Back at my desk I worked through my in-basket, dealing with each item as best I could. The things I couldn’t manage without some advice were put into a separate pile. Mundane crap was put into another pile for Carrie to deal with.
Sandra Melnick had left three technical proposals, each in its own file folder, and all three held together with a large rubber band. A large, yellow Post-it note was stuck on the top with a handwritten note from Sandra. She thought I might want to be in the loop on what was going on in the R and D group, and these three proposals were the largest projects for which we were preparing bids. Each file had a template form stapled on the inside cover of the file folder with some basic information. At the bottom of each form there was a section for financial information. Each of these proposals was worth over $10 million, if we were to be the successful bidder. Successful would be nice, I thought, and a couple of these projects could help with the dent in our financials that the loss of the Global Devices work had caused.
The next couple of hours were spent reading and devouring the contents of these three files. I made copious notes to myself and stuck dozens of little, yellow Post-it notes in the margins of the documents highlighting areas where I had questions. Each file contained a bundle of spreadsheets, which were created by our internal financial staff, setting out what we estimated it would cost the company to carry out the work. Some of the spreadsheets had so many columns and rows I could barely read them.
During the time I’d been at the office, Jay had called me twice and Kelly Northland had called me once. Jay was not happy that I was going to the office and I had refused to let him come with me. He tried, unsuccessfully, to talk me out of it. The two phone calls from him were his way of checking up on me.
“I don’t understand why you couldn’t just bring the work home with you,” he’d said the first time he’d called.
Kelly pretty much echoed what Jay had said and told me that he was on his way to the office, he’d see me shortly. Jay must have called him and told on me. I wondered if he was going to call my mom too.
“Kelly, I’m fine. The place is quiet. I’m getting some work done.” I was talking to a dead phone.
I felt comfortable at the office, and Jay and Kelly were probably over-reacting. To what I wasn’t sure. They both were being over-protective, which I reluctantly acknowledged and appreciated, but, in my typical, hard headed fashion, I ignored.
When I finished with the three proposals, I swiveled in my chair to the computer and fired it up. I would finish up by going through my emails and seeing if there was anything urgent. Then, home, and a leisurely afternoon with Jay. Maybe I could convince him to go with me to one of the art museums or for a walk in Central Park. Maybe we could visit the zoo which was right across the street from the apartment and which I was dying to visit.
Microsoft Outlook took a while to boot up and by the time it was running I knew why it had taken so long. My in-basket had over two hundred unread messages. For gawd’s sake, I thought, I was out of the office for one day. I either had to get a Blackberry so I could stay on top of the emails or give Carrie access so she could deal with them.
The message on the top of the list was the most recently received one so I scrolled down several screens to get to the first unread message, so I could go through them in order. The first eighteen messages were spam and by the time I had opened and deleted the eighteenth I was disgusted. Disgusted with the content of the spam messages and disgusted that there were people out there who spent their days sending shit like this. The next dozen messages were legitimate business emails, which I read. They could be dealt with on Monday so I left them where they were in the in-basket. Anxious to finish up, I started scanning the sender’s name and subject line to see if there was anything that needed my attention that couldn’t wait until Monday. I scanned and scrolled, scanned and scrolled. Dozens of the emails were internal, from the Vice Presidents, or bulletins to the employees, some of them automatically generated, like the financial update which was issued every forty-eight hours to the executive team. I scrolled over those and dozens more spam.
My finger froze on the mouse when I caught the subject line of an email I thought at first glance was spam. It read You Don’t Control It All Bitch. This was the first spam message I had seen with a word like bitch in it. I clicked on the message, purely out of curiosity, and quickly wished I had ignored it.
chapter forty-nine
It turns out that the subject line was only mildly offensive. The text of the message turned my stomach.
“You do not control the life of others, you do not control the universe. You do not control who lives and dies. The one who sat where you do today thought they were in control. You are a tiny microcosm who has no worth, no meaning, no value to this world. Like the one before you, you will cease to exist in the macrocosm. Snuffed out, extinct and no longer believing that you are in control. Bitch. Goodbye.”
My breathing was shallow and my face felt flushed. I quickly pushed my chair back, separating myself from the computer. The message remained on the screen and I stared at it from a distance. The one who sat where you do today… Did the message mean Tommy? I quickly lit a cigarette and paced in front of the windows. Who had sent that email? The sender’s email address was gobbledy-gook: [email protected] and the message had been sent in the middle of the night.
The email was threatening and admittedly scared the crap out of me. I closed the offending message and scrolled carefully through the rest of my emails to see if there were any similar messages. Seeing none, I clicked on the large X in the top, right-hand corner of my screen, shutting down Outlook. Out of sight, out of mind, I thought.
The stalker smiled and admired the reflection in the computer screen. The calm visage reflecting back made the stalker feel powerful. The calm was not faked but as a result of biofeedback, which was a learned technique, easy for someone of the stalker’s power to master. The stalker was finally in control of breathing and blood pressure. The bitch had just read the email. Untraceable email. Time to turn up the heat.
