by Michael Todd
But this was the Zoo and it had all kinds of ways of bringing nightmares to life. The guard hadn’t been in there himself, but the footage that had been brought back by those who had was enough to make a man doubt his own sanity.
Khadev shook his head and chuckled as he gripped Igor by the arm and dragged him out of the building. The only words the guard had heard Igor utter in his six hours in the place still rang in his ears as one of the other guards hurried up to his desk.
“Damn it, why did you do that?” his colleague asked and sipped from a mug of coffee. “There’s no need to get anyone’s hopes up about that particular kind of death sentence.”
He shook his head and leaned back in his seat with his gaze glued to the door that the two had just left through. “It’s rough. That man is on his way into a place to be ‘released,’ not knowing that he would be better off simply getting shot in the back of the head. The least I can do is give him a little hope as he heads off to the gallows.”
He stared at the door for a few more seconds before he glanced back at the clock. Another thirty minutes to go. Fuck, he needed a cigarette.
Her eyes shot open as the alarm on her phone went off. It was supposed to be the soft and soothing tones from Beethoven’s Fifth, and yet she realized that her heart pounded and a cold sweat formed on her brow despite the fact that the environmental controls maintained her room at a pleasant and balmy temperature.
How long would it be before she no longer dreamed about the Zoo? Would it ever really leave her? She knew that she didn’t miss the damn place, even though the only pleasant part of the dreams involved having Sal and Madigan around her again. In a time when friendships had always been less important than pushing the boundaries of science, she had managed to forge a couple that made her miss being in their compound.
Yes, it was the compound that she really missed. The jungle could go and fuck itself with all kinds of cacti.
Courtney dragged herself from the comfort of her queen-sized bed and pushed the down comforter aside before she moved across the carpeted floor to the bathroom. There were certain comforts that she’d learned to live without, she realized as she turned the shower on and slipped under the steaming stream, but the longer she stayed there, the more she adjusted to having them in her life again. Like decent coffee and not having to get up at a time that only the military thought was civilized and go to work.
And she’d missed the bacon. Real bacon that tasted like it hadn’t spent the past three months in a freezer.
Almost an hour after she’d woken up, she checked her watch and pulled on the pantsuit that she’d set out the day before. Nothing really felt quite as powerful as wearing a suit of armor, but there wasn’t much that could protect her from the poison that she’d face in downtown LA.
She looked around at the various decorations and the furniture that had been chosen. Her dad had never really had the best eye for décor, but that was why people hired decorators. And from the looks of things, the man could have certainly afforded it.
Not that Courtney actually thought she would stay there for much longer. It was cheaper to be there in her childhood home than go back and forth to a hotel. Yes, she had inherited the place along with the rest of the man’s possessions, but she didn’t think that she wanted to disturb what had to be at least one lifetime’s worth of memories. She preferred to sell it, let someone else form memories around it, and find something that she could feel more comfortable in.
She wasn’t sure why she felt guilty about planning her life without Sal and Madigan involved. They were her friends, of course, but they had to understand that she had a life now, and until she sorted out everything that her father had left her, she wouldn’t be able to go back to them.
They had to understand that, right?
Courtney put on a pair of pearl earrings and slipped into her comfortable yet stylish shoes. Satisfied with her appearance, she drew her phone from her purse and sent a message to the town car company, which promptly responded that her transportation would arrive in a few short minutes.
It annoyed her that her driver’s license had expired while she’d been in the Zoo, and without any time to get it renewed, they couldn’t have the heiress to the Monroe fortune riding around in the city’s public transportation system. Besides, she doubted that they even had buses this far out into the suburbs.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, a limousine drew up in front of the house and the driver waited patiently as she came down the steps and locked the door before she walked out to the car. She didn’t wait for him to get out and open the door for her, being perfectly capable of doing it for herself, thank you very much. With a murmured greeting, she slipped into one of the passenger seats and stared out the window as the various houses and trees flashed by. Distracted by her earlier thoughts that still nagged at her, she noticed very little of the journey until they pulled to a stop in front of a massive building downtown.
Courtney blinked a few times and wondered how long she’d been lost in thought since it had to take at least an hour to get into the city at this time of day, usually more.
She shook her head and nodded as this time, the driver was given ample opportunity to come around and open the door for her. With a bright smile, she gave the man a generous tip and a word of thanks before she went into the building.
It was an investment company, one that had handled most of her father’s investments into research grants and the like and allowed him to make money from his scientific advancements without actually having to step into a lab for almost a full decade before his death.
An aide waited for her at the front desk, smiled broadly when she came into view, and quickly waved the security men who approached with metal detector wands away.
“You don’t need to worry one bit about that, Dr. Monroe,” the young man said in a pleasant voice as he guided her to the elevators at the back of the lobby. “The people around here are paranoid enough to make J. Edgar Hoover drool. Anyway, I made sure that they knew you were actually one of the owners of this place, but they still need to be reminded that some people don’t need to deal with the red tape involved in getting into this building.”
