J. Jance - Fatal Error

“Wait a minute,” Ali said in dismay as something Brenda had said earlier finally penetrated. “You’re saying you were practically engaged to a man you’d actually never met?”

“You don’t have to be standing next to somebody to know him,” Brenda said. “We talked on the phone for hours almost every day. Now that I can’t talk to him anymore, I miss him so much. I just need to know he’s all right-that he’s not sick or dying.”

For a time Ali was stunned into silence. Brenda was a well-educated professional woman. How was it possible that she could fall in love and be virtually engaged to someone she had never met? Clearly virtually was the operant word. The man Brenda Riley supposedly loved wasn’t a person at all. What she knew about Richard Lattimer was what he had told her in a stream of words typed on a computer screen, endearments uttered over a cell phone. The whole idea was beyond bizarre. It made no sense.

Ali found herself in full agreement with Brenda’s mother and sister. Richard whoever-he-might-be was a lying son of a bitch, and he most definitely had been stringing Brenda along.

“Have you ever thought about running a background check on him?” Ali asked.

Brenda frowned. “You mean the kind of thing employers do when they’re getting ready to hire someone?”

Ali nodded.

“It sounds expensive,” Brenda said. “I probably couldn’t afford. .”

“The people who handle my computer security issues do background checks all the time,” Ali said. “I’m sure they’d be happy to look into it for you.”

“Really?” Brenda grasped at this slender thread of hope with heartbreaking eagerness.

“Really.”

“All I want is to know that Richard is okay. If he doesn’t want me in his life, that’s fine, but I need to know for sure that he’s not sick or dying.”

“I understand.”

“What do you need?”

“Just his e-mail address.” Ali knew that once the people at B. Simpson’s High Noon Enterprises had Richard Lattimer’s IP address, they could go from there and find all kinds of things Richard might prefer to leave unfound.

Brenda’s sad face was suddenly radiant with hope. She reached into her purse and dug around for a piece of paper and a pen. While doing so, she placed her car keys on the table. Ali quietly slipped them into her pocket, although what she was going to do from there was anyone’s guess.

Brenda was still scribbling down Richard’s e-mail address when a broad shadow loomed over their table. Ali looked up and was astonished to see Jose Reyes standing there. In one hand he held a cup of coffee. In the other another shot. “This is for you,” he said, setting the coffee cup in front of Ali. “And this is for your friend.” He handed the shot glass to Brenda.

“Peace offering,” he said to Ali. “Thanks for not raising hell about today,” he said. “You could have. I was out of line.”

Brenda downed the drink and then gave Jose a bleary-eyed smile.

“I’m willing to let bygones be bygones,” Ali said, “on one condition.”

“What’s that?” Jose said.

“I need some help. My friend here is drunk out of her gourd and is in no condition to drive. There’s a motel next door. Would you please help me get her there?”

“How much has she had?” Jose asked.

“Too much,” Ali said.

Jose nodded. “Sure,” he said, then he held out his hand to Brenda.

“What’s going on?” Brenda asked.

“We’re moving the party,” he said.

“Really? What fun.”

Jose guided Brenda across the two adjoining parking lots while Ali hurried on ahead. Fortunately the VACANCY sign was still lit. Inside the office, Ali rented a room and told the clerk, “My friend’s had a little too much to drink. I’m keeping her car keys. Tell her to call me in the morning.”

When she went back outside, Ali discovered that Brenda was violently sick. If Jose hadn’t been holding her up, she might have fallen in her own mess. Ali opened the door to the room. After the spasm passed, Jose picked Brenda up and carried her into the room.

“On the bed?” Ali asked.

Jose shook his head. “She’ll be better off on the floor in the bathroom.”

He propped Brenda against the wall beside the toilet. Ali threw a couple of bath towels in her direction. On the way out she turned the wall AC unit on high.

Jose was waiting for her out in the parking lot. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate the help.”

“You’re welcome.”

They shook hands. As they did so, it occurred to Ali that she might pull off a hip toss right now. Jose wasn’t expecting it, but he also didn’t deserve it. She had needed his help with Brenda. She couldn’t have gotten the almost comatose woman out of the bar, across the parking lot, and into the room by herself.

“See you tomorrow,” she told him and walked away.

Ali took herself back to her dorm room at the academy and climbed into bed. The fall she had taken had hurt more than her ego and her eye. Her whole body ached, and the several cups of coffee she had drunk in the bar earlier in the evening kept her from going to sleep at a reasonable hour that night. Instead, she lay awake and thought about Brenda Riley, about what she had been once, and what she was now.

The difference between the two was nothing short of astonishing.

Grass Valley, California August

By 4:30 a.m. Richard Lowensdale was up, had made his first pot of coffee, and was at his computer. It was ironic that he worked harder now than when he had been working and that he put in far longer hours. Thank God he had cut back to just two fiancees at the moment. Trying to juggle three of them had been a killer. If it hadn’t been for his storyboard file, he never would have managed.

There had been a time in Richard’s life when he had thought about being a writer. He had even gone so far as to take a correspondence course taught by Gavin Marcus Hornsby, a once-published but relatively obscure novelist who, in his old age, supported himself by teaching his “craft” to flocks of deluded wannabe authors. Richard figured it must have been as easy as taking candy from a baby. No doubt Hornsby had kept his “students” on the string for years, assuring them that they were each writing and rewriting the great American novel.

That’s what the writing instructor had told Richard about his first paltry attempt, that it had the potential of being “great literature.” Since Richard was an expert at dishing out BS, he recognized that comment for what it was. He deleted his novel file and never sent another rewrite, but what he had learned in that creative writing class hadn’t been a total loss. Richard had hung around long enough to learn about storyboards. Gavin Marcus Hornsby was a big believer in storyboards. After that Richard had never again tried his hand at fiction, other than what he did each time he re-created his own next persona, but the storyboard suggestion had appealed to him. Over time he had made good use of it.

He located Lynn Martinson’s storyboard. Forty-one years old. PhD in secondary education. Divorced for three years. Superintendent of schools in Iowa City, Iowa. Richard liked targeting high-profile women. They often didn’t want to spill their guts or their troubles too close to home. When they needed to vent, they needed to do so with someone far away, someone who didn’t know where all their personal bodies were buried. After his troublesome breakup with Brenda, being from out of state was first and foremost on Richard’s list of requirements. The women in his life all had to be from out of state.

When Richard was working in San Diego and had been involved with someone else, having Brenda Riley as a side dish safely stowed in Sacramento had been ideal. For a long time the distance thing had worked in his favor, right up until Brenda lost her own job. After that, she had started harping about coming down to visit and spending some time together. Richard knew that wouldn’t do. He had spun some wild stories about who he was and what he did, and he didn’t need Brenda Riley showing up at his office and blowing the whistle on him.