by D S Kane
She took his face and silently looked into his eyes. “Can I coax you into one more?”
He gasped. “Don’t know. It’s been so long, but we can try.”
She pinched his nipples and he gradually became erect once more, moaning softly as she pushed on top of him. She mouthed something like a growl. She tried to rise from him a bit, starting them toward another climax, but he held her arms and demanded she be still. Lee said, “I’ve missed being inside you.” She could feel that he wanted to say more, but he began to rock under her. Her body ignited, and she felt herself slip again into the moment.
The sex was better than when their lives had been threatened. They lay in the bed, relaxed but spent, breathless and still coupled together. The duvet lay at the edge of the bed, their bodies bare to the air. Their tandem gulps eased as they edged toward sleep.
* * *
Ann lay on her back in her makeshift bed in the tunnels north of Grand Central Station, her eyes bulging wide in pain. The man on top had stuffed a Franklin into her hand and forcibly mounted her. He penetrated before she was moist and ready. She’d wanted to use saliva to wet her crotch, but the man gripped her hands until he was deep within. Awash with the pain of being violated and ripped into, she covered a scream of pain with the back of her hand. He worked her hard, as she thrashed under him. The man reached under her dirty sweater and squeezed one of her breasts.
Her eyes popped open, her breathing ragged. She sat up, once again in her bed in the house where she lived with Cassie and Lee, gasping from her nightmare. Ann felt unsure and alone. She left her room, walking down the dark, long hallway to the master bedroom where Cassie and Lee slept.
She knocked on the door but didn’t wait. Opening the door, she saw Cassie’s naked body atop Lee’s in the bed. Neither Cassie nor Lee seemed to notice she’d entered their bedroom. Neither made an attempt to cover themselves. Both were panting from recent sex, raw enough for even Ann to notice the odor. She realized what they’d done and turned to leave immediately.
Cassie saw Ann’s shadow, dim in the gray light. She pulled the cover over Lee and herself. “What’s wrong, Ann?”
Ann blurted out, “I’m, uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to barge in. I had a bad nightmare. A real bad one. I feel scared and lonely. I don’t think I can sleep.” Still shaking, she approached the bed on Cassie’s side.
Cassie reached her hand and touched Ann’s. She motioned to the edge of the bed.
Ann sat. “My mom used to let me sleep in the bed with her when I had nightmares. I know that I was a lot younger then, but please let me stay. I promise I won’t ask it again, but can I tonight? Please?”
Cassie said, “Of course.” She began to pull the cover tighter over Ann and herself, and Lee wrapped himself deep within it. Gizmo pounced onto the bed and settled on the blanket between Lee and them.
Ann snuggled against Cassie and continued hugging her hard.
CHAPTER 7
October 2, 6:58 p.m.
New York University,
Washington Square, New York City
Cassie entered the auditorium-style classroom, thinking about the events of the three days since that night.
The night after Ann entered their bedroom, Lee had waited for Ann to go upstairs to her bedroom to do homework. Then he cornered Cassie in the kitchen. He stood at the sink, rinsing dishes and putting them into the dishwasher while he spoke. “That girl isn’t normal. She’s fifteen and wants to sleep with us in our bed right after we’ve fucked.”
Cassie dragged a wet sponge across the countertop. “She probably didn’t know we’d just had sex.”
Facing away, he raised his voice. “That’s bullshit. I know you can smell everything, so you might not know that even I could smell what we’d been doing. If she can smell at all, she knew.”
Cassie stopped and faced him. “Lee, you’re ranting. She’ll need to get adjusted to her new life. Give her a chance. Help me guide her.”
He shook his head. “She isn’t normal. She’ll never be normal!”
Cassie touched his arm to try and calm him, but he pulled away. She couldn’t decide what to do with Ann. She figured each of them was confused right now. “Maybe I should get a therapist for her.”
Lee just glared back. “The problem is us, sweetie, all of us. We’re the fucking Addams Family. Not good examples for any child.”
