Dagmar decided she was getting paranoid.
None too soon, whispered an internal voice.
But if she didn’t have some way to get ahold of Manjari, Dagmar wouldn’t have a chance to say anything. And Siyed’s file was not very forthcoming where his London family was concerned.
The file had Siyed’s email address. His cell phone number. The different number that he’d been assigned when he was in the States and given one of Great Big Idea’s cell phones. His street address in London. And the name and phone number of his London agent. But Dagmar didn’t want to talk to Siyed or his agent; she wanted to talk to Manjari, and the file didn’t offer Siyed’s home phone number, where Manjari might reasonably be expected to pick up.
Dagmar cursed under her breath and then remembered that she lived in the twenty-first century. Within seconds, her computer displayed a London telephone directory, with the Prasads’ phone number.
She looked at the number, took a swig of coffee, and wished the coffee was something stronger.
Call now, she thought. Before you lose your nerve.
She reached for her handheld; then-hearing voices in the hall outside-she closed her office door and locked it.
Dagmar returned to her office chair, began to punch in Manjari’s number, then stopped to wonder just what the hell she was going to say.
She had no damn idea.
Dagmar erased the number from the display, stared at the phone’s screen for a moment, then reached for a pen and paper and began to jot down talking points. She was happiest when following a script, preferably of her own devising.
Not my fault! she wrote, and underlined the words. Which was stretching the truth a bit, but Dagmar felt it was a positive start.
She stared at the paper for a long moment, then underlined Not my fault! a second time.
A few minutes later, the list read as follows.
I’m not involved with S.
S. has invented this fantasy about me
Please call S. and tell him to come home
Not my fault!
She looked at the list for a moment, then decided the four points pretty much covered everything she intended to say. She punched in Manjari’s number, then hit Send.
Her heart rapped a quick rhythm as she raised the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
The voice seemed strangely normal. Dagmar had expected an angry voice, or a tearful voice, or a snappish voice. Anything but this sunny-afternoon-in-London voice.
“Is this Manjari?” Dagmar asked.
“Yes. Who is this?”
Dagmar cast a desperate look at her list and spoke. “This is Dagmar.”
There was a moment’s pause, one that lasted a beat longer than the satellite lag, and then: “I’m sorry?”
“Dagmar Sh-shaw,” she said, annoyed at her sudden nervous stammer. “From Los Angeles.”
“Oh,” Manjari said. “Dagmar, of course.”
Of course, Dagmar thought in fury. The woman who slept with your husband.
There was an expectant pause. Dagmar gave another glance at her list and spoke.
“I wanted to say,” she said, “that whatever Siyed told you about me, it isn’t true.”
Dagmar’s heart beat four times in the ensuing pause.
“I’m sorry. What did he say, exactly?”
The tone of Manjari’s reply, the genuine puzzlement, clued Dagmar to the actual situation. Which was that Siyed-already a proven liar-had lied again.
He hadn’t told Manjari he was involved with Dagmar. He hadn’t told his wife that he was leaving her. He had just told Dagmar that as a ploy to win her over.
It was Dagmar, just now, who had told Manjari that something was badly wrong.
Dagmar’s mind thrashed for an escape route.
“All right,” she said quickly. “Obviously we’ve had a miscommunication.”
“Yes?” Manjari said. “Are you in London?”
“No,” Dagmar said. “I’m in L.A. But I need to tell you…” Her mind spun like a broken clutch. “I think Siyed is having some kind of breakdown out here. I think it’s…” Imagination failed her. “It’s just Hollywood,” she finished lamely. “It happens.”
“Is he in hospital?” Manjari asked. For the first time there was urgency in her voice.
“No. But he turned up last night, and he said some things-he was irrational.”
“What sort of things did he say?”
“I… I don’t remember, really. It doesn’t matter.” She tried to put as much kindness into her words as possible. “You should call Siyed and tell him to come home. All right?”
“Tell him to come home,” Manjari repeated.
“Yes,” Dagmar said, and then a piece of maliciousness entered her mind.
“Tell him that I told you to call,” she said.
“I…” Manjari seemed bewildered. “I’ll call him.”
Dagmar reached for the piece of paper with her talking points, crumpled it, and tossed it in the wastebasket.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I think it’s best.”
Dagmar unlocked her office door and propped it open. The suspense and panic and determination that had filled her during the phone call had drained away, and she felt strangely hollow.
She thought about Siyed flying away on a big silver plane. Crossing paths with Charlie, flying in.
Charlie. How could she tell Charlie that she knew what he was up to?
Members of the Great Big Idea technical staff passed by, ready for the game update. Soon-four o’clock in London-players would be assembling beneath the shadow of the old Gothic pile of Lincoln’s Inn. Streaming video, taken by a freelance crew frequently employed by Great Big Idea, already showed several dozen people gathered in an expectant crowd. Each held a silver DVD in a transparent jewel case, a sign that they were part of the game.
The barristers of Lincoln’s Inn, who might normally resent a crowd on their doorstep, were presumably spending their Saturday afternoon at home.
Dagmar moved into the big conference room for the update and found it full of laptops and cables. Siyed’s flowers drooped and sagged everywhere. Her mantra glowed on one wall monitor.
Read the Schedule
Know the Schedule
Love the Schedule
BJ wandered in, holding a twenty-four-ounce foam cup of coffee, and hugged Dagmar hello. Dagmar realized that BJ had shaved off his muttonchops, leaving only the modest mustache he’d worn as long as she’d known him. The change, she thought, made him look younger.
“Congratulate me,” he said. “I think I’ve got a new job.”
Dagmar looked at him in surprise. Hesitation tripped her tongue before she could offer congratulations.
“Don’t worry,” he said, anticipating her. “I won’t start the new job till we finish Briana Hall.”
Dagmar brightened. “Good news, then,” she said. “Where will you be working?”
BJ grinned, then hesitated. “I don’t think I should actually say.”
“Can you tell me,” Dagmar asked, “if it’s a crap job or a shit job?”
BJ laughed. “Neither. It’s a real job. A total, stone opportunity.”
“Well.” Dagmar reached up a hand and touched his newly shaven cheek. “I’m guessing that whoever they are, they have a hair policy.”
He laughed again.
“No,” he said. “I just figured I should try to blend in with the other tycoons.”
She looked at him. “Tycoons, huh?”
He gave a lazy shrug.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Yeah.”
“All right,” she said. “Be mysterious if you want to.”
Dagmar and the others watched the live feed. At four o’clock London time, a car drew up to Lincoln’s Inn, and Anne stepped out, followed by jerking camera crews. Anne was a sweet-voiced, petite English Rose who headed Great Big Idea’s small office in London and from there ran all European live events.
To anyone who flashed her a DVD, Anne handed a sheet of xeroxed paper containing clues. The first of these, when properly decoded, sent players southwest across the pleasant green of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where they would encounter a man with a sign that said “Free Time Travel.”