NEW YORK CITY

September 

Laurel Kingsford flinched when the door of her office banged open and Jerry Garcone cruised in. The wisp of concept she’d flirted with all morning, the breakthrough solution to one of the most difficult problems her design team faced, disappeared from her mind.

She’d been Jerry’s mentor in the firm since he came aboard three years earlier. He should know better than to barge in like this by now.

“Sorry to disturb you, IQ, but Nick wants to see you in his office ASAP. Want me to tell him you’ll be up after you powder your nose?”

IQ again. The nickname had settled on her. Because she was so bright, the guys in the management clique said, but one of the other women on staff had whispered the truth. It stood for “Ice Queen”.

“No, no need. I’ll be along as soon as I can save my work and shut down the system.”

It was totally unfair, she was warm and open with everyone, but she was in New York to build a career, not catch a husband, and she turned down social invitations from male employees, Jerry among them. The nickname had been her reward, and it stuck – even after she and Rob became engaged.

Jerry maintained a friendly manner in her presence, but he was too ambitious for his own good. No way would she trust him alone with Nick if she could help it, not when everyone expected the new head of the fuel cell project to be named in the next few days.

Tom Everett, retired project head, had recommended her as his replacement. Rightly so. She had the qualifications: six years in fuel cell engineering; two as team leader; several summers of deep-sea research with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Woods Hole, dating back to her college years; and a love of everything nautical. She planned her summer vacations around one NOAA field project or another, and they always invited her back.

The job was hers. She was comfortable with that, but experience had taught her the importance of guarding her flanks. Her breathing accelerated. Could this be it? The formal announcement?

Jerry peered over her shoulder at her screen. She glared and he stepped back. “Okay, see you up there.” He didn’t bother to close the door when he left.

Five minutes later, Laurel left the elevator on the twenty-fifth floor and entered the reception area outside Nick’s office. For the past weeks, she’d taken care to dress more formally. She wanted to be ready, if and when the announcement came. Today’s suit set off her eyes, and didn’t do too much to disguise the fact that she was young and trim, even if in her own mind she was too tall, and her figure less than eye-popping.

Nick’s receptionist smiled. “Go on in, Laurel, they’re all there already.”

All?

With a sudden sense of foreboding, Laurel entered the division head’s office. Opposite the entrance, a bank of windows began at knee height and extended to the ceiling. Outside, Manhattan enjoyed another warm early September morning.

Nick Zaia’s desk dominated the center of the room and he stood when she entered. Marianne, Laurel’s friend and head of the Propulsion Project, was present too, and so was Jerry Garcone. Jerry wore a suit she hadn’t seen before, of very good cloth. She hadn’t noticed downstairs. He wore it well, along with a huge grin. Beside him, Marianne did not look happy. Her eyes flashed a warning.

“Ms. Kingsford. Good. Come in, please.”

Laurel’s sensors went to full alert. Nick always called her by her nickname. He came around the desk and offered his hand. He was tall and fair-skinned, with curly black hair and wide blue eyes. His outward demeanor was open as they shook hands.

Nick went to the windows, where he looked out for several seconds. Then he moved back behind his desk. He didn’t sit, or invite anyone else to.

“I didn’t expect you to get up here so quickly, Ms. Kingsford, but now that you’re here, you might as well hear it from me.” He shuffled papers on his desk while he shifted from foot to foot, then looked up at her.

“I’ve just accepted Marianne’s resignation as Propulsion Project manager...” His eyes were unreadable as they bored into Laurel’s. When she did not react, he went on. “We’ve named Jerry Garcone to replace Tom Everett as head of the fuel cell project. Management decided a fresh approach, a new attitude, would be good for the department.”

Laurel was struck mute. They couldn’t leapfrog Jerry over her. She was senior on the design team, practically carrying the whole project on her shoulders. Jerry didn’t have a prayer of handling the job. Had Marianne quit over the news? Until now, she’d been the only woman in a leadership position in the company, and Laurel’s strongest ally.

“But...I thought...” she tried, but the words wouldn’t come.

Nick seemed emboldened by her confusion. “I know Jim recommended you to replace him, Hon, but we felt the program would be more stable with a... with Jerry’s hand on the tiller.” He stepped around to her, seemed genuinely sorry to have to deliver the news, and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You’re a great asset for us. I just hope you can see your way to working under Jerry. We need you to keep producing the same high quality work you have all along.”

