“Yes, but everyone makes out menopause to be such a horrible thing. I felt I needed to play the part. Well, and the hot flashes do suck. If someone would have told me I’d be going through this in my early forties, I’d have laughed them out of the room. I’d like to add this to the column of stuff they don’t tell you when you’re born with a vagina.”
Gena did her best to avoid laughing. “You’re always adding something to that list. What’s it up to now? Has to be at least ten pages.”
“Oh, easily.” Bonnie nodded. “Men have it so easy.”
Bonnie opened her window and pressed the call button on the keypad. No one responded, but the automatic gates began to open all the same. They drove through them, and Bonnie pulled the SUV to a stop on the large driveaway.
With a shake of her head, Gena exited the white SUV that had the research center’s new logo on the side and stood in the ornate driveway, staring up at the mansion before her. She shoved the bottle opener that Bonnie had insisted she take into her front shorts pocket. The woman hadn’t been joking. She really did get calendars and openers made with Donavon Dynamics’ logo on them.
Should Gena ever find herself in need of a small metal bottle opener, she could rest assured, she was covered.
Because that happened often.
She walked forward a bit and looked across the hood of the SUV at Bonnie, who was staring at the home as well.
Bonnie let out a low whistle. “I feel like some random guy with a hand towel will be waiting in the restroom should we need to use it,” said Bonnie, looking at the house. “Think he’ll spritz us with scented fragrances too while he wears white gloves?”
“I really hope not,” replied Gena as she soaked in the sight of the home. There was a huge fountain out front that had a bronze mermaid, who was more than blessed in the cleavage area and topless, holding a large conch shell that was spitting water directly up and into the air. She was sitting on the back of a sea turtle with small dolphins leaping in the air around her.
Tipping her head, Gena soaked in the sight of the artwork. The time put into it was evident, and she could only guess at how much it had to cost to have done. More than she made in a year, for sure.
The mermaid’s long hair cascaded over its narrow shoulders, only just managing to cover where nipples would be on its way down past the mermaid’s slender waist. Its tail had intricate scale patterns that had started to green somewhat from oxidation, making Gena wonder how long the fountain had been installed, as it wasn’t totally overtaken by the naturally occurring event.
Bonnie stepped to the left and then to the right. “That turtle is giving me the stink eye.”
With a roll of her eyes, Gena snorted. “You are so weird.”
“Thanks,” said Bonnie with a smirk. She then righted herself, pushing at her hair to be sure it was all back before facing Gena fully. “Do I look like a well-respected professional whom you would trust with your money and expensive toys?”
Gena nodded. “Yes, but maybe avoid calling the equipment toys in front of him.”
Bonnie pointed at her and snapped her fingers. “Good call. Shall we do this?”
“If we’re getting a vote, I’m going to go with no.” Gena couldn’t help but look at the fountain again, getting lost as she stared at the mermaid. She noticed something strange and eased closer to it, leaning in a bit to get a better look. She pointed to a small dragon-like creature tucked in behind the fluke of the mermaid’s tail. “What is that?”
Bonnie examined it as well and then touched her chin. “Hmm, water dragon maybe?”
“I guess. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a mermaid depicted with one before,” said Gena, having seen her fair share of mermaid art in her travels all over the world. She stared harder at the creature the sculptor had added. “It kind of reminds me of a statue of a gargoyle. You?”
Bonnie put her hand in the water of the fountain and lifted it, allowing water to cascade through her fingers. “It does. It’s creepy.”
Gena agreed. There was something off-putting about the expression on its face.
“Did you see the inlay in the tile near the front door up there?” asked Bonnie.
Gena looked in the direction of the door and noticed what Bonnie was talking about. The tiles were all monochromatic but formed the shape of a gold mermaid with sharks on both sides of her.
“It would appear our benefactor has a thing for chicks with fish tails,” said Bonnie. “Rules me out. By chance do you have a secret fish tail? It could so land us more funding.”
