by Dale Mayer
One of the men spoke. “Maybe. Can you identify the kidnappers?”
Both women shook their heads. “We were taken off the street while walking home from dinner,” Rosalina said. “We didn’t see much.” The two men stayed with them until a black SUV careened around the corner.
Before it even stopped completely, Steve jumped out and raced toward Melinda, picking her up and holding her tight. She was crying and talking and threw her arms around his neck.
The two businessmen just watched.
Another man hopped out the back of the SUV and joined them, his gaze direct and with a clear sense of purpose. He reached out a hand. “I’m Gavin,” he said. “I’m here to recover your parents.”
“I hope you mean that in the best of ways,” Rosalina said, staring at him. She gripped his hand. “Neither of them are in the best of health.”
“How did you get free?”
She frowned, then looked back at the underground parking garage. “I might be able to lead you back to the same room,” she said, “but I’m not going in there alone without some law enforcement. I don’t want to get picked up again,” she said. “We were down below, three floors, I think. They left us in a little cement room. We were tied to our chairs.”
At that, her sister broke in. “I don’t know how she did it,” Melinda said. “She was amazing. One minute we were sitting there, all tied up. The next thing I knew, she stood and did this flip, and, all of a sudden, she was free. And then she got me free. We checked all the basement rooms on our floor, looking for our parents, and then we found the parking garage by going up a few flights.”
A second man joined Gavin. He smiled at them, nodded, and said, “I’m Shane. Why don’t you lead us back down to where you were.”
Rosalina looked at her sister. “You go with Steve back to the hotel and make sure the kids are okay,” she said. “I’ll take these men down again.” Her sister hesitated, but Rosalina smiled and encouraged her to go. Then she turned to the first man. “Are you sure you don’t want to bring a few cops with us?” she asked. “I really don’t want to get taken again.”
“We won’t be needing cops,” Gavin said, his voice flat.
She studied him carefully, then nodded. “If you say so. Don’t let me down.” She turned, and, without another word to her sister, she headed back down.
Gavin exchanged a look with Shane, the two of them a little unsure about this very direct person. But they followed her quickly. She motioned to the door that they had come out of into the parking garage. It was locked. She frowned.
Gavin said, “It’s normal to have some of these doors be locked all the time, but, if you’re on the inside, you can get out.” He quickly unlocked it, without letting her see how.
With the door open, she said, “Now three flights of stairs down.” She immediately took the lead and headed down the stairs.
Gavin raised an eyebrow and followed her. He checked the surrounding areas, but there was absolutely nothing different about this. It was simply an empty stairwell in a very large hotel with commercial buildings on the street level and shipping, parking, and storage units down below. Gavin wasn’t even sure what all three underground floors were used for, but it wasn’t uncommon in large cities to have a setup like this for laundry purposes, for additional storage, for garbage collection, for deliveries.
As soon as they hit the floor that she wanted, she opened the hallway door and stepped through. He followed with Shane right behind him. She looked left and right, then frowned and turned to the right and walked over a few doorways. At the third door she stopped. “This one.”
He used his sleeve to open up the doorway and to step inside. Sure enough, he saw cut ties and a chair missing three legs. He looked at the one remaining leg, frowning.
She shrugged and said, “I took three with us, just in case. Two for me and one for my sister. I ditched them in the parking garage.”
“Interesting.” He walked the small room, nodded, and said, “We’ll get forensics in here, just in case,” he said. “I suspect nothing viable is left, but you never know.”
“Good enough.” She followed the men back to the hallway. Outside, Shane marked the door in a subtle way that wouldn’t be obvious, but they could direct the cops to it.
Gavin urged her to walk with him and asked, “Do you have any other recollection of this building?”
She shook her head. “What I don’t know is whether I was left so that I could get out,” she said, “or if they were planning to come back, assuming we couldn’t get out?”
“We’ll leave somebody here to watch,” Gavin said, opening the stairwell door for her. “But how did you get out?”
She shrugged and explained, but she appreciated the quick gleam of approval in his eyes. She gave him a lopsided look. “Another thing I don’t understand is why Melinda was gagged and I wasn’t.”
“Did it help you at all either way? Did it change anything?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I didn’t need a gag one way or the other.”
He nodded and tucked away that bit of information as they took another flight of stairs and neared the ground floor. “Did you see your kidnappers at all?”
“Not really. Only that they wore all black with hoods, and I only saw that much for a quick second before they adjusted my blindfold,” she said. “I might identify the van though.”
“We’ve already got it,” he said, pushing open the Exit door to enter the parking area. “They traded it for another vehicle. What about that one?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know they did that. I was fighting them, and one of the men smacked me hard against the head,” she said. “I hit the side of the van and must have blacked out. When I woke up, I was in that room down there.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get you back to the hotel and get you a medical check. Then we’ll have a bunch more questions for you.”
