He had indeed promised her that. “That’s why I’m calling,” he said.
Veronica laughed. “And here I was thinking you were calling because you missed me.”
“There’s that too.”
“Tell me how your meeting with my dad was.”
“Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be,” White lied. “He offered me a job. It comes with a nice pay bump.”
“Did you take it?”
“Well, my first thought was that if we want a two-hundred-person wedding and enough money left over for a honeymoon in Bali, the right call was to take the job.”
He heard her chuckle again. Her laugh reminded him how terribly he missed her, how permanent his hunger for her had become, and how difficult it was going to be to keep stuff from her.
“I had Bora Bora in mind, but okay. Bali’s a good idea, I suppose,” Veronica said.
“Whatever you desire the most, Vonnie,” he said. “Who says we couldn’t do both?”
“Sure, with that big pay raise of yours. Why not?” Then her voice turned serious. “What does he want you to do to earn it?”
“Mostly investigative stuff,” White replied, doing his best to keep whatever he said to her as close to the truth as possible. “I think I’ll be traveling quite a lot, though. I hope this won’t be an issue.”
White heard her slight intake of breath. “You already have a mission, don’t you?”
“I’m leaving in a few hours.”
“Any chance you can stop by Fort Worth on your way?” she asked wistfully.
“No, but I’ll be back in a few days. And I’ll have my phone with me.”
“All right, then. What about the concrete news you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Your dad and Tom Girdner have absolutely nothing to do with the problems you have with Drain. The same is true for the issues with the servers.”
“Well, that’s great news, I guess,” she said with a guarded tone. “You seem convinced.”
“I am.”
“I’m thrilled for you, Clay. But I still have my doubts. You didn’t see my father’s face when I told him the updated version of Drain would come out whether he wanted it or not.”
White didn’t want to end the call arguing with Veronica. If he were in her shoes, maybe he’d think the same way since she didn’t have access to the intelligence he had.
“Can we talk about it when I get back? I’d like you to run me through the conversation you had with him one more time.”
“Okay, we’ll do that, Clay,” she replied a couple of seconds later. It was her way to let him know she wasn’t pleased about the consensus they’d reached. “We’ll talk when you get back.”
PART THREE TWO DAYS LATER
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Arlington, Virginia
Abelard Krantz needed much more than the twenty-four hours he got to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the upscale neighborhood he found himself in. Unfortunately, time was of the essence. The clock on the Ford sedan’s console said it was just past eleven o’clock. The sun was shining directly into the vehicle, making the inside temperature too high for comfort. Thankfully, clouds were rolling in from the east, moving like a swarm of grasshoppers, rapidly covering the blue sky. The tall trees lining both sides of the street were gently swaying in the wind, their leaves stirring.
Though the street wasn’t particularly busy, there was still enough traffic that Krantz’s sedan—a rental car he’d procured with an alias—didn’t draw any undue attention. With his monocular pressed against his eye, Krantz confirmed that there were still two cars parked in the driveway of General Girdner’s Victorian-style residence. The general’s wife, a petite, fit brunette with short hair, had arrived around ten o’clock, wearing colorful yoga pants and a tight-fitting pink T-shirt. She had spent a couple of minutes talking with her neighbor before entering the house through its main door. When General Girdner had returned thirty minutes later with two grocery bags in hand, he had parked his Lincoln SUV next to his wife’s sedan and disappeared inside the house. Exactly six minutes later, the automatic garage door had slid open, and Girdner had reappeared with a green water hose. Krantz had watched him plug the hose into a manual sprinkler before once again returning inside his home, leaving the garage door open.
Krantz didn’t believe the Girdners had anyone living with them. Their kids were all adults now. Krantz had confirmed all this online, thanks to social media. Grandkids were a possibility, but he doubted it. Earlier in the day, just a few minutes after sunrise, he had flown his drone over the neighborhood and made a couple of medium-altitude passes over the general’s house. Back in his car, when he watched the videos, he hadn’t noticed anything indicating that young kids were present in the household. He hadn’t seen any dogs either.