A/N: And so we get back to the regular posting schedule for the updates. Things are going to be picking up speed from this chapter on and the heavy action won't be long in coming.
One more time, thank you all for your reviews, comments and suggestions. They are helping me improve my writing immeasurably.
Alex was sitting at her desk typing up her case notes when a hand dangled a piece of paper in front of her. She reached for it but the hand and the paper swiftly moved out of reach. She finally fixed her blue eyes on her ruggedly handsome partner. "Is it what I think it is?" She couldn't keep the hope out of her voice.
"Yes," he agreed. "This, my dear partner, is another job well done." He handed the check over to her. "We also got a bonus."
She whistled at the amount written on it. "How did it work out?"
"Mr. McDonald's suspicions turned out to be justified. Lucky for him, it crossed his mind that it might be a con job, even though it all appeared legit at first glance, and came to us. He's turning the evidence I gave him over to the SEC as we speak."
Alex frowned. "How did you manage to do it so fast? Usually white collar crimes like that take a while to unravel."
"This is where dumb luck came in," he admitted. "I literally ran into a guy, Jack his name was, outside the Grand Ambassador. As we gathered our stuff from the ground, he happened to see my notes and he offered to give me a few pointers."
"Sounds like this Jack is either a corporate accountant or a corporate lawyer," mused Alex.
"He said he is mostly into commercial real estate now, but he knew his stuff. All it cost me was an hour and some coffee."
"He gave you case-breaking advice for the price of some coffee?"
"A lot of coffee, actually," laughed Cole. "He said he needed it more than anything. He didn't say why at first, although he definitely looked tired, but then I saw a plushy toy inside his briefcase. He looked a bit old to be a new dad, but he is. He and his wife adopted a little girl recently."
"It was a win-win then. You closed the case and he got the caffeine he needed."
"Most definitely. What were you up to when I interrupted your work?"
"Not much," she replied. "I was typing up my notes on the Amnesia Chick case. We hit another dead end, I'm afraid, so we'll have to try a new avenue of investigation."
"Go on," he encouraged.
"The people at the TV station were quite helpful, more so when I made it clear I'm a PI and not a bounty hunter. They dug into their records and got me the name of the advertising company."
"This is great! All we need to do is contact them and ask for information on Ms. Walker."
"And there lies the problem. The company no longer exists. I'm trying to find out if they were bought out, merged with another company or closed down outright."
"Keep at it," he said encouragingly. "And don't hesitate to tell me if you need any help."
She looked up. "Can you please get me a cup of coffee? It'll be a great help."
"I can do better. Since the McDonald case is closed, and we have nothing pressing to do, I'll help you with the Walker case."
"For now I need coffee, partner."
"Coming right up," he replied cheerfully and went to the coffee machine they had in a corner of their office. He returned with two cups and sat down next to his partner.
-o-
Chuck was happily replying to an email from a company wanting to buy advertising space on one of his sites when his phone chimed. The ringtone indicated that he had a text message from Sarah.
"Hi. You busy?"
"Not really," he texted back. "You?"
The reply wasn't long in coming. "Slow day. Bored out of my mind."
He immediately called her, wanting to hear her voice. "Hey. Is it so bad?"
"Not anymore," she replied. She thought, Was I always so sappy? A call from her boyfriend was enough to make her day. And it felt right to her.
"We're having a slow day over here too. I'm not complaining though, as it means everything is working smoothly."
"Good to know," she said. Before she could say anything else, she spied a group of college-age girls approaching the Double O. "Gotta go, I've got customers coming in. See you tonight?"
"Do you want me to pick you up around five? I have some shopping to do at the mall, so we can kill two birds with one stone."
"Sure. See you then. Have a nice day, Chuck. I love you."
"I love you too," he said and ended the connection.
