House Odds by Mike Lawson Read Free Book Online

engineers.”
    Molly did, but added, “They’re just people like me. They wouldn’t do something like this. And none of them, as far as I know, has any of my personal information.”
    “Molly, can you think of anything that will help? Anything. Someone snooping around your office, someone asking for your Social Security number, someone asking where you bank?”
    Molly started to say something, but then gave a strangled sob and rose from the table and went over to stand by the kitchen sink with her back to DeMarco. She stood there, hunched over the sink as if she might throw up, then finally straightened but didn’t turn around.
    “What time is it?” she asked.
    “Uh, twelve thirty,” DeMarco said, checking his watch. What difference did it make what time it was?
    “Would you like a drink, Joe?” Molly said.
    Ah. She didn’t want to start drinking before noon, like if you drank in the morning you were an alkie but if the sun was past its zenith, you were okay. And she didn’t want to drink alone.
    “No, thanks,” DeMarco said. “Nothing for me.”
    Molly opened a cupboard above her sink and pulled out a bottle of scotch. Cheap scotch, DeMarco noted. It probably tasted like paint thinner. While Molly was pouring a drink, DeMarco told her what Randy Sawyer had said about three previous insider trading cases at Reston Tech.
    “Molly,” he said, “if you can’t think of anyone who would want to frame you, can you think of anyone at your company who might be involved in insider trading? If Sawyer’s right about these previous insider cases, it has to be someone who’s worked there a long time, long before you ever got there. So can you think of somebody who’s richer than you’d expect him to be? You know, spending more than you think he should be able to afford. Or how ’bout somebody who always seems especially curious about what you’re working on.” DeMarco was grasping at straws, and he knew it.
    Molly didn’t respond; she was still at the sink, her back to DeMarco. She had slammed down her first drink while he was talking and then immediately poured another shot, this time adding ice to her glass.
    “Molly,” he prompted her. “Do you have any ideas?”
    She continued to ignore him while looking down at the drab courtyard outside her window. DeMarco had noticed the courtyard when he walked into the building: a small square of grass that was mostly weeds, a dry birdbath, and a couple of bushes with wilted brown leaves. The whole apartment building had the look of a place that ignored minor maintenance—or a place where the tenants couldn’t afford to complain if the maintenance wasn’t done.
    Molly turned at last to face DeMarco. Her eyes seemed brighter—a by-product of the alcohol, he assumed.
    “They said I might go to jail for three years. I’m going to have a criminal record and lose my job and my dad’s going to be humiliated by the press. I just feel like . . .”
    She started sobbing. She cried so hard that she collapsed into a small heap on her kitchen floor. DeMarco walked over to her, pulled her to her feet, and took her into his arms. He patted her back clumsily, like he was burping a baby; she was so thin he could feel her shoulder blades through her shirt. “Molly, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you out of this, honey. Trust me.”
    She didn’t know a damn thing that would help him and she was too distraught to think straight—but, sure, trust me.

7
    Greg Porter walked out of the Public Safety Building on Atlantic Avenue, thinking the meeting with the cops hadn’t gone so well—but the cops were the least of his problems.
    This thing that Ted was doing—lying to McGruder, hiding stuff from Al, juggling the numbers . . . He had a bad feeling about it, a really bad feeling. It looked as if Ted’s latest maneuver, however—convincing McGruder that that guy Gleason had ripped off a load of fish—had worked. Or so Ted thought—but Greg was still