Dance For The Devil Read Free

brilliant ideas and endless energy.
    He was too damn old – a dinosaur. Pushing forty might be a long way from retirement but it ’s ancient history in the computer business. Like modelling and athletics, the age of forty is twenty years past prime.
    The truth, Jake realized, was the fun had gone out of it. Too old to continually come up with cutting-edge ideas and too proud to rehash the existing stuff into saleable programs.
    That was pro blem number one. Problem number two was that his life had gone to hell in a hand basket, sometime when he wasn’t paying attention. Probably during one of those late night brain and pizza fests, trying to conquer cyberspace.
    Jake had been rolling along, blissfully unaware of trouble, when his wife Elizabeth decided family life didn’t suit her anymore. It wasn’t just Jake that she was tired of; it was the whole enchilada : motherhood and PTA meetings, baking cupcakes and driving kids to swim lessons. Years of being basically a single parent while Jake grabbed all the glory. Poor Elizabeth suffered a tearful breakdown, which landed her in the hospital for several weeks. When she stopped crying, Elizabeth decided it was her turn to shine.
    She checked herself out, wrote long letters to her children and a shorter one to Jake, cleaned out half their bank account and moved to Los Angeles. Elizabeth wanted to be an actress. She had shown promise in high school, and while certainly not young nor pretty enough to play the ingénue, perhaps she could get some character parts.
    Elizabeth changed her last name to Avignon (it sounded classy and French, and she thought being at the beginning of the alphabet was a sound choice: that way she’d get first billing and be on top of the pile for casting lists). She colored her hair red (too many blonds in Hollywood already) and lastly, Elizabeth changed her sexual preference. Years of pretending to enjoy sex with Jake had honed her acting skills but taken its toll – now she would see what the other side had to offer.
    While Jake appreciated Elizabeth’s need for self-fulfillment, and was surprised to find he didn’t miss her (perhaps part of the reason he’d spent so many hours away from home was a result of a soured marriage), Jake found it hard to forgive the devastation she caused their children.
    Skeeter adjusted fairly well. Like his father, Skeeter was self-sufficient, and at the tender age of twelve, he was past needing his mother to tuck him in at night and read him a bedtime story. Still, Skeeter carried his mom’s picture wherever he went and sometimes ended up in Jake’s bed, his gangly preteen body seeking comfort in a manner he hadn’t needed since the age of five.
    Amy was another story. Her grades plummeted immediately and she became sullen and withdrawn. At fifteen, Amy was experiencing the full hormonal surges of teenage angst, and the defection of her mother left her despondent. She blamed Jake.
    Jake knew this was a fair assessment. It was his fault that he worked long hours and neglected the relationship with his wife. The fact that the relationship was ill-fated from the start was a moot point. He could also be blamed for being an absentee father. He rarely made it to school events and didn’t know the names of his children’s friends. In the beginning he tried but Elizabeth grew tense with him in attendance, and he soon chose the easy way out. His job always gave him a viable excuse, and the Montclaire family rolled – if not happily, then steadily – along.
    Or so he had thought.
    Now he knew the truth. Two children were a handful, at best. They offered more challenge than any computer program could, probably because children weren’t always rational and they certainly weren’t logical. Jake was learning how to be a parent but he couldn’t seem to locate the user manual.
    Jake ran into Gil Vandercamp only a month after Elizabeth’s departure. Jake was at a trade show representing his company and Gil strode up and