Always You Read online

  “Okay, baby,” Abby said, cheerfully abbreviating her speech. “See you in a week!”

  * * *

  Six tall, narrow, polarized windows behind Emmitt Grayson’s sprawling kidney bean shaped desk revealed the choppy, bluish-black waters of sunlit Lake Michigan. The bright shine of the cold December day couldn’t penetrate the dim austerity of Grayson’s office, which was decorated in somber shades of blue, gray, charcoal and black.

  Grayson himself, his tall, angular frame wrapped in black, was the centerpiece of the room as he sat with one pale hand covering the other atop the mirrored surface of his obsidian desktop.

  Unbidden, Chiara took one of the stylized black leather and chrome chairs in front of the vast desk. Grayson’s high-priced interior decorator had spared no expense in selecting the ultra-modern chairs. The stiff seats and low backs testified that style, rather than comfort, had been paramount.

  As she always did when called to Grayson’s office, Chiara kept her eyes on his crystal-clear reflection in the desktop. His icy gaze was less likely to turn her to stone that way.

  “Chiara,” he started, his deep voice a quiet rumble, “I have some news about Chen Zhou that you’ll find disturbing, but before I go into that, I need to ask you a few questions.”

  She shifted her gaze from Grayson’s reflection to his face. His pale eyes were just as cold as those of his reflection, and as he stared at her, the memory of Zhou’s words started a chill creeping through her.

  He watches…

  “Chiara?”

  She snapped out of her reverie. “Yes, Mr. Grayson, I’m sorry.”

  “Chen seemed rather…anxious, I would say, during the debriefing of your last trip to Japan. Did he seem all right to you in Tokyo?”

  He listens…

  Chiara softly cleared the lump that had formed in her throat. She chose her words carefully. “He seemed tired. We’ve had some long trips: India, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and then Tokyo. Even though we both love to travel, the long jaunts away from home begin to take their toll.”

  Grayson sat back in his chair. “You seem to handle the stress well. And so did Chen, until recently.”

  For lack of a better excuse, and feeling as though she needed to explain, Chiara said, “Chen’s a lot closer to his family than I am. He really missed them while we were gone.”

  Grayson’s long, pale fingers stroked his chin. “I was under the impression that you were quite fond of your family.”

  He spies…

  Chiara’s chill worsened, and she clamped her jaw to stave off a shudder. Her older sister Kyla was an actress, and taking a page from her book, Chiara pasted on a smile. “I love them. The farther I am from them, the more I love them.”

  Grayson spent another long moment studying her. “I suppose it couldn’t have been easy for you, being the youngest of five. I myself am the ‘baby’ in a brood of seven. I had four older brothers and two older sisters, each of whom made a hobby of torturing their younger sibling. I’m sure you can imagine the pain I endured as a defenseless youth.”

  He smiled then, and Chiara gave in to a shudder. Behind the cobra-like gleam in his eyes, it was impossible for her to see any trace of the tortured child he claimed to have been.

  Grayson sat quietly, as though expecting Chiara to regale him with stories of her own torture at the hands of her sisters, but the worst thing she could think of was the time when Cady convinced her to walk a homemade tightrope. After enlisting Ciel’s help, Cady had “borrowed” Old Lady Voss’s clothesline. They had tied it to one side of the fence surrounding the backyard and stretched it all the way to the opposite fence. Using a stuffed teddy bear to demonstrate, Cady showed her younger sisters the light, skipping steps necessary for the successful navigation of the rudimentary tightrope.

  Convinced that she had at least as much dexterity and daring as a teddy bear, Chiara had eagerly climbed the stool Cady had furnished and stepped onto the tightrope. The next thing she remembered was a face full of dirt, a sharp crack in her forearm, a lot of screaming—her own—and her sisters scrambling for cover before their mother raced out to take names.

  That was the day Chiara had learned how much power a five-year-old wielded. For the next month and a half, her sisters had been her full-time beck-and-call girls, catering to her every whim.

  It had been Grandma Claire who’d put a stop to Chiara’s injury-born tyranny, and Chiara almost smiled at the memory of her grandmother’s sweet scowl as she’d ordered her to stop making Cady spend her allowance to supply Chiara with red shoestring licorice.