The scream caught in my throat and I couldn’t get it out because I swear to God that was where my heart was. With my heart pounding at about three hundred beats a minute, I closed my eyes and took a couple of quick breaths.
“Jesus,” I breathed out slowly. “You scared me.”
Kelly was less than eighteen inches in front of me and he stood stock still in the exact position he was in when I had opened my office door. As soon as I closed down my computer I had phoned the driver and gathered up my things. I was spooked by the email and wanted to get out of the office.
“I was just about to knock,” he explained. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I was just leaving.”
“You look upset,” he said. “What happened?”
“Besides you scaring the bejeezus out of me?” I shot back.
“Yeah, besides that.”
“Just an email I got. It kind of spooked me.”
Kelly pushed past me into my office and headed over towards my computer. “Show me.”
While I booted up the computer, Kelly gave me another gentle lecture about not venturing out on my own. I was spooked enough by the eerie email that I paid attention.
“Until this case is settled, you can’t afford to be alone outside of your apartment.”
“But I can’t ask you to spend your time following me around.”
“I don’t plan on it. That’s why we’ve arranged for a bodyguard. Lou is officially on holidays for a few days. We’ll have a professional driver and guard with you at all times.”
“Isn’t that a bit much?” I ventured. Kelly didn’t respond so I imagine my question was rhetorical in his mind.
The computer screen asked for my log-in and password so I typed them in and waited while the computer continued. At long last the computer stopped its grinding and calmly waited for me to tell it what to do so I clicked on the email icon and my
in-box popped right up. I scrolled down until I got to the email, where it sat amongst the hundreds of others.
I offered Kelly my chair and pointed at the message, leaving it unopened so he could see the subject line. He sat down, pulled his notebook out of his jacket pocket and made a few notes as he peered at the computer screen. He finally reached for the mouse and clicked on the message, opening it.
“Where’s your printer?” he asked and clicked on the little printer icon at the top of the page.
“At Carrie’s desk,” I told him and headed to the outer office to pick up the printed copy. When I came back in the office he was on the phone, talking quietly. I sat in one of the guest chairs in front of my desk and waited for him. Again, my thoughts took me to that angry place where I cursed Tommy. Which on reflection was a waste of time. Cursing Tommy, poor Tom, wasn’t getting me any closer to finding out who and what caused this shit storm.
Kelly and I didn’t talk on our elevator ride to the lobby and I could literally feel heat emanating from him. The car was waiting by the curb outside the building but before we crossed the sidewalk to it, I grabbed Kelly’s arm.
“Why are you so pissed off?” There was no mistaking that the heat coming from him was anger.
“I’m not pis… angry,” he told me. I noted that like most old-style military guys, he didn’t use ‘foul’ words in front of the opposite sex.
“Well, you could have fooled me.”
“Let’s get you home and settled,” he said in his calm southern drawl, and tried to take me by the arm and lead me to the car. I shook off his hand.
“Home? And settled? What do you think I am? An invalid? Or a doddering old fool? Don’t you patronize me!” Now the heat was coming off of me.
Kelly stood quietly in front of me, while I ranted, with his hands clasped in front of him. He didn’t say anything. Passive aggressive son-of-a-bitch! I stormed over to the car and grabbed the handle on the back door. Which only caused me to break a fingernail because the back door was locked. So I kicked the bottom of the door, just like a spoiled fourteen year old brat. Embarrassed now by my behaviour, I took a deep breath and turned around to find Kelly standing close by.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “But I can’t stand being patronized and treated like a child,” I told him. To give him credit, he’d only really known me for a few days, so it was likely he hadn’t caught on to Kate’s quirks and temperament.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry if that came across as patronizing. It wasn’t meant to be. But I’m worried about your safety. And that email has me as jumpy as spit on a hot skillet.” That made me smile a little. “I’m worried about your safety and worried about the investigation. That’s why I’m handing you over to a team of guards. They’ll be with you twenty-four seven.” That didn’t make me smile.
“Day and night? Is that really necessary?”
“Do you want me on the case?”
I nodded.
“Then ma’am, we do it my way.”
With that, he opened the back door of the sedan, and we both slid in the back seat. I was surprised to see two guys up front, neither of whom was Lou.
“Lou’s taking a few days off,” Kelly reminded me. “Meet some of the members of your new team.”
From behind they looked like scary statues. Both had wide, muscular shoulders, and their hair was buzzed short, military style. Both had earphones jammed into their right ears with a curly cord snaking down the back of their neck and disappearing out of sight. Both were wearing aviator-style sunglasses and when they turned around in their seats to meet me, I could see my reflection in their sunglasses.