“Sorry. We’re out of luck there,” said Gena as she looked around more from her spot near the SUV. The whole place was huge and eerie, yet there wasn’t any one thing Gena could point out as off-putting. It just was. While the day was sunny and warm, there was a certain coldness that settled over her as she stared at the mansion.
Bonnie tapped the hood of the SUV. “Is it me or does this place have a weird vibe? Kind of like the Munsters meets the Kardashians?”
Gena glanced at her friend. “I don’t know what half of that reference was to, but yes, it has a very weird vibe.”
“My poor, sweet, pop-culture-challenged friend,” stated Bonnie with a snort. “You told me your college roomie helped to expose you to a bunch of references.”
“She must have missed that one,” said Gena, still in awe of the home before her. “One man lives here, or does he have a family of, say, thirty or so?”
“Oddly, I couldn’t find out much about him,” said Bonnie. “I tried looking him up on the internet, but there isn’t really anything there.”
“How is that possible? Everyone is on the internet, especially people with a net worth like this guy,” said Gena. “Even I know that.”
With a shrug, Bonnie shook her head. “No clue. Hey, maybe he’s really a secret spy or something and the identity is false, or he has people who scrub the internet for references to him.”
Gena cast a worried gaze in her friend’s direction. “I think we need to take away those spy novels I see you with all the time. Not to mention block you from the conspiracy theory blogs. Don’t think I didn’t notice those pulled up on your laptop this morning. Do I even want to know why they’re featuring an illustration of a man turning into a wolf?”
“Total guilty pleasure. Like the Kardashians and old black-and-white television episodes. Don’t even get me started on I Love Lucy,” returned Bonnie. “And they had the illustration to show what the shifters look like.”
“Shifters?” asked Gena.
Bonnie nodded. “Yeah. You know, guys who turn into animals.”
Gena simply stared at her friend. “You’ve gone round the bend, haven’t you?”
“Hon, I went around the bend years ago. You should join me,” said Bonnie. “It’s really fun over here on the dark side.”
“Considering you have enough bottle openers for everyone on the dark side, it should be really fun. One heck of a party.”
Bonnie laughed. “Damn straight. I like to dispel any misconceptions that smart, successful women over the age of thirty can’t have a good time too.”
The oversize front door opened, and a man in an honest-to-God butler outfit was there. Gena blinked several times. Nope. She wasn’t imagining it. He even had on white gloves. “No way.”
Bonnie snorted and tried to hide her laugh. “I should have gone with formal attire. No logos needed. Think he’s named Jeeves?”
“Jeeves?” asked Gena as they made their way up the front steps.
The man at the door gave a curt nod. “Ladies, Mr. Helmuth will be with you shortly. He’s arranged for lunch to be served in the sunroom. What can I get you both to drink?”
Bonnie slid the man a sideways glance. “Too much to hope for something with vodka in it?”
The man’s lips twitched. “Not at all. And for you?”
Gena bit her lower lip. “Water, please. No ice. Thank you.”
He nodded and then pointed in the direction of the back
right hall. “Please come in. The master will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you,” said Bonnie before glancing wide-eyed at Gena.
The master?
The man hurried off.
Gena tensed. “I know I’m not the only one thinking it.”
“’The master’? He did say master, right?” asked Bonnie. “I’ve changed my vote from his name being Jeeves to it being Igor.”
“I don’t know what that means,” confessed Gena.
“Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant,” said Bonnie with a shake of her head.
“Oh. Right. I knew that,” offered Gena before licking her lips to hide a laugh. “Okay, I didn’t know that. I knew there was a sidekick. I just didn’t know his name.”
“That’s it, I’m going to rent a bunch of old movies and shows, and we’re going to binge-watch them all until you’re hip and cool,” said Bonnie with a wink. “Like me.”
Gena smiled. “Best of luck with that. I’ve been told more than once that I might be a hopeless case in the cool department.”
“As much as I want to have your back and say that isn’t so, you might be right,” Bonnie said with a wide smile. “Shall we do this?”
