The Last Thing She Ever Did(18)
The page in front of her confronted her with a blank stare.
Ten minutes into the exam, Liz got up. She kept her head down and went out the door, passed the woman with the tarantula eyelashes, and went for her car. Sweat dripped down her temples. She kept her breathing shallow, because she was sure if she took in any more air, she’d heave. She sat there trying to get a grip on herself. She turned on her phone. Her hands quaked as she sent a text to her husband.
Liz: I need you.
Owen: I got your message. In meeting. Have to wait.
Liz: I screwed up.
Owen: No shit? Can’t call now. There will be other tests.
Liz: Not the test. God, Owen. I need to talk to you.
Owen: See you tonight. Everything will be all right. Promise. Need to focus here. Big things happening here. Later.
With a jolt, Liz noticed a message had come in from Carole—then saw that it had been sent early that morning. Her heart still hammered as she opened it.
Just sending you good vibes for the day. Saw your light on. I know you pulled an all-nighter. Don’t worry. You’ve got this. You’re going to do great.
Carole had completed the text with a smiley face and a heart emoji.
There was no emoticon for how Liz felt just then.
Owen Jarrett had dark hair and dark eyes. At thirty-one, he was in perfect shape, though outside of running along the river on Saturdays and the occasional visit to the local gym, he didn’t really work at it. He drank as much beer as he wanted, and there was never a time when he couldn’t double down and finish the last slice of pizza. Thin-crust. Deep-dish. Didn’t matter. Good genes, he’d tell those who marveled at his ability to stay in fighting shape. Guys who had to work at it were jealous. Women found themselves drawn in by his looks but somewhat annoyed by his relentless pursuit of being the best at whatever he did. A bit of a braggart. Definitely a man who was all but certain he deserved his place at the top of the food chain.
In the offices of Lumatyx, a loft over a downtown Bend art gallery, Owen walked around as if he owned the place. That was fine, as he and his partner, Damon West, actually did own the company. Lumatyx proprietary software assisted employers in determining which potential candidates were best suited for a job, how long they would stay, and at what cost. In essence, Lumatyx software would help companies manage the inevitable employee churn to their advantage. Slash the number of times they got burned by new hires who didn’t stay long enough to recover the costs of getting them up to speed. Fewer signing bonuses for hires who could be had without them. Owen, who had majored in computer science at the University of Washington, had met Damon at Microsoft. They’d missed the cash grab at the mega software company, and so they had plotted a way toward a fortune of their own. The answer was Lumatyx. Damon had the coding skills, but Owen had the heart of a marketer. He could talk a good game. It was up to Damon to deliver. That sometimes created a little tension.
Lumatyx was a few weeks away from an infusion of cash from a venture capital firm out of Boston, and Owen was on the precipice of a windfall. The Subaru Forester that he’d driven for the last three years was going to be swapped for a Ferrari the day after the trading bell rang. He already knew the color and model. A black convertible with a red leather interior. Flashy, sure. But he’d earned it. The house he and his wife bought from her family’s estate would meet the wrecking ball, and another mammoth dream home would rise up along the river.
Every single day was a tick of the clock closer to the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Damon stuck his head into Owen’s office. Owen didn’t say so, but he had noticed that over the past few weeks Damon had upped his game in the fashion department. His shirts were no longer Gap but English Laundry. He’d replaced his wireless LensCrafters frames with some thicker, hipper nerd style. He was living off charge cards and the promise of paying them off with a single click on his online banking account. He wasn’t really hitting it, though. In those glasses just now, he looked more like an African American Buddy Holly than a digital-solutions tycoon.
“Conference call in two minutes,” Damon said.
Owen looked down at a text from his wife asking him to call her. “Coming,” he said, Liz’s messages vanishing as he powered down his phone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MISSING: FIVE HOURS
“Holy shit, David, where have you been?”
David Franklin dropped a pile of lifestyle magazines and some other papers in a heap in front of Amanda Jenkins. He pulled back a little. Amanda and the lunch waiters at Sweetwater crowded him. That didn’t make him the least bit happy. It was the kind of greeting that portended some disaster: an oven that didn’t work, the salamander broiler on the fritz. David was dressed in black jeans and a gray linen shirt open at the collar. His shoes were black Italian loafers, and around his wrist he wore a matching woven leather bracelet. He was strikingly handsome, with a head of coal-black-and-silver hair that he let grow just long enough to allow for the gel and the humidity of the day to make his locks curl.
Stylish but not fussy.
That was David’s look, head to toe.
“What’s going on?” His brown eyes searched the faces of what he called his “superstar” restaurant team.
Amanda was his number one. Not quite an assistant manager, but as close as increasingly strained financials allowed. She was a willowy redhead with green eyes and a band of freckles that crossed the bridge of her nose like a tan mist. She was smart and cautious. She ran the front of the house with precision and didn’t suffer any hiccups in service. The food was David’s domain.