As Sarah prepared the four girls' orders, she couldn't help but feel very lucky and at the same time a little thoughtful. Her new life was a good one and she was happy. But she also couldn't help but wonder what life she'd been living before her accident. Even though she thought that in all likelihood she didn't have any family, not any she had been close to anyway, not remembering occasionally bothered her. Well, she had hired Cole and Alex for that very purpose: to find out about who Sarah really was. The ding of the bell above the door pulled her from her thoughts and she smiled when she saw Morgan enter. He smiled back at her and moved forward to decide what toppings he wanted on his yogurt this time. As he did, he smiled politely at the girls. One of them, a petite brunette, who was apparently having a hard time deciding, looked familiar. And then it hit him. Since she was out of her work uniform, he'd almost not recognized her.
"Hey Alex," he said.
"Morgan, hi. What are you doing here?"
"I work at the Buy More across the parking lot. You've got the day off from the diner, I gather?"
"Yep," she nodded. "I had a busy day at school though. At long last it's over. Ugh, I can't choose. Do you have a good suggestion for the toppings?"
"Sure I do. I suggest the berry mix, which is to die for, plus white chocolate sauce and maraschino cherries."
The girl – Alex – eyed the mix of mulberries, blueberries and raspberries and then looked back at Morgan. "Isn't it a bit much?"
"No, it's perfect to recharge after a hard day at school. Sarah, put her order on my tab, please."
"You don't have to…" Alex began, but Morgan cut her off.
"I want to. Consider it a bribe of sorts."
"A bribe?" Alex echoed.
"Uh-huh. You see, I went to culinary school and I like to constantly try and improve my cooking. So, if you don't mind, could you ask the chef at the diner what kind of spice mix he uses for the buffalo burger?"
"I'll see what I can do," she replied in all seriousness. Their discussion progressed to light flirting, as Sarah looked on amused while she worked. Morgan appeared to be goofy and immature at times, but she'd realized early on that it was simply a mechanism to deal with the tedium of the day-to-day at the Buy More. She could see he was drawn to the girl and she wasn't exactly averse to his advances either.
-o-
To the casual eye it looked just like another building of the dozens housing a huge assortment of commercial concerns and business entities in the area. The comings and goings of people dressed in outfits ranging from business suits to workers' coveralls to anything in-between seemed to reinforce the notion. The truth was rather different. Although it did house offices, servers, plus research and storage facilities, it was a commercial building in appearance only. The heavy security could be one hint that something was off, but then again various concerns such as high tech companies jealously guarded their secrets.
Two men were in one room overflowing with computer equipment. The older of the two wore a neatly pressed and rather expensive suit. His dark hair was neatly coiffed and his – admittedly very handsome – face cleanly shaved. The younger one was the exact opposite, as evidenced by the scruff on his cheeks and chin, the rumpled t-shirt under the unzipped hoodie, the faded jeans and the well-worn sneakers.
"Can you do it?" Clean Cut asked.
"First of all, dude, do you really know what you're asking?" Sloppy shot back and slurped loudly from his paper cup of soda.
"Are we really going to play this game? I was told you are one of the best."
"Not one of the best, I am THE best. I'm sure our, um, mutual acquaintances have made that fact abundantly clear."
"They spared no praise for your technical prowess, but they somehow missed telling me about your big mouth."
"What can I say? It's all part of my charming personality. Speaking of your buddies, I heard on the grapevine that Scarface escaped from prison the other day."
"This is not of your concern right now. My associates and I have invested a lot of time and effort on this…"
"Shaw, there is really no need to repeat your spiel. Yes, I know everything. Your friend Decker was right in bringing me on board." At Shaw's quickly concealed but still obvious surprise, the young man chuckled. "And even if he hadn't told me anything, I think I'm smart enough to realize what angle you're all trying to work here. Although, seeing as your buddy can't tell a computer from an espresso machine, I sincerely hope you'll be better able to understand the difficulties I'm going to have to overcome before I finally deliver the goods."
"So you *can* do it."
"I never said I couldn't. In order to succeed, though, I'm going to need a lot more."
"Laszlo, we had an agreement," Shaw began, getting angry.
Laszlo cut him off with a wave of the hand. "I'm not talking about money, man. I am going to need a lot of technical stuff."
"Can't you hack into the databases and find what you need?"
"Oh, I can and no one will ever know I was there, but it's going to take a lot of time, especially if I want to cover my tracks good and proper."