The second Gena’s foot crossed the threshold of the front entrance, she had the strangest urge to turn and hightail it out of there. Since running from the deep pockets that kept the research center operating was silly, she chalked it up to nerves.
Bonnie leaned toward Gena, bumping arms with her as the women walked side by side into the enormous foyer, which opened into a great room.
Gena’s attention went directly to a massive painting on the far wall of the room. It stood out as it was done in color when everything else in the home thus far had been stark white. The painting called to her for a different reason as well.
It was of a massive great white shark in what looked to be an enormous tank inside a warehouse or something.
Since holding one in captivity simply wasn’t possible for any length of time with any degree of success, the painting was odd. Finding it in the home of a man who claimed to be a champion for shark conservation was even odder. Protecting them and keeping one in a container were two very different end goals.
The more she looked at the painting, the more she felt as if she’d seen the exact shark that was depicted there.
When she realized where, she stiffened.
No.
That couldn’t be.
Her mind was clearly playing tricks on her. There was simply no way the very great white that had saved her when she was ten was the one being shown in the oil painting. The odds of that were staggering.
Your mind is playing tricks on you, she thought. It’s the heat. That has to be it.
Still, denying the similarities was difficult.
The shark depicted in the painting even had the same scars and markings as the one that had rescued her. The scars and markings were a way to identify sharks. Dorsal fins were another way to ID a shark, and the shark in the painting had the very same dorsal fin Gena remembered the one from her past having. Granted, she’d only been ten when she’d seen the shark, and she had suffered a traumatic head injury, so it was possible she was simply filling in the blanks with what she was currently seeing.
“Gena?” asked Bonnie, nudging her arm and drawing her away from her fixation with the painting.
Gena turned to look at her friend but paused as the hair on the back of her neck rose. Slowly, she turned the other way to find a tall man standing just inside the archway to the hall. His dark hair hung partially over one eye, and his head was tipped as he leaned, one arm resting against the archway.
It looked as if he’d been there for hours, almost statue-like, but he hadn’t been there only minutes prior.
The man was handsome, like male-model kind of good-looking, but there was something about him that left Gena wanting to take several steps back. As if distance was needed.
She resisted, keeping her feet planted where they were.
It was hard.
The man’s eyes, while very attractive, lacked warmth. The more she stared at him, the more she realized he hadn’t so much as blinked. He was more statue-like than she’d first thought, and it was downright creepy.
Finally, he did a rather long, slow, clearly deliberate blink, as if sensing her unrest with the unnatural way he presented himself.
The blink did little to help her unease.
A smile touched his lips and he stood to his full, imposing height. “Dr. Fowler?”
“Me.” Bonnie lifted her hand, staring blankly at the man.
The man gave a slight nod, smiling more, except it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Yet another checkmark on the running list of unnerving things about him. At the rate Gena was going, she’d be running for the hills rather than staying for lunch.
He stepped forward, covering the short distance between them. He extended his hand to Bonnie. “Nice to finally meet you,” he said. “I’m Walter Helmuth.”
Bonnie took his hand and shook it with a bit too much enthusiasm, still staring at him funny. It took Gena a second to realize Bonnie was enamored by the man.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Helmuth,” said Bonnie quickly. “I can’t thank you and your company enough for all you’ve done for our facility.”
Helmuth had to practically pry Bonnie off him. His smile never broke. “Ah, my pleasure, but I have to confess. Donavon Dynamics isn’t my company. I’m simply one of the board members. Think of it as a conglomerate, composed of many, many companies and backers. I’m one of those backers.”
Nodding, Bonnie reached for his hand again, starting to shake it once more. “Got it. A cog in the wheel. Right.”
Gena grabbed her friend’s hand, artfully drawing it and Bonnie to her more. She gave a slight squeeze, and Bonnie blinked several times before clearing her throat, and a tidal wave of pink rushing over her cheeks. “Oh my. Is it hot in here?”