  “I’m sorry to dredge up sad memories for you, Chiara,” Grayson said. “You’re fortunate to have found a new family here at USITI.”

  “U-City,” as Grayson pronounced it, had recruited Chiara straight out of George Washington University. Despite the high starting salary, excellent benefits and incentive programs, her feelings about the company had been lukewarm, until she’d learned that her best friend had accepted a position at the company.

  She and John Mahoney had both begun in the information systems department, but Chiara’s background in foreign languages had landed her a position in sales and public relations. Until his recent relocation to St. Louis, Missouri, to spearhead the information systems department of USITI’s newest hub, John had spent his days at the home base in Chicago while Chiara was sent to the farthest nooks and crannies of the Far East to peddle Emmitt Grayson’s cutting-edge computer products.

  Sitting in the direct line of Grayson’s penetrating stare, Chiara wished more than ever that she had just stayed in information systems with John.

  “Thank you, Mr. Emmitt,” she muttered graciously.

  “You’ve always demonstrated unshakable loyalty to your USITI family, Chiara,” Grayson continued. “I trust you’ll turn to us, should you need to, in the coming days.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand what’s going on.” She sat up straighter, but avoided Grayson’s unreadable stare, opting instead to keep her eyes on his severely slicked back iron-gray hair.

  “Chen Zhou was found dead in his apartment this morning, apparently from an accidental drug overdose. Did you know that Chen was taking Valiaz and Mitrazepam?”

  “Wh-What?” Chiara faltered. “Drugs?”

  “Valiaz is an anxiolytic and Mitrazepam is an hypnotic,” Grayson coolly explained. “Apparently Chen was being treated for anxiety and insomnia.”

  Chiara shook her head. As her mind grappled with what Grayson was saying, she tried to remember ever seeing Zhou take medication, any medication. A firm believer in herbal and natural remedies, Zhou was the one who had taught her the Ayurvedic concept of vata, pitta and kapha, the three doshas that governed all metabolic activities. If Zhou had trouble sleeping, he’d been more likely to take melatonin than Tylenol. As for anxiety, until their last night in Tokyo, Zhou had been one of the most easy-going, laid back people Chiara had ever known.

  “The body was discovered by Chen’s sister,” Grayson continued. “She was supposed to have met him for lunch on Tuesday, and when he didn’t make the appointment, she became concerned. I blame myself for this catastrophe, Chiara. Chen was behaving strangely after this latest junket to Japan, and I failed to delve deeper into the situation after our meeting Monday morning…”

  Grayson continued to speak but Chiara’s own thoughts blocked his words from her ears. Zhou was dead? He’d killed himself? It was impossible, too impossible, no matter what Grayson said. Chen had acted out of character in Tokyo, but he’d been in control, for the most part. He’d made sense. Nothing of what Grayson was saying was making any sense.

  Grayson spoke in his usual toneless fashion, as though he were reading stock reports rather than giving her the details of the gruesome death of her partner, and Chiara forced herself to listen to him.

  “We here at USITI had our suspicions, but we saw no need to drag you into the mess Chen was making of his life,” Grayson said, “but now I wish that we had. Did you ever see C
hen abusing drugs, Chiara?”

  The numbness that had settled into her ebbed a bit, to allow a renewed burst of shock. “Chen didn’t do drugs.”

  “Security cleaned out his office this morning and found unprescribed Valiaz.” His unblinking stare held Chiara in place. “I was as surprised as you are to learn that Chen was not only using, but that he would bring such filth into our home at USITI.”

  “But, Mr. Grayson—”

  “I understand your shock, Chiara. He was your partner, after all. If he could hide his habit from you, then how could anyone else foresee the inevitable disaster to come?”

  She stood up on shaky knees and paced around her chair. “This doesn’t make any sense at all, Mr. Grayson.” Her voice shook with unshed tears as the reality of Chen’s death sank deeper. “Zhou and I have spent more time with each other than with anyone else over the past few years. We’re friends. How could he have hidden a drug habit from me? How could he have performed his job so well if he were an addict?”

