LITMIR.BIZ

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      “What I want is for you to tell me whether our goal of rehabilitating the existing town is doable. If you sincerely believe it is not, Marc, based on your expertise, then for Christ’s sake tell me. I’d be disappointed, as would the board, but I would accept it. I would, however, hate to find out later that it was a judgment based on faulty information, just like I would hate to offer a good report to the board and then find out that’s not true either.”

      Broarty’s head was spinning. Jack had emailed something to him, presumably photos of the place, but he had not actually looked at them yet. Hayden’s the one who should be dealing with this. But Jack was not back, and the decision, like it or not, was his to make. “First, Emac, I want you to understand that I have not personally been to the site. I do, however, trust Jack Hayden’s judgment implicitly, and based upon the very sketchy details he has sent down, prior to his arrival back at the office and the filing of his report, I think you should be able to reach your goal.”

      “So that means I can go to the board and assure them that based on your inspection the plans to rehabilitate the structures in the town are both sound and cost effective.”

      Marcus Broarty closed his eyes and said: “Yes.”

      “That’s all I wanted to know, Marc,” Emac said, his voice suddenly cheerful. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Send along that full report as soon as you can.”

      “You can be sure of it.”

      After a few lame pleasantries, the two men hung up. Broarty replaced the receiver with one hand mopped his brow with the other. Then he turned to his computer and pulled up the emailed photos Hayden had sent him, this time really studying them. By the third one, Marcus Broarty’s stomach felt like a chunk of dry ice had lodged in it. Picture after picture showed ruins of buildings and still-standing structures far beyond redemption, except for the city hall structure. Christ, what was he going to do now? He could hardly call Emac back and tell him that he had bluffed his way to a decision that turned out to be the wrong one.

      There was only one thing to do.

      Broarty pulled up the file on his computer to which he had saved the images and, one by one, began deleting them, sight unseen, as though he had never gotten them. When he was finished, he would go back in and delete Jack’s email as well. This would be his story: he had talked to Jack, but had never received his photos. As for Hayden’s verbal communication to him, well, verbal communication wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Besides, what was the last thing that Jack said? That he was going to investigate further and hopefully find something more encouraging? The word encouraging was good enough for Broarty.

      If the shit really did hit the fan, though, there was always the fact that Jack, if office parties were any indication, was a drinker, so his judgment could be impeached.

      You mean you sent a drunk out to do the inspection? Broarty could hear Emac’s snap.

      Of course I knew about Jack’s problem, he’d reply, but his work in the past, before his drinking got out of control, had always been professional, and, well, I believe in giving people every chance possible. That’s just the kind of manager I am. But of course, in light of this situation, he will be fired immediately.

      Whatever Jack might say in protest would have to be taken against Broarty’s own word; the testimony of a goddamned drunk versus that of an MBA.

      He was starting to feel better as he continued eradicating his system of the photos, finally coming to the last one. On a whim, this one he opened, and was surprised to see the face of a woman, turned out so that she appeared to be facing him directly, looking straight into his eyes, if not his soul. She appeared to smile at him. Goddamn Hayden! Broarty thought, grinning at his computer screen, he emailed the wrong pictures in the first place! Jack was supposed to be photographing buildings, not paintings, or whatever the hell this was. “Goodbye, my dear,” Marc Broarty said softly, as he tapped the mouse to delete it, and in a flash, it was gone.

      No more evidence.

      Broarty sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. Things were going to work out, he felt confident of that. He had protected himself.

      He was about to get up and go to the washroom to freshen up, when he looked back at his computer screen and noticed that the image of the painted woman was still there. “That’s odd,” he muttered. Perhaps Hayden had sent two shots of the painting and he had not noticed before now. Aligning his cursor to the corner of the image, he selected Delete and clicked again. Then his head snapped back.

      Broarty sat looking at the empty screen for a few seconds, then chuckled. A digital glitch; that was all it was. When he keyed for the image to be deleted, some pixels shifted right before it disappeared.

      How else could he explain the illusion that the woman in the painting had just winked at him?

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “Daddeeeee!” Robynn squealed when Jack walked in the door. She ran and launched herself into his waiting arms. “I missed you I missed you I missed you!”

      “I missed you too, punkin,” Jack said, hugging her tightly. Glancing over at their nanny, he added: “Hi, Nola, how’s everything going?”

      Nola Gutiérrez answered by rolling her eyes. “Can I talk to you, Mr. Jack?” she asked.

      “Sure. Just hold on a second.”

      Once Jack was able to peel himself away from Robynn, he took Nola into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it something with Robynn?”

      “No, no, not with him,” she said in heavily accented English. It always amused Jack that Nola confused her gender pronouns. “Daniel was sent home from school again.” Daniel, Nola’s son, had just started middle school and was not having an easy time of it. He had been sent down to the principal at least once a week over the past month, usually for fighting. Jack had seen Daniel enough to know that he was not a bad kid, but like so many others he was dealing with pressures coming in from all sides, while living in a neighborhood that was heavily gang-influenced. Nola was a strong woman and was handling it the best she could, but Jack knew she had her hands full with the boy, particularly since she had to devote so much of her time and attention to Robynn. “I’d like to go home now, if that’s all right.”

      Normally, Nola did not leave until Elley arrived home, even if Jack was already there, but today he said: “Go on ahead. Robynn and I will be fine here. I hope everything is okay.”

      “Gracias.” Nola grabbed her purse and headed out as Robynn pulled Jack back into the dining room and showed him a drawing she had made that morning. It depicted her in the middle holding the hands of two big stick people, standing out in a field next to a house, under a bright yellow sun. Jack easily recognized himself—Robynn always used an orange ochre color crayon to color his light chestnut hair—while the other figure’s dark hair and enormous red lips signified Elley. Jack was always amused by the way his daughter managed to make her mother look like The Joker. Robynn’s own self-portrait was all eyes and hair and teeth and a line under her nose representing her scar. The three stick people walked happily in the sunshine with huge smiles on their face.

      If it could only be like this. “This is beautiful, punkin, can I keep it?”

      “Mm-hmmm.”

      Once she had started in on another drawing and was working on it intently, Jack snuck away and called in to the office. At the other end of the line Jonelle, the receptionist, flipped through his messages for the last couple of days. None were terribly important, so Jack asked her to hold them until he came in tomorrow. “Does Mr. Broarty need to ask me anything?”

      “Let me check,” Jonelle replied, and transferred the call to Yolanda Valdera, who greeted him warmly and then said: “I don’t know if Mr. B. needs you or not. He’s had the door closed most of the day. I know that Emac called earlier.”

      “Do you know what he wanted?”

      “Not a clue, but right after the call was when the door

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