Silicon Waning (Tin Can Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  The suite—203—was marked in large, brushed-silver numbers on the corner of the building, a dash of glitz on the otherwise boring concrete exterior. But that was the only signage visible. The reflective, greenish glass windows that flanked the front entrance were cold and impersonal, and only a smattering of other cars dotted the lot. The place felt deserted.

  I doubled checked my notes to make sure. Yes, Hilary Beelam, my contact at the company, had confirmed they were in suite 203. Maybe the company was so new they hadn’t had time to install their own sign on the facade yet.

  I slid out of the car and tugged the hem of my skirt back down to a professional level. Then I hoisted the strap of the tote bag over my shoulder and strode toward the door with a bright of-course-I-know-what-I’m-doing smile plastered on my face. First impressions and all that. Who knew who was peering at me from the other side of the reflective glass?

  Just above the handle on the door was a sheet of copy paper hand-printed with the Prox-E-Dyne company name encased in a clear plastic page protector. In a classy touch, the temporary label had been affixed to the glass with zebra-striped duct tape. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. So far my score was one for one. I pulled open the door and stepped inside to face an empty lobby.

  Several cardboard boxes were stacked in a corner, but there wasn’t a receptionist’s desk or any kind of seating, not even a potted plant. The space smelled of fresh paint and carpet glue. I snagged my phone from my tote and dialed Hilary’s number.

  “You’re here?” she squealed. “I totally lost track of time. Be there in a sec.” And she hung up.

  Nosy creature that I am, I sidled over to the cardboard boxes and peeped inside the top one. It wasn’t like the flaps were taped shut or anything. The box was full of smaller cartons of amber-colored glass bottles with eyedropper caps. Which jibed with what Hilary had told me on the phone earlier—that the company needed a marketing strategy for their new line of skin rejuvenation serum.

  It was a day for meeting beautiful people. First the Trussants, then Hilary. She breezed through a door directly across from me, her blue eyes blazing and short spiked blonde hair standing pertly at attention. But what really struck me was her skin—so smooth and almost powdery in its dewiness that I was tempted to stretch out a finger and see if she’d somehow airbrushed herself in real life. But I refrained.

  Good thing too, because Hilary advanced like a glamorous freight train, grasped my upper arms, and leaned in to give me an air kiss near each cheek, complete with accompanying smacky sounds.

  “Perfect, perfect, perfect,” she trilled, and crooked her finger while whirling around to retrace her steps. “Follow me.”

  I should have dressed up more. Who knew a biotech start-up company would require their female employees to wear tight pencil skirts, cinched jackets with peplums, and four-inch stilettos? Maybe it was just Hilary’s personal style, but my frump factor jumped to the double digits in comparison. I wiped my palms on my skirt and obeyed.

  She led me through a labyrinth of cubicle parts still bearing their protective shrink-wrap, moving dollies, and strewn toolboxes. “We have a new division coming in,” she said over her shoulder. “The analysis section that complements my research branch.”

  Not only were my feet trotting to keep up with her, my brain was struggling to grasp the meaning of her words. I chuckled quietly to myself. This was why scientists needed marketing people like me—to translate for the average customer.

  The deeper we moved into the building, the more ordinary it became. Desks started showing up as whole units rather than in parts. Then, pretty soon, there were people sitting at the desks surrounded by the papers, files, and scribbled-on calendars that indicated employees hard at work.

  The distinctive odor of a frozen bean burrito being microwaved to a burned lump in a break room somewhere caught my attention. Not that that was the sort of thing I, personally, would eat at ten o’clock in the morning, but I breathed a sigh of relief at the normalcy of the odor. How well I knew that people who work long hours often don’t keep regular mealtimes. And this company definitely had the frantic vibe of an organism that was constantly outgrowing its shell.

  Hilary darted a glance at me to make sure I was keeping up, then dodged into a cramped conference room. More cardboard boxes were stacked against the walls, and a whiteboard at the end of the long desk was covered in mathematical formulas written in purple marker.

