Always You (10 page)

Yet another man in a lab coat entered the room carrying a notebook computer with a collection of thin cables and tubes attached to it. Once he’d set the equipment on the table and neatly arranged the parts, Chiara recognized what the kit was. She’d never seen one in real life before, but she’d seen one pictured in one of her sister Cady’s freelance newspaper articles, “Going on the Box.”

“Mr. Grayson sent me here for a lie detector test?” She almost laughed. “All because I want to quit working for him?”

“Would you mind removing your jacket, miss?” the bulky man asked.

She finally noticed the pale hand of one of the other men. He stood just behind her left shoulder, awaiting her jacket.

Chiara angrily undid her jacket and took it off. She slung it over the man’s arm, and he vanished with it. The other man approached her and began hooking her up to the lie detector. The bulky man watched as a blood pressure cuff was fastened around Chiara’s right arm, just above her elbow. “I’m sure you recognize that,” the examiner said, opening the notebook computer and squaring it to face the monitor screen away from Chiara. “It’s a standard blood pressure cuff, which will send changes in your blood pressure and heart rate to my computer here. The two fingerplates now being attached to the index and ring fingers of your left hand are called galvanometers, and they’ll measure electro-dermal activity.”

“You mean how much my fingers sweat if I lie,” Chiara said primly.

The examiner answered with a warm chuckle. “To call this appliance a lie detector is a misnomer, Miss Winters. No machine can detect a lie, and in all the years I’ve been administering these exams, I’ve yet to discover what an actual lie looks like. This box measures physiology—changes in blood pressure, breathing and perspiration rate.”

“Lots of things can trigger those changes,” Chiara said. “The anxiety produced by having to take a damn
lie detector test
can make it look like someone’s lying.”

“No one is making you take this test, Miss Winters,” he said, even as his assistant strapped a thin rubber tube around Chiara’s chest. “The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 allows a business, in this case United States IntelTech, to request the exam, but no one can force you to take it.”

The assistant stood at Chiara’s side, a rubber tube lax in his hand.

“According to the EPPA, an employee cannot be disciplined in any way or discharged based on refusal to take the test,” the examiner said.

“Then I refuse to take it,” Chiara stated flatly.

“However,” the examiner continued, “the EPPA does not apply to businesses under contract with the federal government.” The beady black eyes wedged in his chubby face stared hard at Chiara. “And as you know, USITI has several federal contracts, one of which you yourself engineered.”

Chiara surrendered. “I guess I’m taking your little test then.”

The assistant leaned over to fasten his remaining tube around her waist. When he moved it too close to her abdomen, she balked and shoved his hands away. “Is this safe?”

The examiner’s gaze sharpened. “None of this equipment is invasive. It won’t leave any marks.” His cheeks bulged in a smile. “It won’t even wrinkle your pretty white blouse. That’s a pneumograph tube. It’s filled with air, and it’ll measure the expansion of your chest and diaphragm. It’s harmless, Miss Winters.”

She allowed the placement of the last tube, and the assistant started for the door. Once they were alone, the examiner said, “A very serious crime has occurred in your workplace. I’m not here looking for a deceptive person. I’m looking for the innocent one. When I take this chair and face you in that one, I’m totally objective. The instant I determine that your results show no deception, I take your side. I become your champion.”

Chiara knew that this was the point where she was supposed to thank him, to show gratitude for his potential faith in her. But she’d read Cady’s article thoroughly. She knew that the examiner was only trying to gain her trust, to make her feel as though he were her only ally. “How long will this take?” she asked blandly.

* * *

Three and a half hours later, Chiara, again in the company of the robotic driver who’d delivered her to USITI Security, emerged into a frigid January afternoon. She was glad for the cold because it masked the trembling that had resulted from her testing ordeal.

The examiner had been professional, as far as she could tell, and Chiara had answered his questions honestly. Well…as honestly as she could.

The examiner had explained his procedure in full and had reviewed his questions with her before starting the test. And just as Cady had written in her article, the questions were an odd assortment of inquiries relevant to the missing master chip, questions designed to catch her in ordinary white lies, and questions to which lies would make no sense. And they’d come in random order, a tactic designed to illicit measurable responses.

“Are you 30 years old?” he’d deadpanned in a tone completely devoid of the animation he’d shown earlier.

“Yes,” Chiara had responded.

“Have you ever stolen anything in your life?”

“Yes,” Chiara had answered. Who hadn’t? She’d tasted grapes before buying them at the market, and that was a form of stealing. She’d used pens at her doctor’s office and forgotten to return them, and that was a form of stealing, too. And she’d purloined a veritable pirate’s treasure in loose change in the years she’d spent taking her church offering to 7-Eleven on Sundays.

