“I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here,” Stark said.
“What on earth was Vernon doing?”
“It looks like he had set himself up in business as a sort of computer mercenary. A hacker who, for a price, would supply whatever the buyer wanted. He conducted business through the anonymous mail server.”
Desdemona's fingers bit into Stark's shoulders. “You mean that he stole software and chips and things like that on demand?”
“Maybe.”
“That line of work must not pay very well, judging by where he was living.”
“Don't bet on it,” Stark said. “Tate may have been stashing away some big bucks somewhere.”
“Well, if he was making good money as a computer mercenary, why on earth did he want the job with me?”
“I'll give you one guess,” Stark said.
“Oh, my God,” Desdemona whispered. “He used me.”
“Looks like it.”
“You must have been one of his targets.” Her voice rose in outrage. “And he used me to get to you.”
“Someone probably hired him to go after ARCANE. With luck, maybe I can dig the messages covering that particular deal out of this file.”
“Why, that slimy little weasel.” Desdemona's eyes narrowed. “I liked him. He was so reliable. He was the only really dependable employee I ever had.”
“Take it easy, Desdemona.”
“You don't understand. I trusted him.”
“So much for the famous Wainwright intuition,” Stark muttered.
“Hah. That goes to show how much you know. I never got any kind of intuitive feelings one way or the other about Vernon. I just sort of liked him. He seemed like such a nice, quiet, inoffensive man.”
“That's what they always say. Maybe next time you'll be a little more cautious about trusting someone just because he shows up for work on time.”
“Oh, please.” Desdemona crossed her arms beneath her breasts and gave him a scathing look. “This is no time for one of your pithy little lectures.”
“Given the fact that I was Tate's intended victim on this occasion, I think I've got a vested interest in hoping that you've learned your lesson.”
Desdemona threw up her hands. “Don't get any more paranoid on me than you already are. You must admit that this was an extremely unique situation.”
Stark shrugged and said nothing. The facts spoke for themselves as far as he was concerned. He was not surprised that Desdemona refused to deal with them in a logical fashion. She was a Wainwright.
Desdemona brightened. “You know what this means, don't you?”
“What?” he asked warily. He knew that look on her face. It made him uneasy.
“It means you accomplished your mission, of course.”
“My mission?”
“The job you were doing for me. Heck, you took it one step farther. You not only turned up another viable suspect besides Tony, you've as good as proved that Vernon was the would-be thief who went after ARCANE the night of your reception.”
Stark could not argue the point. “The questions now are, why was Tate killed and who killed him?”
“What makes you think his murder is connected to his mercenary activities?” Desdemona asked in obvious surprise. “The police are probably right. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He walked into Right Touch the other morning and confronted a burglar. I did the exact same thing.”
“I'm not a great believer in coincidences,” Stark said. “You had an obvious reason to go to work early. But we still don't know why Tate was there.”
“You don't think he simply got the schedule mixed up?” Desdemona's eyes widened. “Wait. My computer.”
Stark shook his head. “Believe me, a guy like Tate would have no interest in your computer or in your business application programs. His own hardware and software were a hell of a lot more sophisticated.”
“That's not what I meant,” Desdemona said quickly. “I forgot to tell you that when I turned on my computer this morning I got a message informing me that a power failure had shut down some work in progress. The message asked if I wanted to recover the lost work. I did.”
“So?”
“So as far as I know, there was no power failure during a work session. Tony called while I was fussing with the lost files. He helped me recover them. He speculated that someone had been fiddling around with my computer and had turned it off without quitting the program properly.”
“Possible.”
“But what if Vernon was the one who had been using my computer, and the burglar interrupted him in the middle of whatever he was doing?” Desdemona's eyes were alight with excitement.
“What time was the work saved?”
She frowned. “I don't know. I didn't make a note of the time.”
Stark looked at her. “What was in the lost files?”
Desdemona bit her lip. “Garbage. Letters and numbers randomly strung together.”
“Did you delete the file?”
Desdemona shook her head. “It's still on my computer.”
“I think,” Stark said as he got to his feet, “that I had better take a look at what you found.”
Desdemona gestured at the screenful of anonymous messages. “What about Vernon's insurance file?”
“It's going to take a lot of time to work through it. I'll deal with it later.” Stark shut down the computer. He realized his shirt was still unbuttoned. Automatically he started to refasten it. “Let's go back to your office. I want to see that garbage in the recovered files. I also want to check the time that it was saved.”
Desdemona regarded him very soberly. “This is getting very messy, isn't it?”
“Yes, it is.” Complex was the correct word, Stark thought. Dangerously so.
Stark managed to find a parking space on a Pioneer Square side street, got out, and followed Desdemona down the alley behind the building that housed Right Touch.
His mind was still focused almost entirely on the problem of Vernon Tate. When he walked through the back door of the large, gleaming kitchen, it took him a few seconds to adjust to the fact that, in addition to the familiar faces working to clean up the premises, a pair of strangers were present.
He very nearly ran into Desdemona, who had come to an abrupt halt at the sight of the newcomers.
