by S L Shelton
She chuckled before responding. “That’s what happens when you have a sick baby,” she complained tiredly. “She’s been up all night.”
Marie and Heather had been together for five years, moving to the quiet suburbs of Colorado Springs last year just before Megan was born. Marie had carried Megan herself after being artificially inseminated, and she’d left her position as a probate attorney when she was within one week of the baby’s due date.
“I’m sorry,” Mark replied sympathetically. “Nothing serious, I hope.”
“She’s teething,” Marie said in breathy exasperation. “There’s nothing we can do except make her feel loved and keep a handful of pacifiers in the freezer.”
Mark laughed. “I never thought I'd ever hear words like that come out of your mouth,” he said, his tone dripping amusement. “My high-powered lawyer of a sister, packing pacifiers in the icebox…it seems impossible.”
“Oh, I don't know… I think my mediation skills have come in quite handy, haven't they?” Her tone slowly drifted to baby talk, aimed at Megan. “It's Heather who would have a problem being a stay-at-home mom. She likes the conflict…much like you.”
“Who me?” Mark asked incredulously. “I'm a teddy bear.”
“More like a grizzly bear,” she replied, slipping back into baby talk as Megan's crying increased again.
“Aww,” Mark crooned. “Let me talk to her.”
“You want to talk to Uncle Mark?” he heard her say, followed by the voice of the crying infant on the phone.
“Heeeey, hey, heeeeey,” Mark cooed into the phone. “What’s all the fuss about?”
The crying began to subside a bit.
“Come on,” he continued. “I know it’s hard, but you need to grow those teeth to protect you from all those boys who’re gonna hound you in school.”
He heard Marie chuckle in the background.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Marie mused. “She’s quieting down already.”
“She knows Uncle Mark is looking out for her,” he said, grateful for the injection of family into his stressful week. “How are you doing…aside from the teething crisis?”
There was a short pause before she responded as he listened to her lay Megan back down.
“There was another incident a couple of weeks ago,” she replied in a whispered voice. Her statement was followed by the sound of a door opening and then closing again. “They spray painted the garage door this time.”
Mark tensed, remembering the last time something like this had happened. One morning, three months earlier, as Heather left for work, she’d found someone had left a note written on a paper bag containing what turned out to be dog shit. The note read: “No Queers in CS. Eat this and die.”
It had been a traumatic and an unpleasant reminder that acceptance of their lifestyle was not universal. Mark had almost come out west then but Marie had talked him out of it.
“Shit,” Mark muttered, clenching his teeth. “What did it say?”
“It’s not important,” she replied. “Heather had a security system installed, and the police started running more patrols through the neighborhood.”
“What did it say?” Mark repeated.
There was a pause. “It was a stick figure of a baby and the word abomination across it.”
Mark felt the anger rising in chest as his face began to flush with blood.
“We’ve got the security system now,” she quickly added, “and I’ve seen three patrols tonight alone.”
“When I’m done with this thing I’m working on, I’m coming out to spend some time with my girls,” he said firmly.
“This ‘thing’ you’re working on…you aren’t back with the Agency are you?”
“No,” he replied, clipped. “Tying up some loose ends on an investigation for a friend.”
“You aren’t in any danger, are you?” she asked nervously.
“Don’t worry about me,” he replied, deflecting. “Just stay safe. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
“We’ll be fine,” she assured. “It’s an annoyance, nothing more.”
He didn’t respond immediately. He knew very well that the heart of man could harbor intense evil—he had seen it firsthand more times than he cared to remember.
“Stay safe,” he repeated. “I’ll be out in a few weeks.”
“It would be so great to have you around,” she admitted. “But please, don’t shift your life around because a couple of homophobic idiots figured out how to buy a can of spray paint.”
“You know I’d come anyway,” he replied. “Soon. I promise.”
“Okay… And thanks for helping me put Megan down.”
“My pleasure,” he replied softly. “Call any time.”
“I will. Love you, Mark.”
“Love you too, sis. Give Heather and Megan a kiss for me,” he replied. “Chat later.”
“Bye.”
When she had hung up, he went right back to the transaction sheets. He looked at the blood-and-sweat-smeared sheets, trying to refocus on the task at hand, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Marie.
His chest tightened at the idea of harm befalling Marie, Megan, and Heather. Still not a robot, he thought.
After another hour of fruitless effort, he stuffed the pages into a folder and lay down to sleep. As he drifted off, the fear of the loss of his sister and niece tainted his rest, leaving him to dream of terror impacting his family.
**
8:40 a.m.—Reston, Virginia
I arrived at TravTech around 8:45 a.m. I would have been earlier, but I had found it very difficult to move my ass out of bed after the prior emotional evening. When I entered the tech area, I could already hear the sounds of construction. Clear plastic hung from the ceiling along our office area and a construction crew was taking down a wall behind it.
I walked through my new office door to find Bonbon in my chair sipping a cup of coffee and my new project manager, Jo, sitting on the floor next to my desk. She was reading through printed emails in a binder and aggressively highlighting sections that were important to her.
