Lewis had a soft heart and an open wallet and never heard of the concept of saying no to anyone. No wonder no one around here understands that the wallet left with him and that there isn’t any more money being passed out.”
“Are you okay, Zane?”
He motioned at the work he needed to do. “I would be, if I could get some uninterrupted time to get this done.”
“I wasn’t talking about this business,” Matt said. “I was talking about Suzanne’s death.”
There was no obvious reproach in his tone, but Zane felt it nonetheless. “It was a shock, but it’s the past—at least, it was until Stiller showed up.” He sat back in his chair. “I appreciate your taking care of the paperwork for me.”
“What about the arrangements for the kid?” Before Zane could say anything, Matt held up both hands, palms out. “No, I do not do that. Corporate things? I’m your man. Finding a nanny? No way.”
“Then, who?”
Matt snapped his fingers. “I know. Rita. She’s got kids. She knows about those things. She’ll do it.”
Matt’s personal secretary was working overtime as it was, with all the work involved in the LynTech restructuring. “Will she have time for it?”
“She’s such an efficient secretary that she’s ahead of me half the time. No problem.” He smiled, a lopsided expression. “Who would have thought being your business partner, president and co-C.E.O. would get me involved in a nanny search?”
“Certainly not me,” Zane muttered, and looked down at the papers on his desk and spotted that annoying yellow page again. He reached for it. “One last favor before you go and talk to Stiller? Could you give this to Marlene on the way out and ask her to make sure this gets sent to Atherton at the day care center?”
Matt took it and frowned as he glanced at the paper. “For Pete’s sake. What is this, your third denial for funding?”
“Number three. This Atherton person who keeps sending them up—won’t take no for an answer. Obviously a proponent of the old ‘squeaky wheel gets the grease’ theory. But there isn’t any grease. And there won’t be. Maybe he’ll take the third strike and realize he’s out of luck.”
“Let’s hope so,” Matt said as he turned and headed for the door.
“Let me know what Rita finds,” Zane called after him.
“Sure, no problem,” Matt said over his shoulder, and then he was gone.
Zane sat back in the chair and refocused on the work in front of him—work that had been put there just before Mr. Stiller had shown up.
Since he’d taken over LynTech from the founder of the corporation, he’d all but lived at the office. LynTech, the core company in a conglomerate that did everything in computer technology from production to service to communications, was going to become lean and mean. Then Zane could break up the network and sell off the pieces for more than the total value of the whole. It was something he’d been doing for years with companies in trouble. He knew that LynTech was a gold mine, but it was going to take a hell of a lot of digging to get to the gold.
He started sorting through the financial reports, scanning the figures. Then he took out his gold pen and began to cross out figures, recalculating. In a few moments everything about children was forgotten.
Monday night
WHEN THE DREAM came to her, Lindsey Atherton had the clear thought that for as long as she could remember, the only constant in her life had been that dream. It had first started when she was too young to be able to tell anyone, and had stayed with her. At twenty-seven, she still had it. She’d never understood it, and she’d never figured out how to stop it.
When she was little, it had always started with her in complete darkness, nothing around her as she floated alone. No sounds, no contact with anything or anyone, and no sensations except total and complete safety.
She’d felt safe at first, snuggled into the blackness, embraced by the shadows. A tiny place that was all hers. A welcome place—until the sounds started. The faint jiggling of a doorknob, the click of a lock, then the creak of hinges. It was then that everything changed. Lights exploded around her and robbed her of the safety she craved.
When she was little, she was certain it was the boogeyman who had found her in her safe place—that he’d come to get her. But as she got older, the dream changed. There was no boogeyman. And the darkness didn’t mean safety anymore. It meant she was cut off, isolated. And the noises outside were those of a person. Someone about to rescue her.
She never knew who it was. She just knew that whoever was there had found her, and she was going to be okay. But that never happened. There was hope when the sounds came, when the creaking of hinges echoed through her. Then the light.
But there was no one there.
When the dream came that night, it was the same, except that when the light came, she had a flashing vision of someone—a shadow backed by the brilliance. She reached out, but there was nothing. She was wakened suddenly, cut off again, isolated. And it hurt. It was a dream, but she woke breathing hard, thinking that if she had just been able to keep the dream going, she would have seen who was there.
But she couldn’t. She woke suddenly, violently, and she bolted upright in bed, the sounds of her gasping breaths echoing in the high-ceilinged bedroom area of her loft. Moonlight filtered in through the high, transit windows, and she could make out the dark outlines of the furniture. There was the opening in the partial walls that led out to the living area. She was alone.
She scrambled out of bed, padded barefoot across the floor to the bathroom, and fumbled for the light switch by the door. The illumination from an old-fashioned tulip fixture over a pedestal sink and mirror made her blink at first. It exposed the claw-footed tub, the old-fashioned shower stall and the tank-topped toilet. And it exposed her.
She saw herself in the mirror, and gripped the sides of the sink. Her cap of blond hair was mussed around a decidedly pale face. The only color she had was from her eyes, a deep amber hue with smudges under them. Quickly, she turned on cold water, splashed her face with it, and was unnerved that her hands were shaking.
This was stupid. She had that dream so often, it was in some ways like an old friend to her. But she never got used to the end. And now that was changing. She was certain she’d caught a glimpse of someone. She shook her head, then grabbed a white towel and pressed it to her face.
She wasn’t six years old anymore, locking herself in a closet because that was the only place she felt safe. And she wasn’t a teenager anymore, dreaming of a knight in shining armor rescuing her and whisking her away with him. She was an adult who was making her own life, doing her own rescuing by working hard, getting an education and trying to make a difference in the world.
She’d fought so long to find the stability she now had. She had a good life. She loved her job, and being alone was okay. It was fine. It was what she wanted. She tossed the towel to one side and went back into the bedroom area of the loft, but instead of going back to bed, she crossed to an old-fashioned desk by the far windows. She snapped on the lamp on the scarred wooden surface, sank down in the padded office chair and raked both hands through her short hair.
She wasn’t going to sleep again tonight, so she’d get
