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Getz asked, “So, what do you think? Are you starting to see the possibilities?”

  Always the suggestive comments. How should she answer? “The possibilities? Yes, absolutely. This is brilliant.”

  Melissa looked up at Getz, who still stood by the whiteboard. Keep his mind on the project. “We could build out a library of celebrity characters. Everyone from Madonna to Steve Jobs. People would go crazy.”

  “There you go, you’ve got the idea,” said Getz. “Already in the plans. What else?”

  Melissa looked at the whiteboard, then back to Getz, forcing herself to remain clear and focused. “Some people will just be looking for a new relationship. A boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Someone to talk to. There’s that.”

  “Premium content.” Getz grinned. “And you’ve just approached what’s probably going to be the main profit center. What we call ‘The Virtual Ideal.’ There’s something inside people that’s always searching for that ideal relationship. We’re going to come pretty close to fulfilling that.”

  I have an ideal man, and he’s not virtual. He exists somewhere, and this will help me find him.

  Getz erased the Doughboy figure with the umbrella off the whiteboard. “I’ve got a meeting with our CEO, Dan Hammersmith, in a few minutes. He’ll want to meet you on Monday when you come in. You can go through all the Human Resources rigmarole then, all right?”

  “Sure,” said Melissa. “That sounds great. I’ll be here when the doors open.”

  Getz reached toward her and took her hand before she could withdraw it. He held on to it as he looked into her eyes, eyebrows slightly raised.

  “I’d like to talk to you more before then. There’s a lot we need to discuss before we . . .” He grinned, mirthlessly. “Before we get down and dirty, so to speak.” He paused. “I could, say, meet you for dinner tonight? Just talk through some things? I think it’s going to be important to know we’re compatible, that we think the same way about things, don’t you?”

  Here it is. Oh, I know you, Getz. Down, dirty, and compatible.

  She looked at his left hand. No wedding ring. She didn’t want to lose this job before she got it.

  No matter. If it went wrong, she knew what to do. “Sure, Mr. Getz. What do you have in mind?”

  “Aaron, call me Aaron,” he said. He still gripped her hand. “I’ve got your address from your résumé. How about I pick you up at six-thirty and we go out to the Tuscan Villa? It’s in downtown Indianapolis near where you live.”

  She hid a shudder, as if she were in the coils of a venomous serpent.

  Getz hesitated. Had he seen her react?

  “Don’t worry. Strictly professional. Do you like Italian okay?”

  She withdrew her hand. “That will work. I’ll expect you then. And thank you for working out the job.”

  Melissa could still feel Getz’s green eyes on her as she walked through the double glass doors to the street outside.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Problem Solved

  Through the large bay window in the living room, Melissa glanced down at the street in front of her house. The glowing blue numerals on the mantel clock read 6:20. Getz would be here soon.

  She straightened the dark gray pantsuit she’d chosen for the evening. It looked businesslike, efficient. If Getz was going to get weird on her, it wouldn’t be because she encouraged it.

  She strode into the kitchen and opened the wide drawer under the breakfast counter. It rattled as she pulled it open. The nine-inch Gingher scissors had been purchased for a craft class the year before. The knife edges on the blades were like new, and the scissors slipped easily into her handbag.

  A car horn sounded outside. She could see Aaron Getz waiting in front with his hazard lights flashing. I’m just a piece of meat to him. He doesn’t even bother coming to the door. She turned off the lights and descended the steps to the curb.

  Getz smiled at her as he opened the passenger door of his SUV. “Good evening, Miss Montalvo,” he said with mock courtesy. “I’m happy to see you again so soon.”

  “Thank you.” She held up her purse. “I’m ready to take notes,” she said, moving quickly to keep the conversation focused on business.

  Melissa settled down in the wide seat and buckled her seat belt.

  “I talked with Dan and told him you’d be starting on Monday. He’s excited to have you on board. We all are.”

  “Hammersmith?”

