Meryl Sawyer - Better Off Dead

“I won’t say a word to the new guy.”

Obviously relieved, he grinned. “Might be a woman.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes, before she asked, “Why did you give me a gun?”

“Right from the first, you were different. All I’d dealt with were LCN lowlifes or drug pushers. You were a class act. Intelligent. Quick to learn.” He put down his fork, his dark eyes troubled. “But I worried about you. I didn’t—still don’t—think you know what you’re up against. I wanted to give you as much protection as I possibly could.”

Lindsey was touched. Derek had been professional the entire time. She’d never suspected he’d cared one whit about her. Not only had he cared, but he’d jeopardized his career to help her.

“I’m good at self-defense. I go to the firing range once a week.” She leaned over and patted his hand. “You’ve done the best you could. The rest is up to me. Enjoy your promotion.”

She was unable to conceal the note of appreciation that had crept into her voice. Once men had fallen all over themselves to help her. Then came the murder. Suddenly the men in her life gave her orders, not caring in the least what she thought or wanted.

“Start dating. You’re too pretty, too intelligent to become a hermit.”

“I’m not all that interested in—”

“Even if you did return to Houston…” He let the words drift away.

She remembered her final day there, a sunny Saturday in April. The last time she’d been with Tyler. The weather had been nice enough to have the top down on his Porsche. They’d laughed and talked as they slogged through traffic to have lunch on the patio at Zov’s Bistro.

Even though the FBI investigation loomed over her, something she couldn’t discuss with Tyler, she’d been happy. He knew there were problems at PowerTec and that some sort of investigation was underway. She’d naively assumed the FBI would fix the trouble. This problem was nothing more than a blip on the radar screen of life.

“Why does it take a million sperm to fertilize one egg?” she’d asked Tyler.

Accustomed to her jokes, he’d shaken his head. “I give. Why?”

“They refuse to stop and ask for directions.”

His rich, husky laugh still echoed in her ears. He always laughed no matter how lame her joke. Just thinking about him made her long to go back in time. To go home.

Home. Unless you can never return home again, never see your family again, you’ll never really appreciate what the word means. You have to lose everything to comprehend its significance.

“Lindsey, I gotta tell you,” Derek said, intruding on her thoughts. “I don’t know how to say this…”

“Tell me what?” Something in his tone warned that he’d saved the worst for last. “Just say it.”

He hesitated, fiddling with the grilled zucchini he hadn’t touch. “Tyler Prescott is getting married on Saturday.”

The words went through her like a serrated blade. Tyler getting married? How could that be?

Of course, Tyler had gone on with his life. She’d vanished with hardly a word. She’d left a message for him at the office—in the middle of the night when he wouldn’t be there—to tell him that she was being sent on an emergency overseas assignment and would contact him later.

It was a lame story, but the FBI had insisted she tell him this. She’d hoped Tyler would see through the lie. He knew a little about PowerTec’s problems, but not about the FBI’s involvement. She hadn’t had the opportunity to discuss the murder with him, but she thought he would put two and two together. Obviously he hadn’t.

What did she expect him to do? Wait forever?

He’d fallen in love with someone else. How could that happen in just a year? They’d been together almost three years. They’d spoken of marriage, but he hadn’t actually proposed.

“Is he marrying anyone I know?”

Again Derek hesitated. “Skyler Holmes.”

Her stomach rose, then plummeted in a sickening lurch. He’d always called Skyler the blond bimbo. It was true. Her bra size was bigger than her IQ.

Holding back tears, she quelled her emotions. Nothing was ever gained by crying, her father used to say. She deliberately directed her thoughts to the months ahead. Like a mirage, her future shimmered in the distance. Out of focus—out of reach.

BROCK WALKED INTO HIS OFFICE. He’d spent the morning attending a seminar conducted by the FBI. Combating Computer Assisted Crimes. What a joke! They’d shown him a few new tricks, but most of it he knew.

Booooring.

He shivered as he shrugged into the microfiber jacket in the room, hyper cooled to protect the sensitive equipment. He pulled on tight-fitting microfiber gloves with the fingers cut out.

What Brock wore didn’t matter to him. Most days, no one saw him. He worked alone by choice. The company would fund all the staff he needed. He had fifty-three people working for him, but he kept them in the field. That way no one at Obelisk but him knew how to use the sophisticated equipment.

Some of the arrogant pricks he worked with, like CEO Kilmer Cassidy, thought they did, but should they try to use his equipment, they would destroy everything. Without an authorized laser fingerprint and the top secret password, on the fourth try his computers would assume unauthorized entry mode, self-format, and devour the hard drive.

He had a backup no one knew about—his personal laptop that he kept with him at all times. He’d downloaded all of Obelisk’s top secret data onto it and had several of his own special programs installed, as well. It was against company rules for any of the secured info to be removed from the premises. But who was to know? He was head of security.

Brock smiled and glanced around his office to see what was happening in his domain—the world. He had six state-of-the-art computers with twenty-seven inch flat-screen monitors evenly spaced around the U-shaped room, but he didn’t rely on them the way he did his personal laptop.

Wall mounted televisions—currently on mute—were tuned to CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. A fourth television was on Al Jazeera, the Arab news channel. The other wall was dominated by a map of the world on a liquid-plasma television screen. It was raining in California, he noticed. So who cared? Let the nuts and fruits on the West Coast drown. All the satellites were still orbiting normally, he observed, but one of Russia’s wasn’t functioning.

“Par for the course.”

The end of the Cold War had been the death knell for Russian science. The state no longer funded research the way it once had. The Russian Mafia now ran the country, and they had no use for scientists.

The satellites and news channels helped Brock keep track of Obelisk’s myriad interests overseas. They required intensive monitoring. A conflict—no matter how small—anywhere on earth was a potential for Obelisk to profit.

Normally staff would have been needed, but Brock had shown the higher-ups how security could be mastered by a single—talented—person and modern technology. Naturally they’d gone along. It was in their best interests for as few men as possible to know the truth about Obelisk’s dealings.

He heard line seven ring. It was the number only his operatives in the field used. Attached to all his private lines was a special mechanism that chopped words into minute sound bites, then jumbled them so that even a state-of-the-art computer would have to spend months unscrambling the garbled noise.

He had no reason to think there was a tap on a line no one—not even the telephone company—knew existed. But various incidents at Obelisk had taught him to be extraordinarily careful. That’s why he had insisted his office be in an underground bunker beneath Obelisk—away from prying eyes.