A Gift of Ghosts

  ***

  Zane Latimer was playing his twentieth game of solitaire on a borrowed computer in a usually unused office. He liked his own office just fine. It was comfortable and cluttered and a great place for thinking. At least for him. His sisters claimed it was full of distractions.

  But his office was too revealing for an interview like this one. The stark walls, empty desk, two metal chairs, ugly carpeting, and old desktop computer in this room presented a much better image for his purposes. He wondered if this candidate would notice the lack of a phone. There really ought to be a big clunky corded phone with square buttons. He made a mental note to search one out before the next interview.

  He glanced at his watch again. His agent at the tiny private airport had called half an hour ago. Ms. Malone had arrived without incident, but had requested a different car immediately upon seeing the black Taurus that was waiting for her. With no other car available, she had reluctantly accepted the keys from the clerk. The clerk had reported this with interest: she was paid well to note the arriving guests’ attitudes about their transportation, but this was the first time she’d had anything to say. Zane accepted the information without comment, but had been waiting a little more impatiently than usual ever since.

  Ms. Malone was the fourth person he’d interviewed. As far as he was concerned, this job search was a wild goose chase. But his father had insisted, and when Max Latimer dug his heels in, people around him mostly sighed and acquiesced. Mostly.

  Zane stood as Grace opened the door without knocking, and ushered the latest candidate inside. He paused, his mouth not quite dropping open. This—she—wasn’t what he’d expected at all. Over Akira’s dark head, his sister raised her eyebrows and grinned, and then gave him a hasty thumbs-up behind Akira’s back.

  “This is Zane Latimer,” she said to Akira. “He’ll be interviewing you today. Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, some water?”

  “I’m good, thank you,” Akira responded, tugging at the edges of her black suit jacket and then extending her hand to Zane where he stood behind the desk. “How do you do, Mr. Latimer?” she asked with an old-fashioned formality.

  “Ah, fine. And you?” he answered on auto-pilot, shooting a perplexed gaze at Grace. She shrugged as she pulled the door closed behind her, still grinning, and he gestured toward the uncomfortable chair on the other side of the desk.

  “Quite well, thank you.” Akira perched on the edge of the chair, holding her bag in front of her.

  “How was your flight?” he asked as he took his own seat.

  “This morning’s?” she answered. “It was the smallest plane I’ve ever been on. It was interesting.” Her lips curved in an almost smile.

  Zane couldn’t tell whether interesting meant white-knuckled terror or gazing out the window in delight. At Max’s behest, General Directions had arranged for Akira to fly from California to central Florida on a commercial airliner the day before, staying in an airport hotel for the night. That flight was a standard commercial flight. This morning’s much shorter hop was in a Piper Seneca, a six-seat twin-engine plane. Zane loved it, but it was not the type of corporate jet that featured flight attendants serving champagne, kitchens, fancy conference rooms and sofas.

  Leaning back in his chair, Zane steepled his fingers together. He enjoyed interviewing, but for the first time, he wished he’d found out more about this applicant than her name. He’d grabbed a slim file folder from his father’s desk when he came in this morning, but he hadn’t bothered to open it. It was now sitting on the desktop in front of him.

  “So, how did you hear about us?” he started.

  “Uh, you called me?” Akira responded, sounding doubtful. “I don’t know very much about the company. The man I spoke with on the phone last week told me you’d tell me more at the interview.”

  “I see.” Zane leaned forward, touching the folder but not quite picking it up. “In that case, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

  “I—do you mean—are you interested in my research? Or my teaching?” Akira stumbled to a halt.

  Zane gave her a polite smile, trying not to let his confusion show. Max must have called her. But where had he found her? Research? Teaching? That didn’t fit the usual profile. Max had been sorting applications and resumes for months, and this was only the fourth time he’d wanted to bring a candidate in for an interview. But Ms. Malone was completely unlike the others.

  It wasn’t that the first three had been similar physically, but they’d had a certain kind of gloss, a polished exterior, and a projected warmth that made their differences disappear. This one was a mouse.

  A cute mouse. Maybe even an adorable mouse, like a chipmunk or a jerboa. Zane tried to think of other types of mice. Was there one with dark eyes and round cheeks and fluffy hair? That would be the right kind of mouse. Suddenly he realized that he’d let the pause drag on too long and that the mouse was looking increasingly nervous.

  “Right, research, tell me about your research.”

  She sighed with obvious relief, and plunged into a description that within the first few words flew totally over Zane’s head. “Sono—what?” he finally interrupted.

  “Sonoluminescence. Specifically, stable single-bubble sonoluminescence. I’ve been experimenting with the noble gases—argon, xenon . . .”

  Before she could continue, he put up one finger to pause her and flipped open the folder that was on the desk. The single sheet of paper inside wasn’t a job application. Or even a resume. It was the last page of an academic article, with a red circle around the final paragraph.

  “Potential energy?” he said out loud, skimming it quickly. “Ah, spirit energy.”

  Akira seemed to go a little paler, if that was even possible. “That’s not . . . I mean that was simply a speculative, theoretical idea. Just a hypothetical possibility that might be—”

  “What is it you do exactly?” Zane interrupted her, still puzzling over the article. “Energy Research Quarterly? What is this?”

  “I’m a physics professor. I teach at Santa Marita College. In California?” Akira said it as a question.