  “I have no answers for you, Chiara. All I have is the evidence from Security. I understand that this is distressing to you, but I have to ask you a few more questions about Tokyo.” Grayson sat forward, tenting his hands on the desk. “Did Chen mention anything to you, anything at all, about his future plans with USITI?”

  “He wasn’t interviewing elsewhere, if that’s what you’re asking,” Chiara almost shouted. Zhou was dead, and all Grayson cared about was whether or not Zhou planned to quit?

  “I have reason to believe that Chen was engaged in activities that would undermine the integrity of USITI’s products,” Grayson said, his voice a degree or two cooler. “While I am indeed saddened by his tragic demise, I have a company to run, and I need to know if Chen’s actions in Tokyo have put my life’s work at risk.”

  Hot tears squeezed from Chiara’s eyes and she blinked them away. “He got drunk in the bar on our last night, but other that, he seemed fine. He didn’t do anything else out of the ordinary.” She used the heel of her hand to scrub away a fresh fall of tears. “I’m sorry, Mr. Emmitt. I’m shocked. I…this is unbelievable. Zhou…” She covered her mouth with one hand and wept openly; all the while her mind replayed her last encounter with Chen.

  Grayson spent a long moment studying her, narrowing his eyes as though he could peer directly into her skull and read her thoughts as they were born. Apparently satisfied with her response, he dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry to have been the one to tell you about Chen, but I thought it best that you heard it from me, rather than on the midday news. You’re going home for the holidays, yes?”

  She nodded. Words couldn’t squeeze past the hard, heavy lump in her throat.

  “Perhaps that’s best, for you to get away for a few days. Take as much time as you need, Chiara.” He turned to his right to face his computer monitor, and Chiara took that as a sign of dismissal.

  “Thank you, sir.” She started for the door, but halfway across the cavernous office his voice stopped her in her tracks.

  “You should be scared.”

  She jerked around to face him, her breath frozen in her chest. “I-I’m sorry, Mr. Grayson?”

  His lips pursed in mild annoyance before he repeated himself slightly louder and more clearly. “I said you should be there, at Chen’s funeral. It will be the day after tomorrow, on Saturday. Chen’s family is handling the arrangements. You should be receiving the details in a company e-mail scheduled to go out this afternoon.”

  “Y-Yes sir,” Chiara managed. “I’ll be there.”

  “Chiara?” Grayson called once more. “Your sister Kyla had a baby recently, yes?”

  She nodded as she dried her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve. “A girl. Niema. She’s six months old.”

  “She was rather large at birth, wasn’t she? Nine pounds, four ounces?”

  A shiver crept along Chiara’s spine. Niema’s newborn photo sat on one end of her desk, along with the photos of her other nieces and nephews, but Chiara couldn’t recall ever mentioning the baby’s birth statistics to anyone other than Chen Zhou and John.

  “Family is important, Chiara, and I’m glad you’ll be spending some time with yours. I hope you’ll see what’s important and what’s worth risking. Chen failed to do that. I’d like to think that perhaps, in the end, he realized the error of his ways.”

  “Zhou was a good man, Mr. Grayson,” Chiara insisted quietly. “I never saw him take pills, not once, in all the time I knew him. And you couldn’t have asked for a more loyal employee.”

  Grayson tented his hands on his desk. “I admire your faith in your coworker. However, I’m afraid I can’t afford such emotional generosity. You see, Chiara, Chen failed to turn in an important piece of hardware upon your return from Japan.”

  Baffled, Chiara soundlessly wondered what Grayson was referring to.

  His icy gaze boring through her, Grayson explained. “The R-GS master chip. It’s missing.”

  Chapter Two

  As always, Abby had a full house for Christmas Eve dinner. Cars lined both sides of the street of her mother’s block, but Chiara’s expert parallel parking ability had enabled her to squeeze her sporty rented Mazda between a gargantuan SUV and a station wagon four houses down from her mother’s.