Finally relenting, Shaw sat down on the edge of a desk and pulled a notepad and pen out of a pocket. "Tell me what you're going to need."
"I took the liberty of making a list," Laszlo replied and handed over a few sheets of paper covered in his near-indecipherable handwriting. "Smile, Mr. Shaw. You and your associates will be getting the U Project on the platter for your own nefarious purposes."
"You too stand to gain a lot, so don't screw this up, you hear?" Shaw said and stood to leave. "I'll let you know when I have everything you need." He didn't wait for an acknowledgment before going out the door and heading for the nearest elevator. Geeks like Laszlo Manhovski had a way of getting under his skin, but he needed the little turd to make the plan he and his partners in crime had hatched work.
-o-
Manoosh Depak was a young man of Indian descent with a liking for Mexican food, specifically the nacho sampler, an unbridled enthusiasm for shoot 'em up games and a talent for software design. In fact, he'd been a student in MIT but dropped out to work as an independent contractor, a venture he'd had some success in until Stephen Bartowski made him an offer he couldn't refuse and brought him on board as part of Orion Electronics' design staff. He and his boss' son had soon become fast friends, bonding over their mutual love for games, comics and movies. In fact, Chuck frequently borrowed him when he needed an extra hand at Nebula Games.
Right now, he and Chuck were hard at work trying to find out what was wrong with one of the servers, which had started crashing repeatedly earlier that day. Chuck was running diagnostics on the hardware, while Manoosh was looking for any corrupted software. For the moment, their spare server capacity was taking up the slack, but they wanted to get the malfunctioning server up and running as soon as possible.
"Got it!" Chuck exclaimed and motioned for Manoosh to come over and help him pull the heavy cabinet from its position so that they could access its innards.
"What was it?"
"A grounding jumper must have come loose." There had been a minor earthquake early in the morning, which Chuck bet had been the cause of the problem. It hadn't been strong enough to cause even minor damage to the city and its infrastructure, but only annoying hiccups like the one they were trying to fix.
"There!" Manoosh exclaimed excitedly.
"I see it. Let's fix it and reactivate the server before peak traffic time begins."
"The way I see it, it shouldn't take us more than ten minutes to fix it and complete the diagnostics checks, which will leave us with plenty of free time for lunch."
"Okay, I'll bite. What are we going to order?"
"Duh, that's a no-brainer. Which restaurant around here makes a good nacho sampler?"
"When was the last time you had one, dude?"
"Last week," replied Manoosh. "I had family visiting and my mom kind of insisted on handling the cooking and making lunch for me to take to work. Every. Damn. Day. I'm in withdrawal, man. I need a nacho sampler yesterday."
"We are well within the Desperado's delivery radius. I'll give them a call."
"Chuck, you're a lifesaver."
"And don't you forget it, Maneasel! Come on, let's finish this and go to my office."
-o-
Cole and Alex had finally found a new lead on Sarah's case. Right now, they were sitting at a café, interviewing the director of the commercial. They'd still had no luck with what had become of the original advertising agency, so this was the next best thing. If it didn't pan out, they'd agreed to ask around at the Chamber of Commerce.
"Yes, I remember her," he said. "She was a very nice girl. Why are you looking for her, anyway?"
"It's a family matter," Cole replied easily. And it wasn't exactly a lie. Sarah had made it clear that she wanted to know if she had any family.
"I see… What do you want to know about her?"
"Anything useful you can tell us," Alex told him. She held her pen poised above her notebook and looked at the man expectantly.
"Okay, well, her name was Sarah, but you already know that."
Both Cole and Alex nodded.
"I don't remember her last name, but I do recall she must have been a student at Harvard."
"Harvard," repeated Cole. "Are you sure?"
"She came to the rehearsal wearing a Harvard Crimson Jersey," he replied. "Or was it the audition?"
"Harvard it is," said Alex. "Anything else?"
The man furrowed his brow in deep thought for a moment and then his head snapped up. "I can tell you the name of the bank we got paid through, if it's going to help."
The two private investigators were definitely interested. True, banks were reticent about releasing customer information, but they had all the necessary documents, including the notarized authorization Sarah had given them, and given the circumstances they believed they wouldn't face insurmountable problems. Alex jotted down the information, the two of them thanked the man and hurried to go back to the office and make a progress report to their client.