  “We’ll meet here. I’ll get the team.” Hilary waved her arm toward the table. “Set up wherever you like.”

  One chair was as good as the next, so I plopped into the closest one that was facing the door and drew a notepad and pen from my tote bag. I wouldn’t be able to make a solid pitch until I’d learned about their product so I was prepared to listen first, then speak.

  A line of tired-looking people in white lab coats straggled into the room. Most were clutching steaming travel mugs and snacks in addition to their own notepads. Apparently at Prox-E-Dyne, meetings were the only chance employees got to eat. The whole situation brought back unpleasant memories of my old job in Washington D.C., and my sympathy level rose exponentially.

  I was also surprised at how young they all were for being so haggard. Nary a gray head in the bunch. An even mix of men and women and all as casually dressed as I was under their lab coats.

  Hilary was definitely the most energetic of all and clearly the ringleader. She bustled back into the room and clapped her hands. “Everybody, this is Eva Fairchild, our marketing guru. Let’s show her the product.”

  And I got an education. Facts, percentages, something called autophagy (I had to ask the young man who was holding forth in a monotone how to spell it), testing protocols, an active ingredient list, an inactive ingredient list, and scent manipulation. I covered my notepad in scribbles I’d likely be unable to decipher later, and my head was spinning with information.

  But none of it would do any good—at all—for the general public. I finally raised my hand to interrupt the fifth presenter, the woman who had been in charge of the double-blind human trials. “Can anyone tell me what this serum does in one sentence?” I asked.

  All eyes in the room rotated to Hilary.

  “This,” she said and pointed to her own face.

  I gaped at her. Now that was something. “Really?” I blurted.

  She nodded, a wide smile splitting her face without producing a single wrinkle in the buttery smooth finish.

  “You tested the product on yourself?” I asked, just to verify.

  She shrugged. “It’s my project. All the best scientists do.”

  Ahh, yes. I smiled back at her. Ancer’s babblings from this morning were starting to make a little more sense. They were practicing the literal meaning of skin in the game.

  I nodded slowly. “How soon do you need to make a profit on this product?” I was envisioning billboards, an appearance on Good Morning America, ads in all the major women’s glossy magazines—my mind was on a roller coaster of opportunities. A product like this and women everywhere would give their eyeteeth for it. A smashing, instant success.

  “We don’t, actually.” Hilary sounded apologetic. “We have plenty of financial backing. But part of our contract does state that the products we develop have to have commercial applications. So I was thinking along the lines of an invitation-only beta release. You know, a couple mailing lists. Maybe to women who already use Botox or something like that.”

  “Where the results would be mingled and therefore not perfectly attributable.” I scowled. “The serum will sell so much better if your early testimonials come from customers who had no other recourse.” I scooted forward on my seat. “We could do a video documentary of the process. I assume it takes a little while to achieve results like yours?” Now I was thinking about a time-lapse infomercial. Wouldn’t QVC love to get their mercenary little hands on this serum?

  “We don’t want a wide release.” Hilary’s tone was firm, resigned.

/>   I growled a little, internally. Why would a company hire a marketing guru, as Hilary had called me, and then not let me do my job? “That’s nuts.” Nothing like overt frankness to get me kicked out the front door. I became aware that everyone else in the room was watching our conversation like a tennis match, eyes bouncing from opponent to opponent as we swung at the topic.

  Hilary shrugged again, this time with a little smirk. “That’s business. At least, it’s our business.”

  I slumped back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. Fine. I could work within insanely restrictive parameters. “If you want a controlled release, how about through dermatologists? I could design brochures to go with samples of the serum. You would probably want to attend the next dermatology convention—I’m sure there is one; there’s a convention for everything these days—and host a booth. Maybe take out a few discreet ads in their trade magazines and journals?”

  By the time I finished my little rant, the entire room was nodding along with me. Apparently, I’d hit the sweet spot.

  “Perfect.” Hilary beamed. “Give the serum a clinical appeal, highbrow, not off the shelf.”