“Have you ever told a lie?”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” she’d groaned in frustration. “Of course I have. I lied two minutes ago when you asked me if I was comfortable.”

“Please answer the questions with a yes or no, Miss Winters,” he’d instructed in his peculiar wooden voice. “Have you recently traveled to Malaysia?”

“Yes,” Chiara sighed.

“Have you recently traveled to Japan?”

And on and on it went, with innocuous questions, such as “Were you born in St. Louis, Missouri?” sprinkled among weightier ones, such as “Do you have knowledge of the missing master chip?”

Sitting in the back of the hired car, Chiara wanted to kick something in frustration over that particular question.
Of course I have knowledge of it,
she inwardly seethed.
Grayson himself provided me with it when he told me about Zhou’s death.

Her driver slipped behind the wheel and started the engine. Chiara was so flustered she almost didn’t notice a second understated black Town Car facing the opposite direction in the curved driveway. Her own driver spent a moment fiddling with his headset phone and Chiara watched as the other driver exited his vehicle and opened the back door.

John, resplendent in a long black coat over his dark gray wool suit, exited the car. His expression tense and possibly annoyed, he glanced in her direction, but gave no outward sign that he’d seen her. Chiara sat forward to get a better look at him, but noticing her driver’s flinty eyes in the rearview mirror, she muted her reaction. She sat back in her seat and her driver put the car in gear, angling it away from USITI Security.

Just relax,
she thought hard, telegraphing the two words to John as her driver took her farther and farther away from him.
All you have to do is relax…

Chiara spent the next few hours at her desk buried in long-neglected paperwork. She went about the business of writing letters to clients she’d initiated contact with, informing them of her imminent departure from USITI, and she started a list of existing clients to whom she and Zhou had sold R-GS chips. She compiled the list by hand, on lined paper. She wanted as few of her activities conducted on her office computer as possible, knowing that Grayson was monitoring every move she made.

She kept to herself, and her officemates seemed to respect her desire to be alone. Chele Brewster, one of the few women employed in technical sales, approached Chiara close to the end of the day.

Chiara couldn’t help smiling when Chele knocked on her open door and hesitantly entered. The two saw each other primarily at staff meetings and in passing between sales junkets. Chele, a native of New Orleans, had the café au lait coloring of her Creole ancestors but the patrician features of her English father. Her fluency in French, German, Dutch and Hungarian, along with her intelligence, perfect figure and exuberant sense of humor made her ideally suited for the European markets she covered for USITI.

“Is this a bad time?” Chele asked, her hands clasped at her back.

“No, it’s fine.” Chiara beckoned her into a chair. “I meant to thank you for the card you sent to me in St. Louis. I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner. I’ve had some things on my mind.”

“I’ll bet.” Chele leaned forward to rest her crossed arms on her knees. “Zhou was a great guy. It’s a shame you have to deal with the fallout over that chip.”

“So it’s common knowledge?”

“Not really,” Chele said, lightly running her fingers over the red silk of her skirt. “Mr. Grayson called a few of us into his office and told us that Zhou had misplaced a master. He wanted to know if Zhou had talked to any of us about it. You know,” she shrugged a shoulder, “the standard reconnaissance.”

Chiara nodded.

“Hey, I was thinking we could grab a cocktail or something after work,” Chele said. “If you want to talk or something.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I haven’t been home in a week and a half,” Chiara said. “I spent the holidays with my family in St. Louis, and I came here straight from O’Hare this morning. I’m looking forward to just being by myself for a while. Could I take a rain check?”

“Sure. But you’ll have to redeem it after the eighteenth. Geoff Mathis and I are leaving for Zurich tomorrow afternoon. Mr. Grayson finally won over that Swiss plastics manufacturer that he’s been wooing for the past two years. They just installed a complete R-GS system, and Geoff and I are going to be spending two weeks training and troubleshooting. Should be fun.”

“Uh huh,” Chiara said absently.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Chele asked, standing to get a better look at Chiara.

“I’m fine,” Chiara said. “I just need to get home and get some rest.”

Chele looked at the delicate Rolex circling her wrist. “Five o’clock,” she said. “Time to clock out.”

A loud knock sounded on Chiara’s door, startling both women. “Not quite,” said Emmitt Grayson, who stood in Chiara’s doorway. “I need to see you in my office, Chiara. Now.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and vanished into the corridor.

“Guess you’re staying after class today, Chiara,” Chele teased.

“I guess I am,” she managed, her hands suddenly clammy with sweat.

