He was prepared to catch Grover, should he faint, and considered it a near thing. “I-I-I—”
“I’m cutting it down to twenty-five dollars, giving you a stupidity discount. You come in by the end of the day and pay it, or it’s back up to the two thousand. Clear?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I just thought—”
“No, you didn’t think. Next time you will.”
“I’ll pay it, Grover.” Sylbie stepped out. “It’s my fault. I’ll pay the fine.”
“I don’t care where it comes from, just pay it by five.”
“You didn’t have to scare him so bad.” Sylbie sat on the bench, drew Grover down beside her and put her arm around his stooped shoulders. “It was my fault.”
“No argument. Pay the fine, slate’s clean.”
Though he’d lost his appetite for cookies, he crossed tothe bakery, picked up Alma’s order. He left it on her desk, went into his office and filled out the citation.
He puzzled over the charge, then opted for “crying wolf.” It seemed to fit, and wouldn’t embarrass anyone.
He took it out, set it beside Alma’s latte. “Either Grover or Sylbie’s coming down to pay this citation. Don’t ask.”
“Whenever somebody hears ‘Don’t ask,’ they’re duty-bound to.”
“Not when somebody else just bought them a latte and a chocolate macadamia cookie.”
Alma tapped her blue-tipped nails on the go-cup. “So this is a bribe.”
“It could be so construed. Don’t ask, Alma.” He glanced up as Ash walked in.
“I had to run some skateboarders off the parking lot down at the bank. Again. And I pulled Doyle Parsins over for speeding. Again. Some people never learn. You got cookies?”
“Cookie,” Alma said. “Singular. Mine.”
“I swung by the Little League park. Saw that little Draper kid hit a solid three-bagger. And I got me a steamer. A cookie sure would top that off.”
Alma smiled as she took a deliberate bite, rolled her eyes in pleasure. “Mmm-mmm!”
“That’s just mean.”
Leaving them to it, Brooks went back in his office, shut his door. He spent some time poking at Abigail Lowery—who, he discovered, had a master’s degree in computer science, and another in security engineering, both from MIT. Pretty impressive.
It took him a while, but he learned she worked on a freelance basis for a company called Global Network.
He switched his focus, poked at the company.
Privately owned, he discovered. Founded by one Cora Fiense, age thirty-three. No photo on file, not that he could find. But he scanned a couple of articles describing the small, exclusive company launched by a media-shy agoraphobic.
The website offered no real information on the owner or the employees, but simply stated that Global offered security system analysis and design.
He sat back, asked himself why he persisted. She hadn’t done anything, as far as he could tell. He liked her, but there was an itch, he couldn’t ignore it. One that told him if he kept scratching he’d uncover something…else.
He toggled off when he heard the knock at his door.
“Yeah.”
“I’m off,” Alma told him. “Calls routed to your cell. Ash is on the desk till eight, Boyd’s on the road.”
“That works.”
