that player, Charlie promised himself—free and unencumbered by his overthinking each measure and demanding perfection. All he needed to do was to keep listening to Hall.
Charlie pulled out of the driveway and onto the main thoroughfare that would lead him to Route 128 and eventually onto Route 2 toward Boston. In his head he replayed events from the last several days, hoping that something would jar a memory or give him some direction.
The small green car icon displayed on the InVision street map screen—the color indicating that he was “on course”—should be red, Charlie thought. If InVision were a mind reader, it would be red.
“I met Anne Pedersen last Thursday. It was twelve thirty. We were in the Omni Way cafeteria,” he muttered. With little effort he could see her face; her fine porcelain features; the lean, long legs; dark brown, shoulder-length hair; smile warm and embracing; teeth white and straight. “Anne Pedersen gave me this file, dammit!”
Charlie squeezed the USB key with white-knuckling force, imagining for a moment that he crushed it under the pressure and somehow, with its destruction, ended the nightmare.
“She forwarded me the invite to the meeting….” Charlie’s voice trailed off. “She forwarded me the invite,” he said again. “Of course. I have her e-mail!”
Charlie’s eyes lit up as he reached in the pocket of his blazer and extracted his BlackBerry. Practiced at driving without giving it his undivided attention, Charlie turned on the device and accessed his e-mail over the network. He switched to calendar view and noticed, with a growing sense of dread, that the invitation he had in Outlook for the executive steering committee meeting was gone.
Blood pressure rising, Charlie fumbled with the device, nearly rear-ending a car as he inadvertently changed lanes. He scanned through several days’ worth of e-mail, looking for Anne Pedersen’s first e-mail message to him, the one where she requested they meet face-to-face. That e-mail wasn’t there. It wasn’t in his deleted folder, either.
He thought about his next move. He saw no point in contacting Caroline Ramsey, even though Anne Pedersen had claimed she was positioning herself for a job in Caroline’s group and had given that as her reason for warning Charlie about Jerry’s power play. If the company had no record of Anne Pedersen’s existence, it was certain that Caroline Ramsey would have no knowledge of her, either.
Charlie knew it was counterproductive to keep asserting that Anne Pedersen was a SoluCent employee. Leon Yardley had already taken Charlie aside to ask if pressure from the pending product launch was impacting his mental health. It was obvious what the CEO had been implying—that Charlie had invented Anne Pedersen as a way of self-sabotaging his career. Of course, Charlie had denied that was true. To clear his name, however, Charlie needed to find out who Anne Pedersen really was, without further raising Yardley’s suspicions.
Before departing SoluCent, Charlie had returned to the Omni Way cafeteria but had left frustrated that not a single employee remembered serving him or his lunch companion. He wasn’t a regular at the cafeteria, a cashier had explained, otherwise he would have chatted with Charlie and perhaps remembered him coming through. There was no point in trying to find out if an Anne Pedersen had swiped her security badge at the Omni Way cafeteria, either. As far as corporate was concerned, Anne Pedersen did not exist. But perhaps someone had lost a badge or had had theirs stolen? It was worth checking into. In addition, Charlie wanted a log of his Outlook access. Someone might have been messing around with his system. Perhaps they’d changed property files on the PowerPoint document or sent and deleted his e-mails.
One thing he knew for certain was that he had read Anne’s message. It had stood out from the others, for the simple reason that he hadn’t known who she was.
Charlie pulled out of the driveway and onto the main thoroughfare that would lead him to Route 128 and eventually onto Route 2 toward Boston. In his head he replayed events from the last several days, hoping that something would jar a memory or give him some direction.
The small green car icon displayed on the InVision street map screen—the color indicating that he was “on course”—should be red, Charlie thought. If InVision were a mind reader, it would be red.
“I met Anne Pedersen last Thursday. It was twelve thirty. We were in the Omni Way cafeteria,” he muttered. With little effort he could see her face; her fine porcelain features; the lean, long legs; dark brown, shoulder-length hair; smile warm and embracing; teeth white and straight. “Anne Pedersen gave me this file, dammit!”
Charlie squeezed the USB key with white-knuckling force, imagining for a moment that he crushed it under the pressure and somehow, with its destruction, ended the nightmare.
“She forwarded me the invite to the meeting….” Charlie’s voice trailed off. “She forwarded me the invite,” he said again. “Of course. I have her e-mail!”
Charlie’s eyes lit up as he reached in the pocket of his blazer and extracted his BlackBerry. Practiced at driving without giving it his undivided attention, Charlie turned on the device and accessed his e-mail over the network. He switched to calendar view and noticed, with a growing sense of dread, that the invitation he had in Outlook for the executive steering committee meeting was gone.
Blood pressure rising, Charlie fumbled with the device, nearly rear-ending a car as he inadvertently changed lanes. He scanned through several days’ worth of e-mail, looking for Anne Pedersen’s first e-mail message to him, the one where she requested they meet face-to-face. That e-mail wasn’t there. It wasn’t in his deleted folder, either.
He thought about his next move. He saw no point in contacting Caroline Ramsey, even though Anne Pedersen had claimed she was positioning herself for a job in Caroline’s group and had given that as her reason for warning Charlie about Jerry’s power play. If the company had no record of Anne Pedersen’s existence, it was certain that Caroline Ramsey would have no knowledge of her, either.
Charlie knew it was counterproductive to keep asserting that Anne Pedersen was a SoluCent employee. Leon Yardley had already taken Charlie aside to ask if pressure from the pending product launch was impacting his mental health. It was obvious what the CEO had been implying—that Charlie had invented Anne Pedersen as a way of self-sabotaging his career. Of course, Charlie had denied that was true. To clear his name, however, Charlie needed to find out who Anne Pedersen really was, without further raising Yardley’s suspicions.
Before departing SoluCent, Charlie had returned to the Omni Way cafeteria but had left frustrated that not a single employee remembered serving him or his lunch companion. He wasn’t a regular at the cafeteria, a cashier had explained, otherwise he would have chatted with Charlie and perhaps remembered him coming through. There was no point in trying to find out if an Anne Pedersen had swiped her security badge at the Omni Way cafeteria, either. As far as corporate was concerned, Anne Pedersen did not exist. But perhaps someone had lost a badge or had had theirs stolen? It was worth checking into. In addition, Charlie wanted a log of his Outlook access. Someone might have been messing around with his system. Perhaps they’d changed property files on the PowerPoint document or sent and deleted his e-mails.
One thing he knew for certain was that he had read Anne’s message. It had stood out from the others, for the simple reason that he hadn’t known who she was.
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