their conversation was probably being recorded, he chose his words carefully so they couldn’t incriminate him. He asked, “Have you taken care of that little detail?”
“Not yet.”
Carlos squirmed under Raoul’s furious stare. Raoul wanted to reach through the glass and wrap his hands around his nephew’s throat. “Get it done.”
“We’re working on it,” Carlos assured him, his pockmarked face growing red.
“Work harder.”
Carlos nodded. His gaze shifted around and he cupped a hand around the receiver. “We’ve got another issue.”
Raoul’s nostrils flared. “What?”
“My—uh, friend says there’s another pigeon in the nest.”
Acid churned in Raoul’s gut. Another witnesss? How could that be? Trinidad had sworn the hotel was secure the night they’d visited Versailles, but apparently Raoul had been mistaken in trusting Trinidad. The man better come through now or he was dead meat.
“Tri—”
Raoul put his finger to his lips. “No names.”
Carlos grimaced. “Yeah. Uh, we’re out tracking.”
Raoul wanted out of this stink hole so bad he could smell the tantalizing scent of freedom on his nephew. “Happy hunting.”
TWO
Patrick paced the thick brown carpet of his office while the clicking of Anne’s nails on the keyboard drilled into his head. She certainly knew her way around a computer and she seemed much more competent than his original assessment. Even so, it rankled knowing someone else had the power to destroy his work.
He didn’t like uncertainty. He liked being in control. Had grown used to it since the day after his father died.
He’d become the man of the house, the guy his younger siblings turned to for advice or help and whom his mother relied upon to keep their world rotating even if the axis was now a bit skewed.
Patrick worried about his siblings, though Brody, who should be the one most messed up, had found a wonderful wife and now lived a great life. He’d somehow accepted the past and learned to live with the tragedy of their father’s death.
Ryan had been too young to have been traumatized by their father’s murder, but Patrick could see how much not having a father had pushed Ryan into his quest for material wealth. Patrick had a feeling Ryan thought having money would give him what he’d lacked as a child. Patrick wasn’t so sure.
And then there was little Megan. Patrick adored his sister, but she most of all was messed up and not merely from the trauma of losing her dad, but she suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, which was a bad combination with her fiercely independent spirit. As soon as she could, she’d left home to find her own place in the world.
Sometimes Patrick felt lost without his siblings underfoot. But he’d found a way to express his feelings in his work.
What if Anne lost something despite the CD and the little device she called a thumb drive? What if she inadvertently opened one of his files and read his writings? Would she laugh?
He could only pray that…
What a lame sentiment. As if God would listen.
No, Patrick couldn’t rely on God to help, no matter how much his mother or his brother, Brody, tried to convince him otherwise.
So the best he could do was monitor computer-wizard Anne’s progress.
A knock interrupted his thoughts. He opened the office door to a young Asian man, slim in build with dark, penetrating eyes that made Patrick think of onyx stones.
“Professor McClain?”
“Yes. Can I help you?”
The young man stuck out his hand. “My name is Cam. I’m transferring from MIT. I’ll be taking your class, Macro Economics of the Irish, this summer.” For a man with a slight frame, he had a strong grip.
“Wonderful.” Why was he here now? Students didn’t normally come knocking. Obviously this was an overeager overachiever. Not many of them around anymore. Too many students seemed jaded and uninterested in more than how to make a quick buck. “Do you have the list of required textbooks?”
“Yep. I’m all set. Just putting a face to the name on the syllabus,” Cam stated with a pleasant smile. “I—”
“Oh, bummer!” Anne’s voice interrupted.
Patrick glanced at Anne. She was shaking her head, her gaze fixated on the new computer screen. “Problem?” he asked.
She nodded but didn’t look toward the door.
Wanting to end the interruption, he turned back to Cam and asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?”
Cam shook his head, his gaze riveted on Anne. “No, thank you.”
“Okay, then.” Patrick stepped into the man’s line of vision.
Those obsidian eyes shifted to meet his gaze. “I’ll see you in class, Professor.”
As Patrick shut the door behind his new student, a chill skated across his flesh. There was something odd about Cam, something in the way the black of his eyes seemed depthless. Overeager, overachiever and off balance? He’d have to watch the guy. Patrick didn’t want a Virginia Tech tragedy happening at Boston College.
Shaking off the strange notion as nothing more than his worry over his work, he turned his attention to Anne. Her bright red, spiked hair didn’t look nearly as stiff tonight, as if she’d run her fingers through the points, loosening their rigidness.
Her high forehead creased with concentration and her lips moved without audible sound. The jacket of her ill-fitting brown suit hung off her shoulders, making her look slightly stooped.
“Why the bummer?” he asked as he came to stand at her side.
She sighed as she sat back. Her right hand reached up to massage her neck. “I zipped your files together and changed them to RTF. I just ran a program to import them to the new system and the computer didn’t like it.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” Patrick tried to keep a quiver of panic from seeping into his tone. If he lost his work now, he’d have a hard time retrieving it.
“It’s not,” she replied.
Heart beating in his throat, he asked, “Have I lost anything?”
“No.”
Breathing more normally now, he relaxed slightly. “What exactly is wrong and how do we fix it?”
She turned her purple gaze on him. “Your old computer software program is not talking nicely to the new software program. During the transfer, the formatting was lost. I can go in manually
