Линвуд Баркли - Find You First

He had smiled. “Does it really matter?”

The thing was, she didn’t want to know. It was more fun not knowing. It was more fun imagining what he might have said, or done, to get her service manager to see reason.

She had leaned across the table, nearly touching her forehead to his, and said, “I would like to find a way to thank you.”

He said, “I have just the idea.”

The next afternoon was her first trip to the Omni. A week later there was another, and the week after that, another. And so on.

There had been occasions when Broderick was away, doing work for clients out of town. But whenever he was in New Haven, he would arrange a rendezvous.

It was not Caroline’s first affair, but it was certainly her most exciting. When it came to the bedroom, Gilbert had never been particularly imaginative. Everything was by the numbers, no accountant puns intended. Spend a little time here, spend a little time there, then hop aboard and get it done. Really, what could you say about a man who liked to keep his socks on when having sex? But it was more than that. It was not easy to work up enthusiasm for a man who, at some level, you could not bring yourself to respect.

But wait, she would sometimes ask herself. Could you respect what Broderick Stiles did for a living? (If he did what she believed he did.) She could find ways to rationalize it. He was a man who performed a service. Perhaps it was outside the bounds of what was, technically speaking, legal. But the world was an increasingly complicated place. Some problems called for unconventional solutions.

And holy fucking Christ, the sex was something else.

On this particular day, not yet twenty-four hours since Gilbert had told her about Miles’s illness, how her brother-in-law was leaving next to nothing to Gilbert except for that Porsche, that he intended to give away his fortune to a bunch of biological children he’d never so much as sent a birthday card to, Caroline had been wondering whether there was anything she could do.

Should she talk to Miles herself? Try to get him to change his mind? Would he even agree to meet with her? Could she tell him how sorry she was that she’d traded on his name with that Google exec? Tell him she wasn’t that person anymore, that she had learned her lesson?

Maybe she could remind him what a good brother Gilbert had been to him. Guilt Miles into doing what was right.

No, Miles would never listen to her. He was a selfish man. Totally self-consumed.

But she had another idea, one that was, to use one of her daughter Samantha’s favorite phrases, “pretty out there.” It was a long-term approach, and not something she could do alone. There were any number of ways it could go wrong. But, oh, if it worked... the payoff would be huge.

She wondered what Broderick would think.

So this afternoon, stretched out on the bed, and after Broderick had given her permission to take off the silk blindfold, she decided to broach the subject.

“The first time I met you,” she said, “you described yourself as a problem solver.”

“And I solved one for you,” he said.

“You certainly did.”

She paused.

Finally, he asked her, “Do you have a new problem?”

“I do. But it’s a little more complicated than the one I had with my car.”

Providence, RI

An hour had gone by and Todd had not responded to Chloe’s texts or emails. Finally, she had just phoned him, which, Miles mused, always seemed to be the last option among younger people.

Todd did not pick up. Chloe had left a voice mail: “Hey, dipshit half brother, call me the second you get this because I have got news that will blow your mind.”

And still, no call back.

“So maybe he’s busy,” Miles had said.

Chloe admitted that was possible, but was unconvinced. “It’s not like him.”

“How long have you actually known him?”

“Okay, not that long. But the guy lives with a phone in his hand.” She thought a moment. “I say we go.”

Miles was less sure. “Could be a long way to go to find him not there.”

“What else you got to do?” She cocked her head. “What do you actually do, anyway?”

“I run a tech company.”

“So what’s that mean?”

“Hand me your phone.”

“What?”

“Just... give it to me.”

With some reluctance, she passed it across the table to him. He glanced at all the apps she had on it. The usual ones were there. Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, Instagram, Waze, some games. He thumbed over to the second page of apps, smiled.

“See this one?” he said, tapping on it.

The screen filled with the word SHOPSAW.

“Yeah?” she said.

“This is the one, you take a picture of something you saw somebody wearing, it tells you where you can buy it.”

“I know how it works.”

“That’s one of ours.”

“You’re shittin’ me. Your company invented that app?”

Miles nodded.

“Fuck me,” she said, taking back the phone. “I’m impressed. I use this all the time. Sneak shots of people wearing shit I wish I could buy. It’s always from some place I could never afford to shop. Hang on.”

She aimed the phone at Miles, tapped the screen, looked at it. “You got your jacket from Nordstrom?”

“Yup.”

Chloe shook her head admiringly. “And that’s how come you’re rich.”

“Yup.”

“Anything pressing back at the office, or you want to take a run up to Todd’s place?”

He shrugged. “Why the hell not. Charise can take us.”

“You call your car Charise? Like, Christine ?”

“Charise is my driver.”

“Of course she is,” Chloe said. “Look, no offense, but I still don’t know for sure that you’re the real deal, that you’re who you say you are. So the last thing I’m doing is getting in some strange car with you. It’s probably got doors you can’t open from the inside and a glass partition thing and the driver hits a button and sleeping gas fills up the back seat.”

Miles said, “That’s my other car.”

“I’ll tell Vivian I gotta go, gonna lose the apron, and I’ll pull around up front.”

“Okay if I have Charise follow us? Then, later, she can take me straight home.”

“You can’t just call up your private chopper or something?”

“I think if she followed, it’d be easier.”

She gave that a moment, said, “Okay,” then slipped out of the booth.

Miles was briefing Charise about the change in plans when Chloe’s Pacer appeared from around the back of the diner. They heard the car before they saw it. It was a a minisymphony of rattles and groans and squeaks, as well as a deep-throated rumbling from a busted muffler.

“You’re going in that, sir?” Charise asked.

“Evidently.”

“Would you like me to drive — what is that, Mr. Cookson? It looks like a goldfish bowl.”

“A Pacer.”

“Would you like me to drive that, and the young lady could drive this car? You’d be more comfortable.”

Miles smiled. “No, but thank you.”

Chloe brought her car to a stop, brakes squealing, next to the limo. “Hop in,” she said, her window rolled down. Charise gave the car a visual appraisal and did not appear pleased.

“This thing pass a safety test?” Miles asked.

“I make up for its deficiencies by being a great driver,” Chloe said. “Been driving since I was fourteen, legally since sixteen. I even drove a delivery truck when I was seventeen. It was a FedEx van, and I kind of took it for a joyride without permission, but once I got behind the wheel it was a piece of cake. When I was nineteen my mom rented a motor home thing and we did a trip to D.C.”