M.L. Gamble - Trust With Your Life

Settling down for some intercompany unpleasantness, she located the home phone number of the district manager for repair in Rafe’s call-out book. A groggy woman answered on the fourth ring and then a sleep-filled male voice picked up, a this-better-be-good edge to each word.

After five minutes of tense conversation, Molly gained his agreement to dispatch a second-level supervisor—Molly’s equal at Garrett Electric Telephone, which was Gutless Inc.’s legal name—to help the frame people fix the circuit problems.

Molly hung up the phone, turned off the van lights and sat quietly in the dark. Her neck and back ached, and the headache she had fought off announced its reappearance with a vengeance. She hugged her coat close and looked around the van for a thermos. Molly knew a cup of coffee at this hour would give her a stomachache, but she needed a hit of caffeine to shake off the fatigue.

Grabbing a badly dented, old-fashioned aluminum thermos she knew to be Rafe’s from the front seat, Molly poured coffee into a foam cup and tried to relax while she waited for reinforcements.

Her mind wandered to the blue-eyed Australian stranger on the third floor. She met a lot of men on the job. Customers, fellow employees, lawyers from the megafirm that shared the Pacific Communications building in downtown Mission Viejo. But this guy seemed different from most. While few got her blood running during an initial meeting, this man had.

Despite his beak of a nose and the craggy lines around his eyes, he was handsome in what might be described as a dangerous way. A way that made her forget what she was doing. A way that got her thinking about things she would like to be doing—with him.

He was powerfully built and what her grandmother called cocksure of himself. Molly blushed and smiled at the X-rated thoughts racing through her mind.

But there was no denying the attraction she’d felt toward him. Could it have been fate willing them to meet on a night like this? If she went upstairs later, would he still be there?

The Aussie was fresh and a bit arrogant, but very, very sexy. Definitely dangerous for a serious-minded professional woman with a plan for the next couple of years that called for hard work and all the overtime she could stand.

“Heck of a guy to meet on Valentine’s Day,” Molly murmured, then laughed aloud at her silly fantasizing. The sound of an approaching car cut short her thoughts, and she peeked out the window, wondering if Frederick Brooker was ready to reappear. Sure enough, as she watched, a long, cream-colored Lincoln limo rolled past. It stopped near the dark side of the loading dock.

Molly put her hand on the door handle, but stopped as a shape emerged from the darkness. From twenty yards away, she could not make out the face of the person in black, but the bright orange bag the man carried told her it was Paul Buntz.

The back door of the limo opened, Buntz got in and the car sped off.

So much for her confrontation with Mr. Brooker, Molly thought. With a sigh, she stepped out of the van and headed back to the crew for what she feared would be a long night.

* * *

AT SIX-THIRTY in the morning, Molly pulled out of the parking lot of Summer Point Towers. Sixty circuits into Inscrutable Security from various commercial and residential-alarm customers were at last up and running.

Frederick Brooker had not returned, though she had endured a terse phone call from him at 2:00 a.m., during which he’d promised to “report you and your crew to the Public Utilities Commission, the Better Business Bureau and the mayor’s office if those circuits aren’t up as promised!” After all, Brooker had continued, hadn’t he paid a huge advance installation bill because the credit office of Pacific Communications had requested it?

Molly had done her best to soothe him, imagining that a man like Brooker had taken it personally when his business’s creditworthiness had been questioned by her company’s business office. But despite that edge of ego, she had been able to calm Brooker down remarkably fast.

The supervisor from Garrett Electric had shown up and been effective with his technicians; all in all, it had not been a bad night’s work. As she pulled off the Orange Freeway and headed up the already busy streets toward home, Molly figured she could shower, sleep for a couple of hours and be back in the office by noon.

She turned off the soft-rock station and flipped to an all-news station. The first story was a frightening one about more turmoil in the Middle East, a car bomb and dead children. The second story was about the murder of ex-sportscaster and football player, Paul Buntz.

Molly stared at her radio as if she could see the story unfold, while the broadcaster filled in the details. Shot five times in a deserted parking lot near the Summer Point Marina, Buntz was found floating in the Pacific by an unidentified man at approximately 2:00 a.m.

A suspect was being sought by the police, the radio voice added. He was a wealthy Orange County businessman identified as Frederick Brooker, owner of Inscrutable Security in Summer Point. An eyewitness reported seeing Brooker speeding off in a beige Lincoln limo, in the direction of Mission Verde.

September 2

Like most women, Molly Jakes was good in emergencies.

The sight of blood, particularly other people’s, did not freak her out. Which is why, without hesitation, she was ready to help as soon as she spotted three wrecked cars and four people scattered across the sloping concrete freeway off ramp, a mile from her home.

As she braked, she noted it was 3:00 a.m. exactly by the car’s clock. Above her in the damp, late-summer air, ribbons of fog wound around the thousand-watt fluorescent bulbs atop the light poles lining the double-laned expanse, giving animate and inanimate objects alike the spooky blue tint peculiar to the middle of night.

The accident had occurred just a minute or two ago, she estimated, reaching for the cellular phone in the car console. Her fingers brushed the cold leather where the mobile unit was usually nestled and she swore under her breath. The phone was being repaired, and all she had in her purse was the antiquated pager that gave her no ability to call out.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, hoping to see the reflection of oncoming headlights, but caught only a blank swatch of asphalt. Clearing the incline, she braked and rolled past a red-and-silver Bronco, its wheels still spinning. From her location she saw a handful of twinkling lights from the sleeping houses lining the hills of Mission Viejo. The town-house development where she lived was just beyond. For a moment, she considered driving on and calling for help from home, then returning. But the smell of burned rubber and the sight of people tossed like rag dolls thrown by a malicious giant changed her mind. Years of first-aid training had taught her that in many cases five minutes’ delay could cost a life.

Molly judged that the wreck had started in the left lane, for the Bronco had left a long trail of skid marks that cut across both lanes at an angle. The car it had run into—a small blue compact—was smashed into the two-foot-thick abutment on the right, facing east in the westbound lanes. It was hooked into the Bronco’s door panel by its rear bumper.

There were four people on the pavement. Two were facedown near the back of the Bronco, which was spitting out a threatening plume of white smoke from under its hood. One lay on his back in a strangely restful pose, the fourth a few yards over against the abutment.

He was the only one she knew for sure was dead. Even at a distance of twenty feet, Molly’s brain registered his missing limb and the bright smears on the ground.

She slowed and scouted a safe place to stop past the carnage, a shot of fear immobilizing her for a second before giving her brain a tremendous rush. As a phone company manager with eight employees reporting to her, Molly had completed over a hundred hours of emergency training. She even knew basic sign language commands. Traffic accidents, electrocution, cuts, poison, burns and broken bones, she had studied how to handle them in films and handbooks. Monthly newsletters, called Flashes, parked themselves weekly in her In box, and over hurried lunches she had made it a point to read them all. There were countless examples of how death resulted because the most basic safety rules weren’t followed.