“Anything I can do to help,” she replied, now staring out at the street.
“Any idea why someone would take your parents?”
“No,” she said. “I’d still like to go back and check every other floor.”
“We’ve already got two local teams coming in,” he said quietly. “We’ll find your parents, if they’re in that building.” He watched as that sank in. “The real question is, who could be behind this?” he asked. “Are you sure you have no idea?”
“No, I’ve been trying to figure it out this whole time.”
“Problems with the company?”
“No. Nothing I know of.”
“That’s a really good point,” Shane said. “How much do you have to do with the business part of the company?”
“I work there,” she said, “but honestly I don’t deal with the board at all.”
“By choice?” he asked.
She shot him a look. “I can’t do politics,” she said. “I’m a very direct person, and I don’t play games.”
“Well, we appreciate that,” Gavin said. “And we do find that often these kinds of scenarios are really power plays.”
“Which just sucks,” she said, “because it puts me out of my depth. I don’t have a clue how to handle people like that.”
“What about your father? Does he play those games?”
She shrugged. “I guess it’s possible,” she said, “but it’s not necessarily a normal state for him. He likes the game—I mean, like the art of negotiating—but, more than that, he is dedicated to the type of research we do.”
Gavin continued, “Do you think anybody is after your research?”
She frowned at that and stared at him, considering his question.
Her eyes were the palest of blue. How had he not noticed before? They were almost a soft gray.
“Anything is possible,” she said, “but you have to understand that we have any number of research projects in progress at any given time.”
“Any hostile takeovers?” Shane asked.
She switched h
er gaze to him. “Not that I know of. But, again, I don’t have anything to do with the board.”
“Would your father tell you,” Gavin asked, “if a takeover play were going on?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I would like to think so.”
“And what about espionage?”
She wrinkled up her face at that. “Another nasty element of humanity I don’t like,” she said. “But we did have a problem a couple years ago. I don’t know all the details, but one of the scientists was selling some of our work to a competing company.”
“That competing company,” Shane said, “do you think they would be involved in something like this?”
“They went broke about six months ago,” she said.
“So a dissatisfied scientist who wanted to advance?” Gavin asked. “Or a plant from outside perhaps? Is there a noncompete section in your employment contracts when you hire someone?”
She stared at him. “I guess you’ll have to run through the personnel files and talk to the admin staff,” she said. “I have no clue. Again, dealing with people isn’t my thing.”
“Got it,” he said. “That doesn’t necessarily let you off the hook though.”
“In what way?”
“I’ve got more questions,” Gavin said with a smile. “Did you know any of the people who worked for that other company? Were any of them trying to get on with your company? Did you have to fire anybody recently at your family’s company?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “I don’t think you understand,” she said. “I have a large lab, where two people work with me. They have worked with me for over a decade. We all finished school together. I trust them, and, as far as I know, they have no ambitions beyond the type of work we are doing. We are very dedicated to the research.”
“Well, we’ll need names and contact information,” he said.
She shrugged. “That’s not hard. Get everything from my assistant.”
“And is the assistant one of those two people?”
She shook her head. “No. I do tend to go through a few of those,” she admitted.
“Why?” Gavin asked bluntly.
“Because they don’t like doing their work,” she said just as bluntly. “I don’t have any tolerance for lazy ineffectual people with a million excuses for why the work didn’t get done.”
“Interesting,” he said, though inside he agreed. He felt the same way about a lot of the world. “And your current assistant,” he said, “how long has she worked for you?”
“Two years thankfully,” she said. “The last one was about six months, and the one before that about three months.”
“So you’re happy with this one?”
“So far, yes,” she said. “I just don’t know when that’ll change.”
“Are you expecting it to change?” Gavin asked, with a quizzical expression.
“She’s got a new boyfriend,” she said, “so chances are it will change. One of the things I will not tolerate is personal interactions during the day. If you’re working for me, you’re not on a chat forum, and you’re not on a social media site, and you sure as hell had better not be texting all day long.”
“Right,” he said with a smile. “Got it.”
Chapter 3
Rosalina knew the line of questioning was necessary, but surely he had something else, another avenue to look at. “My parents could have been taken for any number of reasons,” she said suddenly. She had both Gavin’s and Shane’s attention with that. They were waiting in the parking garage at the moment. She knew teams were already coming to look at the forensics, the cameras, and all the rest of that stuff. It was amazing how much tourist foot traffic was here, with people coming and going from the hotel and taking their own transportation.
Waiting until they were alone for the moment, she lowered her voice. “I don’t like Melinda’s husband,” she said.
“Steve?” Gavin asked. “Steve Arbrey?”
She shook her head. “No. Steve is fine. Great even. I didn’t like Barry. Her legal husband. Of course they’re divorced by now,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I forget how fast time flies.”
“And why didn’t you like him?”
