by Holley Trent
As Marcella had suspected, there was indeed a video feed of the entryway, but the camera’s angle was skewed for whatever reason. She wouldn’t have been able to see most people’s heads. If Cortney had seen Soren on the monitor, she likely hadn’t gotten a productive look at him.
Dana will appreciate that, for sure.
Soren appeared in the opening of the cubicle then, paused long enough to check their position, and then walked away, probably to scout the neighboring compartments to ensure they were empty.
As Cortney pulled up Marcella’s questionnaire responses—singing a little song to herself as she worked—Marcella discreetly looked toward the aisle.
Soren returned then and held up a single finger.
“Only one?” she mouthed.
He nodded gravely.
“Listening?”
He pantomimed putting headphones on.
Ah.
Though she hated to admit the truth to herself, he was handy to have around. He certainly made investigation far more efficient than it would have been had she been flying solo.
“Okay!” Cortney said cheerily, fixing a kohl-rimmed, sapphire-blue gaze on Marcella. “How about we—”
“How many people work here?” Marcella interrupted. She needed to get the woman off-kilter as quickly as she could. The faster she lost sight of the original conversational thread, the more confidential the nature of her information would be. Cortney was a novice, unused to being interrogated. People like Gene had their defenses built up to a certain degree. They were harder for Marcella to crack, but men were always easier than women. Cortney might have been a creampuff, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to make Marcella work for every drop of information.
“How… How many people?” Cortney scrunched her face, her befuddlement evident.
“Yes. In this office. Just you and one other?”
Soren eased into the tight cubicle, his gaze fixed intently on Cortney. He slid behind her desk chair and wriggled open the file cabinet behind her.
Cortney didn’t move a muscle, except for the ones she needed to furrow her forehead with. “Most days, two, but we have an intern who comes in sometimes, and the manager flies in from New Jersey every so often. Most folks didn’t survive the last layoff. I’m still here because my salary was one of the lowest, I guess.” She giggled.
Marcella didn’t find anything funny about corporate mismanagement, but she smiled anyway. Sometimes, a smile could disarm her opponents almost as much as her magic did, when worn at the right time. She was counting on that. Already, she was starting to lose sensation in her skin. She was using a lot of energy to control how much she took at once.
“Fascinating,” she said, turning her wrist over to glance at her watch. Cortney might have been compliant for the moment, but there was only so long Marcella could emit the level of magic she was using without passing out, or worse. The very last thing she needed was to start to lose cellular cohesion in a cubicle that reeked of stale corn chips and day-old coffee.
“Do you know a gentleman named Wes?” Marcella asked, sliding a slick company brochure that featured his grinning face on the back across the desk to her. The document had come from the Shrew’s files, and she wanted to see if the woman would recognize it.
Cortney’s eyes lit up. “Ooh! Everyone knows Wes. He’s the manager that comes down sometimes.”
“I thought you said your manager was from New Jersey.”
“Well, he is, isn’t he?” Cortney reached for her computer mouse and opened a browser window.
Marcella removed Cortney’s hand from the input device and gently placed it back on the desktop. No browser searches. No odd Internet history. Marcella may not have been well versed in corporate HR policies, but she could guess that there was a tech guy occasionally reviewing the machine logs for the higher-ups. If the workers didn’t have a manager on-site all the time, Big Brother had to get his information in other ways.
“You tell me,” Marcella said. “Where else does he work?”
“Oh, he goes all over. I think he has an office in Michigan he manages, too. And one in Durham, I think.”
Bingo.
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
Cortney pursed her lips and fidgeted the dangling gold hearts on her earring. “He was here last Friday to train me on the update for the intake forms. Funny that no one told me about them in advance. We usually hear about study changes six weeks or more before they happen.”
“Uh-huh.” Of course, CarrHealth couldn’t have told her about what they didn’t know about. Marcella suspected that was the case. They’d claimed they’d fired the man after the stunt he pulled kidnapping Doc and Drea. Perhaps their left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.
Soren held a binder up behind Cortney and turned it so Marcella could read the spine. Policies and Procedures. The update date was, handily enough, the previous Friday.
She nodded.
He bumped the drawer closed with his hip and stepped outside the cubicle. A moment later, a new figure appeared on the video monitor, cut off below the chin. Female.