  “Right, Dan Hammersmith. CEO. I told you I’d be meeting with him. We’d like to jump right in with a big planning meeting on Monday afternoon.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Getz was dressed in a gray polo and khaki slacks. Did they look like they had both dressed in gray to please one another? Melissa hoped not.

  “You just need to finish up all your HR paperwork so we can finalize the hire that morning.”

  The words struck her. “Finalize?” Hadn’t she already accepted the offer? What was going on here? Was finalizing the job conditioned on how this evening turned out?

  “Oh,” said Getz. “Nothing to worry about.” He kept his eyes on the road ahead, avoiding her gaze. He moved his right hand to her knee, stroked it lightly, and returned it to the steering wheel. “Dan simply wants to know we’re going to work well together.”

  Melissa cocked her head to one side. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “I think I hear a thumping sound coming from one of your tires. Don’t you hear it?”

  He tipped his head toward the driver window. “No, I don’t hear anything. Are you sure?”

  She put on her best concentrating face. “I’m sure of it. You’d better do a walkaround as soon as you can and check it out.”

  Getz pulled the SUV up in front of the restaurant. As soon as the tires stopped rolling, Melissa jumped out. “You can check your tires. I’ll get a table and meet you inside.”

  The Tuscan Villa was a storefront with a deep interior. It was built with an abundance of wood, both on the floors and in the walls. The right-hand side of the large room had an oil painting of an Italian street scene.

  Melissa chose a table in the back of the restaurant, away from the window. She sat with her back to the door. A candle in a fishnet-wrapped globe burned in the center of the thick, crisp, white tablecloth. She bent close and blew the candle out.

  Getz arrived at the table, exhaled loudly. “The tires looked okay; I don’t know what you were hearing.”

  Melissa shrugged. “Maybe just road noise. Never hurts to be careful.”

  After he was seated, he ordered a seafood plate. He tried to get Melissa to do the same, but she demurred. She kept her back turned to the server and ordered only salad and bread sticks.

  She wondered what Aaron Getz had in mind. No, correct that. She knew what Aaron Getz had in mind. What was in doubt was how the evening would turn out for Mr. Getz, not for her. Either way, it was not going to be what he expected.

  Dinner arrived. Melissa reached down for her purse on the floor as the server put the plates on the table, keeping her face from view.

  “I had another thought,” said Melissa. “For the virtual friend concept. Have you considered having living people do virtual clones of themselves?”

  Getz raised an eyebrow in query as he lifted a bread stick to his mouth.

  “Suppose a person wants to come up with a virtual representation of himself. A virtual clone. He works through a battery of questions. We get his or her history, psych profile, everything. We do it all on a secure website so the person’s privacy is protected. When it’s all complete, the person can put it to work on Facebook or any other venue he chooses.”

  He put his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “Hmmm, maybe, I see what you mean. Instead of us building out celebrities on our own, the celeb himself may wish to take ownership of his virtual clone for his own purposes? Frankly, we had not considered that. Well done!”

  “Not just that. Not just celebrities. I’m thinking far out now. You tell me i
f I’m going too far. What about a father? He’s got cancer, and he wants to leave something of himself for his family. Someone who’ll be here when he is actually gone? And maybe a mother wants a clone of her sixteen-year-old daughter, so she’ll always have her the way she remembers her?”

  “Hey, you are thinking.” He tapped his finger against the tabletop. “I knew hiring you was going to be a good move for us.” He sat back, turned his head and waved toward the server, who was setting up a nearby table. “Hey, can we get a couple of cappuccinos?”

  Minutes later, two of the Italian coffees arrived with a small biscotto on the side. When the dinner plates were cleared away, he gave her that look again. Familiar, conspiratorial. “We anticipate there will be a dark side to this too. What’s to stop a man from coming up with a virtual girlfriend? Or a lonely housewife conjuring up the man of her dreams? The truth of the matter is, there is nothing to stop that.”

  “True. I’ve considered that. This sort of thing is open to all sorts of abuse. I don’t know how we could avoid it.”

