Unexpected Outcome. Dawn Stewardson
have to be careful. And hope for the best.
IT WAS QUARTER TO TWELVE before Dana got back from the warehouse, and she headed straight down the hall next to the front entrance.
The door of the first office along it was closed, but its nameplate told her it belonged to Chris Vidal, director of logistics.
Noah’s was the one farther along—the corner one—and he was at his desk. Seeing her, he shot her another of his devastating smiles.
It reminded her she’d decided to work on developing immunity to them. Although she might not work too hard.
After all, she didn’t have a rule about mixing pleasure with ex-business. So once her job here was through…
Telling herself to leave contemplating that until she was a lot closer to its being through—not to mention until she was absolutely certain Noah was one of the good guys—she said, “I just wanted to check that you’ll still be available later.”
“Sure. How did it go at the warehouse?”
“Not badly.”
“Good. Hey, it’s almost noon,” he added, glancing at his watch. “There’s a deli on Gansevoort that isn’t bad. Want to try it?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to write myself some notes about this morning. And if I don’t do it now I’ll forget half of what I heard.”
“I can wait a bit,” he said casually.
“Well…actually, I’m going to skip lunch.”
“Ah.” He hesitated, then said, “Dana, if I just gave you the impression that… I was only talking about lunch.
“No, wait, I think that came out wrong. I didn’t mean to sound as if I might not be interested in…”
He shook his head and grinned. “I should probably stop before I get in even deeper. But what I was trying to say is that I didn’t have a hidden agenda. I just figured you might like someone to eat with.”
“Well, I appreciate that. And you didn’t give me the wrong impression. I’d decided to skip lunch before you said a word. I ended up spending a lot more time with Stu Refkin than I’d expected.”
“Ah,” he said a second time. “Okay, then. I’ll be back by one, so whatever works after that…”
“Fine. See you later.”
Starting for the stairs, she felt as if a little candle were glowing inside her. When a man stumbled all over his words talking to a woman…
Of course, she’d already been pretty sure the attraction was mutual, but “certain” was better than “pretty sure.” Much better.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SECOND FLOOR SEEMED deserted when Dana reached it, which was just as well. She had a feeling that Helen Rupert was a chatty woman—nice, but chatty. And she really did have to get those notes written.
Whenever feasible, she avoided using tape recorders. They often made people reluctant to speak freely. But the downside to relying on her memory was how quickly things began slipping from her mind.
She reached her own office and opened the door, thinking she should tell someone that the lock wasn’t working. Then she stepped inside and her brain shifted gears.
On the surface of her desk, to the left of the computer, lay a white, letter-size envelope.
Two disposable latex gloves were precisely positioned next to it, one on either side.
Untouched by human hands? No fingerprints? Was that their message?
Odds were, she decided. And odds also were that whoever had left this for her was a tad on the weird side.
She picked up the envelope, opened its unsealed flap—absently thinking no fingerprints or traces of saliva—and removed the single sheet of paper. She silently read the computer-printed message.
I know who you really are. And I know who set the warehouse fire. It was Noah Haine.
Her mouth a little dry and her heartbeat a little fast, she sat down.
What the hell was this? A joke?
If so, it wasn’t a funny one.
And who had left it here, anyway?
She had no way of knowing, of course. Using the back stairs, anyone could have come up without being seen.
Or maybe one of those ghosts Robert had mentioned had snuck down from the third floor.
But where had that thought come from? Was her subconscious trying to creep her out?
Reminding herself she didn’t believe in ghosts, she gazed at the words again.
I know who you really are.
Okay. That could mean exactly what it said, or could merely mean that someone suspected she wasn’t an OD consultant.
And I know who set the warehouse fire.
Possibly. But if true, why hadn’t this person told the fire marshal? And why tell her?
It was Noah Haine. Noah Haine, the first Four Corners person on the scene after the fire.
But what about before it?
She exhaled slowly. If she was going to figure out any answers to her questions, she had to think calmly and logically.
The arson had been an inside job, the arsonist someone with a key to the warehouse.
Or someone with a master key, her internal voice of reason pointed out.
She’d asked Robert about master keys, so she knew a single one opened both this building’s doors and the warehouse’s. And the three people with masters were Robert, Larry and Noah.
Robert and Larry, who had hired a P.I. Noah, who’d had no part in the decision—who didn’t even know she was an investigator. But it was a huge leap from that to the possibility he was the arsonist.
The question of the moment was how huge?
He’d said he’d been home when the service called him. That, however, left some vital information missing.
How long between when the fire was started and when the security guard discovered it? How long after that before he called the service? Then before it called Noah?
More than enough time for him to get from the warehouse to Murray Hill, she’d bet.
Lord, when she’d told herself those missing invoices meant she couldn’t rule him out too fast she’d only been about three percent serious. Now, though…
Yet what did she really have?
She stared at the note again, aware it was most likely the work of…
Never mind someone a tad on the weird side, it could be the work of a total nutcase. Could have absolutely no basis in reality. Probably had absolutely no basis in reality.
But what if it did?
Doing her best to ignore the dull buzz that had started in her head, she began cobbling together some of the pieces that might be relevant.
If she assumed that the theory Robert favored was right, that the problems were all part of a plan to drive down the company’s share price, then whoever was behind it would have to be both smart and circumspect. Stock manipulation was illegal.
So who would know how to pull off that sort of thing with minimum risk of ending up in jail?
There was an only too obvious answer. The man who’d been brought into Four Corners specifically to help take it public—because he knew all the ins and outs of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE Dana’s first scheduled “touching