M.L. Gamble - Trust With Your Life

“What’s this about then, miss?” he demanded, his deep voice full of the lilt and music of a native Australian.

“I’m—I’m sorry, Mr. Brooker, is it?” She removed her hand and extended it, then threw a glance down the gloomy hallway. Paul Buntz was nowhere in sight.

“No, I’m not Brooker. You got business with him?”

Molly noted that the man seemed to dig his boot-clad heels into the thick carpeting, while managing to lean back and tower over her all at once. He crossed his arms and looked more angry than wary now.

“I’m sorry. Yes, I do have business with Mr. Brooker. My name is Molly Jakes. I’m a field supervisor with Pacific Communications. I’ve got a crew of men on the premises, and they called me out to assist with a problem.”

Her hands fell to her sides and she tried a smile out on the stranger. “I’m sorry if I startled you, but there was a man in the hallway and I got a little spooked.”

The blond man quickly brushed by her and stuck his head out for a look, then he took her by the arm and moved her into the office. He closed the door.

He locked it.

Molly took a few steps toward an empty receptionist’s desk, watching the Australian lean against the wall and quite openly appraise her from head to toe.

His very blue eyes finally came to rest on Molly’s face. “No one there now, love. Shouldn’t be sending a chit like yourself out alone in the dead of night, if you ask me. What’s your boss thinking?”

Molly straightened her back as the muscles in her face tightened. It was the nineties, but some men still lagged a century behind in their regard for women, she reminded herself. But why did a modern-day Neanderthal have to look like this guy?

“Well, this is only a guess, but I’d say he’s thinking he had a job to get done so he sent the person responsible for doing it. Are my men from Pacific Communications here in this suite, do you know?”

His smile grew wider at Molly’s challenging tone. “Just me. But I saw a van and a crowd of chaps with hard hats and the like around back at the receiving dock when I came up a few minutes ago. Probably your crew. Can I walk you down?”

“No, thank you,” Molly replied, not liking the fact that her voice held more sarcasm than was really necessary. She realized the stranger was getting the brunt of what she’d wanted to say to her dispatcher. Molly prided herself on doing a great job in a field overwhelmingly populated by men—the majority of whom felt pretty much like this guy did about women—without letting their jibes rankle her. She tried hard to smile sincerely and reached into her bag for a business card.

With a snap, she left it on the desk. “If you see Mr. Brooker, would you mind telling him I’m down with the installation crew?”

The stranger raised his brows, which were bleached white by the sun. He grinned. “I’ll do it if I see him. Have a good one, love.”

Molly nodded, then hurried past him out of the office and down the dark hallway. She pushed the button for the elevator and glanced back into the darkness. She made out a tall shape and was a little annoyed to realize that the Australian stranger was watching her.

He’s being kind. Chivalrous, one side of her brain said.

He’s getting a last look at your fanny, the other said, with a bit more conviction.

Molly stepped into the elevator and stabbed at the button marked B as well as the Door Close command. Staring straight ahead, she thought about the Aussie. It wasn’t until the other passenger made a noise that Molly realized she was not alone.

Paul Buntz looked more frightened than she felt, Molly realized after the initial jolt of adrenaline surged through her. His eyes were wide and his mouth tense. She had the distinct feeling he had been expecting someone else.

His left hand was in his jacket pocket. Molly had a fleeting thought that he was carrying a gun. The orange gym bag she had noticed earlier was on the floor at his feet, as if he had dropped it.

“Hello,” she offered, her pulse racing as the elevator chugged slowly to the basement. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I’ve done that twice tonight.”

“No problem,” Buntz replied, then leaned down to retrieve the bag. He jerked it quickly upward and two computer disks tumbled out. “Damn,” he muttered, hurriedly grabbing up the small black squares as if he didn’t want Molly to see them.

She turned her eyes away, in the hopes that that would calm him down, but not before noting that the labels on the disks said Inscrutable Security. As the elevator doors opened to reveal the concrete basement, Molly stepped forward. Without looking back at the ex-sportscaster, she hurried into the well-lit garage area. No footsteps echoed behind her, so she assumed Buntz was riding back up to the lobby.

Molly heard men’s voices echoing off the thick walls, smelled gasoline and the sea and spotted a group working across the huge, open space of the office building’s basement. Rafe Amundson, foreman of the crew, was watching three other installers wrestle with a five-hundred-foot spool of cable.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Molly called out. “How’s it going?”

Three heads turned. Rafe’s didn’t. When she got to him she saw he was scowling while the installers grinned and kept working.

“Those g.d. frame rats at Gutless Electric, Inc. refuse to call out anyone to help us get dial tone, that’s how it’s going, Boss,” Rafe said as he kept his eyes on his men. “Which means out of the sixty-six special circuits we’re supposed to cut in here tonight, thirty-eight are dead. What the hell Gutless is doing still jerry-rigging its old-fashioned switching equipment is beyond me.”

“Gutless Electric” was the way Rafe and several others referred to the other local dial-tone carrier well-known for its less-than-timely resolution of problems. “I’ll go out to the van to call and get the district level out of bed,” Molly replied. “But before I do that, where’s the client?”

“Mr. Brooker disappeared with his block-long limo about an hour ago.” Rafe met her eyes and slid the wad of gum he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. “That’s one weird puppy, you ask me. Ranting and raving, strutting around, the whole time his kid sitting in the car looking like he wanted to drop off the face of the earth. He told me to tell you he had to go to meet some people who were moving his boat down to San Diego but that you weren’t to leave until the problem was fixed.”

Rafe chuckled and cracked the knuckles on his huge hands, which for thirty-five years had so ably serviced telephone customers throughout Orange County. “Guess he didn’t realize you had to get your makeup on and comb your hair before you could get out here with us peons.”

She smiled and looked pointedly at Rafe’s crumpled T-shirt, which was untucked from his grimy jeans. “You know how appearances count toward making good first impressions, Rafe.”

“Hell with that, says my union rep. The brass wants me to dress up in a monkey suit, they can give me a clothing allowance, Ms. Jakes.” Rafe spat out the gum into his hand, wadded it up and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans, then lit a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth.

Molly bit back the two dozen criticisms she was ready to voice, well aware that the three installers were listening to every word. She gave Rafe an “I’ll deal with you later” look and asked, “Where did you park the van?”

Rafe made a motion with his hand, dug out a set of car keys and handed them to her, then turned his attention back to the diagnostic equipment on the cart in front of him. Molly walked out onto the loading dock, descended the steep stairway and crossed into the nearly empty lot. The Pacific Communications van was parked in the middle. She unlocked the back doors and climbed in.