Kevin had discovered the curse and had debated with Pam whether to let Sam in on the secret; he had finally been convinced to keep his knowledge to himself, when Pam had pointed out that there wasn’t a damn thing Kevin could do about the curse. The sleeplessness that plagued Dawson, the intended result of a New Orleans voodun whom Sam had almost married, wasn’t something that could be fixed by an outsider or even a magician of great strength. The intensity of the woman’s anger pretty much locked the curse in place against all comers and only she could take it off.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t available to do that, having been murdered six weeks after Sam had backed out of the marriage and into a curse. Kevin hadn’t delved any deeper into the matter after that, though he suspected that the voodun had brought her end upon herself; the antagonism of voodun practitioners each for the other was more than legendary. It was a fact of life.
So, Sam stayed cursed. And Sam also found his mostly sleepless nights very productive of innovative ideas and revolutionary theories. Nanotube CPU’s were simply the latest in a string of groundbreaking physics and engineering. When Sam had become suspicious of the motives of a new neighbor who seemed terribly interested in their trash and its final destiny, Pam and Kevin had been hired to erect both software and physical firewalls to safeguard Dawson Dynamics. That had been three months before and up until now, there had been no overt indication that anyone had undue interest in the company’s business.
On the ride north, Kevin was unable to find any indication that anything had happened, which both perplexed him and worried Pam. “I thought you set things up so you could check on things from a distance, magically?”
Grimly, Kevin nodded. “I did. Which means something or somebody nullified my spells.”
“Judas Priest ” Pam muttered to herself as she took the exit immediately south of there destination. “That means another magician. A very careful magician.”
As they drove up, they could see Sam Dawson standing on the covered porch, leaning again the supporting pillar that marked the steps to the house. He looked disheveled, which was true on a more or less continual basis. His expression, however, was one that neither Pam nor Kevin had ever seen before — he looked ready to chew iron and spit nails. He was off the porch and halfway down the walk before either of them could even get out of the jeep. He brushed longish hair back behind his ears as he held the car door open for Kevin while Kev grabbed the satchel from the back. “I wish you’d let me go to the police immediately. We know damn good and well who broke in.”
Pam shook her head as she came around the jeep. “Maybe we do, and maybe we don’t. In any event, we’ll discuss it inside, Sam. This isn’t the place.” Dawson blinked and suddenly realized she was right; he quickly followed the two of them inside.
Inside, they were greeted with a sick look from Paige Anderson, Sam’s lead designer on the nanotube project. She nodded bleakly when she saw Pam and Kevin, her rather coarse featured face, angular and perennially sporting a sunburn, lost some of its tension. She had been leaning on the doorframe to her own office which was just off the hallway entrance and stepped back to allow Pam and Kevin to set immediately up on her desk. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you guys,” she said, finding herself a chair out of the way. “I feel like such a fool. I was here an hour before I realized we’d been hit.”
Pam shrugged and looked rueful herself. “It happens. Depends upon how sloppy the crook is. Don’t beat yourself up over it.” Dawson poked his head in the door, watched silently for a moment as Kevin set up his laptop and looked for an electrical outlet. “I’m going to grab Carl and Molly. They should have finished the inventory by now and we can get an idea if any of our stock was taken as well.” Before either Kevin or Pam could even acknowledge his suggestion, he was gone, his light but staccato footfalls echoing behind him.
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