“And none of you thought to move a working bulb, say, from the women’s restroom to the men’s?”
“Sure. Everyone thought of it. No one wanted to do it. The chief is ordering a case of bulbs as we speak, but we need one now. I was voluntold to go out and get one.”
“Tough assignment. Does it come with hazard pay?”
“Do you think Paul is watching us?”
“Might be. Hard to tell. Why?”
“Because I want to kiss your sassy mouth.”
Because Ramsey knew where the camera was and that her face was turned away from it, she gave him a sassy smile. Or at least she attempted. The indicators that she had missed the mark were Sullivan’s frown and narrow-eyed stare. She tried to wave his concern away, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“What’s wrong? And don’t tell me it’s nothing. We’re way past that, remember? I should have seen it right off.”
“Keep looking at the lightbulbs,” she said. “Not at me. Just in case.”
Sullivan made a three-quarter turn and pretended to look over the selection. “Go on.”
“Jay visited me after you left. He wouldn’t have gotten in except I was so sure you just realized you’d forgotten your jacket that I disarmed the alarm and opened the door without looking first.”
“You said you would call.”
“My phone was in the kitchen. He got to it before I did and kept it until he was walking out the door. I know I could have called you, but it didn’t matter by then because I’d already decided what I was going to do.”
“And?”
“I have an appointment to speak to my financial advisor by phone this afternoon. I’m going to give Jay what he’s asked for.” She looked sideways, studied his profile. “I know you said it had to be my decision, but I can tell you’re disappointed.”
“Sorry. You weren’t supposed to see that. Still working on a better poker face.”
“It’s all right. I’m disappointed too. I told him to go to hell, and I was sure I meant it, then he showed me the ace up his sleeve and I folded.”
Sullivan picked up a four pack of LED bulbs and turned them over in his hand, feigning interest. “Too cryptic. I’m figuring his ace is some kind of blackmail. Are you going to tell me about it?”
“The short of it is that he’s been gambling with other people’s money, and now it’s time to pay the piper.”
“Other people’s money? That doesn’t make sense. Who would give him cash to play?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ramsey was staring at the ground and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The movement was subtle, barely perceptible, but to him it was as if she were trying to maintain her balance on the head of a pin. “Wait. Does this have something to do with his work?”
Ramsey pressed her lips together and continued to stare at her feet. There was a wad of green chewing gum near the toe of her right shoe that the cleaning crew had failed to scrape off the floor. She wondered how long it had been there. Sullivan’s voice cut into her musing.
“Is it company money he’s been using to support his addiction or money from the people Willow Garden Health insures?”
She was a long time answering. Quietly, she said, “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know and he didn’t offer to tell me.”
Sullivan pressed. “But if you had to guess, which do you think he’s doing?”
Ramsey offered her answer reluctantly. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, it was hard to admit aloud that her ex-husband had the moral center of pond scum. “I believe he’s skimming money from the customers. A little here. A little there. Pennies and nickels. It adds up. I told him I bet he’s been doing it for a long time, but he didn’t say one way or the other. I suspect he’s always been able to hide his activity before. In and out of programs that he designed using back doors. You don’t have to be a genius hacker if you develop the program.”
“Then what’s the problem now? Why come to you for money?”
“Something about a new accounting firm and a geek hot for seven cents.”
“How’s that again?”
“Willow Garden hired a new firm to go over the books. There’s a potential merger in the works so everything has to be just so. Apparently, there is some wizard working for them who’s got a powerful thirst for a seven-cent anomaly. I pieced that together from the little that Jay gave up. I could have it all wrong. Whatever the truth is, I suspect he believes the wizard could expose him.”
Ramsey closed her eyes briefly and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. Her head felt as if it were in a vise. “Or maybe he wants the money to make a run for it and what he said about making good on what he stole is just another lie.”
