Lady In Black by Mara

Author:Mara [Mara]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-01-07T07:02:17+00:00

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CHAPTER EIGHT

"Mr. Donovan, can I speak to you for a minute?"

Reid raised his head from the pile of work on his desk and the computer keyboard in his lap. "Of course; come in."

Reid watched with a cynical amusement as Cliff Martin sneaked through the study door like a substandard James Bond and eased it shut behind him.

"I hate to bother you when you're working."

"It's all right." Rubbing his neck beneath the casual open-necked tennis shirt, Reid gestured the security man into a chair. "My eyes are exhausted, anyway."

"I don't know how you can stand to sit there and look at one of them computer screens, anyway. They ain't safe."

"Really?" Startled, Reid asked, "Why's that?"

"Haven't you heard?" Cliff's eyes widened. "The rays off the screen'll make you sterile."

Reid blinked. "Gracious."

"There's all those viruses and stuff in the machines—"

"In the software," Reid corrected.

"Right. You just can't trust computers."

Reid leaned back in his executive chair and studied

Cliff. The man was wearing the same brown pin-striped suit he'd worn the first time they'd met, and it looked as if he'd slept in it every night since. The bags under his faithful hound-dog eyes were more pronounced. The smell of cigars hung heavy around him, and the telltale yellow stained his fingers. He seemed to have taken a plunge into ignorance, with his silly warnings about computers and their dangers.

But Reid couldn't ignore the taut shrewdness of the mouth, nor could he ignore Pierre's suggestion of corruption, so he said gently, "I make my living with these computers."

"Oh, yeah." Cliff fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the half-smoked stub of a cigar.

Struggling to remember that the man worked for him, struggling to remember that that was no excuse for excessive rudeness, Reid directed, "Not in here."

"What?" Cliff raised the wounded, infuriated, innocent face of a nicotine addict.

"You can't smoke in here."

Cliff's eyes slid to the smelly ashtray.

"Uncle Manuel and his pipe. Unfortunately, I don't have enough seniority over him to forbid his pipe." The words hovered unspoken in the air—but I do have enough seniority over you.

Dropping the cigar back into his coat pocket, Cliff dusted his fingers. "I'm quitting anyway."

"Good idea," Reid agreed. "What have you uncovered about the extortionists?"

"Me? Nothing. The police here don't take kindly to folks sticking their noses into official investigations. My job is just security; making sure they don't snatch your grandfather.''

"Where were you when he was snatched?"

"Busy trusting the wrong people, I can tell you. I should never have taken that time off to go to my uncle's funeral." Cliff clucked his tongue mournfully. "I mean, I leave town for one day, and see what happens? This kidnapper's definitely an insider." He tapped his forehead. "Knows too much."

"I'm afraid I have to agree. Have you found any incriminating evidence about the, er, insiders?"

"Oh, everybody has some thing that makes them a suspect. That footman, Simon, needs the money. He's going to school and working and sending home money to his mother. Abigail's in love with that Nagumbi fellow— maybe she's doing it to get his attention.

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