Page 76 of Don't Game Me
“No, never. But I could become like him if pushed. If I drink. He said it would happen. I can’t… If it was Becca and I lost it, I couldn’t live with myself.” Bitterness flooded his mouth. He cast a glance around to confirm the location of his trashcan.
“You have something your jackass of a father never had. Empathy. You have asshole moments once in a while, but the majority of the time you’re not a selfish prick. You protected your mother when the woman should’ve taken you and run. She should’ve gotten a restraining order against that alcoholic psycho and divorced him.” He closed in on Jake. “That photo says you’ve got some serious feelings for my sister. I don’t like it.” Noah decked him, missing his nose by millimeters.
Jake cradled his smarting jaw.
Noah opened and shut his hand a couple of times, then shook it. “You’re not going to screw up, not this time. We’re going to find Becca. If she’ll give you a chance, you’re going to fix whatever is going on in that picture. You will not become a third wheel in my marriage for the rest of my life.”
“That’s low. I’ve never been a third wheel in your marriage. If it goes south with Becca and you and Michael had to pick sides, you’d choose hers. I’m not willing to risk losing the only family I’ve ever had.”
Noah sat down on the opposite side of the desk. They stared at each other across the expanse of scattered papers and his laptop. “Sometimes, there are things worth the risk.”
“Is my nose bleeding?” Jake finally asked.
“No. But I’m thinking I need to break it so your face will be so ugly she wouldn’t even think of taking you back.”
Hours later, Jake burst through the door of the coffee shop up the street from his office building, setting his umbrella by the door next to the ten or twelve others. Each step to the counter was a soggy squish of cold wetness from the rain puddles that had saturated his shoes. It took every ounce of his self-control not to snap at the familiar barista who gave him a weary smile when he ordered his usual black iced coffee. He calmly selected a straw, sliding off its plastic wrapper.
His lunch meeting with the movie people had gone south. So far south he was shivering it up in Antarctica. Before they committed to the project, they wanted a demo of the virtual reality goggles, to see them integrated in a movie theater—the next wave in movie viewing. He couldn’t provide a demo since no movies had been converted yet to mesh with the technology. They didn’t buy his assurances it could be done.
Then his car’s “check engine” light came on during the drive back to the office. He had it towed, sending Emma to deal with it. He didn’t have time to sit and wait. He had an impending phone call from Japan within the hour and a team meeting in two hours to discuss the launch tomorrow. No reason to waste money on a cab when he was only three blocks away. He’d run the three blocks through the atypical nor’easter whipping the city.
In retrospect, he should’ve been patient and waited for a cab.
He scrolled through his email inbox on his phone, hoping for news on Becca. Seventy-two messages in two hours? He opened one. All hell was breaking loose at work between his Comic-Con pictures on the internet and the goggles release tomorrow. He closed email.
“Jake?” asked an unfamiliar woman’s voice.
He glanced around, catching himself before he recoiled. It was the woman from Comic-Con who’d helped Becca. Only, she was no longer dressed in Goth. Her makeup was toned down to highlight extra-long eyelashes and puffy red lips. She wore wire-rim glasses that made her a better fit for her profile as a hacker. Her tight shirt showed off breasts too perfectly round for her petite body.
Her here wasn’t a coincidence. Ambushes soured him to a person, whether it be a woman stalking him for sex, or a business contact desperate to push a sales pitch.
“Remember me?” she asked. “California. I helped that friend of yours. My name is Lisi.”
Jake cleared his throat when he realized he was staring.“What’re you doing here?”
“I was actually here to try to find you. See if you’d take a meeting with me. Bit jet lagged, though, and needed caffeine. Do you have a minute to sit down and talk? I’m worried about your friend.”
Too strange. “I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes, but I’ll give you five minutes.”
“Great. Thanks.” She snagged a drink off the counter and sat at one of the two free tables.
Jake wondered if she’d ordered the drink or stolen it. He hadn’t seen her in line to order or at the counter waiting to pick up a drink when he entered. The place was packed so he might’ve missed her.
He texted Noah:That Lisi person ambushed me at the coffee house next door. Weird. Giving her five minutes to talk. If I don’t turn up…send everyone to find me.
Jake sat across from her and waited for her to speak.
“I picked up some chatter that Symphis knows she came to me to get free of the Stadium and the whole thing. I think he’s going to retaliate.”
“How do you think he’ll retaliate?”Remain objective.Great goal, but impossible when the thought of Becca with a psycho after her terrified him.
“I thought you might know where she is so you can warn her.” She pushed her glasses up her nose.
“Why not call me? Or text? Or let the FBI know? This isn’t something you had to do in person.”
“I was coming out here today anyway.” Lisi nibbled on her puffy lower lip as if worried or insecure, but the act didn’t come off as genuine. Or maybe he was skeptical of her in general.
Her hand shot out to touch his. The coolness of her fingers surprised him. He held still, fighting the urge to yank his hand from hers when her long nails scraped his skin.
