No, I’m good. There’ll be a driver to collect me. Looking forward to getting back.I add a row of smiley faces, although I’m not really that kind of guy.
I bet you’re looking forward to sleeping in your own bed again.
I raise my eyebrows. That was unexpected – but I doubt it means much.
Oh, you’d better believe it.I reply.But you know what I’m really looking forward to?
What?
A double cheeseburger and fries!
Ah! Manna from heaven! That’s my all-time favorite. I’d do bad things for a good burger.
I raise my eyebrows again. This woman is sounding more and more like she’s exactly my type. Hell, who cares if there’s an age difference. I’m starting to feel like I could be really happy with a warm-hearted cougar.
Now that I gotta see…I think I’ll stop and get you a burger on the way home.
I wait for long seconds as I see the little blue dots spinning, telling me she’s typing a response.
Live a little dangerously. Bring me two.
This time I laugh out loud, and the suited guy across the aisle shoots me a look. I ignore him and catch the eye of the stewardess, who nods when I hold up my empty glass. What the hell, it’s gotta be cocktail hour somewhere on our flightpath.
Chapter 17
Something Fishy
Arielle Nygard
“We need to talk,” Tim says when I answer my phone. He sounds unhappy about something.
It’s midmorning and I’m buried deep in a spreadsheet, trying to find a billing error for a very irate hospital patient. “Okay,” I say, distractedly. “Come over for dinner.”
“I can’t wait until dinner. Can you take a coffee break?”
“I’m in the middle of something. If I step away now, I’ll lose my place and I’ll have to start from the beginning. Can it wait an hour?”
“I suppose,” Tim says with a huff. “I’ll meet you in the hospital cafeteria in one hour.” And he hangs up. Tim’s never been so short with me, and if I wasn’t so focused on my task, I might have thought twice about making him wait.
I’m five minutes late to meet Tim. I eventually found the code and items that were added to a patient’s bill by mistake, but I had to make notes on the error before I left the task, or I’d have to start from scratch. Tim is impatient, his leg bouncing underneath the table in the corner of the cafeteria that he’s chosen. He’s also drumming his fingers on the tabletop. He’s staring at the entrance and spots me as soon as I rush in. I hurry over. “Sorry I’m late. I just had to make some notes on this problem account.” I sit down across from Tim. “Is everything okay?”
He runs a hand through his dark hair. “Everything’s fine. But I need to tell you what I’ve found out about Samuel Foster.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, trying to puzzle out what has riled Tim up.
“I ran him through our search engines and came back with nothing, but something didn’t sit right, so I got a journalist I’ve worked with to run his name through their old back stories,” he begins.
I frown at him. This is hardly earth-shattering information. “Did you find anything?”
“Well, until a decade ago, Samuel Foster was living on the bones of his ass,” says Tim. “Then suddenly he pops up in all the business pages looking like a big fish.”
I’m still not impressed. So he’s a self-made man. If anything, that’s something to admire. My expression must betray my thoughts because Tim goes on.
“Problem is, my contact hasn’t been able to dig up any info on how he made his money,” he says. “One minute nada, the next, he’s rolling in it. But no business success stories, no unexpected inheritances. No relatives to speak of at all, actually. Aside from an old foster parent who died years ago.”
I remember how Sam told me about losing his father, and it saddens me. That must have been who he was talking about. So far, nothing Tim is telling me is making me distrust the man, and certainly doesn’t justify dragging me away from work. If anything, it makes me feel a little protective. Like Sam’s never had anyone on his side, and he needs me more than I realized. I jut my jaw out.
“Sounds like you’re desperately looking for something to pin on him, Tim. Look, if this is because I—” I don’t want to raise the issue of his date request, but he knows it’s what I’m implying.