The truth came with his choice of words, the way he’d been about to say “a man’s hand on the tiller.” A heat began in Laurel’s neck and rose upward over her face. Marianne out. The ally she’d counted on. It was all lost. How could she face the other team members, the other female employees? Suddenly she was angry, angrier than she could remember, so angry she trembled. She stalked to the door of the office, her body stiff as a ramrod.

“Laurel, wait!” Marianne called. “Don’t.”

On the elevator down to her floor, Laurel fought back tears. She succeeded, but only until she reached her office. When the door closed behind her, the dam burst and tears flowed so thick she stopped trying to wipe them away. Tears of indignation, not sorrow; resentment, not remorse.

She booted her computer. She might need to cry when things like this happened, but she could still function. They wouldn’t get the innovations she’d conceived for the fuel cell. The ones she'd anticipated being asked to develop. Technically, they might be the property of Forrester NA, but they could hardly prosecute her for stealing something they had no idea existed.

When the system was up, she tapped in her code words and stuck a CD in the drive. Two minutes later she’d burned the contents of her personal files into the disk.

She pulled up the operating system and typed in the instruction, “FORMAT C:\”. After assuring the mainframe that she really, really wanted to reformat her hard drive, which would result in the irretrievable destruction of all data there, she typed the final “Y” and waited as the routine got under way. Ten minutes later, her hard drive was fresh as a newborn baby. Deleted files? What deleted files?

Just in time too. Moments after she removed the CD, her system went off and the screen went black.

The bastards were making sure she didn’t do anything irrational while she was angry. Like quit and take work papers with her, exactly what she’d just done.

Let that bushwhacker Jerry Garcone stew in his own salsa.

Suddenly, the only thing she could think of was getting out of there and getting home to Rob. Rob would know how to help. He would comfort her. She pulled the liner from her wastebasket and emptied its contents on the floor. Then she began to clean out her desk. When she finished, she pulled her keys, employee ID, parking passes, and even her unused lunch tickets from her purse and threw them on their desk.

She’d given this company the best of herself, her abilities and talents, her spirit. Not because it was a way to make a living. It was more. A demonstration to them, as well as to herself, of her value as a person.

It was exactly eleven forty-five when she left her office, carrying a half-filled trash bag and the disk containing solutions to problems her design team didn’t know it had yet. Not much to show for six years of hard work, hopes, and dreams.

She ignored the stares that escorted her to the exit.

There would be other jobs. She’d quit without notice, so there’d be no money other than the refund of the retirement contributions she’d made, but they would manage.

Laurel turned the key and pushed the apartment door open. “Hello! Robbie. I'm home early,” she called as she entered the hall. Rob had been busy today. He'd finally picked up the half dozen pairs of footgear he usually kicked off and then abandoned in the entryway. About time.

He didn't answer. She went into the kitchen and put the plastic bag of belongings on the table. “Are you home, honey? I've got news.”

Well, maybe he hadn't been so busy after all. The breakfast dishes were still piled in the sink. Maybe he'd gone out job hunting. That would be good news.

She entered the living room, on the way to the bedroom. That was when the first wrong note sounded. The home entertainment center, which included TV, VCR, stereo, CD player and tape deck, was missing.

Her hand went to her throat and a chill spread. “Rob! Rob! Are you all right?”

She whirled, a complete circle. Looking for what? An intruder? She ran into the bedroom. What she saw stopped her cold.

“My God!”

The drawers of Rob's dresser were out, on the floor, empty. On the vanity, her jewelry box was open. She went to it and quickly pawed through. She didn't really have much of value. She sighed with relief. Everything seemed to be there. Except the small case she’d jotted her access codes and passwords in – the computers at work, the cable company. She’d probably neglected to put it back last time she retrieved a forgotten password.

A needle of dread lanced her, stealing her breath. She had put it back, she remembered clearly, after recording the codes to access her accounts on line, the ones the bank had just set up two weeks ago.

She reached over and booted her computer. In less than a minute she had her accounts on the screen. The funds from her savings account had been moved to her checking account ten days ago. The day after that, a check for virtually her entire balance had been paid to the account of someone named Andrew Pierce.

The bed was unmade but she sat on it anyway. The sheets were cold, unwelcoming. Her mind reached for understanding. Rob's closet was empty. Everything of his, his guitars, his hobby kits, everything was gone.

He’d betrayed her. She sobbed and fell backward onto the sheets. It would be too late to reverse the transaction. The money would be gone. He’d left her nothing, not even a note to say, “I’m sorry”.

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