The Reunion by Grace Walker Page B

across the street.  It was just starting to get dark and the city was coming to life.  He was worn out between the time difference, the flight, the chaos at the airport, searching for luggage that ended up at three different hotels and running Em down.  He should have LoJacked her. 

-9-
    Marshall found the file right away and copied it to the share then merged it with the information he had from before.  Em had wonderful organizational skills.  He shouldn't be poking around at her computer but he wasn't really in her business just looking over her sub directories and system. He saw a folder called "Family" and he couldn't resist. 
    Marshall clicked on a spreadsheet file then pushed back from the screen evaluating the information in front of him.  It was unbelievable… a nightmare of names, marriages, divorces, deaths, births, and hyperlinks to a photo gallery.  He decided he shouldn't be looking at this.  He went to the next sheet in the workbook.  Birth dates, marriage dates, divorce dates, death dates. Cross-linked and updated to and from the first page and to other files in the folder as well.  He went to the next sheet labeled locations.  It contained cemeteries, chapels/churches, record locations, document locations, hyperlinks to scanned copies of records: birth, marriage and death certificates.  The next page was one of several pages of histories going back almost four hundred years.  The hand on his shoulder caused him to start guiltily. 
    "What have you got there?"  Brockton asked.
    "Her family."  The look on Brockton's face was full of censure and Marshall immediately went to shut down the application and Brockton stopped him, just as curious.  Marshall returned to the first page.  They were reading some of the information when Cummins asked what they were doing.  The both looked guilty and reduced the screen to the taskbar.  Brockton closed the application and started the shutdown of the computer.  No wonder scheduling an implementation was a piece of cake for her. Look at the data she had and how it was organized on her own family.  Brockton was impressed all over again.
     
    "Mr. Brockton!"  The man was startled and jumped to his feet.  He was sitting in a restaurant with the mountain and the gigolo.
    "Brockton?"  The gigolo looked the man over. "Chairman of the board?"  He asked the mountain.
    "Harris.  Having a nice time?"  Brockton smiled.  Nothing should surprise him anymore.
    "Yeah, sure."  Jeff Harris looked at Josh and Ty, who shrugged and looked at Brockton. 
    "I was looking for Em."  He asked the big guy.
    "Just missed her.  She's probably back at the arcade with Mike."
    "Thanks."  Brockton turned and headed back to where he had found her earlier. 
    "Brockton?"  Josh asked Jeff Harris, one of the cousins from Atlanta.  "Brockton Petroleum?"
    "Brockton International."
    "Well that explains Curtis and Ham's behavior.  How many do we have working for them?"  Ty snagged a piece of shrimp from Josh's shrimp cocktail.
    "Seven, maybe eight."
    "How many offices?" Josh asked and slid the shrimp cocktail to Ty and pulled the breadbasket out of Ty's reach.
    "Five different offices I think.  Let's see, I'm at corporate in Atlanta, so's Keith.  Ham and Em are in Irvine; Curtis and Jaime in Austin; the Crenshaws in Denver; Meghan in New York and Sam RunningDeer is flying supplies for them in Alaska.  Aren't the twins working for them too?"
    "Drilling platform in the Gulf, but that's subcontracted."  Ty finished the cocktail sauce and tried to get the breadbasket back from Josh.  Carole came back, handed Ty the basket and kissed her husband. 
    "Your mom was looking for you."  Carole said breathlessly after being kissed by Josh.
    "Where is she now?"  Josh asked with a smile.  Carole was flushed and doing this little wiggle thing with her hips on his lap.
    "Going into the 9 o'clock show.  We'll run her down later."  Carole sat down in one of the vacant seats, next to