Chapter 16

The next morning Claire called Chad.

"Can we take a couple of days off?" she asked. "I need a little break from having to control myself."

"I understand completely," he said. "I wanted to stay last night. A lot. I left because I remember what you did to that punching bag."

"I'd never do that to you," she said.

"I know. But if anything had happened you'd be beating yourself up this morning, and I don't want that either."

"This is a very good example of why I need some time away from you," said Claire.

"Really? And here I thought it was the way I fill out my running shorts."

"I don't want to talk about how you fill out your running shorts," she muttered.

"Okay," he said, cheerfully. "How about Tuesday? That would give me enough time for the hormones in my blood to thin a bit. You?"

"Tuesday would be great," she said. "I'll swing by after work."

"Okay. I'll see you then, and be thinking about you pretty much constantly until then."

"You're not making this any easier, Chad."

"I'm not trying to," he said, and then giggled like a school girl.

She threw herself into work for the next two days, getting four files from Margie Hopkins that Quentin was reassigning her. When she scanned them, her practiced eye noted that Margie did good work. She went back to tell her that.

"So what's up with the four FBI folks?" asked Margie, casually.

Quentin had said nobody else in the company was going to be read in on Operation Magpie, so Claire played dumb.

"What FBI folks?" she responded.

"The four you're spending so much time with," said Margie.

Claire glanced around, which wasn't really needed since they were in Margie's office, which was at the end of the hall.

"How do you know about that?" she asked, her voice low. "Quentin said he wasn't going to tell anybody else about it."

"Oh, come on," said Margie. "You came back to work looking like you lost a prize fight and Quentin asked me if I could keep doing your work because DSS pulled your ticket. He said he was going to give you some old files to go through to get you back into the swing of things while DSS satisfied themselves that you were still fine for classified work and the next thing anybody knows, Rick Sanders is being escorted out the door like a casino guest who's been caught counting cards. They wouldn't have done that unless what he'd done was pretty serious. You keep going through old files which just happen to be Rick's. I know, because I checked the logs. And suddenly we hire four new accountants at once? Oh, did I mention I can recognize a fed when I see one? I've worked with them plenty of times on government contracts. All I want to know is what's going on."

"Why?" asked Claire. "If you haven't done anything wrong, then it doesn't matter, right?"

"I'm not worried," said Margie. "I'm curious. That's all."

"Trust me," said Claire. "You don't want to be curious about this thing. They'll be here for a while and then they'll go away. It has nothing to do with you unless you've been altering contract figures to short charge the client."

"You can't do that," said Margie, firmly. "The formulas are embedded in the shells."

"Have you ever checked them?" asked Claire.

"Of course not. Why would I?"

"I did, and I found cases where those formulas were altered."

"Shit," said Margie, softly.

"Yeah," said Claire.

"You said you checked the formulas," said Margie. "Why did you do that?"

"Because there were some numbers that just didn't add up. They sort of jumped out at me the first time. I thought some numbers had been transposed, you know?"

"Sure," said Margie."Happens all the time. But that's what we're supposed to catch. That's what Rick was supposed to catch."

"The thing is, they weren't transposed," said Claire. "I looked them up in the supporting documents and the numbers were all correct. Except for the totals. So I punched them into a spreadsheet, using a fresh shell, and I got different totals. That's when I looked at the formulas in the original file. They'd been altered."

Margie looked thoughtful. "And that couldn't have been done by the contract administrator, because he ... or she ... would know that accounting would catch it."

"That's what I would think," agreed Claire.

"So the only person who could have done it was the accountant. And the only reason to do it would be for kickbacks from the client."

"That seems to be the working theory," said Claire.

Margie reflected on that and then blinked several times.

"You were right. I don't want to know about this," said Margie. "I'm sorry, Claire. I won't ask any more questions. I'm just going to do my job and mind my own business."

"And sell any stock you own in those companies," said Claire, softly.

Margie laughed. "You do have amnesia. We aren't allowed to buy stock in our client's companies."

"Good. At least I don't have to worry about that."

They ran that night. There was tension between them, but neither tried to talk about it. Instead, they just ran. There was no kiss goodbye, either. Chad did take her hand and hold it, briefly. But all he did was make a date to run the following Thursday.

By Thursday, the 17th of September, Claire's involvement with Operation Magpie had waned. The undercover agents were sharp, and picked up the system more quickly than she expected. She spent most of that day working on a Department of Defense project.

When she arrived at the high school, Chad was ready to run and in good spirits. They knew each other well enough by now that talk about what had happened at work that day was pretty much covered in the first few miles.

"There is one more thing," said Chad as they loped along.

"What's that?"

"I got assigned to chaperone the homecoming dance after the game Friday night."

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" she inquired.

"Oh, I suppose I don't mind. They said I can bring a date."

Claire was irritated that she was jealous at the thought of him taking some woman to a high school dance.

"I know we don't date," he said. "But if all I did was bring another chaperone, it wouldn't be a date."

Her irritation vanished and was replaced by a glow in her chest.

"It wouldn't be a date," she said.

"Of course not. Didn't I just say that?"

"What would I have to do?"

"Hang out with me. Watch the kids. Peer into dark corners to make sure nobody's doing anything immoral. Stuff like that."

"That doesn't sound so bad," she said.

"It might even be fun," he suggested.

"As long as it isn't a date," she said.

"Of course not," he assured her.

"Let me think about it," she said.

"Sure."

She thought about it for three more miles. When they slowed to a jog and then a walk as they approached his residence, he reached for her hand again.