  And therefore they could justify charging a much higher price, which would keep the serum outside the purchasing power of most ordinary, middle-class women. If that’s what they wanted…

  I sighed. I could do snooty too, in a pinch.

  oOo

  On the way out, Hilary had pressed several tiny bottles of serum into my hands—amber ones with eyedropper caps. They had handwritten labels affixed with clear packing tape which had blurred the precise blue ink numerals. Apparently version 15.2.67 had been the one that worked since that’s how they were marked.

  “Just a few drops morning and evening, after you’ve washed your face but before you put anything else on it like moisturizer or makeup,” she’d murmured, and given me a conspiratorial wink. “Try it on the backs of your hands too, and your neck. It’ll keep the wattle away.”

  Gee, thanks. With my luck, though, I’d probably have to marinate in the stuff. But I had a contract. Hilary hadn’t flinched at the hourly rate I’d quoted—one of the perks of unlimited independent financial backing, I suspected. Orchestrating their marketing campaign would provide enough to hold starvation at bay and pay my mortgage for another couple months. Whew.

  I leaned over and tucked the bottles into my tote bag on the passenger seat, trying to pad them with the other contents of my bag. It’d be a travesty to have them break inside my bag and give my notebook, pens, laptop, phone, and assorted detritus that glowing, youthful complexion—or an electrical short.

  I tipped my head back against the headrest and exhaled slowly, decompressing. I always get riled up, overstimulated by sales pitches. But this one had been outside my normal realm of experience. Secretive, almost. Marketing is usually about shouting from the mountaintops. It was the first time I’d ever had a client balk at excessive publicity.

  I shook off my contemplative mood. Things to do; places to go.

  My old Volvo roared to life as usual, and I backed out of the parking spot. Curious, I circled the building because there had been a lot more people inside than there were cars in the front parking lot.

  Bingo. Behind the building, out under the waving bare branches of juvenile, straight-from-the-landscaper trees planted in neat berms between swaths of fresh pavement were about a hundred vehicles. I puttered down an aisle, noting the number of BMWs and Acuras and Audis in the mix. Prox-E-Dyne paid well.

  I slammed on my brakes and threw the Volvo in reverse. Yep. I recognized that gangly, stooped guy with the glasses who was unlocking the door to a beat-up Jeep Wrangler. I hurriedly cranked down my window.

  “Hey, Ancer,” I called.

  His head whipped around, and he squinted at me. “Oh, hey.” He looked down at the fistful of keys in his hand and jingled them self-consciously.

  Ancer’s in his mid-thirties, but most of him still looks like he’s in his teens. It has more to do with how he holds his body than his actual size. He was wearing baggy jeans and an unbuttoned plaid flannel shirt which flapped loose over a printed T-shirt for some band I’d never heard of. But most notably, he was wearing conservative Dr. Martens oxfords and not the brightly-colored cross-trainers.

  “Are you feeling okay?” I hitched my elbow over the window ledge.

  “Yeah. Got enough jitters I didn’t need coffee this morning though.” He shifted his weight and grinned crookedly at his own joke.

  I thought it could have been so much more serious than that, but I bit my tongue against a lecture. Instead, I said, “I didn’t know you worked here. I was just inside giving a pitch.”

  “Oh, well, it’s sort of a contract thing.” Ancer scratched his head with the keys, leaving the hair above his ear sticking out like a malignant growth.

  “The shoes?” I asked.

  “Um, about that. Could you sort of forget what you saw? I’m not supposed to test prototypes off-site, but the lab’s not really set up for in situ observations.”

  So his jog through the wildlife refuge had been homework? But I nodded agreeably. “Maybe next time you should take a buddy though? I mean, just in case?” Not only was I being nosy, I sounded like his mother. I tried a different tack. “Will you be at Bettina’s party tonight?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Ancer scrunched his nose and stared at a treetop across the way, making the light reflect off his glasses. “I usually work late.”