Helmuth grinned. “It’s nearly unbearable outside, and it’s evident you’ve had some sun recently.”
Bonnie’s hand went to her cheek. “Um, yes. Might have gotten distracted while applying my sunscreen.”
Helmuth stared at Bonnie, unblinking once more, his smile still frozen. “Skincare and UV protection is something of a passion of mine.”
“You have great skin,” said Bonnie, her eyes wide.
Gena couldn’t help but groan softly.
Bonnie cleared her throat and then rubbed the back of her neck. “Wow. That came out vastly different than I’d pictured it in my head. I’m sorry. I’m nervous. I’m afraid we’re here for you to tell us you’re pulling funding. And I looked you up on the internet but couldn’t find out much about you. Not even a photo. Then you appear, and you’re like a walking sculpture or something.”
Gena elbowed her friend lightly.
Bonnie sighed. “That fell out too. I’m super nervous. Did I mention that already?”
“You did,” said Helmuth, his smile widening more, finally reaching his eyes. “Dr. Fowler, I can assure you that I did not request this meeting to tell you that you’re losing your funding. In fact, I called it because I’m very interested in the work you and your team are doing. I think sharks are invaluable.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Bonnie, sounding relieved and a lot more like herself.
“I can’t wait to talk more about the research you’ve been doing,” said Helmuth, though the words didn’t ring true to Gena.
She had to wonder why she was being so critical of the man.
The butler appeared once more.
Helmuth nodded at him. “Ernest, would you be so kind as to show Dr. Fowler to the sunroom and be sure she has some water? The heat is getting to her.”
The way Helmuth said it all didn’t hold the warmth the words should. It was as if he was trying too hard to be respectful of Ernest. Like maybe, just maybe, when extra eyes weren’t on him, Helmuth was anything but nice or respectful to the man.
That bothered Gena.
A lot.
Ernest cast a speculative glance over the women before coming to them. “Of course. Dr. Fowler?”
Bonnie touched her upper chest lightly. “I’m fine, really. No fuss is needed. And please call me Bonnie.”
Ernest smiled softly. “Very well. Bonnie, please come with me. I’ll get you some water.”
Gena went to follow as Bonnie and Ernest headed away, but Helmuth stepped in her path, cutting her off.
Drawing up short, Gena tensed and then took a significant step back.
Helmuth stared down at her. “You must be Dr. Alexiadis.”
“Yes,” said Gena softly, wanting to back up more, but she wasn’t sure why. The man had been nothing but pleasant so far. And he and Donavon Dynamics had been instrumental in making the research facility a reality, letting her live her dream. Still, there was something about him that was off. “Mr. Helmuth, I should check on Bonnie.”
Helmuth remained in place, blocking her path. He adjusted the cuff of his dress shirt, looking nonchalant, yet she could almost taste his inner turmoil. The calm exterior was a façade. “Please, Dr. Alexiadis, call me Helmuth.”
“You don’t go by Walter?” blurted Gena, more out of nerves than genuine curiosity.
He chuckled. “Ah, no. Would you if you were named Walter?”
Some of the tension eased out of Gena at his attempt at humor. Maybe he was nervous too. Perhaps he was as socially awkward as she was at times, and she was simply judging him harshly. Like others probably did to her often. Feeling slightly guilty, Gena did her best to act normal. Whatever normal was.
“I don’t know about that. Walter isn’t a bad name. Beats Gena,” she said. “People read it and think it’s pronounced Jenna, not Gene-A like it is. Or my favorite is the time a girl in college asked if it was pronounced Gy-na. Like vagina.”
As soon as she said the words, she wanted them back.
She was crap at small talk with strangers.
Clara and Nicolette would love hearing about how she managed to bungle the meeting. She made a mental note to remember to reach out to them both after the meeting was over. Bonnie was right. It was time she made a point to live for something more than work.
Wrecked Intel (Immortal Outcasts®): An Immortal Ops® World Novel Page 10