
need the money. And she didn’t need a dragon slayer right now. She needed someone who would make a deal with the dragon and keep it from burning up the princess’s dollar-printing machine. Unfortunately, that wasn’t Connor.

Besides, if Blue Sea
did
blow her cover, she could always tell Connor then. He probably wouldn’t like the fact that she hadn’t told him earlier, but he’d be furious with Blue Sea.

“Welcome to Deep Seven, Allie. My name is Janet Sheldon.”

She looked up and saw a tall woman of about forty smiling down on her. She stood and smoothed her skirt. “Hi, thanks. I’m happy to be here.”

“And we’re happy to have you. We’ve heard a lot about you.”

An icy finger stroked Allie’s spine. She looked carefully at the other woman, but her face revealed nothing more than a plastic HR smile. “I, um, thanks.”

“Let’s head back to my office. We’ll go over your paperwork, and I’ll tell you more about the job.”

Allie followed her back to her office. She took Allie’s forms and looked through them while Allie sat silently and tried not to fidget. Janet Sheldon’s office was a small, cheerful room decorated with children’s artwork and framed motivational posters bearing uncomfortable captions like “AMBITION—Create the life of your dreams with every choice you make!” A catalogue titled “Successories” lay on her clean, organized desk.

Three minutes later, Janet looked up. Her lips were pressed together into a bright pink line and there were little furrows between her perfect eyebrows. “Hmmm. Your work history shows that your most recent assignment was at Blue Sea Technology. Is that true?”

Allie had expected that question, but she felt her heart rate spike anyway. “Yes, is that a problem?”

“It might be. They’re bidding on a big project that we’re bidding on too—the Golden Gate turbine. If you worked on their bid, you might have been exposed to confidential information. I’d feel uncomfortable hiring you.”

Allie gave the answer crew cut man (aka Andy Duong, she had learned) had coached her to give. “I knew about their bid, but I didn’t do any work on it. In fact, once Trudi told me you had an opening, I actually called Blue Sea and asked if it would be okay for me to work here. They said yes. You can call Andy Duong to confirm that.”

Janet brightened. “Wow, great initiative, Allie! The agency said you’re one of their best employees, and I can see why.

Allie made herself smile, but said nothing.

“All right, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk a little bit about the work you’ll be doing. Once you’re done with your orientation, we’re going to plug you into the team that’s setting up Quickbooks Premier files and stuff for our Golden Gate bid. You’ve done that sort of work before, haven’t you?”

Allie guessed that reviewing their files on earlier government contracts wouldn’t be part of her job description, but she could work with it. “Sure. I’ve worked with that software dozens of times.”

“Great. I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Um, nothing I can think of right now.”

“Okay, then I’ll take you to meet with the head of our IT department. His name is Franklin Roh.”

18

C
ONNOR POLISHED OFF THE LAST OF HIS CHICKEN
/
PEPPER
/
MUSHROOM
stir-fry and put his wok in the sink to soak. He stretched and let out a contented sigh. Time for the evening e-mail check and a phone call before turning on the movie Netflix had just sent him. He was a little suspicious of the film because it was French and billed as “a powerful drama,” but Netflix insisted that he would “
it!” Well, maybe. He checked to see whether the Giants were playing tonight—just in case.

He walked into the spare bedroom that served as a combination home gym and home office. He plopped his laptop onto the small oak desk beneath the window and plugged it into its power cord and the Bose speakers on the corners of the desk. Classical music from KDFC streamed out of the speakers as he went through the two dozen e-mails that had come since he left the office an hour and a half ago.

Then it was time for the call. He turned down the music, sat up a little straighter, and dialed.

Allie’s voice appeared a few seconds later. “Hi, Connor. What’s up?”

“Just checking in. I’m having lunch with Max tomorrow, and I was wondering if you had any news about that new prospect—Blue Sea, right?”

“Oh, I’m not actually there anymore. I’m at a new place now: Deep Seven Maritime Engineering. Just started.”

“We’ll do some backgrounding on them. What happened at Blue Sea? I thought your assignment was going to last two months.”

“Um, nothing in particular. They just didn’t… my part of the assignment wrapped up early.”

Connor frowned and drummed his fingers on his desk. “Think they suspected you?”

“No, no, no. Not at all. They even talked about having me come back sometime.”

“Let’s talk if they ever offer you another job. I don’t like the fact that they just let you go like that with no explanation.”