Juliet hailed her from the far end of the kitchen. “Hey, Desdemona, look who just blew into town.”
“Mom. Dad.” Desdemona laughed with delight and dashed forward, arms outstretched. “What are you two doing here?”
Stark watched the reunion from the doorway. Juliet, Bess, and Augustus gathered around Desdemona and her parents. Everyone started to talk at once. The babble of excited voices swirled around Desdemona, enveloping her.
Once again, Stark was aware of feeling outside the pattern. The brief, temporary insights he had gained when he was connected to Desdemona seemed lost.
With the skill of long practice, Stark suppressed the dark loneliness and forced himself to study Desdemona's mother and her stepfather.
Celia Wainwright was a handsome woman who exuded a charm that was palpable from across the room. She wore a gauzy, ankle-length summer dress that looked vaguely southwestern in style. It was belted with a silver-and-turquoise-studded strip of leather.
Celia was shorter than the average Wainwright, about the same size as Desdemona. Her graying red hair was bound into an elegant knot at the nape of her long neck. Her exotic eyes, similar in color to Desdemona's, dwelt on Stark with grave interest.
Benedick was a tall, silver-haired man whose strong features had only recently begun to blur a little with the years. He gazed as though he had consciously chosen to live the latter portion of his life immersed in the role of an aging old-world aristocrat. He looked at Stark as he released Desdemona. Regardless of the role he had elected to play, his eyes held unexpectedly keen perception.
When he spoke, his voice was so deep and resonant that Stark would not have been sur
prised to discover that he was secretly wired to a karaoke machine.
“Well, well, well,” Benedick murmured. “So you're the man who has stolen my little girl's heart.”
“Dad, really.” Desdemona blushed furiously.
Benedick ignored her. He put out his hand in a gesture of calculated graciousness. “Benedick Wainwright.”
Stark glanced at the proffered hand. He walked forward to take it. “I'm Stark.”
“This is my wife, Celia.” Benedick made a gallant motion to indicate Desdemona's mother.
Celia gave him a charming smile. “I'm told everyone calls you Stark.”
“Yes. How do you do, Mrs. Wainwright.” Stark inclined his head politely. “I didn't realize you and your husband were expected.”
“They weren't.” Desdemona stepped out of her mother's embrace. “What's up? Did the show close unexpectedly?”
Benedick shook his head sadly. “Folded three nights ago without any notice.”
“What happened?” Desdemona asked.
“Apparently the Cactus Dinner Theater was operating on the edge of bankruptcy,” Celia explained. “A fact which no one had seen fit to make known to the cast. The sheriff arrived one morning earlier this week and put everything under lock and key until the creditors can resolve the problems in court.”
“That's terrible,” Desdemona said.
Stark glanced at her. There was no real heat or surprise in her voice. He suspected she was accustomed to such tales of theatrical disaster.
“These things happen,” Benedick said philosophically. “Celia and I drove back to Seattle with some of the rest of the cast. Been on the road for three days. Got into town an hour ago and came straight here. You can imagine how stunned we were to learn what had happened.”
“Dreadful,” Augustus murmured. “Absolutely dreadful.”
“We're still in shock,” Bess assured Benedick. “To think of poor Desdemona trapped in that freezer with a dead body.”
“You might have been killed,” Celia whispered, horrified. “Are you sure you're all right, dear?”
“I'm fine, Mom. Stark had given me this really neat little computer gadget that allows me to send messages. You know, e-mail. At any rate, I sent Stark a message. Told him I was locked in the freezer. He came down and got me out.”
Augustus narrowed his eyes. “Reminds me of the time Tony saved her from—”
“Not now, dear,” Bess murmured gently.
Celia turned to Stark. “We've been anxious to meet you, Stark. It's not every day that our Desdemona falls in—”
“Mother.” Desdemona's face turned a brilliant shade of pink. She slid a sidelong glance at Stark. “For heaven's sake, let's not get carried away here.”
“Celia's right,” Benedick said portentously. “About time I took a good look at the man you're thinking of marrying.”
“Dad, Stark and I have a dating relationship.” Desdemona sounded desperate. “We have absolutely no plans for marriage.”
“That's not the way I heard it from Bess,” Celia said gently.
“Well, Aunt Bess has it all wrong,” Desdemona said.
Bess appeared mildly surprised. “I do?”
Juliet rolled her eyes. “Come on, Desdemona, we all know you and Stark are involved.”
“Is that a fact?” Benedick looked grim.
“We do not all know that,” Desdemona said loudly. “What Stark and I do together is our personal business, and I would appreciate it if my family would stay out of it.”
“Hold on here now.” A troubled expression furrowed Benedick's regal brow. He glanced at Desdemona and then at Stark. “Did we misunderstand something here? I was told things were serious between you two.”
“Well, they aren't.” Desdemona turned toward Stark with a blindingly bright smile. “Are they? We're friends. And business associates. And we have a casual dating relationship. Isn't that right, Stark?”
