She was open but didn't know much

Pricilla was happy to accept his lunch offer and he took her to a favorite date place in the M Streets area of Dallas.

Over a couple of glasses of wine, she recounted her struggles (she hadn't had a successful date in a long time and blamed her hard work), her ambitions (to become head of Human Resources), and her feelings about the company (only after completing the second glass of wine did she admit she found some of the executives to be a little creepy the way they stared at her breasts and legs).

Rick nodded along and then used the discussion of bio-DNA executives to segue into what had happened to Olivia.

"You know, I have a hard time believing that what happened to Olivia Hughes isn't related to the company," he said. "I mean, Dan is a powerful executive but she's just a housewife. So, maybe it was a kidnapping gone wrong or something. What I'm wondering is whether we need to do more to protect our executives. We count on them to be on their game but if they're having to worry about their families being abducted, they'll definitely lose focus on the job."

"You're not the only one thinking that," she said. "Mr. Palendike was on the phone all morning yesterday talking to private security companies but then it turned out that the company had already hired drivers and guards for the C-level managers. I guess they must have had some threats or something we didn't know about in HR."

"That's a relief," Rick lied. "Hopefully for their wives and children as well." Naturally there was no need to say 'spouses.' All of the spouses were wives in the parochial environment of upper bio-DNA management.

"That's the thing. Some of them yes, but others were like 'we don't want to interfere with our wives having a normal life.' Crap like that. I guess Olivia was one of those."

Rick shook his head. "I get that, I guess. But it's not really a normal life if you have to worry about getting kidnapped all the time."

"Maybe they'll change their minds."

Or maybe the private security they'd hired had been the ones who'd offed Olivia and Barbara. Rick didn't see Dan or the others actually getting their own hands dirty with bombs or however Olivia had been killed. He suddenly realized nobody had even told him how that had happened.

After a third glass of wine, they headed back to the office. Pricilla had gotten a little friendly and Rick decided to push matters a little.

"You know, Pricilla, although this was just a work meeting, I felt like we really hit it off. Stop me if I'm totally off-base here but you're a lot of fun and I'd like to get to know you better. Maybe we could grab dinner together sometime soon. In fact, (they were at a light so he made a big deal about checking his schedule on his phone), it turns out I'm free tonight. I mean, no pressure. I know you're super-busy these days so don't feel like you have to but--"

"Sure, Rick. That sounds great." She texted him her address and suggested he pick her up at seven.

That had, he decided, gone pretty well. He'd learned about the private security. He'd gotten closer to a weak link in bio-DNA, and his credit card, by some miracle, hadn't bounced.