Courtney smiled pleasantly as they walked. The young man continued to talk, although she filtered out most of what he said. A part of her knew these people were paid to be pleasant and to make conversation, but she didn’t feel in the mood to deal with that right now. She wasn’t in the best frame of mind and honestly hadn’t been since she found out that her father had died, with a few very rare exceptions. Those grew rarer by the minute. Having to deal with all the business of his estate had grown tedious to the point where she almost longed for the non-existent comforts of the Zoo. At least the animals in there had the good manners to not sidle up to her, smile, and try to stab her in the back. They might want to kill her ass dead, but they were upfront about it.
Her companion led her into a conference room filled with two dozen office chairs that she would have killed to have in her apartment at the compound.
“It doesn’t seem like your party has arrived yet,” the aide said, his smile intact. “Might I get you something to drink or eat while you wait? We have a delightful sandwich bar on the second floor. Perhaps some juice? Water? Coffee?”
She put her hand on the boy’s shoulder in an effort to stop him talking as pleasantly as possible. Now that she thought about it, this kid couldn’t be that much younger than Sal. In fact, it looked like he might be a couple of years older. That was a truly odd thought. Here she was, thinking of the aide as a kid and yet thought of Sal as one of her peers.
“Just some water, thanks,” she said and maintained her smile as she moved to take a seat at one of the chairs at the end of the table. She made herself comfortable and pulled a laptop from her bag, set it up on the table, and connected it to the building’s wi-fi before she pulled up the document that she’d worked on since before she’d returned.
The title still made her smile, but sh
e moved past it quickly. She’d worked on this description of her experiences at the Zoo for her father, and now that he was gone, she did it in his honor. It was something that might help people remember him and everything that he’d done. The reasons for wanting to come out from under her father’s shadow were still present but less important now. There was no point in outscoring a dead man, after all. She could still put out as much work as she needed to be remembered under her own name.
This was something for him, and it was something that she would finish in his memory.
She looked up from her work as the young aide peeked his head into the conference room once more.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Monroe,” he said in the same pleasant voice that he probably practiced in front of a mirror. “I’ve just received word that your party’s been caught up in traffic and should be a while. Can I get you anything in the meantime? Have I mentioned that we have an amazing sandwich bar—”
“On the second floor, yes,” Courtney said with a chuckle. “Yes, you did. I don’t think I’m ready for a sandwich now, Mr…”
“Gregory Pedersen,” he said with a smile. “But you can call me Greg.”
“Well, Greg, I think I might take you up on that coffee.”
“Coming right up, Dr. Monroe,” he said with a snap of the fingers. He was back in less than two minutes.
Damned if the coffee there wasn’t better than the stuff that she had at home, she thought and inhaled the rich, bitter aroma of the stuff before she ventured a sip. She liked to add a little cream and sugar to it, but when it was this good, what was the point?
She had barely drunk half of it when Greg stepped into the room, closely followed this time by three people. One was a woman dressed in as severe a pantsuit as Courtney wore herself, with her dyed blond hair tied up in a rigid bun and a pair of delicate glasses perched halfway down the bridge of her nose.
The other two looked like they would be perfectly at home in the Zoo. Powerful shoulders needed no padding to fill out their suits and the heavy hands and bulky coats were more than capable of hiding concealed weapons.
She stood with a broad smile and offered her hand to the woman, who wore the same fake smile that Courtney had put on herself this morning.
“Miss Courtney Monroe?” the woman asked with a mild Boston accent. “I’m Andressa Covington. I was friends with your father and I’ve managed his estate during his tragic absence. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “It’s Dr. Courtney Monroe, by the way.”
“Of course, sweetie,” Covington said with a condescending tone. “These are James and Giles. They’re my accountants and have helped me with the management.”
Courtney nodded and took each of the men’s hands in turn. If they were accountants, she was a venom-fanged panther she mused before she took her seat again.
“Now, I know that you’ve been read into your father’s will, which means that you’ve been told about the kind of investments he was involved in,” the woman said quickly as she sat a couple of chairs away from Courtney. The two so-called accountants remained on their feet behind her. “I won’t bother you with the details—it’s all so very complicated, you understand—but in the end, I want you to know that your father’s estate, and yours in turn, is very well taken care of. So well, in fact, that I’m not even sure why we’re here. I’m sure that the portfolio that was given you was more than sufficient.”
“I was given a portfolio,” she said, withdrew it from her bag, and placed it on the table. “And I came here because I was alerted to a couple of discrepancies in the accounting—” Courtney paused to give the two men a pointed look. “More specifically, in the very generous expense accounts that you’ve assigned yourself.”
“Please take no offense when I tell you that you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Covington said but her polite façade began to disappear very quickly. “I’ve worked accounts like your father’s and many others for over ten years. I have a degree from Harvard if you’d like to check my credentials.”