* * *

Chiara stared hard at Grayson, her mood darkening to match the purple twilight settling over Lake Michigan. John, who’d already been seated in front of Grayson’s desk when Chiara arrived, leaned back in his chair with his left ankle propped upon his right knee. He could have been sitting on Abby’s back porch, shooting the breeze with Lee, Keren, Zweli and Christopher for all the concern he showed at being subjected to Grayson’s silence for five minutes.

Chiara fought her natural tendency toward fidgeting and instead kept her energy and concentration on Grayson, who continued to peruse the papers and charts neatly arranged on his desk. Chiara wished that she could read Grayson’s thoughts and know what fresh headache he planned to lay on her now.

When he looked up at her, the intensity of his gaze replaced Chiara’s annoyed impatience with a new brand of fear. Grayson scowled, which made his face look as though it had been carved from granite. His hands were so tightly clenched upon his papers that his knuckles whitened. For a long moment, he stared between Chiara and John, his thin lips pursed to the point of invisibility.

Here it comes,
Chiara thought dismally.
Whatever he did to Zhou, he’s about to do to John and me.

She frantically thought back on key questions. “Do you have knowledge regarding the whereabouts of the missing master chip?” “Do you know who has possession of the missing master chip?” “Are you concealing information regarding the missing master chip?”

With thoughts of the ruins in her head and of the time she and John had shared their first sloppy, giggly kiss beneath the biggest willow, Chiara had answered “No” to each, hoping that her happy memory would mask her lies. Convinced that her falsehoods were about to be flung in her face, she clenched her right fist within her left hand and locked her jaw.

“I owe you both an apology,” Grayson finally said.

Chiara almost choked on the breath she was holding. John placed his left foot on the floor, and only then did Chiara notice how tightly his hands gripped his knees. She lowered her eyes to her hands as a wave of guilt crested within her. John hadn’t asked for any of this—to be treated like a criminal, to be spied on and subjected to Grayson’s mistrust and possible wrath. She hadn’t asked for it either, but if she’d kept her mouth shut about the hidey hole, Zhou would never have been able to involve John.

Whatever happened to John from here on out would be her fault, and the thought made Chiara sick.

“Are you all right, Chiara?” Grayson asked, no real concern in his voice.

She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“I understand, given today’s events,” Grayson said. “And again, in light of the results of your polygraph exams, I extend my most sincere apologies for subjecting you to the ordeal. Your results certainly clear up the matter regarding the master chip. Unfortunately, evidence of a separate deception was brought to light.”

John stared somewhere beyond Grayson’s head. Chiara kept her eyes on her boss.

“Would either of you care to divulge any information regarding this matter?”

“I have no idea what this ‘matter’ concerns,” John stated.

“Is this something that involves John or just me?” Chiara asked, earning a short, stunned glance from John.

His cold glare on Chiara, Grayson said, “It involves both of you.” He turned to John. “Your polygraph shows a probable deception in answer to question forty-three.”

“You’ll have to be more specific,” John said coolly. “I don’t remember the numbers of every single question. That could have been ‘Do you like ham?’ and my answer could have registered as untrue. In general, I don’t care for ham at all, but over the holidays I had a ham with a cherry-apricot glaze that was simply delicious. Do I like ham? No. Did I like that particular ham? Yes.”

Grayson sighed heavily through his nose. “You’re hiding something, Mr. Mahoney. Your results show that you have no knowledge of my chip but they also show that you are, and I quote, ‘concealing information vital to your performance at USITI.’ As for you, Chiara, your answer to question fifty-five raised a red flag. ‘Are you withholding information that may affect your work?’ ” Grayson flattened his hands on the desk and hungrily leaned forward. “Would either of you care to explain yourselves?”

“I have nothing to say about the results of my polygraph, other than that I’ve done nothing to compromise USITI or my employment here,” John calmly stated.

“Very well then, Mr. Mahoney. You leave me with few options. Chiara, you’re too valuable an employee to let go over the mere suspicion of wrongdoing, particularly given your stellar performance in technical sales and public relations. Mr. Mahoney, although you have been an exemplary employee as well, I can’t risk keeping you in a sensitive position such as director of St. Louis information systems. Chen Zhou made a very brief visit to St. Louis within twenty-four hours of his return from Tokyo, the same time frame during which I believe he absconded with my master chip. While I have no evidence that Chen Zhou made contact with you while he was in St. Louis, I cannot overlook such an alarming coincidence. Mr. Mahoney, your employment here at USITI is terminated as of—”

“I’m pregnant,” Chiara said over him. “John is the father. That’s the secret we’ve been keeping.”

Grayson’s eyelids fluttered in shock. His mouth dropped open slightly before he regained his composure. “Mr. Mahoney, is this true?”

John, as wide-eyed and stunned as Grayson had been, stared at Chiara. “Yes.”