  “A physics professor?” Zane couldn’t stop his lips from twitching, but he tried hard to swallow the smile. Okay, his father had gone around the bend. What in the world were they going to do with a physics professor? General Directions had a research division, but they tended to work more on biochemistry and medical projects. And Zane didn’t hire the scientists.

  A quiet tap at the door interrupted them and Akira looked back at it with relief. “Shall I—” she started as the door swung open behind her, and Grace entered holding another folder.

  Grace looked at Zane, her eyes laughing. “I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she said smoothly, “but Max wanted you to have this.”

  He took the folder she handed over with some relief. This must be the rest of the information about Ms. Malone. Enlightenment was at hand. He flipped the folder open.

  Or not.

  The folder contained three documents: General Direction’s standard non-disclosure agreement; General Direction’s standard employment contract, already filled out with Akira’s information; and a sticky note that said “Natalya says yes. Give her whatever she wants, but get her to sign a two-year-contract.” His father’s illegible signature was scrawled across the bottom.

  A two-year contract? That was ridiculous. The contracts used at General Directions were typically for short-term contract labor, three or six months at most. Why would Max want this woman to commit to such a long stay?

  “Did he say anything else?” Zane asked Grace, not hiding his surprise.

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “But . . .” He glanced at Akira. “Excuse us for just a minute.”

  Standing, he took Grace by the arm and ushered her into the hallway, pulling the door almost closed behind them. In an urgent whisper, he asked, “What job does he want me to give her? What exactly is she supposed to do for u
s?”

  Grace shrugged.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “I love seeing you confused, darling.” Grace patted his cheek. “She’s not the usual type, is she?”

  “Has Max lost his mind? She’s a physics professor. I thought I was hiring a . . .” He glanced back at the door, realizing that Akira might be able to overhear them. “It’s not like I interview every employee. Shouldn’t Smithson be hiring the scientists?” he asked, naming the head of GD’s research division.

  Grace shrugged again.

  “Well, is she supposed to work for special affairs or research or what?”

  “You know as much as I do. I guess it’s up to you.”

  “Okay.” Zane sighed. Did he want the mouse working for him or not? Well, yes. A reluctant smile crossed his face.

  Back in the office, he sat down behind the desk. She looked quite miserable. She had the kind of face, fluid and expressive, that would have been wonderful on a stage—even the audience in the farthest reaches of the theater would be able to see her emotions. But it might have been better for her if she’d been a better actress, more able to hide what she was feeling.

  Zane had planned to continue asking her questions while he tried to figure out what to do with her, but he couldn’t resist ending her misery. “So we’d like to offer you a job,” he found himself saying. “You’ll need to sign a two-year contract. And what’s your current salary?”

  “I—what?” she asked.

  “Your current salary?” he repeated patiently.

  She named a figure, but then added, “But wait . . .”

  He added twenty-five percent to the number and said the new total out loud, then added, “And Florida is much less expensive than California. You’ll find your standard of living quite different in Tassamara, I suspect.”

  “But wait,” she said again. “What do you want me to do? What would the job entail?”

  “Research.” He smiled, probably a little too brightly, while he tried to figure out what the right answer to that question might be.

  “But I don’t even know what General Directions is. It’s an extremely vague name. What does the company do?”

  “Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Some government work, some private research, some investments in other companies.”

  She frowned at him, and he couldn’t resist the urge to tease her a little. Quite solemnly, he said, “Nothing X-rated, of course,” as if that was her paramount concern. Her eyes widened, and he tried not to smile, but a quiver of mischief escaped.

  Narrowing her eyes, she forged forward, obviously determined to ignore his distractions. “My concern is the government work. Are you a defense contractor?”

  “Do you have reason to believe you wouldn’t get a security clearance?” he asked, interested now.

  Again, she looked startled. “No, but I don’t want my research used to make weapons.”

  This time he looked surprised. “Do you think that’s likely?” He flipped open the folder again and looked at the minimal material inside. What exactly was her work?

  “Well, I don’t know.” Her exasperation was clear. “I haven’t completed it yet. I don’t have any results. But I’d like some reassurance that if I do have any interesting findings, they won’t be promptly locked up in a top-secret project for military use.”

  “I can assure you that we have never developed any weapons for the government. Any government.”

  “So what do you do for the government? Any government?” She repeated his phrasing pointedly, and he couldn’t resist smiling at her. She didn’t smile back, but for just a moment, a dimple appeared in her cheek.

  “Oh, ah, well . . .”

  “Don’t tell me. A little of this, a little of that?”

  “More or less.”

  “So you’re offering me a job, but you don’t want to tell me anything about what the company does, or what I would be doing?”

  “Something like that.”

  She frowned, and he could see the indecision on her face, so he added, “I can tell you that you’ll be free to pursue your own research. On sonoluminescence . . .” He stumbled over the name, then added, “. . . or whatever.” He doubted she’d actually be researching that science stuff for long: Max must know something more than he was saying about what she was capable of.

  She was still looking doubtful, so he slid the non-disclosure agreement across the desk to her. “Sign that, I’ll give you a tour, we can talk about what kind of lab and equipment you need, and then you can decide.”

  He took out a pen and added the salary figure to the two-year contract, then showed it to her. “You will have to commit to two years. But there’s no need to think about that until you’ve had your tour.”