“Uh, yeah. Absolutely. I was thinking the same thing. So, what’s up with you—other than lunch with Max tomorrow?”

“Oh, not much. Just keeping busy at work.”

“
And
going to some very fancy parties. You were dancing with the governor’s wife at something not too long ago, right? How did he feel about that? Did he have some guys beat you up in the parking lot afterward?”

Connor laughed. “He was the one who asked me to dance with her, so the guys in the parking lot let me off with a warning. How did you know about that?”

“I was just clicking through pictures on some news website and came across one of you two together. You looked great in your tux, by the way. Very dashing.”

Connor’s face warmed at the compliment. “Thanks.”

“Hey, I could use an excuse to buy myself a new dress. How do I get myself invited to one of these things?”

It was on the tip of his tongue:
Do me a favor and go to one with me.
But he swallowed it back. “Easy. Buy a ticket to the ball put on by the governor’s favorite charity. They start around five hundred and go as high as ten thousand if you want to sit at his table. You could probably even get your picture taken dancing with him. Just make sure to wear steel-toed shoes.”

“Which would go great with the new dress. No thanks, I can think of better things to do with ten big ones than spend the evening dancing with clumsy politicians. Still, it would be fun. I’ve never been to a real ball.”

“I’ll take you to one sometime. And you won’t have to dance with anyone but me.” He felt his face flush and shook his head.
Can’t believe I just said that.

She laughed. “As if I’d want to dance with anyone else.”

19

A
BRAIN SMOG FOLLOWED
A
LLIE HOME FROM
D
EEP
S
EVEN
. S
HE
’
D BEEN
there for three weeks now, and it was getting to her. Something about it left her feeling tired and tainted at the end of the day, and each day was a little worse than the one before—as if there was a subtle poison in the office air that was slowly building up in her.

Only one week left on the project.
Reminding herself of that helped, but it also raised a different discomfort. The end of her time at Deep Seven wasn’t only a goal. It was a deadline.

She opened her apartment door and a wonderful smell greeted her. She smiled and inhaled deeply. Spices. Fried veggies and beef. Sweet-and-sour sauce. Heaven in a box.

Erik appeared in the hall, a such-a-good-boy-am-I smile on his beautiful face. “Welcome home, Allie.”

“Tang Dynasty?”

He nodded. “Just got home two minutes ago.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too, babe.” He stepped up to her, slipped a hand behind her head, and kissed her. For a few seconds, she almost forgot about the boxes of Chinese food calling to her from the kitchen.

Their lips parted and he smiled down on her. “Let’s eat on the balcony—first clear evening in I don’t know how long.”

She followed him out onto the wide, tiled balcony. The evening sun warmed her face and hands. Ranks of $2 and $3 million row houses marched across the gentle slope below her, interrupted by upscale cafes, shops, and restaurants. She sank into a cushioned redwood deck chair as Erik disappeared back into the apartment. Incessant coastal fog had cast a pall over San Francisco nearly every evening for the past month. A sunset dinner for two on the balcony would be wonderful.

Erik reappeared a few minutes later clutching chopsticks and a cluster of white paper buckets stamped with the red Tang Dynasty label in one hand and two Tsingtao beers in the other. He set his burdens down on a small table next to Allie’s chair and plopped into another chair on the other side of the table.

Allie found a container of beef stir-fry and another of rice. “Mmmm. You are the best.”

“You seemed pretty beat when you called, so I figured…” His words trailed off in a shrug. He patted her arm and smiled. The slanting light caught in his pale blue eyes so that they glowed in striking contrast to his tousled black hair. Allie wished she could freeze time so she could just look at him like that forever.

“You figured right. This is exactly what I needed.”

“Job’s that bad, huh?”

She frowned and took a sip of her beer. “Not exactly bad. More weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. Little things mostly.”

“Like what?”

“Like there are more security cameras than I’ve ever seen in an office. Like they have these ‘red’ projects that people can’t talk about, even inside the company. Like the security guards all look like extras in a GI Joe movie.”

Erik stiffened and his eyes widened. “Hey! I’ll bet the whole thing is a CIA front or something—like in
24
.”

Allie shook her head. “I thought of that, but it doesn’t work. Why would a front company hire temps with no security clearance? Why would they put a front company in America? Wouldn’t they put it someplace like Iraq? I don’t even think the CIA is allowed to operate here.”