Chapter 12

It was a short time after the supper tray had been collected—an assortment of broth, green gelatin, and juice that went untouched except for the cranberry juice Mickey ended up drinking—when a visitor arrived at the room, an agent of the DEA. Austin vaguely recalled having provided him an initial police report while lying on the floor of the office of doom at the Thorne Oaks laboratory during that brief interval of time between the reversal of his overdose and his transfer to the ambulance. It hadn't been a very detailed report at that time, more along the lines of, "Who did this to you and how many helped with that effort, so we can tally up our arrests."

The law enforcement officer, a balding, heavy-set man of about forty with a solid build that bespoke former athlete, identified himself as Agent Huntley, and returned seeking clarification of certain details that were causing some confusion in the investigation. "Can you still say with certainty the man who injected you was Erich Thorne?"

"Yes, definitely."

"And you identified three other male individuals who were involved in the unlawful restraint, most notably, a man calling himself Dr. Emil Krueger?"

"He isn't still calling himself that?"

The agent scratched his temple with the end of his pen. "No second man fitting your description was found at the scene, and we found no one to corroborate his identity with you."

Mickey's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. "You mean, he escaped?" She shot a look at Austin, who remained silent and unreadable at the news.

The agent cocked his head at Austin. "I did do a background check on him, his name and his description as you provided it, but what I'm finding suggests you must have been mistaken. The Dr. Emil Krueger you were talking about has been dead since 1973."

"He's alive. That death was faked."

Agent Huntley dropped his eyes, studying his notebook. "Look," he said in a conceding tone, "you just had a near-death experience. Strange things happen. If he was someone you knew, someone significant, maybe—"

"I've been working with the man for the past two weeks. I didn't just dream him up this morning. So you're saying he was gone. You never found him."

The agent closed the notebook and looked up with a frown. "I'm calling him a John Doe at this point. Maybe he is the presumed-dead Dr. Emil Krueger, but that man has had no record of activity in the past sixteen years, no financial transactions, taxes filed, employment records, travel visas; nothing. There aren't any prints on record; there isn't even a body to exhume. We have no way of tracking him."

"Wait," Mickey exclaimed. "What about Erich, or Amber Jezic? They were working with him all along; they'll know."

"Miss Jezic has been fully cooperating with our investigation into Erich Thorne and his Thorne Foundation, since she's agreed to turn state's evidence in exchange for no jail time. But like you, Mr. James, she has only a description of a man she knew to be financing Erich Thorne. She wouldn't even swear to the name—she claimed it was understood by everyone working with him that he was using an alias, including the two domestics who were also involved in your aggravated battery and unlawful restraint."

"Domestics?" Mickey mouthed to Austin as they exchanged surprised looks.

"Whatever contracts or records of his involvement with the Thorne Foundation might have existed, they have since vanished from the estate, along with the man…whoever he is."

"And Erich?" Austin prompted.

"Lawyered up," finished the agent. "He won't speak to us at all."

After Huntley had left them, Mickey turned worried eyes to Austin. "He's still out there somewhere," she lamented, crossing her arms and wrapping them around her. Suddenly, she felt cold.

Austin reclined the head of his bed most of the way and closed his eyes. "It would appear so."

"What if he comes after you, Austin? You said he was going to take you with him. What if he comes back—"

"Hypotheticals," Austin murmured, his eyes still closed. "He's gone for now, maybe forever. I'm not going to lose sleep over it." He said nothing more, and minutes passed with only the soft ticking of the wall clock and the muted voices from a neighboring room's television to be heard. Then Austin's eyes opened and he glared at Mickey. "I can hear you fretting, and it's making my head hurt worse." He elevated the head of the bed again, eying her critically while she slowly unwound her arms and settled back in the bedside recliner, making something of an effort to release the rigidity in her posture. Then he nodded his approval. "Look at it this way:" he added with a spark of animation that briefly drove out his fatigue, "For years, I've been accused of living like a comic book superhero; now I'm closer than ever to actually being one. I've got my superpower—rare intelligence; I can get another warehouse to live in and keep up the mysterious recluse image, and now I even have my own evil nemesis." He reclined back down again, turning a contented expression to the ceiling. "You can be my Lois Lane."

The tension was broken as Mickey burst out laughing. "Your Lois Lane! You don't think you need a secretary; why would you want a Lois Lane?"

He smiled and closed his eyes again. "Every superhero needs a Lois Lane. Think about it."

Two weeks later…

The heat was oppressive under a brilliant sun when Mickey opened her car door after pulling into the warehouse lot. Aside from the unpleasantness of the first true hot spell of the season, getting out of the car wasn't too difficult since she was leading with her left foot. Leaning back in and pulling out the crutches, and then managing the rhythm of walking with them while balancing her purse on one shoulder was the harder part.