  She tucked her formless suede handbag under the passenger seat before she got out of the car and activated the alarm. She then pulled her white fox fur coat closer about her and started for her mother’s house. The cold night was bright with starlight and a dusting of new snow that put a fresh face on the seven inches that had fallen two days earlier, assuring St. Louis a white Christmas. Chiara’s rabbit-lined reindeer-hide mukluks left indistinct footprints in the sprinkling of snow as she crossed the street and stepped onto the sidewalk. She wondered who was in attendance this year, not that she would recognize too many of her mother’s and sisters’ guests. She hadn’t spent too many Christmases at home in recent years, and as she climbed the seven steps to her mother’s front walkway, she realized how far out of her family’s loop USITI had taken her.

  How far I’ve allowed the company to take me, she amended. She turned and sat on the top step leading to the porch, her back to one of the brick support pillars.

  The mukluks and her coat had been purchased in a small town near the Kuskokwim River, one of the colder regions in Alaska during the winter months. Her clothing was warm enough to keep the chill off the Yup’ik salmon fishermen who lived on Nunivak Island, and as Chiara shivered, she realized the chill came from within. Ever since her conversation—inquisition was more like it—with Grayson, she’d had a hard time keeping warm. And keeping calm.

  Though Grayson had stuck himself to her hip throughout Zhou’s funeral four days ago, he’d said nothing to her the whole time. The hopeful part of Chiara wanted to believe that Grayson’s silence was out of respect for her grief. The rational part of her felt otherwise. That part of her knew that Grayson was watching her every move and listening to every word she spoke.

  Everyone in sales and public relations, as well as a few other miscellaneous USITI employees, had attended the traditional Chinese funeral. Zhou’s family had been there, his parents and siblings looking otherworldly in their white mourning apparel. Zhou’s coffin was covered in wreaths of flowers bedecked with ribbons, a testament to the respect people had for Zhou and his family’s status. Chiara herself had burned incense for Zhou, along with a pile of money, to honor Zhou’s ancestors and to make sure that he had enough money for the next world.

  Other than to straighten the tiny white lilies Chiara wore in her hair, Grayson hadn’t made the slightest effort to interact with anyone at the ceremony. Even now, five days after the funeral, Chiara cringed at the memory of the black suit and red silk tie Grayson had worn to the funeral. Grayson had seen to Chiara’s schooling in the cultures of the countries in which she did business, but he’d never bothered to learn a thing about them himself. Had he taken one of his own cultural sensitivity seminars, he’d have known that “Zhou
” was Chen’s first name, not his surname, and that the color red at a Chinese funeral is taboo, a symbol of disrespect toward the deceased.

  Chiara thought that she’d cried all the tears she could, but sitting on her mother’s front stoop listening to the sounds of her family in the warm house triggered fresh waves. As a part of life, death made sense. But Zhou’s death remained utterly senseless, no matter how hard Chiara tried to find a reason for it. From their years of working and traveling together, Chiara and Zhou had become closer than most spouses, even closer than siblings; Chiara safely assumed that she knew him better than anyone. It was impossible for her to make herself believe that Zhou had overdosed, accidentally or otherwise.

  Grief consumed her, and all she wanted to do was fling open the front door and melt into her mother’s embrace.

  The big, wide front windows, opaque with condensation, blurred the figures moving behind them and the splashes of color provided by the Christmas tree lights. The tall, shadowy figures in the living and dining rooms were adults, probably enjoying coffee and dessert. The shadows in the little room off the dining room, her mother’s tiny library, were shorter and more active, indicating that Chiara’s nieces and nephews were probably assembled within it. Conversations spilled from the slightly open windows, and listening closely, Chiara picked out individual voices in the dining room.

  “There ain’t no Chinese tap dancers an’ you ain’t never gonna see no Chinese tap dancers,” came a loud male voice that slightly slurred its words.

  “Come on, Hippolyte,” responded a voice Chiara recognized as that of her brother-in-law, Lee. “Asian people have excellent body mechanics. Think about martial arts.”

  The drunken voice boisterously harrumphed. “Kung Fu ain’t ’bout rhythm, it’s ’bout reaction. That’s why you don’t see no Chinese tap dancers. You just proved my point, boy…”

  “Clarence!” Chiara jumped at her sister Ciel’s voice, which had an unusually sharp edge to it. “You get right on upstairs and check things out!”