Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Again I ask, why are you here?” Aaron snapped.
“I want to know what Sam came to see you about and what was said.”
Several moments passed.
“He’s talking to you,” Duncan apprised him.
Aaron sat up and looked at me like a deer caught in the headlights. “Sam came to see me? I have no memory of that.”
“You must,” I insisted.
He was quiet, thinking. “Was this, like, a week ago?”
“I have no idea.”
He was squinting. “I mean, he came to the office and we chatted, but it was brief.”
“Well, it must have been important, because he’s upset about something.”
His brows furrowed in concentration, and then he came up with, “We talked about Owen.”
“Who?”
Aaron explained that Sam had come asking about Owen Moss, who had worked briefly for Aaron as a contractor the previous year.
“Sam had some concerns with Owen’s security while he was in Bangkok, and I explained that while I couldn’t comment on that, I could assure him that Sutter—not me but the company itself—was in no way at fault.”
“At fault for what? What happened exactly?”
“I can’t say.”
“Yes, you can,” Duncan countered. “Anyone can find that part out. It’s a matter of public record. What you can’t comment on was what was done afterward.”
“Oh, okay,” Aaron said, turning to me. “Owen was kidnapped.”
A picture was beginning to form. “So this Owen––” Where did I know that name? One didn’t meet a lot of people named Owen. “––he was kidnapped on your watch and Sam is worried about it?”
“He wasn’t kidnapped on my watch,” he groused at me. “It was a whole other thing, and yes. Now I’m remembering that Sam was annoyed with me. Even more so because I couldn’t say any more than what he already knew, which was that yes, he was taken. I think he feels like I let him down, but I can’t comment, and he should understand how that goes. He keeps more secrets than I do with his job.”
That was true.
“It’ll work itself out,” Duncan placated me.
But it wouldn’t, not if Sam was upset enough to revoke family status from Aaron.
“What time do you want us for the party on Memorial Day?” Aaron asked me. “And what should we bring?”
I said what I always said. “Dessert. And not something too foofy.”
“What?” Aaron was belligerent, but his voice went up high, which sent some kind of horrific pain through his skull, and he groaned and put his face back down on the cool marble of the island. “Owww. I need more Tylenol.”
“I’ll make a surefire hangover fixer,” Duncan announced, getting off the barstool and walking around the end of the island to the cupboards.
“I will get you a B12 shot,” Mrs. Kappel said as she walked through, needing something from our side of the kitchen.
As I was riding down the elevator, it hit me. I knew Owen Moss from when my company had done work for Torus Intercession a couple years ago. We had done some branding and designed print materials for them. They didn’t need help with their website because Mr. Moss took care of that.
Calling immediately, it was picked up on the third ring.
“Thank you for calling Torus Intercession where we help the helpless,” what sounded like a young woman greeted me.
“That’s not what we—oh dear God,” a man griped. “Hello, you reached Torus Intercession. How may I help you?”
“Hello. May I speak with Owen Moss, please.”
“Owen’s not in yet. Can I have him give you a call?”
“I’m actually in the area. Will he be in soon?”
“Yeah, he should—can I ask who this is?”
“Oh yes, this is Jory Harcourt. My company did some work for Torus a while back, and at the moment I need to speak to Mr. Moss about another matter.”
“Right, right. You’re the folks that made the fancy O in Torus.”
I wasn’t going to explain to him that the “fancy O” was, in fact, a torus. In geometry, it was defined as “a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space one full revolution about an axis that is coplanar with the circle.” Basically, a circle. This man thought it was a designer O, which was fine. “Yes,” I said simply.
“Could you be here by eight thirty?”
“Absolutely.”
It was funny, because their office was on the third floor of the Scoville Square building in Oak Park. So I’d left home, driven to Streeterville, and was now basically back where I started.
When I reached the office, stepping inside, I was met by a young woman who looked like she was about the same age as my daughter.
“Hello,” she greeted me. “I’m Delly. Welcome to Torus Intercession.”
“Thank you,” I told her.
“You have a lovely aura,” she told me. “Green is a great color.”
“Oh, thank you,” I replied graciously.
There was a growl, and an enormous man with thick red hair that was short on the sides and in back and long on top, with a beard and mustache, walked up beside her. “What’d we say about that?” he said like he was in physical pain.