Stark was stunned by the icy talons of pain that seized his insides. The words that Desdemona had whispered as she had shuddered in his arms earlier that afternoon had been quietly burrowing deeper and deeper inside him. He realized that he had been hoarding them like hot coals against a dark winter.
I love you.
Now he realized that she had probably not meant them, after all.
I love you.
Just words that had been spoken by a passionate woman in the heat of the moment.
I love you.
He was standing in the slipstream of chaos, buffeted and disoriented by the cold, random winds. Comprehension of the pattern was impossible.
“Whatever you say,” Stark said politely.
* * *
“Whew. That was a close one.” Desdemona hastily shut the door of her office, turned around, and sagged back against the glass panel. “I'm really sorry about that embarrassing scene with my folks.”
“Forget it.”
“They get a little excited sometimes. It's a family trait.”
“I said, forget it.” Stark watched as she went around behind her desk. What had he expected? he wondered. Desdemona was a Wainwright. She might have a casual dating relationship with a man like him, but that was probably as far as things would ever go.
“Stop saying forget it.” She gave him a thoroughly exasperated glare. “I can't forget it. The last thing I wanted anyone to do was put you on the spot.”
“What spot?”
She gave him an odd look. “You know. All that talk about us being seriously involved.”
Stark looked at the blank screen of the computer. “I thought we were.”
“Well, of course we are.”
“We are?” This was the kind of conversation that always succeeded in baffling him, Stark thought. Still, he found himself seizing on the small flicker of hope her words had rekindled.
Desdemona flopped back in her chair, aimed her finger at him, and narrowed her eyes. “You know what your basic problem in life is, Stark?”
“No,” he said. He switched his gaze back to her and waited, intent on the answer.
“You take everything a little too literally.” Desdemona grinned. “For example, take a good look at yourself right now.”
“I can hardly do that.” He glanced around at the notes, clippings, and photos that covered the walls of the office. “There isn't a mirror in here.”
“There. You did it again. You see what I mean? You're too literal minded. Very few people in this world say exactly what they mean.”
Stark frowned. “I've noticed that.”
“You have to look for the real meaning behind the words. Think of human communication as a problem in chaos theory.”
“Complexity, not chaos. And communication applications are not my area of expertise.”
She slapped a palm on the table. “There you go again. You interrupt a discussion of a very important topic just to correct me because I used a term you think is inaccurate. That's an overly precise way of thinking. It gets in the way of real communication.”
He looked at her in surprise. “I would have thought that it facilitated it.”
“Trust me, it doesn't.” Desdemona drummed her fingers on the arms of her chair. “Now, to get back to my point about the similarities between human communication and the problems in chaos theory or complexity science or whatever you call it—”
“No offense, Desdemona, but you know nothing about the latter.”
“That's what you think. What I was trying to say is, you should look for the pattern beneath the words. The real meaning, not the literal one.”
“People should say what they mean.”
“Maybe. But they often don't.” She gave him an unsettlingly perceptive look. “Sometimes they can't.”
“Of course they can.” Stark told himself that he was on solid ground here. He could argue this point from a thoroughly rational perspective. The facts were obvious. “A failure to communicate clearly and accurately reflects sloppy thinking and muddled logic.”
&
nbsp; “Yeah, well, that's most of the human race for you. People get emotional, and when they do, they get sloppy and muddled.”
That was undoubtedly why she had told him that she loved him a couple of hours earlier, Stark thought glumly. The passion had muddled her thinking processes for a time. “I see.”
“The reason I told my parents that you and I have a business relationship combined with a casual dating relationship is because I know them. If I imply that you and I have anything more than a casual sort of relationship, if they think we're really serious, they'll think that we're on the brink of marriage.”
“Marriage.” The word seemed to lodge in his throat.
“Exactly.” Desdemona swung the chair around to face the computer. She was suddenly very busy at the keyboard. “Wainwrights are a romantic lot. To them a serious affair implies commitment, and that implies marriage. The whole ball of wax.”
“I see.” Stark watched the computer screen come to life.
“Don't worry, I think I managed to distract them from that notion.” Desdemona slanted him a quick, unreadable look. “Wainwrights are a little old-fashioned about some things. Family is very important to them. It comes from years of believing that they can only rely on each other.”
“I understand.”
“I know how you feel about marriage, Stark. Don't worry, I'll make sure no one brings up the subject again.”
“How do you feel about it?” Stark asked in a deliberately neutral tone.
“Marriage? Well, I am a Wainwright.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “Someday…” She raised one shoulder in a small shrug and let the word trail off into the mists.
“I see.”
“But, hey, someday is a long time off, isn't it?” Desdemona gave him a mischievous smile. “And in the meantime I think what you and I have is pretty special, don't you?”
“Yes. Special.” He wished to hell he knew what she was really saying.
He had the distinct impression that he was missing something in the conversation. It was as though Desdemona's words were locked in code. He could see that there was a pattern, but he did not have the key to it.
Give him a nice, simple, straightforward problem in complex structures any day.