“And this is what you two are hiding?” Mr. Grayson asked.

“We haven’t been hiding it,” Chiara said. “We just didn’t feel the need to share our private, personal business with anyone outside the two of us at this point in time. Office romances aren’t forbidden, but they’re certainly discouraged here at USITI. But with John in information systems and me halfway across the globe on sales trips twice a month, we never felt that our relationship compromised our work. My pregnancy hasn’t affected either of our job performances, but as your polygraph shows, I knew that it would eventually.”

“This child,” Grayson began, “is it the reason you planned to leave USITI?”

“Yes,” she answered truthfully, though it wasn’t the reason she wanted out so suddenly.

“Was Chen Zhou aware of your condition?” Grayson asked.

“No. John and I haven’t told anyone, not even our families.”

“May I ask why not?”

“It’s too soon. I wanted to wait until I was further along.”

Grayson tapped his left thumb on his desk. “And here I am, ruining your surprise. I do apologize, Chiara, John. Congratulations.”

“Am I allowed to go back to work now, or am I still terminated as of…” John held his hands wide, waiting for Mr. Grayson’s response.

He prefaced his answer with a crocodilian grin. “You have a child to support, Mr. Mahoney. By all means, return to St. Louis and continue your fine work for USITI. I hope you bear no hard feelings for the time you’ve spent in the hot seat, as it were. Just as you’ll do everything within your power to ensure the better welfare of your child, you have to understand my desire to preserve the security and interests of USITI.”

John stood and adjusted the front of his jacket. “It’s all crystal clear, Mr. Grayson.” He glanced at the dark sky and then took a quick peek at his watch. “My flight back to St. Louis leaves in an hour. I might just be able to make it to Midway. If we’re finished here, I’d like to prevail upon Chiara for a ride.”

“I’ll need another word with her,” Grayson said. “Have my assistant arrange a car for you. Thank you, Mr. Mahoney.”

“Certainly.” John knew a dismissal when he heard one. He nodded his head and left.

Grayson waited a long moment after John had closed the door behind him before he said, “John Mahoney appears to be quite a remarkable man.”

“He is,” Chiara agreed.

“You’ve known him for a number of years, yes?”

“Since we were eight years old.” She chewed the inside of her lower lip, thinking of the anguish John had endured to be her friend. Hundreds of Sundays and hundreds of beatings, and he’d just taken one more for her.

“It would seem that your fortunes are inextricably bound,” Grayson said.

“I suppose they are, especially now.”

“Do you love him?”

Chiara flinched. She was totally taken aback, not by the question itself, but by who was asking it. Grayson was single, and as far as Chiara knew, he’d never been romantically linked to anyone. Grayson knew more than Bill Gates about the intricacies of computer technology, but when it came to interpersonal relationships, he seemed completely clueless. In answering him, Chiara chose words that condensed her long, sometimes complicated history with John. “Yes. I always have.”

“Do you plan to marry him?”

Chiara’s older relatives had bedeviled her and John with that very question on Christmas day, and just as it had then, it brought a devilish smile to her face. “We have some things to settle first.”

“Such as, if I may ask?”

“My career goals.”

“I can help with that, Chiara. Would you change your mind about resigning if John Mahoney were to be named your new partner?”

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t see how that would benefit us, especially once our baby arrives.”

“Your child could travel with you,” Grayson suggested. “USITI could provide a childcare allowance to hire a nanny who would go wherever you did. A family traveling for business would be above reproach, unimpeachable. Who wouldn’t trust a handsome family in any business deal?”

Grayson’s face broke in a toothy smile that made Chiara draw back against her chair. “After my father died, I hardly ever saw my mother,” she said after regaining her composure. “She taught high school by day and worked as a cashier at a supermarket by night to support me and my sisters. My grandmother raised me. I want to raise my child myself. I won’t ever pick USITI or any other company over my child.”

Grayson’s smile melted away. “That’s a noble ambition, Chiara, if impractical. You make a good living, one that enables you to easily support a child. It would be a shame for you to give up your career in your prime. Your potential here at USITI is infinite. I’d really like you to think about what it would mean for your future to remain at USITI.”

Chiara stood, ending the meeting whether Grayson was finished with her or not. “That’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past two weeks, Mr. Grayson. I’m going home now, sir.”

* * *

Chiara didn’t start running until she exited the elevator that had taken her to the underground parking garage. Her arms and legs felt weak and shaky as she ran to her bright red Mitsubishi Eclipse, which sat isolated in its assigned parking spot. She spent a moment sitting in the idling car, tightly gripping the steering wheel, taking deep breaths to send fresh, clean air to her brain.