Free Full Frontal Murder by Barbara Paul Page A

tomorrow night.

8
    A sardonic smile was on Holland’s face as he hung up the phone. This sudden passion for photography on Marian’s part could only be the offshoot of a case she was working on. Something in the pictures she wanted to check out? Or was it the photographer? Suspect, eyewitness, potential victim? It would become clear tomorrow night.
    Sometimes she brought her work home with her, sometimes not. Tonight she wasn’t even bringing herself home. On the phone she’d forestalled his offer to come to her place, saying she had a lot of things to take care of—getting clothes ready for work, checking her mail, stocking the fridge. It was an excuse, of course. She still needed time to herself.
    Time away from him.
    He understood that message. But what she didn’t understand was that what was privacy for her was like being in solitary confinement for him. My natural state , he thought without self-pity or irony. He had been alone his entire life and in fact had preferred it that way; he felt nothing but contempt for those who whined about being lonely. It was man’s natural state, standing or falling alone. But it had never hurt so in the past, before a cop named Marian had crossed his path.
    Once she’d stayed with him ten days, the longest stretch ever. Perhaps one day she would not leave at all.
    The phone sounded. Mrs. Grainger’s voice said, “André would like to see you. He says it’s important.”
    â€œSend him in.”
    The door opened and a well-groomed young man with a baby face entered. André Flood was not yet twenty, but he looked even younger. “Mr. Holland, we need to talk,” he said soberly.
    How ominous . “Do you talk better sitting or standing?”
    â€œUh, standing, I think.” Nervous: he kept shifting his weight.
    Holland had stayed seated. “So? What’s the problem?”
    â€œWell, I, uh.” He blurted it out: “I’ve been offered a job by Chris Carnell.”
    Holland smiled his sardonic smile again; he’d known this would happen sooner or later. It was just his good luck that Carnell happened to be the first. One of the world’s aging computer whiz kids.
    No computer system was truly secure; any system in the world could be broken into, given time and enough ingenuity on the part of the hacker. Businesses around the world hired systems designers to make their own computers impregnable; then they’d contract Holland’s agency to test them. There hadn’t been one yet his staff had been unable to crack. So then the businesses would hire a different designer, they’d call in Holland, the cycle would repeat. And the money kept rolling in.
    Chris Carnell was one such systems designer. He’d bragged in print that he’d finally come up with the foolproof computer security everyone had been looking for since the invention of the modem. It had taken André Flood exactly eight days to break in.
    And now Carnell was after André. “What did he offer?”
    â€œA third more than you’re paying me. Plus stock options, of course.”
    Of course . André was already well paid, and he knew it. “That’s a great deal of money,” Holland said noncommittally.
    André cleared his throat. “I thought I should ask you if you’d care to make a counteroffer … before I give him an answer.”
    Holland propped his head up on his fist and stared at André, letting the silence grow. Chris Carnell was an erratic, temperamental genius who unfailingly drove his employees nuts. One reason he didn’t own the world was that he couldn’t keep a staff together long enough for any meaningful continuity to develop. André, on the other hand, was a precise, orderly person—almost anal with his list keeping and preoccupation with detail. He and Carnell were not a marriage made in heaven.
    Holland sat up straight. “All right, here’s my