to wake up. When she was about to pop the disk into the floppy drive
she jolted upright, her eyes transfixed by what was on the screen. The
available memory figure had just come up. Something wasn’t right. She
hit several keys on the keyboard. The available hard disk memory again
came across the screen and then held.
Sidney read the figures slowly: 1,356,600 kilobytes, or about 1.3 gigs,
of hard drive were available. She stared hard at the last three digits.
She thought back to the last time she had sat in front of the computer.
The last three digits of the available memory had been Jason’s
birthday–seven, zero, six, a fact that had caused her to cry.
To break down once again. She had prepared herself for that again, but
there was less memory available now. But how could that be?
She hadn’t touched the computer since…
Oh, Christ/
A knot erupted in her stomach as she jumped up from the chair, grabbed
the pistol and put the disk back in her jacket pocket. She almost felt
like putting a round right into the damned computer screen. Sawyer had
been right and wrong. Right that someone had been in her house while
she was in New Orleans. Wrong that they had come to take something.
They had left something instead.
Something that resided on her husband’s computer. Something that she
was running from now as quickly as she could.
It took her ten minutes to return to McDonald’s and get back on the pay
phone. Her secretary’s tone was strained.
“Hello, Ms. Archer.”
Ms. Archer? Her secretary had been with her almost six years and
hadn’t called her Ms. Archer after the second day. Sidney ignored it
for the moment. “Sarah, is Jeff in today?” Jeff Fisher was Tyler,
Stone’s resident computer guru.
‘Tm not sure. Would you like me to transfer you to his assistant, Ms.
Archer?”
Sidney finally blurted out, “Sarah, what the hell is it with the Ms.
Archer label?”
Sarah didn’t immediately answer, but then she started to whisper
furiously into the phone. “Sid, that story in the paper is all over the
firm. They’ve faxed it to every office. The Triton people are
threatening to pull the entire account from the firm. Mr. Wharton is
furious. And it’s no secret that all the higher-ups are blaming you.”
‘Tm as much in the dark as everyone else.”
“Well, that story made it seem… you know.”
Sidney sighed heavily. “You want to transfer me to Henry? I’ll
straighten this whole thing out.”
Sarah’s response rocked her boss. “The management committee held a
meeting this morning. They teleconferenced in the partners from the
other offices. Rumor has it that they’re putting together a letter to
send to you.”
“A letter? What kind of letter?” The astonishment was rapidly growing
on Sidney’s face.
In the background, Sidney could hear people passing by Sarah’s cubicle.
After the noise drifted away, Sarah spoke, her voice even lower. “I…
I don’t know how to tell you this, but I heard it was a letter of
termination.”
“Termination?” Sidney put one hand up against the wall to steady
herself. “I haven’t even been accused of anything and they’ve already
tried and convicted me and now they’re sentencing me? All because of
that one story?”
“I think everyone here is worried about the firm surviving. Most people
are pointing their finger at you.” Sarah added quickly, “And your
husband. To find out Jason’s still alive… People feel betrayed, they
really do.”
Sidney drew a large breath and her shoulders slumped down. A complete
weariness dragged at her.
“My God, Sarah, how do you think I felt?” Sarah didn’t say anything.
Sidney fingered the disk in her pocket. The pistol made an
uncomfortable lump under her jacket front. She would just have to get
used to that. “Sarah, I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.
All I can tell you is I haven’t done anything wrong and I don’t know
what the hell’s happened to my life. But I don’t have much time.
Could you discreetly find out if Jeff’s in? Please, Sarah.”
Sarah paused and then said, “Hold on, Sid.”