Trust Me

Desdemona held up the picnic basket. “I brought him some lunch.”
    “That’s good. Jason and I made him breakfast, but we don’t have time to make his lunch.” Kyle glanced over his shoulder. “Hurry up, Jason. Macbeth’s here.”
    “I’m coming.” Jason dashed around the corner. “Hi, Desdemona.” He raced past her down the steps. “Bye.”
    “See ya.” Kyle followed his brother.
    Desdemona waved to them as they got into the Jeep. She waited until the drive was empty before she went into the atrium foyer and closed the door.
    It was easy to imagine that she was the only one in the house. A deep silence cloaked the two-story entrance hall.
    Picnic basket on her arm, Desdemona went slowly up the steel staircase to the second level. There she turned and went down the corridor to the door of Stark’s study. It was open.
    The heavily shadowed interior was lit only by the cold glow of a computer screen.
    Stark sat in front of the screen, his elbows propped on the arms of his chair. His fingers were steepled in front of him. The strong, blunt planes of his face were etched by the icy light. There was an alien remoteness about him, an eerie stillness that made Desdemona catch her breath.
    He seemed so distant and so unreachable, a starship captain contemplating the vast reaches of interstellar space. A man without a home, doomed to wander the frozen reaches of the galaxy forever.
    “Hello,” she said softly.
    “Hello.” Stark glanced at her with a vaguely distracted air, his attention clearly on whatever occupied the computer screen. “What are you doing here?”
    “I brought lunch.” Desdemona smiled. “I’m your official caterer, remember?”
    “Lunch? Stark looked baffled by the concept.”
    “You know. A meal that is traditionally eaten in the middle of the day.”
    “Right. Lunch.” He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I forgot about it. Did Kyle and Jason leave yet?”
    “A few minutes ago.” Desdemona came farther into the room. She peered at the glowing screen. “What have you found?”
    “Nothing yet.” Stark put his glasses back on and followed her gaze back to the screen. “A whole lot of nothing. Too much of it, in fact.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Vernon Tate knew his way around a computer. His files were locked up nice and tight. Very sophisticated system. I got in through a trapdoor.”
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s impossible to make any operating system completely secure. There are always a few glitches, mistakes, oversights, you name it. With a lot of luck, patience, and good knowledge of the system, a determined intruder can get past the security.”
    “And you’re a determined intruder?” Desdemona set the picnic basket down on the desk.
    “I’m very determined. Tate has hidden some of his files. I’m going to find them.”
    The ironclad determination in his voice made Desdemona look at him. Stark’s eyes glittered like emerald crystals in the chilled glow of the screen. He was one hundred percent on, she realized. Wholly focused.
    The only other occasions on which she had observed this level of riveted awareness in him were when he made love to her.
    “If the files are hidden, how did you discover that they even exist?” Desdemona asked.
    “I instructed the computer to show me how much space has been filled up on the hard disk. The number it gave me doesn’t match the figure I get when I add up all of the bytes used by the displayed files. Tate hid something. I’ve got ARCANE looking for it.”
    “Can you each lunch while you wait to see what ARCANE discovers?”
    “Sure.” But he did not look at the picnic basket. His attention was back on the screen.
    Desdemona busied herself laying out the pita bread sandwiches she had made. She arranged one on a plate together with a cherry tomato and some celery stuffed with feta cheese.
    She put the plate down on Stark’s side of the desk. He picked up the sandwich without even glancing at it and bit into it.
    Desdemona propped one hip on the corner of the desk and nibbled at the second sandwich.
    “Tony called,” she said after a bit.
    Stark yanked his gaze away from the screen and pinned her with it. “When?”
    “Earlier this morning.” Desdemona did not like the predatory light in Stark’s eyes. “He said the soap is off. He got the brush-off from the Hollywood crowd. He said no one down in L.A. can recall sending for him. He’s on his way home.”
    “He claims he