  A hint of a smile played on his lips. “Nor would we want to. We’re running a business, not a church. The philosophy of VirtualFriendMe is, if you’re not hurting someone else, then we are not going to interfere.” He leaned forward. “What do you think, Melissa? I like the philosophy. I mean, if you’re not hurting anyone, what’s the harm? People can do what they want.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “We just need to keep enough safeguards in place to keep it out of the newspapers.”

  He dropped his eyes, looked back up at Melissa, and smiled. A sort of smile that spoke condescension and power at the same time.

  “Like you and me, Melissa. I think it’s important we get along well, don’t you? Even more than just in the professional sense, we need to know we are—well—compatible.”

  She nodded, knowing what was coming next. Compatible. That word was growing more and more distasteful to her ears.

  He looked at Melissa, his brow furrowed. “Do you think we’re going to get along well, Melissa?”

  “Yes, Aaron. I think we are going to get along very, very well,” she said, unsmiling.

  “There’s a place I like to go sometimes, not too far from here. Last place in the world anyone would ever look for two people.” The words seemed to hang in the air.

  “Yes?”

  “Well,” he said, “I thought that, you know . . .”

  “We could go there? Is that what you mean? That you want me to go there with you?”

  He nodded, head bobbing like a plaster figure. “Yes, when we’re done with dinner . . .”

  “Sure, Aaron. Let’s go there. Let’s see what your world is really like.”

  • • •

  THE TOWN CENTER MOTEL had lost its luster. Perhaps there had been a time when it catered to a straight business clientele, but the flight of the middle class to the suburbs back in the seventies had taken its toll. The large outer wall of the motel was finished in rough concrete, painted over with crude lettering advertising rooms by the day, the week, and the month. A smaller sign hung under a bare bulb by the office advertising the $25 hourly rate.

  Getz pulled the SUV into a space at the far end of the building, hidden in the shadow of a balcony overhang. “Wait here, I’ll take care of this.” He fumbled in his pockets and came up with a small roll of cash. Another smile.

  Melissa watched from inside the SUV as he walked to the office. It was a walkup window where he pushed his money through a metal drawer. The clerk was hidden somewhere behind a wall of thick glass. She shivered, and clutched her handbag. Stay calm. Don’t start shaking.

  He returned with a key on a large ring. He walked to the door in front of the car and used the key to open it. He’s been here before. He knew where to park where we wouldn’t be noticed. Standing in the open doorway, he beckoned to her.

  Melissa opened the car door and stepped onto the decaying asphalt. The car chirped as the door locked behind her. He must have used his key fob to lock it. Only one way to go now. She walked from behind the SUV to the door of the motel room, where the dim yellow light from inside seemed to puddle on the walkway in front of it.

  The motel office sign was visible from this end of the building, but not the window. They would not see who Getz had brought this time. A block wall hid their faces from any pedestrian that dared to walk these streets at night.

  She stepped in, stopped short. The room felt sticky and had a strong scent of industrial disinfectant. A faded shag rug covered the floor, and a television with an artificial wood cabinet sat on a glossy veneered table. The table, like the television on it, was marked by burns from cigarettes.

  Getz walked to the bed and turned it down. “This place isn’t much, but the sheets are clean. That’s enough, right?”

  “It’s all that matters.” Melissa fingered the zipper of her pantsuit jacket, making sure Getz saw what she did. “Aaron, pull the top sheet all the way down, will you? Why don’t you lie down and let me rub your back for a while, okay? We can talk for a few minutes. I’m a little nervous. It will help me relax.”

  Like I could relax in this slime pit.

  Getz complied, lying down on his stomach with his face on the pillow. “How’s this?” His voice sounded muffled.

  “Great. Now close your eyes. Start thinking about us working together.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m feeling more comfortable all the time.”

