“Yeah, baby,” Shayna crowed. “We’re talking the lead-off story.”
She gave Lesley a high-five.
“Arthur said he would probably lead with it,” Lesley said with a huge smile.
“Even better than that,” Shayna said, “I had a good look around at the other tables while our story was on.”
“And?”
“Not one person left to go to the bathroom,” Shayna said.
Lesley laughed. “Meaning someone actually watched for a change.”
“Damn straight.”
Lesley turned excitedly to Rob. “What did you think?”
“It was … great.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“Of course I did. I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“We got an exclusive on this. You know how many brownie points that means in our business?”
It means you’re the only reporter Stan lied to, Rob thought.
“That’s great,” he said.
“So how about your day?” Lesley asked. “Is your computer fixed?”
He hesitated. “I’m not really supposed to say anything.”
“Oh, come on. If Uncle Stan can talk to me about it, there’s no reason you can’t.”
Rob considered telling her the truth, but quickly changed his mind. He didn’t want to throw cold water on her excitement. Besides, telling her the problems were more than technical would put her in a difficult position — if she kept her mouth shut, then she would knowingly let her station report false news. On the other hand, if she told her boss the truth, then she would look bad, and so would Stan and the bank. And Rob didn’t even want to think about what Stan would do if he found out Rob had told her.
“No, really,” he said, “I can’t.”
Tim sat on one end of the couch in his girlfriend’s apartment. He took a pull from his Budweiser and thumbed the remote, switching the channel back to Lesley’s station. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly time for the six o’clock news.
Kirsten came in from the kitchen with a beer for herself and plopped down on the couch next to him.
“So what’s with all the excitement at your bank today?” she asked.
“I’m not really supposed to talk about it.”
Kirsten shrugged. “I know it has something to do with your computers, so I probably wouldn’t understand the details anyway. I just heard you have plenty of pissed off customers.”
He looked at his watch. It was time.
“Shh,” he said without taking his eyes from the screen. He shifted forward, not wanting to miss a single word of the broadcast.
“We begin tonight with local news,” the anchor said. “Customers of the First Malden Bank received a rude shock today when they found money apparently missing from their accounts.”
Tim barely breathed as first the bank customers and then Dysart recounted their version of events. After the wrap-up Tim slumped back into the couch and fought the urge to scream with exultation. It had worked. Everything was unfolding just as he had predicted, right down to Dysart’s public denials and Lesley’s news scoop. His insides felt like someone was stirring them with a jittery stick.
“Why did you want to hear that so bad?” Kirsten asked. “I thought you knew all about it.”
Tim tried to shrug nonchalantly. “I just wanted to see what other people were saying, that’s all.”
“Are you afraid the bank will go under or something and you’ll lose your job?”
Tim pointed the remote and clicked off the wide-screen TV.
“Not really,” he said.
“Or is it because Lesley was on?”
Tim looked around to see Kirsten glaring at him.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Do you think I’m stupid or something?”
Tim blinked. Where did that come from?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Are you kidding me? Whenever we’re out somewhere and she shows up, you can’t keep your eyes off her.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
Did he really do that? He thought he’d been so subtle. Women never ceased to amaze him. They routinely picked up on things no man in history ever noticed. Tim closed his eyes and kneaded his forehead with his fingertips. The adrenaline buzz in his brain made it hard to concentrate, not to mention the lack of sleep.
“I bet that’s why you wanted to watch the news,” she said. “Your precious Lesley was on.”
Tim felt a stab of guilt. He really liked Kirsten, but he had to admit she had a point. For years keeping a girlfriend on his arm had been the price he paid for being a part of Lesley’s social life without seeming like a third wheel.
He looked up at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was kind of rude, wasn’t I?”
“You mean tonight, or all those other times?”
“Both, I guess.”
Kirsten’s face softened a bit. She bit her lower lip and looked away.
“So it is true?” she said after a moment. “Would you rather be with her?”
Tim sighed. “This has been bothering you for a while, hasn’t it?”
Kirsten nodded.
Tim shook his head and looked down. His hands were absent-mindedly turning the beer bottle around and around. He had always known that breaking up with Kirsten was inevitable, and after today it had to be done sooner rather than later. Still, he never found this sort of thing easy.
“Do you remember the first night we went out?” he said, offering her a wry smile.
This got her looking at him again.
“Sure,” she said. “You invited me to a party.”
“And Rob looked so surprised when I showed up with his ex-girlfriend.”
Kirsten raised one skeptical eyebrow.
“He seemed to get over it quickly enough.”
Tim chuckled. “I suppose.”
They lapsed into silence again. Tim picked at the label on the bottle. Finally he asked, “Did you see me doing it that night?”
“You mean staring at Lesley?”
“Uh huh.”
Kirsten nodded.
“Yeah,” she said, “right from the start.”
The guilty feeling washed over Tim again. Kirsten was caring and fun, and with her perky little body she was cute as hell. In the end, though, his relationship with Kirsten had always been doomed for the same reason as all his other girlfriends.
She wasn’t Lesley.
The wall clock said nine minutes after five when Paul Dees pushed out through the security door of the computer operations center. He was trying to figure out which emotion was winning the war inside him. Paul figured he was fifty percent exhausted, fifty percent satisfied … and ninety-eight percent pissed off.
The satisfaction came from working with the team to re-install the AMS executable in record time. The software seemed to be working perfectly. As for the fury that had been building in him all day, Paul could count the reasons for that on one finger; he wanted to get his hands on the prick who caused this whole mess. Paul wanted to wring his neck. It galled him that some jerk would be selfish and stupid enough to pull a stunt like this. Whatever satisfaction they were getting from it, how could that possibly justify all the problems it was causing for so many people? And then there was the financial hit the bank was sure to take.
Paul had to admit, though, that the real reason he was taking this so personally was because AMS was his responsibility. It was driving him crazy that someone had managed to sneak this kind of surprise past him. Paul felt like he had failed and now the only way out was to identify that someone and get the keyword so they could fix the remaining accounts.
Kelleher was talking about the two of them getting a few hours sleep and then coming back in to search the desks and hard drives of all AMS team members. This was a crazy long shot in Paul’s opinion. Who would be stupid enough to leave evidence lying around where untrained investigators could find it? No way should the bank’s reputation depend on a search like that. Paul figured the surest way out of this mess was to trace those emails, and that would take someone with more clout than he had. That would mean leaking the truth to the public, which would then clear the way to bring in the FBI.