She had caught a little hell from the orthopedist when he saw her for an evaluation of increased pain in her foot upon her return from Chicago. Apparently, she was suffering from an overuse injury to the already fractured bone, and so she was ordered on strict non-weight-bearing status until her six-week follow up appointment, which put her on crutches for another two weeks from now.

She got to the door, punched in the new door code, and gladly pushed on into the cool darkness of Austin's workshop. She was greeted by the familiar beeps, chirps, and gurgles of his works in progress—how many works in progress had he initiated just in the last ten days? The sound system was quiet, indicating Austin was likely taking a nap, so she shuffled over to the tank first and gave it a couple of good raps with the end of a crutch. "Don't make me play Reveille," she teased.

"What are you doing?"

She jumped and looked over her shoulder, surprised to find him actually up and sitting before his computer, back behind the living room area of the warehouse floor. "You don't have your music on; I assumed you were sleeping."

He smiled charmingly, reclining back in his swivel chair. His hair was toppling over his forehead in that careless way he wore it, and coupled with the smile, it gave him the appearance of a mischievous kid. "You assumed wrong."

She laughed. "What are you doing over there?" She rearranged the crutches and shuffled back over to where he was working, dropping her purse on the couch on the way. She parked her hip over the edge of the desk when she reached him, and carefully balanced her crutches next to her.

"I'm setting up another meeting with Graham tomorrow," he told her, looking up from his screen with a deeply satisfied expression. "I'm going to present a business proposal to him and see if he's interested in interfacing with my new company." He nodded toward the monitor.

Mickey read the heading at the top of the screen out loud. "Austin James, Science Consultant, Incorporated." She frowned at him. "You're incorporating yourself?"

He was looking at his screen again, and his fingers were nimbly tapping at the keyboard, bringing up additional spreadsheets. "I have it all worked out. From now on, I'm a consulting firm. I choose my own contracts and structure my own time. I'm giving Graham first pick, since he backed up my schizophrenic history for me—"

"And let you lease out your warehouse again," Mickey added. "Maybe you'll get along with him better as his tenant than as his business partner."

"I'll give him a six month contract, and leave it open for renewal or dismissal, depending on each of our needs and preferences. But it shouldn't affect the warehouse lease in the slightest since that's a different agreement."

"Where's your secretary in all this?" Mickey asked, studying the screen and trying to decipher Austin's markings. He was a big fan of symbols over longhand script. She dropped her hand on the mouse, moving the cursor and going back to a previous screen.

He reclaimed the mouse with an impatient nudge and returned to the last screen. "I don't need a secretary."

Mickey turned a withering glare on him. "We're not going to go through this again, are we?"

He blinked and peered up at her, trying to look blasé but ruining the effect with a sly smile he couldn't quite keep hidden. "You're not my secretary anymore," he insisted. He gestured toward the next screen he had pulled up. "I'm giving you another job. See?"

She squinted, bent over to read his outline, and sat upright again with a doubtful frown. "You're making me your chief financial officer and treasurer?"

"Sure. You've earned it. You and I will be both the board and the shareholders. I'll be chief executive and you can handle finances and minutes."

"Austin, I don't have training for something like that."

"You don't have to have training. You already know how to keep a budget, don't you?"

Mickey rubbed her chin. "For an individual, yes. But I don't know about a corporation. There are a lot of tax laws and regulations. Most people who do this have a master's degree in business administration. That's a far cry from what I know."

"You said you wanted to go back to school. So I budget for a professional development incentive. We'll put it right here." He paused to bring up one of his spreadsheets and key in some data and several lines of script. "There. You'll get tuition paid for all the classes you pass."

"You just wrote that I'm committing to working for Austin James, S.C.I. in proportion to the amount of time it takes me to finish my degree."

Austin shrugged. "That seems fair, in exchange for the tuition."

"It might take me five years to get my MBA, you know," Mickey exclaimed with a laugh. "Do you expect me to commit to working with you for the next ten years?" She cocked her head at him.

He gave her a hard stare for a moment, before turning back to his monitor and closing out his open tabs. Then he swiveled back around to face her and stood up. "Yes," he said, piercing her with his sharpest look, "that's my offer. Take it or leave it."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm going to take it, and I'm going to make you put it in writing."

The sharp look brightened and was joined by a broad smile. "Agreed. Type it up and give it to me to sign. Tomorrow, come in early and we'll meet with Graham and nail down our first contract." He then darted off in the direction of his laboratory.

"Tomorrow!" Mickey cried helplessly after him, not even trying to keep up on crutches. "But you don't want to schedule a meeting where you'll go signing contracts until you have a lawyer who specializes in corporate law." She scowled. "You know, so you don't commit yourself to five years in some Ukrainian slave labor camp and other dumb terms like that."

"That's a job for my chief financial officer," he called back, out of sight somewhere in the bowels of the warehouse. "Better find a good lawyer for us today, right after you type up our agreement." Before Mickey could reply, she heard him speaking into his mike. "Beethoven; Eighth Symphony!"

