Trust Me

against the dark screen. Cool satisfaction went through him.
    “Gotcha,” Stark said softly.
    Jason looked at him. “Are you in?”
    “I’m in.”
    Kyle grinned. “This is even better than Wyvern’s Treasure.”
    Stark put down the cereal bowl and went to work at the keyboard. “Let’s see what we can find.”
    “I’ll bet Desdemona and the rest of the Wainwrights will be excited when they find out that Vernon Tate had a super secure system on his computer,” Kyle said.
    “Yeah,” Jason said. “It means he might have been doing something really mysterious.”
    “It might simply mean that he liked his privacy,” Stark said calmly.

    “Mona, what the hell happened here?” Ian Ivers asked from the doorway of Desdemona’s office. “Looks like a hurricane went through.”
    Desdemona put down the complicated insurance form that she had been working on all morning. “You must have heard that one of my employees was murdered Friday morning.”
    “Yeah. That’s one of the reasons I came by.” Ian dropped heavily into a chair. “Wanted to make sure everything was okay with you Christ, I hadn’t realized the killer had torn things up like this.”
    “The police think he was searching for a floor safe or something of value,” Desdemona said wearily. She had been over the tale a dozen times since the murder. Her neighbors and the owners of the small businesses on the block had all wanted to hear the gory details.
    “So the poor ice carver had the bad luck to walk in on him and got iced, himself, huh? And I hear you got locked in the freezer?”
    “Yes.”
    Ian glanced at her, his eyes very intent. “You actually saw the guy?”
    “I saw him, but I couldn’t describe him. He was wearing a nylon stocking over his face. Was there something you wanted, Ian? I’m a little busy at the moment.”
    “What? Oh, yeah. I called Tony’s number, but there was no answer, so I thought I’d see if you had heard anything from Stark. Think he’s looked at the proposal for Dissolving yet?”
    “I think it’s safe to say that playing theatrical angel is not high on Stark’s list of priorities at the moment.”
    “Mona, could you do me a favor here? You’re close to Stark. Could you put in a good word for me? I have a hunch he’ll listen to you.”
    Desdemona sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Look, why don’t you give it up, Ian? Stark’s not really into theater.”
    “Damn it, Stark needs this as much as we do.”
    Desdemona raised her brows. “He does?”
    “Think what it will do for his corporate image. It’s a fast way for him to become known as a patron of the arts.”
    “Maybe you shouldn’t have told him that your goal was to put on a play that would rip the guts out of the audience,” Desdemona said. “I think the concept had a negative impact on him.”
    “Yeah, yeah, maybe that’s where I went wrong. His secretary says she’s been instructed not to give me an appointment.” Ian shot to his feet and began to pace the office. “Maybe I need to rework the program.”
    “Good idea. Tell you what, you go rework your proposal, and I’ll finish cleaning up around here. Luckily the killer didn’t bother to mess up my computer.” Desdemona swung around in the chair and switched on the machine.
    “Maybe the ice carver interrupted him before he got around to it,” Ian suggested.
    “I guess that’s possible.” Desdemona shivered as she punched in the familiar commands that called up the weekly schedule. “I don’t even like to think about what happened in here.”
    “Say, do you know where Tony is? He and I were supposed to do lunch today. We’re gonna discuss possible casting for Dissolving. ”
    “Tony’s in L.A.”
    Ian abruptly stopped pacing. “L.A.? What the hell is he doing down there?”
    “He got a call from the soap people.”
    Ian was incensed. “Damn it, I thought he’d learned his lesson about Hollywood. He knows that stupid soap is dead in the water. Dissolving is at a critical point.”
    “You mean it might dissolve completely?”
    “Very funny.” Ian looked genuinely hurt.
    “Sorry.” Desdemona frowned as an unfamiliar message appeared on her screen. “That’s strange.”
    “What?”
    “My computer is asking me if I want to recover some lost files.”
    Ian craned his head to see the screen. “That’s a message you get when there was a power failure in the middle of a work session or if you accidentally turned off the computer without exiting