His comment had cycled through her mind for the days since then. She was confused and worried, obsessing about whether they could develop into a normal family. She began to feel depressed, and nothing she could imagine or conjure helped. She needed a break and couldn’t force one.
But, the next morning, Cassie had received an invitation via email to attend an NYU Entrepreneur’s Club meeting where several startup companies would present their plans to angel investors. She knew without any thought that Adam had arranged this for her.
At the very least, it would draw her away from obsessing about her teenager.
Cassie read the agenda. Over two hours, five startups would present, and two were high-tech products. She understood their businesses. Of the other three, two of them fascinated her, one with a possible cure for cancer and another with a “fix” for spinal cord injuries. Cassie told Ann and Lee that she’d be in New York overnight at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. She cornered Lee alone and warned him to be on his best behavior with Ann.
Tonight, she’d found a student’s desk at the back of one of the lobby auditoriums of NYU’s Stern Graduate School of Business on Waverly and sat there. Instead of thinking about Ann, she thought about what had happened today.
In late morning, she’d packed an overnight case and took Amtrak north. On arrival, before she took the subway to NYU, she’d called Judy Hernandez.
“Hello?” said a distant voice with a thick Brooklyn accent.
“Judy? This is Denise Hardcastle,” said Cassie, using the alias she’d assumed when she fled Washington and lived in New York.
“Denise? What happened to you? It’s been so long since we last talked. You just sort of disappeared, know what I mean?” Cassie heard Judy’s chewing gum pop.
“Meet me for dinner tonight and I’ll tell you everything. And I promise you’ll find the story interesting. I’m paying. How about it?”
“Uh, okay. Where you want to meet?”
“How about the French restaurant—One if by Land, Two if by Sea—on Barrow Street near West 4th? We went there once last year.”
“Okay, can do. Seven p.m.?”
“No, much earlier. I have to be in a classroom at seven. The restaurant opens at five-thirty. How about then?”
“Okay, but for such an early dinner this better be good. I assume you’ll want to stay overnight.”
“Don’t know. Probably not. See you then.” She didn’t tell Judy she’d be at the Waldorf. She and Judy had been lovers before she hooked up with Lee, and she didn’t want the opportunity for a recurrence.
* * *
“You lied about your name?” Judy placed a sliver of foie gras terrine frisée, with a dash of its cherry compote onto the brioche toast, dipped it into the port reduction sauce and dropped it onto her tongue. “Oh, God, this tastes like heaven. Where’d you get the money for this?”
Cassie sipped from the wineglass she held in her hand. The bottle of 1985 Châteaux Margaux Pavionne Blanc cost well over a thousand dollars. “Yes. It’s very good. The money came from the bank accounts of terrorists in the Middle East. And yes, I lied. About everything. All lies. My name is Cassandra Sashakovich. I used to work for a US intelligence service, but a mole working at my employer blew my cover and some people tried to kill me. But, I survived and hired an army of mercenaries that located and slaughtered all of them.”
Judy’s jaw dropped open and Cassie could see and smell the foie gras on Judy’s tongue. “You’re lying again.”
Cassie continued. “No, Judy. This is the truth. We were good friends, lovers, and I trust you to know.” She took her time, calming the tiny
voice in her head screaming it’s never safe to trust anyone. “So now my mercs are set up as a preferred vendor—a management consulting firm called Swiftshadow Consulting Group—to the federal government in Washington. I was responsible for so many lost lives.” She put her fork down and her eyes drifted downward toward her plate as if the glaze on the foie could reflect her feelings. She glanced up at Judy. “I need to make myself feel worthy. That’s why I created Swiftshadow.”
“Wow.” Judy slowly chewed the mouthful, her eyes distant as she tried to digest Cassie’s story. “This is another story. Unbelievable.” She smiled. “So, you lied to me before. Why should I believe you’re telling me the truth now?”
“I can prove it. All you have to do is come back with me to Washington. You’ll meet the entire group. I want you to be Swiftshadow’s office manager. So, this is a job offer. Are you interested?”
