Jennifer Crusie - Manhunting

“I wasn’t mean to Mrs. Dickerson,” Jake said, taking one of the cups. “I just said that cowboy hats looked stupid on women.”

“She was wearing a cowboy hat.”

“She was?” Jake frowned. “Damn. I didn’t notice.”

“It was bright red.” Will hesitated and then plunged on. “This is about Kate, right?”

Jake glared at him.

“Well, it’s obvious when she drives away, and you start acting like Godzilla immediately afterward.” Will glared back at him. “Call her.”

“It’s not Kate,” Jake said and got up to move to the rail and stare out at the lake.

“Yeah, right,” Will said.

“No,” Jake said. “I miss her like crazy, but it’s not Kate. I mean, she’s part of it, but it’s more.” He shook his head. “Something was wrong before she got here. She just made it worse.”

“So, what is it?” Will sat down to listen.

Jake went over all the possibilities before he forced himself to face the awful truth. “I’m bored,” he admitted.

“Hallelujah,” Will said. “The dead walk.”

Jake turned and sat on the rail to face his brother. “I’m not leaving Toby’s Corners. I like it here. I belong here.”

“So I was wrong,” Will said. “The dead are only staggering, but it’s a start. We’ll take it.”

Jake sipped his coffee and thought for a moment.

“Have we got any money?” he asked, oblivious to Will’s sarcasm.

“Sure. We’re rich.”

“No.” Jake looked at him patiently. “Money. The real stuff. Not the hotel, not the land. Money.”

Will considered. “I’ve got a fund stashed away for emergencies. It’s not much. Maybe fifteen thousand.”

“I want it,” Jake said.

Will started to make a smart comment and stopped. “All right,” he said. “Will I ever see this money again?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Jake said, grinning down at him. “You should have thought of that before you started calling me a potted plant and introducing me to pushy blondes.”

“Speaking of pushy blondes,” Will began, and Jake shook his head.

“I don’t want to talk about her,” he said.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Will said. “Question is, what are you going to do about her?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said, looking back out over the lake. “I’m considering my options.”

“That ought to keep you occupied for the next twenty years,” Will said with disgust. “You’re real good at considering your options.”

Jake scowled down at him. “You’re starting to sound like Kate.”

“Well, she’s an intelligent woman,” Will said. “We’ve got a lot in common.” He cocked a skeptical eye at his brother. “I don’t care about the money or whatever it is you’re going to do with it. But if you think playing around with it is going to make you a happy man, think again. This is about Kate and you know it.”

“I keep thinking,” Jake said, “that if I could just get her back down here, we could work everything out.” He frowned as he thought. “She was happy here, she just didn’t have anything to do. But she was happy here.” He looked back at Will. “Wasn’t she?”

“Yes. She was. Get her back,” Will said.

“How?” Jake asked him.

“Well, you could try calling her and asking her to come back,” Will said.

“No,” Jake said. “There’s nothing down here for her. I can’t ask her to come down here just for me.”

“You’re pathetic,” Will said.

“Not pathetic enough to expect her to give up her life just because I want her back,” Jake said. “There’s got to be another reason for her to come back. There’s got to be another way to get her back.”

Will looked at him with disgust. “Have her kidnapped. Tell her you’re pregnant and she’s the mother. Leave a trail of bread crumbs.”

Jake scowled at him. “I don’t think Kate likes bread crumbs. I need help here. You are not helping.”

“Well, then, leave a trail of something she likes,” Will said, getting up to leave. “Just do something instead of moping around looking like a kicked dog and snarling at everybody.” He left, banging the screen door behind him.

“The only thing she likes is managing other people’s businesses,” Jake said to nobody in particular. And then after a moment, he added, “And me.” It was a new approach, and it brought to mind a new option. He sipped his coffee and stared at the lake while he considered it.

Then he put his mug down on the rail and went to Nancy ’s.

Two weeks later, Kate sat in her luxurious office, speaking patiently into her phone with Chester Vandenburg, the vice president of a company that she had been working night and day for the past six weeks to save. Part of her furious concentration was because the company had six hundred employees and four times that many stockholders, and she felt an edge of panic every time she focused on how close the whole thing was to going under. All those people. All those poor people.

The other part of her concentration was an effort to avoid remembering how much she hated the city, how much she despised her job, and above all, how much she missed Jake.

“All right, Mr. Vandenburg,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Would you like to explain to me why you just voted the CEO of your failing company a million-dollar raise?”

She tapped her pen hard against the desk as she listened to his dulcet tones explaining the need to cherish good management “Good management is the backbone of industry, Miss Svenson, and surely-”

“That good management is shipping your firm right down the tubes, Mr. Vandenburg,” Kate interrupted, still tapping her pen savagely. “It’s Titanic time over at your place, and you just gave the iceberg a nail for ripping a hole in your hull. Have you any idea of the view your stockholders are going to take of this? Roughly the same view that the passengers did on that other disaster, except that this time, Mr. Vandenburg, this time it will not be women and children first. This time everybody’s going down with the ship. Do you feel any guilt about this at all, Mr. Vandenburg? About the employees and stockholders you just screwed? Have you any moral fiber whatsoever?”

She stopped when she heard her voice rising to a shriek.

His voice came over the line, oily and unctuous. “I don’t think you understand big business, Ms. Svenson. Perhaps if-”

“I was raised on big business, Mr. Vandenburg. I cut my teeth on stocks and bonds and wrote my first school paper on leveraged buyouts. My third-grade teacher was quite impressed. I cannot help but feel, however, that she would be even more impressed with the magnitude of your ability to ignore what is happening under your nose at the same time you are facilitating it.”

“Are you accusing me of impropriety?”

“Either impropriety or ineptitude on a truly magnificent scale,” Kate snapped. “With you, possibly both.”

Mr. Vandenburg cleared his throat ominously. “Perhaps it would be better if the firm of Bertram Svenson, Ltd. assigned someone else to our little problem,” he threatened.

“What a good idea,” Kate said. “I suggest the SEC.”

She heard a click on the other end of the phone as Mr. Vandenburg hung up, and then her door opened.

“It’s just me,” Jessie said as she backed in holding two waxy white paper bags. She dropped them on Kate’s desk. “Sugar and caffeine,” she said. “Apple fritters and black coffee. You look like hell.”

“Thank you,” Kate said. “I feel like hell. I always knew I worked with scum, but I never realized it was this bad.” She pulled a foam cup from the bag and pried the lid off. “This smells good. Are the fritters from Debbie’s?”