  I chuckled. What he didn’t want to say was that he was painfully shy. I’d never seen him at one of Bettina’s parties. “It’d be great if you could come,” I singsonged as I pulled away. “Probably the last one of the season, and the food’s always terrific.”

  I was hoping the promise of a good meal would lure Ancer into testing the social waters. Maybe Bettina could rustle up a pretty girl for him to sit next to so his evening wouldn’t be a waste. The girl’s evening I couldn’t account for.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was, indeed, a party for the ages. So many people came that Bettina’s floating house wouldn’t hold them all, and they spilled out onto the surrounding decks and walkways. I even saw people darting into the Dibbles’ floating house two slips away in E-15 to use the facilities when the line for Bettina’s lone bathroom got too long.

  I was one of the spillees, wedged—trapped, rather—against the deck railing facing the river with a flimsy paper plate loaded with delectables in my hands. At least my immediate company was good. And the scenery was spectacular.

  “You’re going to teach me how to make these, right?” Willow asked as she popped another one of the pot stickers I’d contributed to the potluck in her mouth.

  I flashed her a grin. “Of course.”

  “’Cause I might need to flaunt my culinary skills for a date.”

  “Oh, really?” I stopped chewing for a moment and fixed her with a do-tell-this-instant stare.

  She shrugged and stuffed a strand of blue Kool-Aid dyed hair behind her ear.

  “I’m going to dunk you head-first in the river if you don’t spill,” I growled.

  “Geez Louise.” Willow carefully wheedled walnut chunks out of her Waldorf salad with a plastic fork. “It’s no big deal. It’s just Cy. We’re in an elective lit class together and have this big report coming up.”

  I bit my lip—hard—to keep from saying I told you so. Cy Watson was one of the good guys even if his wardrobe could benefit from a shade other than black. I had high hopes that Willow and her psychedelic personality would be good for him. Although at fourteen and seventeen, respectively, it could only be puppy love at best.

  At least I assumed that’s all it was. I eyed her again. “Under your grandmother’s close supervision, I presume?”

  Willow snorted and sprayed masticated salad over the railing. “Why? Are you volunteering to chaperone?”

  “No. No, no, no.” I tried to retreat but there was no place to go. Then I had to apologize for tromping on the heel of the la
dy behind me. “No,” I hissed, returning to hunch my elbows on the railing with the paper plate precariously balanced. “Well, maybe. I mean, if you need a place to hang out, my kitchen’s as good as any.”

  Willow snorted again, deeper and more negatively. Her snorts were a language unto themselves. “I’ve got it covered. We’ll behave. I just need to practice a couple times so I don’t set the apartment on fire when he comes over. Think how impressive that’d be.” She rolled her pale gray eyes and made me chuckle.

  I can’t tell you how glad I am not to be in high school anymore.

  An obnoxious shriek of laughter pierced the general party hubbub. I flinched and jerked my head in the offending direction. “Who’s that?” I asked under my breath.

  Willow kept Roxy organized and filed all of the marina’s paperwork, so of course she knew. “Gloria McBride. She let a few of those honkers fly while they were in the office signing the lease—month-to-month, by the way. Gran took the prudent measure of placing them in E-2, as far away from everybody else as possible.” She scrunched up her little face. “Too bad it’s not far enough. I heard her this morning while I was brushing my teeth. I’m thinking sabotage.”

  “Willow,” I warned, “your grandmother needs the occupancy rate as high as possible.”

  “Maybe a dead fish. I could slip it into their engine compartment,” Willow continued, undeterred. “But it gets even better. Guess what her husband’s name is.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the shorter, slender man standing beside the buxom honker with the raging tumble of brassy blonde swirls. He practically disappeared next to her. I shook my head. “You’re just going to have to tell me. Unless it’s Jack Sprat.”

  At least this time Willow’s snort didn’t contain food particles. “L-U-Q-U-E.” She spelled it out for me.

  I squinted at her. “Like Lu-u-uke?” I stretched out the name, emphasizing the long vowel.