Judy stopped chewing. “Huh? You want me to drop everything and just move my ass over two hundred miles?”
Cassie smiled. “Yes.” She handed her cell phone to Judy. “Go to swiftshadowconsultinggroup.com. You can see the company’s website. You can see the group, our photos, and read our biographies.”
Judy took the cell and keyed the website name on its keyboard. “Holy shit, woman. This looks real.” She looked up, right into Cassie’s eyes. “Denise, uh, I mean, Cassandra, you’re serious. Well, okay, so, tell me about the job. I mean, tell me how much is the salary? What will I do?”
* * *
When their brief dinner ended, Cassie walked the few blocks to the NYU campus in Greenwich Village. She had never been inside NYU, despite all the time she’d spent in New York City. She wandered through the campus at Washington Square, in awe at its enormous library building across the street from the student union building with its modest cafeteria. In the Square she stopped and watched street singers and chess players, and admired its massive arch at the base of Fifth Avenue.
As the sky darkened into night, she headed over to the Stern School and entered the auditorium in the Graduate Business section. There was technology everywhere in the Stern School. The lobby looked brand new, well-maintained. They must have rich alumni, she thought.
She walked into the amphitheater named in the invitation that Adam had been instrumental in obtaining for her. At the back of the room she found her nametag, among many others. She seated herself near the rear exit. She found about fifty people chatting in the room. There was an even mix of men and women, most in their late thirties and early forties, she guessed. All dressed in business attire.
She remained sitting until the crowd of students and attendees was large enough that she was sure she would not draw attention to herself. She rose and approached one of the people sitting at a table in the front of the room. “Can you please help me? I’m looking for Professor Hoffshell.”
“I’m Hoffshell,” said the woman. She was probably fifty years old, with short gray hair hanging in strings. The woman’s face enclosed a quiet patience that might come in handy when teaching.
“I received an email invitation to attend. My name is Cassandra Sashakovich and my sponsor is Adam Mahee. He’s adjunct faculty, isn’t he?”
Hoffshell leaned over and read the nametag. “Oh, yes, now I remember. Adam said you had the money to become an angel investor and were eager to find a few attractive early stage companies. He said even if you lost all of your risk capital, it wouldn’t affect your life style. That is, he qualified you as an accredited investor. Is that so?”
Cassie nodded but said nothing. When Hoffshell nodded back, Cassie asked, “What do I do now?”
The professor stood so they were eye-to-eye. “Tonight, you sit, you watch the CEOs present their companies, and if you have questions, then you can ask them at the end of each presentation. It looks like it’ll be a great night. These startups are the best so far this year. If you find one you’re interested in, just get the contact info for their management from one of the tables in the back of the amphitheater.” Hoffshell pointed near the exit.
Cassie nodded.
“It’s up to you to follow up and get a term sheet, a private placement memorandum, and anything else you need to make a decision. Make sure you have an attorney examine the start-up’s paperwork before you sign anything.”
She handed Cassie a set of stapled pages that contained a course description plus a bibliography listing about twenty books and nearly eighty articles. “With my permission, the course can be audited. Of course I’ll grant you permission, since you’re sponsored by Adam. The next one starts in January. The articles and books on the pages can all be found in the Business School’s library, and you can buy them in the bookstore.”
Cassie thanked Hoffshell and reclaimed her seat in the back of the auditorium. She sat, took notes, and remained focused on each startup company’s cofounders. Cassie noticed that every company had a slightly different style, and each one’s PowerPoint presentation was brief yet concise.
The presentations were crafted to raise questions that would highlight the company’s strengths.
Before the third one, she’d become able to guess where the strengths and weaknesses were in each. The high-tech companies—one a software company and one a hardware company—were interesting, but not what she wanted.
Then, about 9:30 in the evening, one of the ones she’d come for took the stage. This company claimed it had developed a cure for cancer.