Following a fair amount of coaxing and only one mild threat, Mickey convinced Austin to postpone the meeting with Graham until the following Monday, after reminding him that mere mortals needed time to construct contracts and evaluate them. The meeting did occur, and the attendees all left the table satisfied that a mutually beneficial agreement had been reached.

It had begun with an odd hiccup. After Graham had led them into his office and the five of them, including a corporate lawyer for each side, had been comfortably seated, Austin opened the conversation, getting straight to the point.

"Since coming back from Chicago, I've made a decision about the direction I'd like to take moving forward, and I thought you, Graham, and Serendip ought to be the first to know about it."

"You're getting married?"

Mickey coughed.

Austin just looked confused. "No," he corrected, with a scowl that indicated he didn't appreciate the non sequitur right at the start of his spiel. "I'm starting a consulting firm with my new business partner." He gave a nod to Mickey, who had finished coughing and smiled sheepishly behind the water glass she had lifted to her mouth.

Graham had raised an eyebrow at her, but nothing more was said, and the remainder of the meeting went smoothly. In the end, it was agreed that Austin would retain the right to accept or decline projects at will, while Serendip would retain the right to claim Austin as its founder, past president, and current affiliate.

The meeting adjourned, and Graham led them on a short walk to the original office of the president, converted due to disuse into the Lexington Conference Room four years ago. He was eager to unveil a new development in that space.

"I said to the board, he might love it or he might hate it, but all of us agreed it was the most fitting acknowledgement we could give you. Don't forget to read the inscription." Graham was beaming as he gestured toward the doorway. The backlit transparent plaque affixed outside the door proclaimed it the Austin James Conference Room. Above the plaque hung a large onyx plate imbedded with a bronze image bearing Austin's likeness. He was gazing out over the surrounding atrium, critical and aloof. The script under the image was a direct quote, likely heard by his colleagues many times in various forms since Serendip's inception six years ago: "You handle the administration; I've got work to do."

Mickey was instantly delighted, although she tempered that until she checked Austin's reaction. He stood, arms folded, almost mirroring the expression on the bronze image. But the corners of his mouth were turned up in clear approval. He stared a moment longer, and then turned back to Graham, Mickey, and the lawyers.

He cleared his throat. "I don't hate it," he confessed. That was the entirety of his acceptance speech.

The small group parted after that, and Austin and Mickey left the building at an atypical leisurely stroll, although on Austin's part it was under duress. Mickey had to remind him to slow down when he stepped off the elevator and set off at his usual brisk clip.

"Hey, wait for me!" she called after him.

He turned and stopped, and gave her a wry look. "Three cracked ribs and a concussion, and I still have to slow down for you?"

She caught up and kept her shuffling gait going right past him. "Don't make me use these crutches in a way Dr. Meade never intended."

He grinned and followed along behind her. "We may need to talk about some anger management. As I recall, that's how you broke your foot to begin with."

"You were easier when your head still hurt," she grumbled. They reached the reflection pool with its arcing fountains and Mickey paused to watch them.

Austin observed her for a moment. "Thinking of dinner?"

She turned and smiled. "I don't have any preference tonight. Do you?"

His mind had already moved on to something else. "If there was a compressed fish food coin dispenser here, where you could insert your penny for a food coin and toss that instead, then we wouldn't have to worry about all the corrosion from the coins in the fountain, and we could introduce koi fish."

Mickey wrinkled her nose. "That's not the same." She started hobbling again toward the parking lot. "You can't make a wish on compressed fish food."

Austin strolled along beside her. "How about coins that look like pennies but are made of a biodegradable starch compound?"

"Wouldn't that be expensive to make?"

"Do you think your mom's making meatloaf tonight?"

Mickey threw him a curious sidelong glance and carefully stepped off the curb onto the parking lot pavement. "That's what you want for dinner?"

"If it's no trouble." He picked up speed and got to the station wagon first, opening the doors ahead of Mickey. "I want to hear what she thinks about biodegradable starch coins. I have a theory that on four out of five random topics, your mother will agree with me over you."

Mickey stopped at the passenger door and looked at Austin in open-mouthed surprise. "You're crazy. My mother and I are very close. You've only met her two or three times. I'm not even sure she likes you."

Austin motioned her to pass the crutches to him inside the car, and he carefully deposited them into the back seat. "She likes me," he insisted, straightening up from bending over the headrest. He sat down behind the wheel. "Ready?" He started up the ignition and waited while Mickey settled in. "I've got a dollar that says she'll agree with me on the starch coins."

"Forget the dollar. Control over the music in the warehouse tomorrow says you're wrong." Her eyes were trained steadily ahead of her, and her face wore a smug grin.

He stopped short of putting the car in gear to furrow his brow at her. "All day tomorrow?"

"Let's go, Austin."

The End.