Creature Read Free Page A

he was, still kept his offices in what had once been the entire space occupied by the beginnings of his vast conglomerate.
    “Go right in, Blake,” Anne Leverette told him from her guard post outside Thornton’s door. “He’s expecting you.” Her smile alone made Blake relax, for it was well known that if Thornton was chopping off someone’s head, Anne never smiled personally at the victim. Her loyalty to Thornton was legendary, and she was known to resent anyone she assumed had caused trouble for her boss.
    Blake stepped through the double doors into the immense corner office and found Ted Thornton sitting behind a bare, black marble desk, a telephone cradled against his ear. Thornton signaled him to take a chair, then quickly wrapped up his phone call. As soon as he’d hung up, he stood, offering Blake his hand and asking if he wanted a drink.
    Blake relaxed even more—the offer of a drink invariably signaled good news, and was not meant to be turned down.
    “Chivas and water,” Blake replied, and Thornton smiled.
    “Never settle for less than the best,” he said, pouring each of them a generous shot over a single ice cube. He grinned as he handed Blake one of the glasses. “It’s a cliché, but then, your best moment has become one, too, hasn’t it?” He held his glass up toward a large, framed mosaic on the wall. On a cobalt-blue background, the stylized white letters spelled out the slogan that Blake had dreamed up seven years before.
    IF IT’S HI-TECH, IT’S TARRENTECH
    “I guess you could say so,” Blake agreed, raising his own glass slightly, then taking a sip of the whiskey. Surely, at this late date, there was a more important reason for this meetingthan for Thornton merely to acknowledge the slogan that had, indeed, become a cliché over the years? He wondered what Thornton was leading up to as he watched the CEO seat himself behind his desk again and regard him appraisingly.
    “Ever heard of Silverdale, Colorado?” he asked, and Blake’s heart skipped a beat. This was something neither he nor Rosalie had thought about.
    “Is there anyone at TarrenTech who hasn’t?” he countered.
    “Oh, I’m sure there are a few.” Thornton chuckled. “I’m not sure most of the people in the Travel Division even know about Research and Development, much less care.”
    Blake permitted himself a small smile. “I’m afraid I’d have to disagree with you,” he suggested. “After all, Tom Stevens runs Travel, and his last post was Silverdale.” He didn’t feel it necessary to add that it wasn’t merely the Travel Division’s chief officer who had once been posted in Silverdale, but virtually every senior man in the TarrenTech hierarchy. A posting in Silverdale, as nearly everyone in the company knew, meant that you were in line for the top jobs. As far as Blake knew, however, no one from Marketing had ever been sent there before.
    “True enough,” Thornton mused, then fell silent for a few moments as his gray eyes seemed slowly to assess Blake. “Jerry Harris has an opening out there, and he’s asked for you.”
    Blake tried not to let his astonishment show. Until two years ago Jerry had run the Digital Division, and though he’d been several rungs above Blake on the corporate ladder, the two men had become good friends, largely due to the influence of their wives, neither of whom seemed to give a rap for Ted Thornton’s general disapproval of his managers becoming too friendly with men they might someday have to fire.
    As if reading his thoughts, Thornton spoke again. “If you’d been working for him here, of course, I wouldn’t entertain the idea for a moment—I’ve never believed in letting people build empires within my own company. But you didn’t work for Harris here, at least not directly, and he’s agood man. If I trust him to run R and D, I have to trust him to choose his staff. Therefore, you’ll be moving.”
    It wasn’t a question, it was a command. Blake understood