"Please?" he begged. "I don't want to do this alone."

"Oh, all right," she said. "Big baby," she added.

He pulled her to face him, taking her other hand. He let his eyes slide from her face to her bosom, which rose and fell as she breathed deeply.

"I wouldn't mind being a baby if you were my mommy," he said.

When she got home from work Friday afternoon, Claire called Chad.

"What does a chaperone wear to a high school dance?" she asked.

"Something sexy," he said, immediately.

"I'm serious," she chided.

"So am I," he responded.

"You're no help. What time do I need to be there?"

"The dance starts after the game, so let's estimate it to be ten o'clock. You could come to the game if you want and we could go from there."

"I don't remember liking to sit and watch boys full of testosterone running around trying to beat each other up," she said.

"Trust me, violence doesn't bother you," he said.

"I'll just meet you after the game," she said. "I still have to figure out what to wear."

"Anything with no underwear on," he said.

"You're awful!" she chided.

"Can't blame a guy for trying. I have to go. I'll see you later."

She hung up and then called Cindy.

"Hey," she said. "Chad invited me to chaperone the homecoming dance with him later tonight. What should I wear?"

"Something sexy," said Cindy.

"That's what he said," groaned Claire.

"Do you have a little black dress?" asked Cindy.

"No. I might have, but if I did, John cut it up with the rest of my clothes."

"We're the same size," said Cindy. "I'm sure we can find something in my closet that will make his mouth water. Come on over. I'll do your hair and everything."

Four hours later Claire got out of her car ... carefully. As she extended her legs through the open door, she had to be careful that the hem of Cindy's "little black dress" didn't slide clear up to her panties. She stood up and tugged the dress downwards. She looked down in the process, and saw the string of pearls draped over an expanse of cleavage that she couldn't tug anything to make less prominent. She checked to see that the Band Aids she'd gotten from Cindy were doing what they were supposed to do. This dress wasn't designed to wear with a bra. An almost hysterical giggle erupted as thought again that Chad was going to get half of his lecherous wish.

She locked her car and walked away, glad that she'd been able to evade wearing the spiked heels Cindy tried to put her in. The sensible black flats she was wearing would be much more comfortable. Photon pollution of the stadium lights lit up the parking lot. She heard the band playing something and a ragged cheer as something happened to make the fans happy.

It was late enough in the game that there was no one guarding the entrance gate, so she just walked in and surveyed the scene. The same bleachers she'd sat in so many times, waiting for Chad, were now three quarters filled with people. On the other side of the field there was a small assemblage of fans from the visiting team.

She got some looks as she went to the home team side and sat down on the bottom row. She was way overdressed for this event. She looked at the scoreboard. Chad's team was winning, 35 to 6. There were seven minutes left in the fourth quarter.

The football arced up in the air and fell amidst a cluster of football players. One of them came up with the ball and tried to run, but was immediately tackled. The Millvale cheerleaders capered, their pom poms jerking this way and that as they jumped.

The visitors managed to get the ball to the ten yard line, but ran out of time before they could score again. When time ran out the home crowd cheered and began to filter toward the exits. Claire stood and tried to make her way to a set of stairs that went down to the field. Again, people stared at her, the men looking at her cleavage and the women looking at her hair and overall appearance.

Chad had crossed the field to shake hands with the opposing coach, and was walking toward the locker room. Ten or fifteen of his players more or less walked with him. Claire could have caught up with him, but she'd have had to run, and running in this dress wasn't a good idea. For that reason she got to the locker room entrance after Chad had already gone in.

When she entered the building her nose was assailed by the distinctive odor of a locker room in use and full of sweaty bodies. She turned left towards Chad's office and found him there, putting away items he'd had with him on the field. He turned, saw her, and stopped as if frozen in his tracks.

"Wow," he said.

"Hi," she said, feeling her face get warm.

"Wow," he said again.

"I'm pleased you approve," she said. "Cindy loaned me the whole outfit."

"Remind me to send Cindy flowers," he said.

"I'm a little early."

"No you're not. You, my lovely, are my reward for winning the homecoming game."

"I thought your players won it," she teased.

"They don't get you," he said. "I forbid it."

She laughed. It felt good to flirt with this man. She felt her nipples react and looked down. The Band-Aids were still working.

The dance was interesting. It evoked no memories whatsoever of her teenage years, and everything was new to her. The kids acted their ages and, in a sense, that juvenile behavior made her glad she couldn't remember being like that. Several times she heard, "The Babe," amidst the general babble of the kids milling around her.

The boys ogled her shamelessly. Several of the girls shot her dark looks, but then ignored her as they entered into the rituals of mating that were the order of the day.

Chad had been surrounded by both students and his peers who were present at the dance, so Claire decided to join the wallflowers who sat in chairs lined up along the folded up bleachers on one side of the gym. Several of the girls there seemed to perk up a bit when who they saw as a beautiful, somewhat mysterious woman chose to join them.

A local band started playing, and kids began dancing.

She saw Chad looking around and, assuming he was searching for her, waved at him. He came over, smiling.

"May I have the honor of a dance?" he asked, formally. She heard the two girls on either side of her sigh.

She stood and followed, as he backed onto the dance floor, his eyes glued to her. He ogled her shamelessly too.

"I thought we were supposed to watch them dance," she said.

"We will, but I had to have one dance."

She danced carefully, feeling her breasts bouncing as she moved with the rhythm. It wouldn't do to have a breast pop out of the dress.

Ten minutes later they were standing side by side at one end of the gym.