At Wit's End (2 page)

Where did the coffeemaker go? Michael had brought a machine over that brewed one cup at a time and relegated hers to beneath the counter. That counter space was currently empty. With an odd fluttering in her heart Marie made her way up the small flight of steps to the bedroom.

She cautiously opened the mirrored closet door and reality gave her a punch in the stomach. All of Michael’s clothes were gone. She whipped open the drawer he’d been using and it, too, was empty. Marie’s heart plunged to her toes.

She flew down the steps and went back to the kitchen area to check the counter for notes. There wasn’t one. With a small feeling of alarm she went to the coffee table and opened her laptop. Michael had been known to leave sticky notes on the screen. She didn’t find one and booted up the laptop. Maybe he’d left her an email.

Marie loaded the email program and didn’t find any messages from Michael but there were several from her bank. She opened the first and couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a pro forma letter telling her that her checking account was dangerously low in funds, please deposit money to cover any debits or checks currently out
standing.

The next email informed her that the automatic refill from her savings to her checking account had failed as the funds in that account were dangerously low, please deposit money, etc. With her heart in her throat Marie opene
d the web browser and went to her bank’s site. There she discovered that not only were her checking and saving accounts empty but somehow her brand new business loan had disappeared as well.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. Immediately she
hit the account history link and saw that all of the money had been transferred that morning to an account number she didn’t recognize. She grabbed her cell phone and, after fighting her way through countless computer voices, was able to reach a human being who told her there was nothing they could do and she’d have to fill out an incident report and someone would investigate when they had an opportunity. The snarky voice on the other end of the phone mentioned making passwords difficult to figure out and, if she needed to write them down, to secure them in a safe location.

Marie
threw the phone across the room and almost hoped it would shatter. It didn’t which she supposed was actually a good thing. She was officially broke and had no way to replace it. Forget the phone, Marie realized she didn’t have money for food or rent much less the checks she’d just issued to cover C U There’s new debts. Her stomach did a slow roll and she sprinted for the bathroom where she lost everything she’d ingested that day.

When her head finally stopped spinning Marie started to think through what she needed to do, what she could do and what she
really, really
wanted to do to Michael. She put the list in order of priority and went back to her cell phone. She immediately called the lawyer who had helped her with the business paperwork. He referred her to another attorney and she started the official process of dealing with pretty much everything.

Assured
that with time - and a hefty retainer for the lawyer - they’d get everything worked out. Marie then called Robert and explained what had happened. To layer on bad news Robert informed her that the replacement sous chef had started and he couldn’t possibly fire him on his first day.

“I’d be happy to offer you a loan, though. What do you need?” Robert’s kind offer almost brought tears to Marie’s eyes.

“I can’t take a loan, Robert, I have no way of paying you back.”

“Maybe not at the moment but I know you’ll work this out. You figure Michael took it?” Robert’s Brooklyn accent was thicker when he was upset and Marie could barely understand him.

“I didn’t want to think about it but that’s the only thing that makes sense,” she acknowledged.

“Where do you suppose that scumbag is hiding out?”

“I would assume he’s at his apartment,” Marie answered. “I tried his phone but it was disconnected.”

“So why don’t I meet you over there and we’ll get your money back?” Robert asked.

Marie hesitated. She had no desire to admit this. “I don’t know where he lives.”

“You what?” Robert was stunned.

“We always came to my place. I figured he lived in some roach motel.” Marie couldn’t believe how naïve she’d been. “I called information, did an internet search, called the few numbers I have for him and it’s like he never existed,” she told him.

“Have you considered that?”

“What, that he never actually existed? How foolish would I have to be to fall for that?”

“Honey, it happens to a lot of people. Read a newspaper.”

“You honestly think he lived an alternate identity for 6 months all in the hopes of scamming me out of money? That seems vaguely incredulous,” Marie told Robert. She was pacing around her apartment and doing her best not to think about how badly she’d been scammed. “I hadn’t even officially applied for the loan when we met.”

“Yeah well anyone who’d talked to you would have known you were going to. You talked about your plans for C U There all the time,” Robert reminded her. “They were good plans, don’t get me wrong. I wish I could have invested but my money’s tied up in the stock market right now.”

“That’s sweet, Robert. I’m going to figure this out. Can I rain check the loan for living expenses? I have a few ideas yet.”

“Of course. You keep in touch, let me know what’s going on. My door is always open for you, Marie.” Robert paused before his usual exit line and Marie waited. “You know my kid is really into computers, right?”

Robert’s 16 year old son Teddy spent an inordinate amount of time playing on his computer, something Robert had lamented since Marie had known him. He would have been far happier had Teddy played sports. “He set up the system at the restaurant, right?”

“Among other things. He
’s been teaching me some and we talk a bit,” Robert was proud of his newfound abilities on the computer, a device which had confounded him for years. He was even more proud of his new relationship with the son he hadn’t been able to connect with. “He’s been telling me about this guy, one of the best programmers Teddy has ever known, he says. For the right amount of money the guy will hack the Pentagon.”

“That’s insane! And a great way to end up in prison,” Marie commented.

“That or working for the CIA. Anyway, maybe this guy could help you out somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can do anything on the internet these days,” Robert said. “Maybe he could trace the money or find Michael or something, I don’t know. There’s gotta be something that can be done though, right?”

Marie thought it over. “It couldn’t do any more damage,” she told him. “How do I get in touch with this mercenary?”

