The Burning

Chapter 8

Down on the office floor, the tide had begun to ebb as employees departed for the night. A substantial number stayed put, eating delivery at their desks. Start late; end late. Or they had power here but not at home. So many young faces. How many of them had families or partners waiting for them? Why sit alone in a stuffy apartment without Netflix, watching your phone run down?

Better to expense your açaí bowl and establish bona fides as a hard worker.

Evelyn said, “We’ll need a few minutes to get you set up.” As if she were prepping for a colonoscopy.

“Thanks. While you do that I’d like to have a look at Luke’s desk, please.”

She stopped walking. She glanced up at Scott’s pod, back to me. “What for?”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“It depends. What’s going on here?”

“I’m concerned about him,” I said.

“Why?”

“Nobody knows where he is.”

Another quick peek at the god in the sky. “This way.”

The flat hierarchy applied to everyone but Scott Silber. Luke’s workstation was identical to every other workstation: a black mesh ergonomic chair and a narrow allotment of gray desktop. Writing implements filled a mug tiled with images of him and Andrea. There was a monitor with a dangling cable hookup for a laptop and a printer-paper photo of Charlotte taped to one corner.

The laptop itself was absent.

The workstation to the left was unoccupied. The twenty-something white guy to the right swiveled to greet me: “Yo, what’s — whoops.” He laughed and returned to his screen. “Sorry.”

“Back in a bit,” Evelyn said.

She went.

“Excuse me,” I said to the guy.

“... yyyyessir.” He swiveled.

“Sorry to interrupt. I’m Luke’s brother. You thought I was him.”

“Yeah, I thought he shaved and I was like Noooo... Sorry, you guys must get that a lot.”

“Can I ask your name?”

“Matt.”

“Are you friendly with him, Matt?”

“Me and Luke? Yeah, of course.”

An Asian American woman across the desk spoke up: “Everybody likes Luke. He’s Mr. Positive.”

A few people seated within earshot smiled to themselves.

I asked the woman her name.

“Annie.”

“He was here on Friday afternoon,” I said. “Did either of you see him?”

“Friday I was out,” Matt said.

“I was here,” Annie said.

“Did you talk to him?”

“I think a little?” she said.

“Did everything seem normal?”

“Normal?”

“Did he seem preoccupied or upset?”

She and Matt exchanged a look.

“Is everything okay?” Annie asked.

“I’m wondering if you noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

“Not really.”

“Did he mention any weekend plans?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, he’s Luke, he’s the best. But he doesn’t socialize, per se.”

I looked around at young, guileless faces.

Why would they hang out with a guy in his forties?

Evelyn turned up the aisle.

I took a pen from the mug, unstuck the printout of Charlotte, and wrote my contact information on the back. “If you do think of anything, this is me. Any of you. If you remember something, please get in touch.”

I placed the paper in the middle of the desktop. Nobody moved to take it. They all looked obscurely traumatized.

Evelyn approached. She eyed the paper. “This way.”

She put me in a conference room and gave me water in a compostable cup.

“We’ll be ready in a second.”

Thirty minutes later she returned with reinforcements. Olivia from HR fanned out a sheaf of waivers and NDAs. Rita from Legal stood by as I signed them. Harold from IT opened up a laptop.

“This is Luke’s?” I said.

“You don’t need the physical device to access his data,” Harold said. “Everything’s in the cloud.”

Apart from a trip to Portland at the end of the month, my brother had no travel scheduled.

“What about his meetings yesterday and today?” I asked.

“He’s been out of office,” Evelyn said.

“Did he call in? Or cancel?”

“You’d have to ask the people he was supposed to meet with.”

“Great. Can we do that?”

A beat. Evelyn glanced at Olivia, who glanced at Rita.

Harold picked at his chapped lips.

Rita said, “May I ask what the purpose of this is?”

“I told Evelyn. We don’t know where he is. It’d help to know who’s seen or spoken to him.”

“You’re a police officer?”

“I’m his brother and I’m here as a private citizen.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not comfortable with you interrogating our employees.”

“It’s not an interrogation. Nobody’s under arrest. It’s a yes — no: Did Luke make his meetings or not? It doesn’t have to be me who asks them. You do it. Or ask Scott. He’ll be happy to help.”

Three heads rotated toward the glass pod, where Scott could be seen at a distance, pacing and fluttering his pink broadcloth arms like a tropical fish in a tank.

Harold tore off a piece of skin. His lip bled and he dabbed at it with the hem of his hoodie.

Rita said, “Let’s hurry it up, please.”

Evelyn took out her phone. She checked the laptop screen and thumbed a message. A moment later the phone emitted a cutesy bubble-popping noise.

She checked the laptop, thumbed again. Pop.

Olivia smiled at no one. Rita stared at the floor, wishing she billed by the hour.

Harold was rolling the piece of skin between his fingertips like a tiny joint.

Pop, pop, pop.

“No,” Evelyn said at last.

“He didn’t call in.”

She shook her head.

“Didn’t cancel.”

“Everyone’s telling me he never showed up.”

“All right,” I said. “Let’s check his inbox.”

Harold flicked away the skin, opened the mail client, and slid the laptop to me.

Evelyn, Olivia, and Rita drifted forward to read over my shoulder.

I turned in my chair. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to respect Luke’s privacy.”

Evelyn stepped back. Olivia stepped back.

Rita threw me a look of loathing and stepped back.

Luke’s mailboxes were untouched since Saturday. Ditto the documents and chat feeds.

No mention of the Camaro anywhere. Nothing to or from Rory Vandervelde. For that Luke more likely would have used his personal email.

Thinking he might have used one account as a backup for the other, I opened the login page in a new window and keyed in lukeedison29. I clicked FORGOT PASSWORD? and followed the steps.

A few seconds later a recovery link showed up in his work inbox.

I clicked it.

The screen prompted me for a code sent to his phone.

Accounts and usernames and passwords and PINs, a giant knot of electronic yarn.

“Say I did want to find the physical device,” I said to Harold. “The computer he uses belongs to you? Do you have a way to track it?”

“As long as it’s actively connected to the internet.” He drew the laptop over, typed, shook his head. “Off-line.”

“Are we almost done?” Rita asked.

Harold said, “What about his phone?”

“I don’t know where it is,” I said.

“Do you want to know?” He angled the screen out to show an employee profile, tabs for payroll and benefits and so forth. Under the PROPERTY tab, two entries appeared.

“We don’t issue employee phones,” Olivia said.

“You did to Luke,” Harold said.

I believed Olivia from HR that Bay Area Therapeutics did not issue phones, and I believed Harold from IT that they’d made an exception in my brother’s case. He’d been hard up when Scott made him employee number nineteen. Probably Scott had said something to soften the impression of charity. Just till you get back on your feet.

They’d since forgotten about it. Or maybe they justified the perk on the grounds that Luke made a lot of work calls. Andrea would have her own phone plan, predating their relationship.

I pulled the laptop over and clicked LOCATE.

A new window opened, a map marked with a red pin: Castro Valley, south of the freeway.

“That’s where it is?” I said.

“It’s where it was, last time it pinged,” Harold said. “It might not be there anymore.”

I clicked the pin, bringing up coordinates and a timestamp.

Monday, October 2, 12:04 a.m.