A/N:

Note that this is part 2 of the "Polenta" chapter. I've published it right after part 1. So, if you're an early reader, don't get confused and make sure you've read part 1 before continuing here.

———

I told Homer the whole story. I explained how Theresa and I had invaded TCorp, how Thierry's guys had caught and abducted us onto The Indomitable, and how I had escaped.

At some point in the tale, I approached the polenta on my mother's table and prodded it with a thumb. It was still warm. I sat on a chair next to it and started eating with my fingers, ignoring my mother's frowning chemotherapy stare.

"The yacht was in St. Georges bay, you said?" Homer asked.

I nodded. "But they could be anywhere by now."

He sighed into his receiver. "Woman, you seem to attract trouble."

Impatience seized me. "I don't seek it out, the trouble. And we don't have time for philosophy. We have to help Theresa. And I have to get away from here. I'm at my mother's apartment, and the police are bound to search this place soon."

"You're right," he said. "But, you know, there's one good thing about Theresa being on that ship. This puts the matter into the competence of the Coast Guard, and they are not part of the municipal authorities. Listen... I could call a guy I know there. It would help, though, if I had some proof. Do you still have the list you got at TCorp?"

The list? It took me a moment to understand that he was talking about the list of Thierry's expenses. "I... I've sent it to my personal e-mail address, I can forward it to you. But, why do you want it? They might be killing Theresa right now... who cares about the money that Thierry stole?"

"You see... the man I know, he's not easily convinced. Giving him some proof for your story would help. He, and his colleagues, they're not like the regular police, not some 911 that will jump into action first and ask questions later. These guys are much more... administrative."

Did he really need that list to get the Coast Guard moving? Or did he need proof to convince himself that there was something behind the tale Theresa and I had spun? But I didn't have time to argue with the man. "Okay, I'll send it to you. Just give me your email address." If he thought he needed it, he could have it.

I snorted when he told me his address was [email protected]. In return, I gave him my mother's number and asked him to call me once he knew more.

After he hung up, I shoveled in the last of the food, licked my greasy fingers, and left oily smears on my mother's phone to log into my webmail account and search for the message with the list to forward it to Homer.

The email wasn't there.

I looked again.

It still wasn't there.

"Anything's wrong?" my mother asked, standing right next to me.

I jumped—I hadn't noticed her approaching.

"I..." I scrolled the list of messages, but there was nothing from TCorp among the junk of the last few days.

"Can I help?" she asked.

I shook my heed. The only thing I needed was that list to kick Homer into action. But wait—I also needed clothes, and I needed to get out of here before the police arrived.

My mother still ogled me, rubbing the hem of her Meat Loaf t-shirt between a yellowish thumb and a finger. The skin around her nails was dry and torn.

Unwilling to look at her face and the lack of hair on her head, I turned my gaze to her chest. Her shirt depicted a fiery motorcycle and a bat out of hell next to it—they were from a cover of one of the singer's albums. She loved that music.

My voice was tight when I answered her question. "I need something to wear. Some shirt and... a skirt." Her legs were much shorter but stronger than mine—her trousers wouldn't do. "And some shoes. It's urgent."

"A skirt, you?" She smiled. "Good... you're finally growing up. Come with me." The words dripped condescension, its acid familiar and burning where it touched my skin.

"No, I can't come with you, I've gotta make another call," I snapped. "Just get me something, anything. Quick."

Her smile fell.

"Sorry..." I placed an arm on her shoulder. "This is freaking me out... All of this. Please?" I loathed myself for the reluctance with which I touched her.

"Okay." Still unsmiling, she plodded off towards her bedroom muttering something about daughters in general and me in particular. When I was a kid, she used to stand upright, always scolding me for my slouching. Now, she was the sloucher.

I dialed TCorp's main number. When the operator answered, I asked her to put me through to Lawrence Liang.

The line beeped, calling out for the IT support guy.

"Yes?"

It was Lawrence's soft voice. I clasped the phone harder. "Lawrence... this is Anne Anderson."

"Hey, Anne... So good to hear you." The surprise in his words was a happy one. "How are you? I haven't seen you around. You... said you were back, working at TCorp again, but I didn't find you in the directory."

He had tried to stalk me on the company's phone list? The grin on my face strained the scabs clinging to my lips.

"It's good to hear you, too." I had no time for small talk with the man, I had to get a grip on myself. "Listen, I don't have much time. I need something from you, it's urgent."

"Sure, anything. What can I do for you?"

"I... Camille Carter from accounting sent me an email some days ago..." Damn, when had that been? "Probably the day before yesterday. It hasn't arrived. Can you help me with that?"

"Let me check..." The words were followed by the murmur of a keyboard under a barrage of speed-taps.

I stepped to the window and looked down into the street, expecting to see it swarming with black-clad, combat-ready figures of a SWAT team cordoning off the area and getting ready to assault the building. Yet it was empty except for a bag lady pushing an overloaded trolley.

"Did she send that message to a TCorp address?" Lawrence asked.

"No, it was to an outside account."

"Okay, I see. At the end of last month, someone set up a filter for some of the accounts of that department. It... I'm sorry, but things like that can happen, usually under direct orders from Top Floor... Barely legal, if you ask me... Anyway, the filter blocks all emails to addresses outside TCorp and defers them until they're manually authorized for dispatch. There's about half a dozen of them in the queue here, flagged for further scrutiny."

The creeps—who did these people think they were, and why would they do that? But I knew the answer. Thierry must have been afraid I'd ask one of my former colleagues to send me compromising data and had ordered their emails to be monitored. Bob probably sifted through them, pecking his bill at each one of them and probing it with birdy eyes.

"Is one of them addressed to [email protected]?"

"Er... yes."

"Can you..." Should I really ask him to do that? "Can you authorize it to be dispatched now?"

"I..." The phone thundered with a breath he exhaled. "Yes, I can, Anne. Do you want me to do that?"

I clenched my teeth, reigning in the impatient 'yes' that was straining to escape. Lawrence would release that email for me, but that would turn him into an accomplice, a partner in my crimes.

I shook my head. I couldn't do that to him. "Thanks, Lawrence, but... you see, I'm not working at TCorp anymore. You can't send that email to me, they'd skin you for this."

Why had I called him at all if I wasn't willing to go all the way? Deplorable me.

"What is all of this about, Anne?" The worry in his words pained me. "You can tell me... trust me."

Yes, I could tell him, and I did trust him. But there wasn't time, and he wouldn't want to be part of this, would he?

I'd have to kick Homer's anxious ass to make him act without the list. "It's... It's nothing, really. Thanks, Lawrence, for everything. And sorry again, for your carpet, I—"

"What did you say? We've got a bad line here, I hear only half of what you're saying. Oops, I think I've just... released the email. My bad."

Released the email?

I took the phone from my ear, switched to webmail, and hit the refresh button. A new message with a pdf attachment popped up, from [email protected]. I forwarded it to Homer without checking its contents. Then I placed the phone back to my ear. "Listen, Lawrence... I... thanks." My throat clamped shut.

"No problem."

"I'll explain it all to you... later. But now, I have to run."

I really had to run, literally. A white car with blue stripes along its sides oozed down the street towards us—the municipal police had finally got its act together and were about to storm the place.