Free The Stranger by Kyra Davis

offering?” This from Asha. She’s looking at the VP, but I sense that she’s particularly tuned in to Robert.
    “Timing is everything,” Robert says quietly. He turns away from the window and smiles at Asha but the smile has a hint of melancholy. “We need to project strength, and the vulnerabilities need to be buried so deep, no one will be able to dig them up for years. We can’t have the big investors perceiving us one way and the smaller ones another. That would only lead to conspiracy theories about insider trading and unethical practices. We must be universally seen as a giant.”
    “Every company has their weaknesses,” Asha counters. “If you seem too good to be true, investors won’t believe in you.”
    “They will believe because they want us to live up to the myths they’ve already created for us,” Robert explains. “Our job is only to help them see what they want to see and be who they want us to be.”
    I stare down at the hard, gleaming wood floor beneath my Italian heels. Yes, I know Robert Dade better than anyone else in this room. I understand him because, at least on some level, I understand myself.

CHAPTER 8

    H E’S AN INTERESTING MAN ,” Asha says as we walk to our cars. The rest of the team has parked in Maned Wolf’s parking facility but I parked a few blocks away on the street. I didn’t want anyone noting how early I had arrived. Asha apparently parked near me for reasons I can only guess at.
    “He was so enthusiastic for the first half of the tour,” she continues, “and then . . . something happened in that office.”
    The wind is picking up, lifting my hair, chilling my neck. “I didn’t notice,” I say. My car’s in sight now. I reach for my keys.
    “You did,” Asha says, “and now you’re denying it. I wonder why?”
    I turn my profile to the wind so I can look at her. I hadn’t expected her brazenness and I speculate on whether or not a confrontation is brewing. But she doesn’t say any more until we reach my car and even then she only adds a cheerful good-bye as she continues her walk to her own vehicle.
    Asha started at our firm only weeks before I arrived. All these years I had quietly admired her mystery. Only now does it occur to me that she might be dangerous.
    I get in my car, grip the wheel, and breathe, waiting for my thoughts to catch up to my actions. Looking up at my reflection in the rearview mirror I touch the freckle that I forgot to cover up this morning. When did I become so careless? When did I become one of the lost?
    But that’s an easy question to answer. I got lost at the Venetian in Vegas.
    If I want to find my way, I have to retrace my steps. Find that path I strayed from, rediscover the joy of being loyal to one man. If I can mentally retrace my steps, I can leave this insane detour behind.
    At eight I’m meeting Dave for dinner, but that’s well over three hours away.
    I pick up my phone and call Simone.
    *     *     *
    W HEN I GET to Simone’s condo, it’s just short of five o’clock. She waves me in. On her beige couch are leopard-print throw pillows; on the walls, framed black-and-white photographs of women and men dancing, the sensuality of their movement caught in a split-second pose.
    “Can I get you something to drink?” she asks. “Tea? Sparkling water?”
    “Maybe a cocktail?”
    She pauses a moment and looks out the window at the smoggy blue sky. She knows I rarely drink before sunset. It’s a rule my mother taught me when I was young. “Drinking is for the moon,” she would say as she poured her wine. “Darkness hides our smaller sins. But the sun isn’t so forgiving. Light requires the innocence of sobriety.”
    But how innocent had I been when I drank water in Mr. Dade’s waiting room, fixing the buttons on my shirt? How many sins have I already committed in the brightness of day? The rules are changing and I need a cocktail to deal.
    Simone disappears into the kitchen and returns with two