“Good morning,” I muttered as I walked in and moved toward the coffee machine.
“Oh. Let me!” Bonbon burst excitedly as she launched herself out of my chair toward the elaborate coffee station. “What do you want?”
I smiled at her excitement over the new toy. “Quad shot espresso. Please. With a latte chaser.”
“Whoo hoo!” she exclaimed as she went to work at the machine.
I sat behind my desk and realized I couldn’t see Jo over the top, so I rolled my chair around the side.
“How’s it going, Jo?” I asked.
“Fine,” she stated quietly. Then, as an afterthought, she tossed in, “Thanks for asking.”
I chuckled. “Did you understand my notes on the protocol classes and contacts?”
“Yes. Very clear. I’m just setting up the project schedule and procedures,” she replied as she continued to flip through pages, highlighting and adding adhesive tabs. “I should have everything mapped out by this afternoon. Most of the briefings and seminars apply to all of us, but there are a few just for you as lead analyst.”
“That may change. We may be expanding those roles a bit,” I hinted, alluding to my plan for her.
She nodded without looking up.
“Why are you doing it on paper?” I asked with a grin.
She looked up at me, seeing I wasn't going to simply let her work. “I don't have a computer yet,” she replied. “I printed these from Story's computer so he could get back to work.”
Story…I never heard anyone call Storc by his proper name anymore.
“Yeah, hopefully we can remedy that soon,” I said.
“I'm fine,” she responded, quietly returning to her work. After a thoughtful pause, she said, “But thank you for your concern.”
I chuckled again, relieving some of the stress that was building from the construction nois
e. I turned to my computer, opened the mail interface, and then scanned through all the messages I had received since checking them from home this morning. The only new message of note was one from Mary Browning with Contract Administration at the CIA. Our liaison wrote:
“We are anxious to start sending work your way and can’t do it until final clearances have been issued. Please forward the completed list of new hires. Again, very excited to be working with you and your team.”
I forwarded the message to Storc, Bonbon, and Jo with a short note:
I need your final hire choices. Please forward to Jo for packet completion and copy me.
The banging of hammers and the buzz of power saws and drills was about to send me over the edge. My head was throbbing already, and I felt a mild welling of anxiety start to creep up my back.
There was a sudden pressure in my chest that made it difficult for me to breathe as Bonbon appeared beside me with my coffee in her hand. She set it down, staring at me—a worried look spreading across her face.
I smiled. “Thanks, Bon. I just sent you and Storc a note on our other two hires. Can you wrap that up for me?”
“Sure thing. I’ve got it narrowed down to three people. I’ll make a choice this morning and drop it in front of you to review before I notify them,” she replied. She leaned close to me and confided in a quieter voice, “This noise is enough to drive anyone nuts. Why don’t you head out and keep tabs on things with email today?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. Just need to get some air,” I said, evading her stare before quickly rising and the exiting the office. When I reached the stairwell, I paused and decided to go up instead of down to the street. After climbing the stairs to the roof, I propped the door open with a block that sat next to it so the smokers could sneak out without being trapped.
I walked to the edge of the roof and looked out over Reston. It had grown so much in the past few years. It was nearly unrecognizable with all of its tall buildings and new traffic patterns. I sipped at my espresso and breathed in the heavy summer air, taking deep, purposeful breaths through my nose. I started to calm down immediately.
I heard the gravel crunch behind me and turned my head to see Storc approaching. He stopped a few feet behind me.
“Not thinking about jumping, are you?” he asked with a devilish grin on his face.
“Just needed some air. It was stuffy down there, and the noise was getting to me,” I replied quietly as he walked over and leaned against the edge next to me.
“I got your email. I’m going to bring Mahesh on if you don’t have any objections. He’s scary quick and his work rarely needs changes in QA,” he said, setting a latte down next to me. “Bonbon said you forgot this when you left.”
“Thanks… Yeah. Mahesh would be a good choice. But Habib is going to be pissed losing another person to the new section.”
“You could fix that by bringing him in as well,” Storc suggested with a grin.
“I don’t think he’d deal well working for me,” I responded apologetically after considering the option. “Though he’d be a perfect fit otherwise.”
He paused, about to leave, but changed his mind before turning sideways to face me. He leaned on the ledge with his elbow creating a more personal lack of distance between us.
“You need to take it easy. You’ve been out for months, walked into a shitload of new stress, and you still haven’t fully recovered from your…uh…adventure,” he said, smiling sympathetically.
“I’m fine. I’m just trying to get some balance,” I replied insincerely. I felt bad about the deflection since he had taken the effort to confront me with an obvious problem.
I’ll have to work on that, I thought to myself. Tomorrow.
“You know,” he said cautiously, one eye squinted. “The others might stop trying to dance around your stress if you'd stop doing it as well…you can be honest with us.”
I smiled. Storc wasn't the social noob he came off as.
“You're right,” I replied sincerely. “I'm having trouble trying to fit myself back into my old life. It seems too small.”
