Rooms - James L. Rubart [40]
Talk to his dad? Uh, yeah, right. His dad would be convinced Archie’s house was making him dance on the tightrope of psychosis, and since he might be right, Micah didn’t want to hand his father additional ammo to knock him off the wire.
Other friends came to mind, but there were none he could truly open up to. How could he tell his basketball buddies he just lost more than fifteen million dollars with no tangible evidence to back it up?
He fired up his car and screeched out of RimSoft’s parking lot. As his BMW eased onto I-5, he reflected on how depressing it was that the only person he trusted was a man he’d met just eight weeks earlier.
When a person’s on top of the world, he doesn’t need anyone. But now Micah was sliding down the mountain and running out of rope.
Rick’s number lit up the caller ID on Micah’s cell phone just before he reached Longview. He threw his Bluetooth over his ear. “Finally! We gotta talk.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m heading down I-5 back to Cannon Beach and down the path of lunacy at the same time. Wishing I wasn’t taking the trip solo,” Micah said.
“Tell me.”
“When I checked our stock price yesterday, it was 83¼. This morning it’s at 62¾. And everyone at RimSoft thinks that’s perfectly normal.”
“No chance you’re wrong about yesterday?”
“No way.” Micah pulled into the left lane and kicked his BMW up to seventy-five.
“Hard copies?”
“They changed.”
“Changed? How could they change?”
“Exactly. I have no clue.” Micah veered right to pass a sluggish RV hogging the left-hand lane. “But I know the stock was in the low 80s yesterday and today it isn’t. I’ve lost almost fifteen million dollars in less than twenty-four hours.”
“That’s some serious coin.”
Something in Rick’s tone caught Micah’s ear. “You know what’s going on, don’t you?”
Rick stayed silent so Micah asked again.
Silence.
“C’mon, Rick! If you know something, talk to me. What is going on? I’m not crazy. But this isn’t the first—” Micah paused and squeezed the bridge of his nose.
“The first what?”
“Weird things have been happening, quirky things.”
“Like?”
“Like my car gaining an instant sixteen thousand miles, which you say we’ll talk about someday. Like a couple months back my racquetball partner completely forgets a match we played—claims it never happened. Like calling a guy I met at a party to talk business and he forgets meeting me. We talked for fifteen minutes at that party. I’m not that forgettable.”
“No, you’re not.” Rick chuckled.
“Two different guys forgetting being with me is odd. My car gaining mystery miles is bizarre. But seeing my company’s stock drop twenty points in one day and no one knows it but me is not odd. It’s The Twilight Zone and The X-Files in a double pack, up front in living color.”
“Here’s what I know for certain,” Rick said. “God is sovereign. That’s an intellectual way of saying He’s in control and knows what He’s doing.”
“Not the answer I’m looking for.”
“I know. You’re used to having complete control and all the answers to your life in an instant. This time the answers will flit just beyond your fingertips. It will take time to catch them.”
“That’s it? I need more than that, Rick.”
“One more thing that’s pretty obvious. The Lord is a better choice to talk to than me.”
“Yeah.”
Their talk helped. Not near enough, but enough. The rest of the drive he alternated between trying to pray and keeping a lid on his imagination. On one hand he believed God was in control. On another, if his net worth changed that quickly, what else could be turned on its side over a weekend? And would God be the cause of it, or just allow it?
He had to get control of this. Had to keep eyes of an eagle on that stock. The coming week would be a monotonous marathon of tension.
CHAPTER 16
Forty-five million reasons woke Micah early on Monday morning.
When