The CEO, an oncologist named Dr. Gerard Hopper, was tall and athletic looking, with a shock of red hair. He sauntered to the podium and touched the microphone, then jumped back half a step from the erupting feedback. He smiled at the audience and introduced the other members of the management team of Hopper Pharmaceuticals, a total of five men and women. All were oncologists except for the woman in charge of marketing. “We have created a cure for solid tumors. A cancer cure. We’re looking for a pre-seed round. We expect this investment round to qualify us for FDA alpha testing. We need five million dollars for the next step.”
He looked up from his notes to see if there were questions. Then back to the papers he held. He clicked the mouse button on his notebook computer and the next slide came up. “We’ve had excellent results with animal trials. If we are successful, we’ll go through beta and then look to license out our manufacturing and distribution to at least one major drug company under an agreement that will be affordable to all, regardless of income. Our animal tests cured terminal-stage solid tumors in 90 of the 100 subjects. Human alpha testing calls for 250 terminally ill patients and will take at least eight months. We extract white blood cells from the patient and reprogram the cell nuclei so that they are redesigned to attack cancer cells. The new features of the cell nuclei cause them to reproduce quickly for three weeks. We inject them back into the patient and within three weeks the patient is cancer-free. Because the cells are crafted using the patient’s own DNA, there’s no problem of rejection. What I mean is that each patient gets a cure unique to their own cancer cells, and compatible with their own DNA.”
Cassie decided she wanted this one. It was her chance to help the world and still make money.
She heard the other company present its spinal-cord injury cure and decided to pass on it. She wasn’t convinced that they could pass alpha testing, and even though they were only asking for $1.5 million, she thought that if they were successful in alpha, she’d look at them when they came back looking for funding their FDA beta test.
At the end of the evening, as the custodian began cleaning the nearly empty room, Cassie walked to Professor Hoffshell. “Thanks for letting me come. Will I get more invitations to attend?”
Hoffshell said, “You’ll get one email invitation every month. Come when you find that one of the presenting companies interests you.”
Near the exit she picked up business cards, business plans, term sheets, and private placement memorandums for the two companies. As she was leaving the amphitheatre, one of the other attendees approached her. He was about h
er age and wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit, white shirt, and rep tie. He smiled at her. “Which of these yahoos got your attention?”
Cassie stepped back from him. “Cancer cure.” She examined him closely. He was Asian, good looking, not handsome, with long black hair knotted in a ponytail, a hawk nose, and a short-cropped beard. “Are you one of the investors?”
“Ya. Harry Chow, Ponte Vecchio Ventures.” He ran his hand through his forelock, spreading it back from the front of his head. “Want to compare notes? I’ll buy you a drink.”
Cassie thought, he wants me in the sack, and I’m not available.
Then she remembered her carelessness last year—guilelessly letting the man assigned to assassinate her right into her hotel room—and it cost her six months of her life. She remembered fleeing Riyadh. Cassie’s face scrunched. After a few seconds, she cleared her mind and replied, “Sorry, but I’ve got to get home to my husband and daughter.”
She turned away and walked from the amphitheater. Outside on Saint Mark’s Place, she walked evasively, head swiveling, looking behind her in store windows to make sure she wasn’t being followed. She doubled back three times, using standard counter-surveillance measures to ensure she was clear. The three-block walk to the subway took her almost an hour. She took the IRT to Grand Central Station, remembering how she’d lived nearby in the train tunnels with the homeless. Up the stairs onto Vanderbilt Avenue she went, remaining wary as she walked through the glass-chandelier-studded ultra-elegant lobby of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
By the time she arrived at the elevators, she was sure neither the man who’d approached her nor anyone else was trailing in her wake.
* * *
The next day, she returned home. At least, she was trying to think of this house as her home. She arrived during the day, with Lee at work and Ann at school. Cassie sat at the desk in their home’s third bedroom, and in seconds Gizmo jumped into her lap. She petted the kitten while she reviewed the materials from the two companies. She picked up a pen and entered some notes on a pad, and the kitten jumped on the pen. She smiled. The cat had its own agenda. Each time she moved the pen, it became a moving target. She smiled. “Okay. I get it.” She petted the cat with one hand and took notes on her computer using the other hand.