Page 99 of Ten Years and Then…
He kept staring at her for a moment, waiting for her to—she didn’t know what. But whatever it was he was expecting, she didn’t do it. She returned his gaze with all the confidence she didn’t remotely feel.
“What the hell. You’ve got nerve, Ms. Langley. Let’s see if you can back it up. The car will be in front of the hotel in fifteen minutes, and it leaves for the airport in sixteen.”
“Thank you,” she said, already up and on her way to her room. Fifteen minutes to get there, pack, get back downstairs and check out? She could manage that.
It wasn’t until twenty minutes later, sitting in the back seat of the car with Mr. Whittaker, that she remembered her promise to meet Daniel when the show floor closed town later today.
He’d understand. He had to.
Daniel, around five o’clock
Daniel made it back to the booth just in time to help the team shut it down for the day.
Everything had gone well—better than he could have hoped, honestly. The panel was great—he’d more than held his own with the people from Comcast and AT&T. The vendor meetings had been successful—he’d made a strong start that the sales team could follow up on. And all three demos went off without a hitch.
The only thing missing was any word from Nora. She hadn’t been in the crowd for the panel, or at any of the demos, and she definitely hadn’t come by the booth—his team would have told him immediately if she had.
And no messages on the cellphone. But she was busy—she had interviews lined up, plus whatever else she ran across on the show floor that was newsworthy. There were a couple of hundred booths, that was definitely enough to occupy a reporter all day. Especially when she was the only reporter from her organization here.
But he could page her now. She’d see it was him, and she’d call back when she was free. He dialed the number, heard the tone and left his cell phone number. He punched the digits in casually, as though she’d somehow be able to tell his state of mind when she got the page and a recorded voice read the number back to her.
Now it was just a matter of waiting.
“Daniel,” Red said. “If you don’t—you know, if you don’t have plans, we were thinking of—don’t laugh—going bowling. Well, you guys can bowl.” She waved her injured leg in the air. “I’ll keep score and let you all buy me drinks.”
Bryce spoke up. “I went for a run this morning, and passed by a bowling alley—just a few blocks away.”
Nora might call at any moment. But the cell phone would be with him, so when she did he could just make his excuses and leave. Or he could invite her to join them. She’d probably love it. And watching her put Edward in his place when he inevitably said something stupid and obnoxious would be hilarious. Not to mention he might actually tone the obnoxious behavior down if he got called out by someone outside the team.
“Sure,” Daniel said. “It sounds like fun.” He didn’t add, Until Nora calls me back, but they all knew it anyway.
Nora, an hour later
She finally had time to contact her office, after she’d been dropped off at the Prairie Gate Inn and checked into a room. She’d spent the last five hours at the Gateway 2000 Headquarters in North Sioux City, South Dakota.
Nora’s first call was to the twenty-four hour emergency line for the travel office. They needed to know where she was, both for safety’s sake, and also so the company credit card wouldn’t be declined when she used it to check out from a hotel in South Dakota instead of Kansas City where she was expected to be.
They also needed to book her a flight home on Sunday morning. After spending most of the day with Bill Whittaker and his leadership team, he’d asked her to stay tomorrow for an in-depth tour of the Gateway 2000 factory, and an extended demo of their new corporate workstation product line. “We already have a strong presence in the home computer market, but we’re going to make a big push to get into the business market. You’ll be the first journalist to see what we’re planning.”
She couldn’t say no to that; she’d miss a lot at the conference, but this was absolutely a cover story. Even if Mr. Brooks fired her for making a snap decision without consulting him—or anybody—back home, he’d have to give her the cover first.
She had his home number, for emergencies, and this certainly qualified.
But she had another call to make before that. Daniel would understand; how could he not? This was a career-making opportunity. She could hear him now: I can’t believe you just asked him to take you with him on his jet! You’re amazing, Nora. Didn’t I tell you you’d be a star?
She had to settle for imagining his words; when she called his cell phone, she got a computerized voice telling her no one was available and to leave a message.
Maybe he was at an early dinner with his team, or maybe the phone battery had run out. Either way, he’d get her message soon enough, and he could call her back here in the room.
So she might as well order room service and wait for that call back.
Daniel, two hours later
Still no word from Nora. He was starting to worry that something had happened to her. She could be sick, or injured. She might be in the hospital.
What else could explain it? Even if she’d been slammed with interviews all day, she would’ve checked her pager. She would’ve found a phone. Wouldn’t she?
The silver lining—if you could call it that—was that his increasing anxiety was helping his bowling. He was throwing the ball harder than he could ever recall doing, thanks to all the nervous energy. He actually bowled a 160 the last game, which was an all-time high for him, by a lot.