“He was arrogant and had nothing good to say about women in the workforce. Personally I think he is a racist and a sexist, not to mention a misogynist.”
Gavin smiled. “All those together?”
“They tend to go together,” she said seriously. Because, in her experience, they did.
“All right, but you must have another reason beyond that to think he’d do something as extreme as this.”
“My parents made it very clear, when Melinda and Barry divorced, that my parents would support their daughter and grandchildren in whatever way necessary, but that Barry wouldn’t get a penny. Not from Melinda or the company.”
“Did he have any money of his own?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
“So they lived off her money?”
“She has our grandparents’ home,” Rosalina said. “It’s worth quite a bit. He worked, but he didn’t make nearly the money she did.”
“Any dissent between them?”
“Lots,” she said. “They fought all the time. When it became obvious that it was time for them to part, he wanted the kids, and she wouldn’t let him have them. My parents went to bat for her with expensive lawyers, and Barry ended up out in the cold with nothing.”
The two men gave her a flat stare.
She shrugged. “What can I say? That is my parents for you.”
“That gives us insights into their characters in a big way.”
“But you have to round that out with the human factor that their grandchildren’s health, happiness, and welfare were at stake,” she said.
“Reason for the divorce?”
“Just a marriage breakdown, as far as I know,” she said. “I don’t think he was ever violent or anything like that.”
“So, just that it was time to be apart because they were better alone than they were together?”
“I believe so. Though I think jealousy was getting to be a big issue.”
“In what way?”
“Melinda was moving on with her life and moving up in the company. But, of course, it’s her parents’ company,” she said, trying to distance herself from the scenario so she could get a more detached view. “So, yes, obviously it’s my company too, my parents’ company as well,” she said. “But, from an onlooker’s viewpoint, it looked like Melinda had the golden pathway provided for her, and she could do no wrong and didn’t have to earn it.”
“And was it like that for her?”
Rosalina hesitated. “Yes, in a way,” she admitted. “Two sisters, one large company. Both of us in the field.”
“But she wasn’t originally?”
“No. My dad was a researcher. A mechanical engineer with a science background. When she was born missing her lower leg, he got into this prosthetics field in a big way. So, although she’s not technically a scientist in the same way as I am, she does a certain amount of research,” she said half-heartedly, clearly not wanting to get into a detailed explanation of it all. “Melinda was the impetus for the company. There would be no company but for her. However, she handles a lot of the marketing more than she does the science, that’s all.”
The two men continued to stare at her, as if waiting. She gave them a flat stare back. They could ask questions if they wanted to learn more, but she’d be damned if she’d voluntarily get into her family dynamics.
“Any problems between the two of you?” Gavin asked expectantly.
“What problems?” she asked. But her heart sank as she saw the knowing look on Gavin’s face.
“Come on. Fess up,” he said. “We’ll need all the dirt.”
“Fine,” she said. “Melinda went into the science part of the business and didn’t do very well. She barely scraped through school, and, on the job, she made
a couple very significant mistakes that cost the company big. At that point in time my father moved her to marketing, where she couldn’t cause any damage in the lab.”
“So then, the younger sister comes along, completely brilliant where science is concerned, stepping into the role that Melinda had sought for herself. And, in no time, you are in charge of R&D.”
“How did you know I run the R&D department?” she asked, frowning at him. “Dad had a very logical reason for moving me into that position.”
“Logical, yes, but potentially harmful in terms of the relationship between the two of you sisters,” Gavin said.
“Melinda was married with a family,” she said, “and research and development wasn’t her thing. She still wanted to be part of the company, but it was obvious she couldn’t do that job. What was I supposed to do?”
“Did you rat her out?” Shane asked.
At that, she could feel her eyes widen in shock. “Of course not,” she said. “I didn’t have to anyway. Her gaffe cost the company a small fortune in the lab, and a lot of expensive materials were damaged. It is what it is. I didn’t create the problem. She did. She wasn’t in the right job, and honestly she is much better suited for the position she holds now.”
“And, of course,” Shane continued, “it leaves you free and clear to take over the R&D department as the wonder child.”
At that, she narrowed her gaze at him. “Really? What is it with you two? I don’t think I like what you’re implying.”
“Maybe not,” Shane said quietly. “But it could and does appear to some that you deliberately had your older sister removed from the lab, then stepped into her place. Now everybody turns to you for the latest and greatest news on the R&D side.”
“People can say whatever the hell they want,” she said briskly. “They will anyway. But I’ve never done anything to intentionally hurt my sister. More than ten years are between us, so we might as well be from two separate families. By the time I was old enough to understand I had a sister, she was never around and always off for various activities,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “If it wasn’t ballet with a prosthetic, it was swimming lessons or riding horses,” she said. “She was never home. Plus, she was very close to our parents, who treated her as really special, I guess because of her disability. And me? I was just the baby who was in the way all the time.”