Chapter 28: We’ll Survive

“What’s your superpower?”

“I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.” A fat lot of good that power was going to do me. I needed to be superman.

“What’s your superpower?”

“I can hold my breath for two minutes.” I couldn’t even catch mine. Hold on, Andi. Hold on.

It couldn’t have taken me more than thirty seconds to dump Cali outside the building and run back in. I grabbed the railing as I rounded the last landing, burning my hand on the hot metal. I would hold out the axe to her and pull her out.

But neither Andi nor the landing she clung to was there.

I walked out of the hospital at four o’clock in the morning without bothering to tell them I was leaving. I walked every painful step to my apartment with my lungs still aching from the exertion and smoke inhalation. I used the front entrance so I wouldn’t have to pass Andi’s empty house.

I left the lights off in my darkened room and woke up my computer. Only the glow of the screen lit my face. I started pulling together the evidence against a thief.

She’d made a career of being invisible but indispensable. How had she put it? “My job is to make sure that there is nothing standing in the way of Mr. Dennis doing his job.” The more the picture evolved, the more it looked like her job was making Mr. Dennis appear to be doing his. Arnie hadn’t originated the research reports that Darlene provided me, she had. Her signing authority on expenses was higher than Jen’s. Her access to information was unlimited, simply because she was the administrative coordinator of every huge technical and security project the company had done in the past twenty-five years. I suspected Arnie didn’t even know he was little more than a front for his administrative assistant—and when he found out, he wouldn’t be happy.

The virus I’d let loose in the company network attached itself to every outgoing message. When it discovered a key word at the destination, it worked its way back. When I’d set the trap that fateful afternoon, I expected it would lead back to Arnie. I wanted it to lead to Arnie. I wanted to nail another executive. God damn it! The chickens aren’t supposed to raid the hen house.

The thing is, if she hadn’t been so focused on helping me find Cali, she could have easily spiked my virus and stayed free.

Jen met me at the front desk and we walked together to Arnie’s office. Darlene was sitting opposite his desk taking notes. We didn’t knock. We just walked in.

“Dag! I didn’t expect you to be out of the hospital so soon. Please accept my sympathies,” Arnie said. He stood and offered his hand, expressing surprise when I slapped my security badge into it, my burned and bandaged hand stinging with the impact.

“We were just talking about setting up a fund for the little girl,” Darlene said. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Dag.” I stared daggers at her.

“You don’t even count anymore,” I rasped. I had almost no voice left. Smoke inhalation. Screaming. Sobbing. “It’s over.”

“What’s this about?” Arnie asked. “Why are you here, Jen?”

“I needed a witness,” I said. I threw a thumb drive onto the desk on top of my badge. I handed Jen an identical one. “You wanted—or said you wanted—an embezzler. There never was an increase in losses that you were worried about. They’ve always been high. Instead of an embezzler, I found a corporate spy. She’s been selling information on the black market for twenty-five years. You’re a patsy, Arnie. You don’t even manage your own team.”

“Yes, sir,” Jen said. I noticed she was wearing her Bluetooth earbud. “Arnold Dennis and Darlene Alexander, I’ve been given authority by Mr. Davenport to dismiss you from employment effective immediately. Security is on its way to escort you from the building. Do not attempt to gather up any personal belongings from your work areas. Anything deemed nonessential to the security of EFC and its customers will be boxed and delivered to you. Please lay your smartcards on the desk.”

I saw two security guards arrive at the door.

Arnie was near apoplexy, unable to get a coherent word out of his mouth. Darlene sat calmly with a little smile on her lips.

“Nice work, Dag. Think you’ve got the big fish now?” she asked.

“Thank you for your help last night,” I responded, ignoring her challenge. “I’d have lost both of them without it.”

“Some thanks.”

“I hear there’s nice beachfront property available in Costa Rica,” I whispered.

“Visit me sometime.”

I knew that if Darlene wasn’t under arrest when she walked out the front doors of the building, she’d never be heard from again. She was ready to retire. Jen knew it, too. It was Mr. Davenport’s decision.

I went home. The black walls of my apartment were suddenly oppressive. I stumbled back against the curtained doorway, grabbing the fabric as I fell to my knees. The rod pulled away from the wall and fell next to me. That was all it took. I screamed at the top of what voice I had left and began stripping the paper from the walls and the drapes from the windows.

When the room was bare, I fell into the bed with my bandaged hands bleeding and clutched to my chest. I could still smell Andi’s and my lovemaking in the sheets.

I wept.

There was a memorial service at the college the next week. I went in my remaining gray suit, white shirt, and the tie she’d picked out for me. I saw Cali across the room. She was surrounded by friends from school and the theater. I wanted to rush up to her and hold her, but the one time our eyes met, she dropped her head and turned away from me. Child Protective Services had arranged temporary housing and care for her. When she was eighteen, she would be allowed to return home alone—possibly sooner if she applied to become an emancipated minor. There was no question that she was sole heir to Andi’s estate, but I didn’t know how they took care of property and mortgages and such in the interim. I was worried about her.

I didn’t go to Melissa’s memorial. I saw Olivia and James at Andi’s service. I’m sure they were in shock over their daughter’s murder. James came up to me and started to speak, but couldn’t. As he started back to his wife he turned back to me and croaked out, “They told us she’d run away. We’d never have...” He left the rest unsaid and escorted his wife out of the auditorium. They’d always assumed the worst about their daughter. I wasn’t about to confirm any of it. Pain was all any of us knew anymore.

I went home.

The doctor had given me some pretty kickass drugs to combat the pain of my burned hands and various other injuries I didn’t know I’d received. A hospital counselor added a brochure on the seven stages of grief. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, acceptance. I couldn’t find anything in the damn brochure about bitterness and regret. If I had known it would all end so soon... Oh god! I’d have started so much earlier.

I didn’t remember anything about getting out of the burning warehouse. I was carried out, I was told, and woke up in the hospital. All I remembered was the ache in my lungs as I struggled back to where I’d left Andi. The exhaustion from carrying Cali up the stairs. The smoke and blindness that overwhelmed me when I found she wasn’t there.

Jordan came by. He told me that when the firemen got to me I was smashing my tablet with the axe and screaming “Escape! Escape! Escape!” Maybe the screams had saved my life. I was keeling over when they dragged my sorry ass out of there.

My throat was sore. The doctor said it was an effect of the smoke inhalation and the screaming I’d done.

I knew it was from the constant weeping.

I was lousy company when I took my mother to brunch on Mothers’ Day. I didn’t have much appetite and she never ate much. We both sat next to the window looking out at the fishing boats. She dreamed, I suppose, of my father getting off one of them and coming to meet her. I dreamed of getting on one and sailing away into oblivion. We held each other’s hands as we looked out at the blue sky and tears fell from our eyes.

Oh, damn! How long does this go on?

I had to start pulling myself together, even though I knew I had nothing to do in the office. Monday morning, I showered, shaved, and dressed in my suit and tie. Somehow, the suit made me feel close to Andi. She and Cali had done my makeover. I wanted them to be proud. I stopped at the Analog for a coffee to go and then walked over to Olive before I headed uphill so I wouldn’t have to pass the place we’d first made love. It was bad enough that Lonnie’s mournful look and silence had nearly crippled me. The sun was shining and I broke a bit of a sweat by the time I got up to 15th Ave. The folks in the other offices must have heard me come in as Cora soon poked her head around my doorframe.