  Melissa set her handbag softly on the bed as she sat down next to the prone man. With her left hand she rubbed his shoulder in a circular motion. With her right she reached into the bag and withdrew the scissors. Light flashed on the blades as they came silently out of the cloth bag. “Are you ready to check out our compatibility?”

  “Mmmmmmm.”

  With her left thumb Melissa felt along the base of Getz’s skull until she touched the concave area where the two tendons meet under the base of his skull. “Feel good?”

  “Mmmmmmm.”

  “Let’s get rid of that tension.” She began rubbing in the depression, making sure of the spot.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Getz.”

  Getz’s eyes opened. Too late.

  Melissa shoved the scissor handles with the butt of her hand into the spot she’d located on his neck. The sharp blades passed through the epidermal layer and into the muscle layer beneath. She leaned in and pushed harder as the flesh crunched and tore with the passage of the stainless steel tips. At the end, there was a soft pop as the brain stem parted into two useless pieces.

  Getz’s legs stiffened and kicked one time as she listened to the final rush of air leaving his lungs.

  “For compatibility’s sake, Mr. Getz.” White-knuckled, she gripped the handles and moved them around in a wide arc inside Getz’s skull before withdrawing them.

  There was very little blood. Just a stain at the top of the polo’s collar. She wiped the scissors off on the back of his shirt, and rinsed them clean in the bathroom sink. Then, from her purse she took out a plastic bag, sealed the scissors inside, and tucked the bag back into the purse.

  Stay calm, Melissa.

  She removed the sealed wet-wipe envelope she’d brought, tore off the edge, and extracted the alcohol-soaked fabric. Her thin fingers trembled slightly as she wiped down the table, the doorknobs, everything she had touched. No one had seen her enter, she was sure of that. The SUV was still parked in the shadow of the building, the passenger side invisible to the motel office. She could walk in the direction away from the office without being seen.

  Melissa turned out the light in the room. Only a soft, muted glow from inside the plastic case of the television remained. Eyes closed softly, she accustomed herself to the absence of light.

  She gave Getz no more than a glance as she left, turning the knob with the stiffening wet wipe. She would dispose of that somewhere on the way back.

  She looked left, right. No cameras, no strange people with their prying eyes.

  No one had seen her
face at the restaurant. Hadn’t she even made sure they walked in separately? Darkness had shrouded her time at the motel. There wouldn’t even be any DNA evidence. No taxi records. Nothing.

  Confident, she stepped into the darkness for the long walk back to her home.

  Much later, she made out the pale glare of lights from a convenience store near her home where they spilled out onto the parking lot on a young man who was pumping gasoline. She wondered absently why her hands felt so dry, then went inside the store and bought a tube of hand lotion. As she walked the final few blocks to her home, she rubbed the lotion into her skin.

  Her eyes surveyed the dark sky. It was such a pleasant, pretty night.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Unfulfilled

  Four Years Later

  A September mist fell across the fields and the evening fog glittered on the Taurus’s windshield. Scott Douglas leaned forward toward the glass. There were always deer, raccoons, or something just waiting by the side of the road to jump out and cause an accident.

  I’m late again. What is Rachel going to think?

  A quick glance at the car clock: 8:03. Maybe the kids would still be up, but for the third time this week he had missed dinner. A pair of green eyes winked luminous in the darkness on the side of the road.

  The houses were familiar now. The blue glow of their wall-sized television screens poured out of the windows to diffuse in the darkness. Ahead, the blue and white reflectors on his mailbox caught the beams of his headlights. Home.

  Scott turned the car into the driveway, the sound of the gravel popping under his tires as they bit into the surface. He pressed the button clipped to his visor and the garage door began to lift and spill bright light out onto the drive.

  Home. Finally.

  He walked into the dark kitchen. Tapping sounds were coming from the living room. The sound of a keyboard. “Rachel? Are you in there?”

  Rachel swiveled in her chair and smiled at her husband. “Oh, you’re home already. I thought you’d be later.” She stood to face him. “I put the kids to bed about fifteen minutes ago. We didn’t know when you’d get here.”