the cheek. When she looked up at him in astonishment, he further confounded her by laughing and dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose.
“Climb in, honey. It’s cold out here.” Still smiling, he urged her into the car.
Honey? Surely he couldn’t be one of those awful men who called every woman honey. Awful as that thought was, she was even more astounded to realize that some fugitive part of her wished he really meant it. She couldn’t help thinking that it must be really nice to have someone in your life who called you “honey” and surprised you with kisses.
But a very long time ago Jessica had decided it was wisest to avoid men. The boys in high school had scorned her because she was too poor, too plump, too smart and wore glasses. She was one of the very few girls who didn’t go to her senior prom.
Things like that had hurt, of course, but nothing had prepared her for the anguish she discovered in college. Prince Charming had arrived in her freshman year in the guise of a premed student. To this day Jessica considered herself fortunate to have discovered that he was more interested in having her do his programming assignments than he was in her love, and that wooing her had been just a way of buying her brains.
And to this day she could still writhe with embarrassment when she recalled her own eager stupidity and readiness to believe in magic. Lord, the whole world had turned bright and shining for her in those two short months. She had believed the sun rose and set on Chuck Meyers, had done any and everything he had asked her to, and all because he took her out to a couple of movies and spent his evenings in her dorm room. Making her believe he liked being with her. Teasing her with little kisses and then laughing at her blushes.
Fool that she was, she had thought he was laughing because he thought she was cute. And then he would hand her his math book or his computer science assignments and say, “Hey, Jess, I don’t exactly understand this. Help me, huh?” And she would do his whole damn assignment because he gave her those little kisses and made her feel like a million dollars.
Stupid, stupid sixteen-year-old Jessica. How crushed she had been the day after she finished his final program, the one that had guaranteed him an A for the course. How stupid and crushed and humiliated when she learned that Chuck thought they’d had a fair trade. “You had your fantasy, and I got my A,” he had said bluntly. “What’s the big deal, Jess? It isn’t like I even slept with you.” He hadn’t even had the moral decency to understand what the big deal was. She’d been a fool, all right, and she had plumbed the true meaning of despair. She’d also learned what it meant to be used, and while she might risk the heartbreak, she would never again risk the humiliation and the sense of worthlessness that went with knowing you had been taken advantage of.
Sitting next to Arlen as he pulled out of the MTI parking lot, Jessica realized she wasn’t as immune as she’d believed these past years. For the first time in a very long time she found herself acutely, femininely aware of a man. She found herself noticing the way his thigh muscles flexed as he drove. The easy competence with which his large, lean hands held the wheel. The faint shadow of the morning’s beard growth on his cheeks and chin. The muted scent of a man, just barely noticeable in the closed confines of the car. The things that make men different, and that make them attractive to women.
And she found herself wondering what it would be like to lean over and rest her cheek against the wool that covered his shoulder. What would it be like to have his arm close around her shoulders and hold her? Just hold her. Dear heaven, was it possible to ache just to be held? Startled by a need she had never recognized before, she simply stared at him.
Arlen glanced her way as he eased into the heavy noon-hour traffic and caught her staring at him. Before Jessica’s blush became visible, he’d once again fixed his eyes on the road.
“I guess I owe you a whole pack of apologies, Jessica,” he said. “You probably think I’ve gone off the deep end. But the simple fact is, if somebody notices us together, whether it’s someone who recognizes me or someone who recognizes you, I’ll be a whole lot more comfortable if they assume we have some kind of personal relationship.”
“Why?” And then it dawned on her. Her scalp prickled as she realized that Arlen actually thought someone might be watching her.
“After your report to security yesterday,” he continued, “somebody might be interested in your actions for the next couple of days. It’s better all around if they don’t get wind that you’ve talked to the FBI.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t let me talk on the phone this morning?”
He nodded and glanced at her. “You never know who might be listening. It’s just a precaution. Why did you call?”
“Because you were right. The missing document was back in my safe this morning, tucked at the bottom of the drawer as if it had slipped down. I wanted to ask you how to handle it, because it occurred to me there might be fingerprints on it.”
Arlen steered the car into the parking lot of a popular restaurant. Only when he’d pulled into a slot and switched off the ignition did he speak. Turning a little on the seat, he faced her.
“Well, now,” he said, “that’s a good question. I sure as hell can’t come up there to lift the prints, and you sure as hell can’t bring the document out to me.”
“Are you so sure security wouldn’t be helpful if you talked to them?” Jessica asked. It bothered her that he seemed so determined to circumvent the company’s security.
“I’m sure they’d be real helpful. The problem is, I can’t be sure one of them isn’t involved. When somebody is able to access classified stuff, you have to suspect everybody who can get the necessary combinations. That means your facility security officer and all his people.”
Jessica nodded slowly and looked out at the drizzly day. A soft, small sigh escaped her. “Bob Harrow—he’s my project chief—mentioned this morning that my document isn’t the first one to turn up missing temporarily.”
Beside her, Arlen stiffened. “Really.”
Jessica looked at him. “It shook me. And he mentioned it so casually! Like it’s just the dumb kind of thing you expect a programmer to do—mislay classified documents overnight. I mean, I couldn’t believe it, but I could see Bob’s point, too. They always turn up, there’s always an explanation for how they got to be where they are, and besides, there’s a digital combination lock on the door to the whole section, so the documents are as good as locked in a safe even when they’re left on a desk.”
She looked down at her hands. “Except, of course, that the cleaning people come in during the night, and they shouldn’t be able to get their hands on the material. And security comes through at five for the burn bags, and while they’re cleared to take out the classified trash, they have no need to see anything else. And that’s the whole basis of the protection program, isn’t it? That clearance alone isn’t enough to gain access. A person has to have a verified need to know, as well.”
“You have a better understanding of security than most people,” Arlen remarked. “Most people don’t begin to understand the concept of ‘need to know.’”
“Well, it makes sense to me,” Jessica said. “And I’ll tell you what’s really got me so upset this morning. Someone was in my safe again last night. I don’t know how to change the combination, and I don’t know how I can convince security to change it. So all that information is essentially unprotected. Mine and probably everybody else’s. There’s got to be some way to put a stop to this, Arlen!”
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