As expected, Sarah was ecstatic at the good news. So ecstatic, in fact, that she felt she had to share it with her boyfriend immediately.
"Hey Sarah," he answered his phone cheerfully.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"No, you're not. I just finished lunch, FYI. You have me all to yourself."
"Good, because I have good news and I couldn't wait to tell you."
"Please tell me your memory came back!"
"Um, no, nothing that dramatic," she said. "Cole Barker just called, however."
"Cole Barker… He's the PI you hired, right?"
"Correct," she confirmed. "He and his partner had no luck with the advertising agency yet, but they found the guy who directed the commercial. He was very helpful, even though he couldn't remember my last name."
"What did he tell them?"
"Everyone involved in the making of the commercial was paid through a bank," she replied. "And if a bank was involved…"
"There is a record of the payments made," he finished the thought for her.
"Bingo! All that needs to be done is go to the bank and make inquiries. They said they'll also double-check with the Chamber of Commerce about the advertising agency."
"Which bank was it? I have a buddy from college who is in the banking business. Maybe he can pull a few strings to speed things along for us."
"Wow. You have a buddy who is a lawyer and another who is a banker; your sister and Devon are doctors… You really have someone you can turn to everywhere, don't you?"
"What can I say? I'm connected," he laughed.
"By the way, Ellie was apparently right on another thing, too. Remember when she said I've probably got college level education?"
"Yes. Go on."
"The director Cole and Alex interviewed said I'd come to the audition or the rehearsal wearing a Harvard jersey."
"So, you went to Harvard?"
"It's a possibility."
"Personally, I think it's a worthwhile lead. Tell you what: after work, drop by the office. We'll check the Harvard Alumni Association website and call them in the morning if necessary."
"I'm game," she said enthusiastically. "By the way, did you feel today's tremor?"
"Me, not so much," he replied. "But one of our servers did. I spent half the morning fixing it. This reminds me, I'll need to check the connections and couplings of the entire server farm here."
"I'll bring you some yogurt when I drop by."
"Hang on a sec." He pulled the phone away from his mouth and covered the mouthpiece with a hand. "Hey Maneasel! I just thought we'll have to check all of the connections to make sure there won't be any more nasty surprises. Would you like some fro-yo when we're done?"
"Sure thing, Chuck," replied Manoosh.
"How do you like it?"
Manoosh gave his order, which Chuck dutifully repeated to Sarah, who in turn made a note on an order slip. "Got it," she said. "I'll drop by a little after five. With any luck, Morgan will be available to give me a ride so I won't have to wait for a bus."
"Okay. See you then." It was only as he was about to hang up when Chuck realized that she hadn't told him the name of the bank. "Sarah, wait," he all but yelled into the phone. "What bank was it?"
Fortunately, she hadn't hung up yet and heard him calling out for her. She quickly told him and they ended the connection after he promised to call his friend immediately. They were both enthusiastic, especially since his buddy was working at that same bank, as it turned out.
"Tell me to start getting ready for your graduation party, bro!" This was the standard greeting his friend gave every time he saw Chuck's number on the caller ID.
"Sorry Bryce, but it's going to have to wait a while longer. I'm calling because I need a favor from you."
"By my count, I already owe you a few favors, so ask away."
"It's about my girlfriend."
"You finally got a girl?" Bryce interrupted enthusiastically. "Way to go, pal!"
"Thank you. She has a rather unique problem to deal with and I thought you might be able to help, since she has at one point had a paycheck of hers handled by your bank."
"Chuck, I think I won't be able to help off the record. And I just can't release information on clients, even to you."
"What if she comes to you in person or sends someone with a notarized authorization to request the information on her behalf?"
"That would work. Listen, I'll be working late today, as I want to take the weekend off to celebrate my anniversary with Jill, so why don't you tell her to drop by?"
"I think I'll come with her. It's been a while since I last saw you in person."
"Don't our gaming sessions online count?" Bryce teased.
"See you around six," Chuck laughed and hung up.