I smiled at them even though their presence made me nervous. “You guys look like commandos,” I joked. Neither of them smiled at that and the one in the passenger seat said, “Pleased to meet you ma’am.” The one in the driver’s seat put the car in gear and we drove off.
chapter fifty
Kelly and Jay had their heads together at the dining room table, planning out exactly what they needed to do to put a trace on the email.
“Hey, we’re a high tech company. I know we’ve got a few geeks on the payroll. Why don’t we use one of them to help us figure this out?” I offered.
“That’s absolutely true, ma’am, but I have a little-bitty problem with that plan. I’m not sure who we can trust at this point.”
“Well,” Jay said. “We’re going to have to pick one person to trust, because you’ll need to get into the email system at Phoenix and I’m guessing that the only way to do that would be with a Phoenix employee.”
I left them to figure it all out and wandered into the kitchen to make some lunch and some coffee. The Navy Seal sitting at the round table in the kitchen startled me. I had forgotten about him.
“Making yourself at home?” He sat as still as a stone statue and nodded his head, mutely. I pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him.
“Do you do this often?” I asked him.
“Often enough, ma’am.”
Ah, definitely military. Being called ma’am makes me feel as old as Methuselah.
“Ex-military?” I asked rhetorically. Anything to get a conversation going. I figured him to be in his mid-thirties, but with his hair cut so short, he looked about fifteen.
“Yes ma’am. Retired last year.”
I laughed and he looked a little confused.
“Sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you,” I said by way of explanation. “It just sounds so funny, coming from someone as young as you to be saying you’re retired.”
He nodded. “I guess. Had twenty years in. Thought I’d get out while the gettin’ was good.” And then he smiled, and that made him a little more human.
“What’s your first name again?”
“Chris.”
“Well, Chris, welcome to my home. Make yourself comfortable. Help yourself to anything you need. I mean it.” I leaned over the table and pointed at the earplug in his ear. “Were you a Navy Seal?”
“No ma’am. Marine Corps. Military police. I worked with Mr. Northland for years.”
“Can I interest you in some coffee?”
“Maybe in a bit, ma’am. I was waiting for Mr. Northland so we can do a perimeter check.”
Jesus, this was sounding like being back home with my dad.
While Chris and Kelly secured the perimeter, whatever the hell that meant because there were only three entrances to the apartment - not counting the balcony - and seriously that was fourteen floors up - Jay and I ate some lunch at the counter in the kitchen. That’s when he told me.
“I have to go to Toronto. I’ll be gone a couple of days. I know it’s not a good time, but I couldn’t very well argue with them.”
True. Jay was in a job that he was thankful to have. After the mess with our previous employer when Jay was fired, he was grateful for his job and he worked hard at it. There was little I could do or say except let him know it was okay.
“It’s okay. Really. And don’t worry about what’s going on here. Apparently I now have trained commandos at my beck and call, watching over me. When are you leaving?”
His flight was in the morning. We decided to spend the rest of the day together, not talking or thinking about Phoenix Technologies or Tommy, or anything related to either of them. It was easier said than done, though, especially with Chris trailing two feet behind us at the Wildlife Centre and the Central Park Zoo. The zoo was quaint and overcrowded with lots of moms and dads and screaming, squealing little kids.
“What do you suppose the protocol is,” I asked Jay, “if we stop for an ice cream? Do we offer Chris one? Are we supposed to ignore him, pretend he’s not there?”
Jay wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him, in an uncharacteristic public embrace. “Ignore him, pay attention to me,” he whispered into my ear. Which was easier said than done. Especially with Chris the bodyguard hovering nearby and a family of four staring at us.
Jay’s flight was early the next
morning and I didn’t hear him leave for the airport. It took me a few seconds to remember that I was by myself in the large, king size bed and when I realized that Jay was gone, I moved over to his side of the bed and wrapped the duvet around me. I hugged his pillow and breathed in his scent. Being with Jay and living with him felt right - as corny as that sounded - and I tried to recall if I had ever felt so content. We had only shared this apartment for a week but we were already acting like a couple who had been together forever. It was strange being alone in the apartment but I relished the thought. As much as I wanted - and needed - to share my life and share my living space with Jay, being alone at times and having my space was important too. Living alone for most of my adult life had made me self-sufficient and self-reliant. And just because I had lived alone didn’t mean I was a lonely person.
The digital clock on the beside table told me it was only 7:19. I kicked off the duvet and stretched and started making a mental list of things I would do today. There was laundry to be done. Some personal phone calls to make. I owed my parents a call and I hadn’t spoken with my brother in over a week. I thought about going out and exploring the neighbourhood. Scout out the local grocery stores. See if I could find a newsstand that sold The Toronto Star, my favourite Sunday newspaper. I wiggled my toes and smiled in anticipation of the perfect day ahead of me.
The smile didn’t last long though when the phone rang and I heard Kelly’s drawl. As usual, I was avoiding the unpleasant and had not even thought about Phoenix in the five minutes I had been awake.
Monahan 02 Artificial Intentions Page 27