“I have no doubts as to your capabilities, Miss Covington. I’m afraid that’s the problem, though, since it took my lawyers the better part of a week to sift through all the various charities and businesses that you funneled my father’s money into the moment he died,” she explained and took care to keep her own façade firmly in place. “Would you like some coffee?”
The other woman opened her mouth but, clearly stumped by the out-of-nowhere offer, snapped it shut again. She fidgeted with her watch for a few seconds and looked at the two lugs behind her before she nodded.
“I’d love some coffee. Half caf, mocha latte with soy—” She paused when she realized that Courtney had stood, pushed her own half-drunk and very cold cup across the table, and placed it in front of her before she resumed her seat. Without a word, she slid her laptop and the portfolio into her bag.
“Look, I’m sure you’re a very busy woman, so I’ll cut right to the chase,” Monroe said, her voice soft and civil. “I don’t work for you, and I never will. And until your company is willing to send someone to work with me who has a modicum of manners and doesn’t try to steal everything that my father worked so hard to achieve in his life, I’m afraid I’ll have to take my business elsewhere.”
She picked her bag up and started toward the door. Covington snapped her fingers and one of the lugs turned, marched over to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Now, Miss Monroe,” the woman said as she pushed from her seat and turned to face Courtney. “I’m terribly sorry that you are unable to be civil in such an important meeting. Believe me, I understand the pain that you are going through at the moment, but I’m afraid that’s no reason to be ru—”
Courtney couldn’t help herself. There were more than a few issues that she had to work through as she tried to get back on track with living in a place where the biggest threat to one’s life was high fructose syrup. She tried to keep things under control, but at that moment, as the lug’s hand tightened around her shoulder and tried to drag her back to the conference table, something in her snapped. As far as metaphorical straws that broke metaphorical camels’ metaphorical backs went, this one was heavy—which, she felt, explained her reaction.
She reached over her shoulder, gripped the man’s fore and middle fingers, and twisted them as she turned. The motion enabled her to use her body weight to add increasing pressure to his joints until she heard the tell-tale crackle and pop as fingers pulled out of their sockets. The thug screamed in pain and dropped to his knees as Monroe continued to twist. She took advantage of his exposed position and hammered a jab at his nose. A satisfying crack didn’t quite convince her so she hammered it again, this time with her elbow.
Kennedy would be disappointed. She had failed to keep up with her training regimen.
With his nose and fingers broken, the man was a pitiful pile of soft whimpers and cries as she reached into his jacket and found what she’d suspected was in there. She pulled the handgun clear, made sure to flick the safety off with her thumb, and released the man’s broken hand to drag the slider back and chamber a round before she aimed at Lug Number Two. He already had his hand tucked inside his jacket to draw his weapon.
“Let’s not be hasty here,” Covington said, her voice suddenly soft and pleasant again and her bright green eyes as wide as saucers as she stared at the gun in Courtney’s hand. “There’s no need to resort to violence.”
“There certainly isn’t,” Monroe growled. “Is that why you brought in a couple of armed ‘accountants’ who were here to hold me down if I disagreed with the idea of you stealing from my father’s estate? Because there was no need for violence?”
“You have no idea what kind of person you’re dealing with here, Miss Monroe,” the woman snarled.
“It’s Dr. Monroe,” Courtney hissed and shoved Lug Number One down on the ground. She kept the gun trained on the second one, who had pulled his h
and out of his coat and now raised both of them in response to her closing the distance between them. “You’ve done this for a while now, right, Miss Covington? You know your job well enough to research your clients—well, let’s call them victims because that’s more accurate. You’ve done your job. You researched me before coming here. The little blurb that said that I’d spent the better part of the last two years in one of the most dangerous places on earth—a place where you wouldn’t last ten fucking minutes? That didn’t ring any alarm bells?”
“I have friends in places you wouldn’t believe,” Covington retorted as if she’d somehow forgotten who actually held a gun with a round in the chamber. “I have power that you couldn’t even dream of.”
“I, on the other hand, have friends in very dangerous places,” she retorted and gritted her teeth as she pointed the gun at the woman, who gulped very audibly. “And unless you are willing to find death knocking on your front door selling girl scout cookies, I suggest that you never, ever threaten me again.” She moved a step closer so that the barrel of the handgun hovered less than an inch away from the woman’s forehead. “I’ve been there and done that more times than I can count. Can you really say you’ve done the same?”
A moment of tense silence followed in which Courtney seriously considered pulling the trigger. The woman was terrified now, yes, but there was little hope that this would show her the error of her ways. No, she would continue to rob other people blind until she was caught and sent to some minimum security prison for a couple of years before being released and allowed to live the rest of her days in the luxury of the money that she’d acquired from others. Pulling the trigger would be the best kind of justice.
You’re not in the Zoo anymore, Courtney, she reminded herself, closed her eyes for a second, and backed away. Do you really want to go to jail for this bitch?