Free Reason To Believe by Roxanne St. Claire Page A

magic.”
    Her heart did a free fall at the sweet compliment. Or maybe it wasn’t a compliment, maybe that’s just how she heard it. “It’s not magic, what I do,” she said, still drinking in the look on his face.
    “I didn’t say you performed magic. I said you are magic. Big difference.” He draped his arm around her. “Come on, Tinkerbell. Let’s go see what else can go wrong today.”

    When the head of security handed Chase a list of every vehicle that had come and gone from the MetroNet lot the day before, including the name of the drivers and passengers, it was obvious that plenty more could go wrong.
    “No Eric Scheff,” Chase said to Arianna. “He must have come in using a different name.”
    “We check photo ID on every single person who enters this lot,” the man insisted. “We don’t check the ID when they leave, but we do log each license plate, and there’s a camera at every gate. You’re welcome to match every car to every log entry on this list, and you will not find a discrepancy. I’ll stake my job on it.”
    Chase instinctively believed him and turned down the offer, mulling over the ill-fitting puzzle pieces. An Eric Scheff appeared on the list of studio guests, but not on the vehicle log.
    “I told you I didn’t see him in the audience,” Arianna said as they returned to the lot. “We could look at yesterday’s tapes.”
    “I think we should,” Chase said. “Just to confirm that he was there. Or not. Who has them?”
    Her face fell. “We have to go back to Brian’s office and find out which editing studio is being used today. It could be one of about six, even off the lot.”
    “Could you call?” he asked, his hand already on his cell phone.
    “I could, but…” She squinted up at him. “It’s been long enough for him to…I want to face him, maybe see who he was with. I like your idea that it was a setup. Maybe…” She absently stroked the ring she wore. “I just want to go over there one more time.”
    He did, too. He was curious to get to know the man who’d hired Arianna even though he thought she was a fraud, and now that he knew they’d been lovers, he wanted to make a closer inspection of the guy.
    But it wasn’t to be. When they reached the office, a woman Arianna didn’t know sat at one of the three desks. Unless Brian’s taste ran toward fifty-year-olds with bad face-lifts, he hadn’t been catching a little afternoon delight with this lady.
    “He left a couple of minutes ago,” she told them. “Pretty agitated, I might add. Never even said goodbye.”
    And she was clueless about where they were editing, and confirmed that she hadn’t called Arianna in for pickups.
    “I’m a MetroNet temp, Miss Killian,” she said. “I’ve never worked in this office before. They called me this morning, but Mr. Burroughs didn’t have anything for me, and he was too nice to send me back to the temp agency. He told me to go kill a few hours in the cafeteria, which I did. I was hoping he’d just sign my time card and let me go, but he shot out of here before I could ask.”
    Arianna gave Chase a confused look. “Is Carla Lynch around? She’d have some answers.”
    “She was here this morning, but then she had to go to the office on Sunset.” Her face brightened. “Want me to call there? They might know where you can find the tapes.”
    “Um, okay.” Arianna’s attention drifted to the office, looking again to the room where Brian had been behind closed doors not so long ago. As the woman picked up the phone and started dialing, Arianna slowly took a few steps toward the darkened office as if she was drawn into it.
    “While you call, I’ll just check his desk to see if he left any notes about the editing.”
    She didn’t wait for permission or a response, but continued right into the office, Chase close behind. As soon as she was in the office, she spun around and looked at him, her eyes bright.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked.
    She didn’t say