“I’ll have Teddy send him a message and give him your number and email address. Hopefully, if the problem is interesting enough, he’ll help you out.”

“Thanks, Robert.”

“Fuhgeddaboutit.” Marie could imagine him winking as he hung up the phone.

Wit unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door to his high rise apartment. He had taken the late flight out of Miami and all he wanted was his bed. The sight of the apartment stopped him in his tracks and he dropped his carry-on bag to the floor. He hadn’t been here in six months yet everything looked the exact same.

The curtains were open and revealed New York’s late night skyline, a sight he’d never grown used to.
The bottle of liquor he’d been drinking from before leaving for his first flight still sat on one of the Louis Something-or-Other end tables. He sighed at the waste of time and money it had been when he’d had the decorator class his place up. He’d dropped a pretty dime on this ornate nightmare and it didn’t mean a damn thing.

He wondered if the suit he’d worn to the funerals was still lying on the bedroom floor. Creepy. Wit went into the
living room and fell onto the creamy leather couch. He grabbed the bottle of scotch sitting next to the remote and took a long swig while the big screen TV went through its version of a boot up.

Wit’s stomach twisted when he realized the TV was set to the same channel he’d been watching when he
had left for the airport, one of the 24 hours news channels. He’d been watching the arrest of the two men who’d bombed the bar and killed his best friends. Now, as Wit drank deeply from the bottle, two talking heads were debating the current threat of a government shutdown. Great.

Wit turned the television back off. Restless, he grabbed his laptop and sat back on the couch with it. He double-checked his connection and followed his personal protocols to the Deep Net
, the area beyond the regular internet where hackers and programmers socialized, bargained and bragged. He scrolled through a few message boards and didn’t see much that interested him.

He checked a few of his email drops and saw Byte420 had sent him a request. With the scotch warming his stomach he opened it and considered the words. He toggled a few screens and pulled up the phone company’s database.
He searched the phone number Byte420 had included and from the billing information he took the full name of the woman and checked in at a government site. When her license came on the screen the bottle of expensive liquor stopped halfway to his lips and he whistled.

“Well, hello there, Marie Lee Chase,” he leaned back in his chair and stared at the picture for a moment.
Wit went back to Byte420’s message. He had a hangover to end all hangovers from his multi-month binge and he felt like doing absolutely nothing at all yet he felt the first stirring of interest he’d had in ages.

Impulsively he hit reply and
let Byte420 know that Zero was on the job. For his payment he had a small programming task for the young man, a problem with code he had been stuck on. He sent the needed information to Byte420 then went through the disconnect protocols and slapped the lid of the lightweight computer shut. With the last of his energy he went to the bedroom, knocked the unnecessary throw pillows to the floor and collapsed fully clothed onto his bed. He was lightly snoring within minutes.

Wit crawled out of bed at the crack of noon and wondered what had died in his mouth. He stumbled to the bathroom to take care of that and realized he wanted coffee in the worst way. His cupboards were bare, a nuisance task he
had forgotten to have his housekeeper take care of. God forbid the woman show any initiative.

He changed clothes quickly
and tried to remember if CoffeeBot was still open down the block. He jammed a hat on his head and made a mental note to schedule a haircut. He was about 5 months overdue. He grabbed the satchel that carried his laptop and his eye fell on the printout of Marie Chase’s license. Wit had forgotten he’d printed it. There was something about that face…

Wit grabbed the page and slid it into his laptop. He’d think about it over a cup of coffee. If he didn’t have caffeine within the next ten minutes he was going straight back to bed. He grumpily pushed the button for the elevator and stared at the doors like a zombie. He shook out of it and made a note to go grocery shopping. There was no way he was doing this every morning.

The young lady behind the counter surprised him by not having any tattoos or piercings. Wit nearly went back out the door to ensure he’d come to the right place but the overwhelming aroma of coffee checked that urge.

He
ordered the largest size available, black, and took it to a small table where he promptly burned his mouth trying to drink half of the cup in one motion. The energy zinging through his veins almost made up for the blister he was sure he’d have on the roof of his mouth later. He set the rest of the hot drink aside to cool and set up camp. His laptop began booting up and he laid a notebook and several pens next to it. He plugged his earphones into his phone, scrolled to Mumford and Sons and hit play.

He opened the cover of the notebook and laid Marie’s picture over the top page. He tilted the book so no one walking by would see what he was looking at. He stared at the government head shot and contemplated what he found so appealing.

According to their information she was 5’ 7”, 130 pounds, brown hair with green eyes. That description encapsulated nothing of what he saw in the picture. The brown hair exploded in thick ringlets that fell at least to her shoulders. The green eyes sparkled with an inner drive and the lift of her nose gave her an air of mischief. Her bottom lip was full and he wondered what it would be like to tug that lip with his own.

A stirring of interest indeed. Wit laid the picture aside and started digging into Marie Lee Chase’s life. He checked all the social media sites and learned about her catering company. He discovered she had several friends if pictures were anything to judge by. She’d had great grades in school
and had been a member of several after school clubs.

Marie Chase didn’t have much in the way of debt, or she hadn’t until recently. Wit raised his eyebrows at the amount to which she’d gone into the red recently. It broke pattern which was something that caught his attention. He wondered exactly what kind of help she needed; Byte420 hadn’t
offered many details.

Wit started and deleted several emails. After he realized he was acting like some sort of high schooler with a crush he dropped his head into his hands. This shouldn’t be that difficult. Perhaps his nerve was shot after drinking himself into oblivion for six months.