Chapter Two

"OK, I'll bite. What's going on?" Mick said.

Josef looked from Mick to Beth and back again, his eyes questioning the unintentional pun. He chose to ignore it. "Cornell Microsystems. Their star programmer and his multi-million dollar program have gone missing."

"Cornell Microsystems? Isn't that a subsidiary of the Guggenheim Group?" Beth asked.

"Indeed it is," Josef confirmed.

"Wait a second. Don't you own a controlling interest in the Guggenheim Group?" Mick interjected.

"Since 1949."

Beth's eyes widened slightly. It was so easy to forget just how old Mick and Josef were. They acted so modern, clearly adapting with the times as the decades--or in Josef's case, centuries--passed by. "When you're eighty-two, I'll still look thirty," Mick had said to her once. Would he still be with her when she was eighty-two? Would he want to walk in Los Angeles with an old white haired woman? Beth didn't doubt Mick's love for her. She knew that he would love her wrinkly eighty-two year old self just as much as he would love her twenty-six year old self. But at what price? Beth didn't worry so much about aging as she did about dying. She was certain that her death, whether it was today or sixty years from now, would destroy him. Maybe not physically, but emotionally. For all eternity. With a shake of her head, Beth pushed those morbid thoughts out of her mind and refocused on the situation at hand.

"So what do you know about this programmer?" Mick asked.

"His name is Jack Davis. He was working on a new state of the art operating system that would make Bill Gates look like a monkey. He also--"

"Got married three months ago," Mick interrupted. Beth and Josef looked at him in surprise.

"How did you know?" Josef asked.

"His wife came into see me this morning. She thought he was cheating on her."

"Why'd she think that?" Josef asked.

Beth answered. "Let me guess. Never home, suspicious trips, strange credit card charges?"

Mick nodded. Josef said, "What? Are you two sharing a brain now? Excuse me while I gag."

Mick glared at Josef. Beth looked Josef in the eye and said, "A woman knows when she's being cheated on."

Josef ignored her. "Did the estimable Mrs. Davis mention that her husband was a vampire?"

Mick froze. "She married a vampire?" Suddenly, this case was hitting a little too close to home. Images of wedding night flashed across Mick's vision. Beth reached out and took Mick's hand in her own. The warmth of her touch brought Mick back to the present.

"Let me get this straight. A vampire working as a computer programmer, right? Where does the espionage come in?" asked Beth, bring the conversation back from any reminders of Coraline.

"Davis is missing. His program is missing. All of his research is missing, and he just recently had ten million dollars deposited in his bank account. You do the math," Josef snapped.

"So you think that one of Cornell's competitors paid Davis to steal his own work from you and give it to them?"

"In a nutshell, yes."

"So what do you need me for?" Beth asked.

Josef faced Beth for the first time since she entered the room. "You're going to be my leak. Once your reporter thing it should flush the buyer out."

"And if it doesn't?" Beth challenged.

"It will." They were looking daggers at one another. Mick realized it was time to go. He stood up and said to Josef, "OK, we're on it. I'll call when we have something." He turned back towards the elevator, Beth following.

"Beth," Josef said quietly. She stopped. So did Mick. Beth gave him a reassuring glance and said, "Go on. I'll meet you downstairs." Mick reluctantly climbed into the elevator, catching a glimpse of Josef and Beth as the doors closed.

"What is it?" Beth asked.

"This thing with you and Mick. It's not healthy. For either of you. You know it. He knows it. Why are you torturing yourselves?"

"Because we'd rather spend what time we have together rather than regret what could have been," Beth replied seriously.

"If you hurt him, I will make sure you regret it."

"If that happens, I'll let you."

To be continued…