He nodded his understanding.
“Thanks,” I grunted sincerely. “I needed that.”
“My pleasure… But I was wrong. You can't say that to Bonbon. She'll have a stroke.”
I laughed. “I know! Right? I just wish I didn't have to keep it from Barb as well.”
Storc suddenly looked very uncomfortable.
“Sorry you asked now, huh?” I added, grinning. “Come on, let's get back downstairs.”
The rest of the day was spent sorting through protocol regulations and a short conference call with Langley and the whole team. As soon as the call concluded, I grabbed my shoulder bag from my office and left the building. By the time I was on the Fairfax County Parkway, I couldn’t even remember what I had done all day. As I pulled up to my condo, I realized I had been toying with the strap on my bag most of the way home—the bag Kathrin had given me.
I miss Kathrin, I thought to myself—so clearly, in fact, that for a moment I almost thought I had spoken it aloud.
seven
Thursday, July 22nd
12:30 a.m.—Colorado Springs, Colorado
MARIE GAINES was frantic. Her life partner, Heather, was hours late in coming home. Their daughter, Megan, had finally calmed down and gone to sleep in the nursery, but it had been a struggle to tend to her while trying to locate Heather over the phone.
She had called Mark to tell him she was worried.
“I'm going nuts, Mark,” she said, doing her best to stay calm. “And unless I wake Megan and pack her into the car, I'm stuck here. I don't want to be one of those wives, but it's not like her to not come home and not call.”
“No answer on her cell?” Mark asked.
“No,” she replied. “Right to voicemail. I must have left a dozen messages already.”
“Did you call the office?” he asked calmly. “Is it possible she's just hanging out with people from work and lost track of time?”
“She left the office late, according to her boss, but she was on her own,” Marie relayed. “No one at the office heard her say anything about going out. She would have called me anyway.”
Just then she heard Heather’s key in the door.
“Oh thank God!” she exclaimed, turning toward the sound. “I hear her now, Mark. Thanks for listening to me worry.”
“No problem, sis. If you need anything else, call,” he offered. “That’s what big brothers are for.”
She hung up the phone and ran for the front door.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asked as the door opened.
Heather fell forward; or rather, someone shoved her forward into the room. Marie screamed as three men came through the door and moved to restrain her.
She broke free and ran for the counter, managing to hit only one button on the phone before one of the men grabbed her. He punched her hard in the stomach, sending her to her knees gasping.
The last man through the door closed and bolted it, grabbed Heather by her hair, and dragged her into the living room.
“Good evening ma’am.” The other one said smugly. “We will be your instructors this evening.”
At which time the three began stripping both of the women of their clothes, punching them brutally when they resisted.
“Go to the window and keep watch,” one of the men said.
Reluctantly, the youngest of the three walked away from the melee. At the window, he looked back forlornly while the other two raped and sodomized the women.
Later, one of them rose using Heather’s face as leverage to rise above her limp form. “See there?” he said, snide, as he pulled his pants up. “All they needed all along was a strong man to break them of their deviant ways.”
The other two men laughed.
The two women reached for each other but the older man rushed forward before punching Heather until she could only curl in on herself. Her heaving sobs were
the only sound aside from the grunts of the men raping them.
After only a few moments—which to Marie seemed like hours—the men straightened themselves, kicking Heather once more for effect.
One of the attackers drew a handgun from his jacket and leveled it at Marie’s head. Just as the man pulled the trigger, Heather screamed and kicked out, sending the shot just wide, striking Marie across the jaw instead of the forehead.
“Cunt,” the man yelled at Heather, kicking her in the head again, knocking her unconscious.
The youngest man, having returned to his position at the window turned abruptly to the others. “Sirens!”
The three ran through the kitchen toward the back door. Marie heard past the ringing in her ears, the sound of appliances scraping on the kitchen floor.
When the door opened and then slammed shut again, she crawled dizzily toward Heather. She stroked her bruised and blood-soaked face, trying to awaken her.
Her jaw was throbbing and a flash of pain shot down her neck when she tried to move it.
“Baby. They’re gone now. You can wake up. Wake up, baby,” she pleaded, crying through the pain.
Marie could hear a siren in the distance getting closer as she continued to softly urge Heather to wake up.
“Come on, baby. The ambulance is coming. Wake up for me now. Please, love. Please,” she begged as the odor of smoke reached her nostrils.
Heather’s eyelids fluttered. She was only able to open one eye. The other was swollen shut.
She looked at Marie. “Love,” was all she managed to say.
As the sound of sirens stopped outside, the house exploded. The men had broken the gas line on the oven and range, letting the house fill with gas until it reached the burning paper towels they had left on the dining room table.
**
THE LAST THING MARK GAINES heard was his sister pleading with Heather to wake up, and then the signal went dead. As soon as he’d heard the male voices in the house he’d dialed 911 from his secure satellite phone. By the time the dispatcher had figured out he was calling from a phone on behalf of his sister, the rape had begun.