Run: A Novel Read Online Free

with it, I wouldn’t be looking back at buying my first Lichtenstein. I’d be looking forward to my second. Maybe even my third.
    Cash wasn’t an issue, the way it had been when I quit my job to perfect my first product. Now, there were only two things I’d need. Time to develop the idea, which I suddenly had in spades, thanks to Roger LeBrock. And raw materials to experiment with, which in my line of work meant data. Huge volumes of data. And I had that, too. On a pair of rubber-coated memory sticks. They were in my pocket. I’d clipped them to my key chain the previous night, on my way out of AmeriTel’s office. There hadn’t been any particular reason to keep them, at the time. The data was a by-product of another project I’d been working on. I’d just thought it was too good to waste, the way a carpenter might feel about a hefty off cut of oak or mahogany. Butnow, taking the memory sticks seemed like a stroke of genius. They were going to change my life. I could feel it.
    “Sorry, Troye.” I gave up on the explanation. “You’ll have to spin your own bullshit. I’ve got to go. I need to strike something while the iron’s hot …”

Monday. Lunchtime.
     
    I ’D THOUGHT IT WOULD ONLY TAKE TEN MINUTES TO GET HOME
from the gallery, but I was wrong. The route I ended up taking was twice the distance I’d expected. And it took three times longer than it should have, due to a jackass in a silver Audi who’d pulled out of Troye’s parking lot in front of me. He’d seemed eager enough to get on the road, but then hesitated before every turn and dawdled through each junction as if he were happy for every other car in the county to pull out in front of him. He was so indecisive I couldn’t understand how he’d made up his mind to leave his house in the first place. Maybe I should have felt sorry for him. He’d probably been drifting aimlessly around all morning, ever since the breakfast-time rush hour had left him in its wake like a piece of automotive flotsam. But since he was all that stood between me and the work I was raring to begin—and because he stayed resolutely in my way right up to my street—I couldn’t help cursing him instead.
    I turned into my driveway and for a moment I thought the silver Audi was already there, ahead of me. Then I realized it was Carolyn’s car. A silver BMW, which cast Troye’s crazy theory in its true light. Me, a car guy now? Hardly.
    CAROLYN HAD THE DOOR
open before I was halfway up the front path, and even from that distance her presence lit up the entrance to our home. She was wearing the navy blue suit I’d watched her set out the night before—at least I assumed it was the same one, because there’s noway to adequately compare clothes on a hanger with clothes that Carolyn’s wearing—and her hair was still pulled back in the severe style she uses for the office in the hope that people don’t see
blond
and think
stupid
.
    “You’re home early, gorgeous.” I leaned down to kiss her, and imagined how she’d look with her hair set free and the suit replaced by a bathrobe. Or by nothing at all …
    “Where have you been?” she demanded, pulling away from me and breaking the spell. “I was worried. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
    I followed her inside and took my phone out of my pocket. It showed twelve missed calls and three voicemail messages. A four-to-one ratio. And I knew from experience—coming from Carolyn, that spelled trouble.
    “Are all these from you?”
    She glowered.
    “I’m sorry, sweetheart. It was on silent, I guess. I had a meeting with LeBrock, first thing. It was a surprise one. An ambush, really. It didn’t go too well, and when I came out, I must have just spaced turning the ringer back on.”
    “I can’t believe you.” She turned and headed for the living room. “Why are you always so inconsiderate?”
    “Be reasonable.” I followed her. “I had other things on my mind. Like being shit-canned by one of my oldest