16
Richie Cordova sliced into the thick filet mignon still sizzling on the platter. He smiled as he inspected the purplish meat inside: black and blue, just the way he liked it.
He took a bite: as good as it looked.
He'd heard this place grilled a mean steak, and they weren't kidding.
Kind of upscale for the neighborhood—which meant downscale for just about everywhere else—but it seemed to be doing okay. Just down the street from his office all these years and he'd never tried it.
Richie refilled his glass from the bottle of Merlot he'd ordered and toasted himself.
He had a couple of reasons to celebrate tonight. First off, his horoscope had told him to, even if he had to make up an occasion. Fortunately that hadn't been necessary. He'd received a cool thou in the mail today from a new cow. The first of many, if he had anything to say about it. Next was the successful restoration of his computer files.
He'd had a few sweaty moments there in the office. Sure, he'd had a backup CD. He burned a new one every time he added new material and broke the old one into half a dozen pieces—too many copies lying around could only lead to trouble—but he'd never checked to see if the files had been properly recorded. What if something had been wrong with his disk burner? What if he'd only thought he'd copied the files, and when he tried to restore them, they'd all turn out blank?
So he'd chewed a fingernail while waiting for the contents of the CD to pop up on the screen. But when they did, and when they proved to be perfect copies of all his lost files, he'd almost got up and danced. Almost.
By the time he'd restored all his files it was well past closing time at the bank. Rather than drag the disk along to dinner, he'd left it back in the office with the money. His original plan had been to run them up to the safety deposit box in the morning, but now he was having second thoughts.
Something wasn't right.
No matter how hard he'd tried, he'd been unable to come up with an explanation beyond simple bad luck for what had happened to his computer. The computer guy had had a good explanation of how the virus had gotten into his system. Matter of fact, he'd informed Richie that the new antivirus software he'd installed had detected a total of thirteen different viruses on his hard drive. Thirteen! That was why it had taken a couple of extra hours to get his computer back to him. But he promised he'd disinfected all the files and programs. The hard drive was clean.
Richie had to admit that it was running faster and smoother now.
So okay, his computer had been a sewer of viruses. And he hadn't found a single scrap of evidence that someone had broken in. Plus the horoscopes hadn't even hinted at foul play.
So why this bad feeling? Why this gnawing suspicion that he'd missed something? Why the prickly feeling at the back of his neck that something bad might go down tonight?
His horoscope had said being in the right place at the right time was his style today. Suddenly he knew that the right place for him was his office and the right time to be there would be right after dinner. The right place for his backup CD and his money—a pretty fair amount of cake in that envelope—was safe at his house, under his pillow.
Richie turned his attention back to the steak. He felt better already.