“Sor—”
“I’ll see you outside,” he interrupted and waved.
She waved back, glad he didn’t have to make her explain herself. She needed to stop assuming he was going to somehow get in her way or sabotage what she was trying to do.
He left, giving a friendly wave to the person waiting at the empty reception desk as he went. Marcella glanced at her watch again. With him gone, she wouldn’t have to work so hard to disorient Cortney. Still, her energy was swirling down the drain fast, and she didn’t like being so close to her brink.
Maybe Soren was right. She should have done better for breakfast. She was trying too hard to do shit right, and she wasn’t pacing herself the way she knew she could. She was losing control with a cupcake of a woman.
She swiped a hand across her warm forehead and pulled in a bolstering breath.
Do this. Just get it done.
“When will Wes be back, and where does he stay when he’s in the area?”
“He’s usually here every Thursday and Friday, but he’s been pretty unreliable lately. I don’t know why, but he’s been super skittish. He never wants to take calls or answer any questions.” She giggled. “I said that he acts like he’s on the run from something. He didn’t think the joke was funny, but I had a good laugh. He used to stay at the Embassy Suites, but the last bunch of times, he told me he didn’t have any travel expenses to file. I don’t know what’s up.”
“Uh-huh.” Definitely fired. “Does Wes ever communicate directly with any of the participants of past studies? Who follows up with them after the studies have ended?”
“Depends on the study. We have research assistants who follow up, mostly, but Wes was hands-on with the last one. I think he still fields questions from a few of those participants.”
Marcella grabbed a sticky note from the desktop dispenser and a pen and clicked the plunger. “What’s his cell number?”
“Hold on. Wes had these special cards he used to give out.” She giggled. “Probably forgot he gave them to me.” Cortney bent and pulled open a desk drawer.
While she did, Marcella glanced at her watch. Another minute or two, and she might have to crawl rather than walk out of the building. She might even have to get Soren to toss her ass over his shoulder and haul her back to the car.
Oh, he’d love that.
She scoffed quietly, and then picked up the stack brochures Cortney pushed across the desk to her.
Same as the one Marcella had shown her, but with specific study information highlighted in an inset on the back.
“I don’t know why I kept them. Normally, I would have dumped that kind of stuff into the recycling bin at the official end of a study. I dunno. Maybe I thought the paper was too pretty to throw away.”
Marcella read:
Remember:
Questions?
Call the study query
line at (970) 555-1632.
Reactions?
Log them at the study website indicated in your participant binder.
Referrals?
Email me directly.
“What is this 970 number?” Marcella asked.
Cortney shrugged. “I never asked. I figured they’d set up a line especially for that purpose. That happens sometimes, but those numbers usually have New Jersey or North Carolina prefixes.
“And where does the log data go? Who oversees the database?”
“I have no idea.” Cortney grimaced and said in a baby voice, “Sowwy.”
Marcella scooped up the papers, tucked them into her back pocket, and began pulling off her left glove one finger at a time.
She was probably going to regret doing what she was about to, but she couldn’t think of any better option. If Cortney hadn’t been smart enough to notice there was something amiss in her company, she would probably never wise up and blow the whistle if illegal activities were being facilitated by a rogue ex-employee.
Marcella pulled in a breath and forced a smile onto her lips. She stood, tucking her glove into her pocket and wiping the sweat from her palm onto her pants. “You’ve been very helpful,” she said in a whisper.
“Oh, good. I’m glad I could help. I like to help.”
“I’m sure you do.” Marcella moved slowly to the side of Cortney’s chair and leaned her right hand onto the arm. With the left, she gave Cortney’s bouncy blond waves a flick.
Her eyebrows darted up. “I’m…confused.”
“Yes, we all are, I’m sure.”
“What are you confused about?” Cortney reached for the coffee mug printed with Lift your head so your crown doesn’t fall, princess, and brought it to her lips.
“So many things, but don’t worry. I can help you. In fact, I’m going to help you.”
Cortney’s eyes widened. “Help me?”
“Mm-hmm. So you’re not confused.”
“Oh.” Cortney set down her mug and sat up straight, primly entwining her hands atop her lap as though she were waiting for her preacher to start a good sermon. “I’d like that.”
“I appreciate your cooperation.”
There were many ways to go about what Marcella needed to do, but Cortney made her job easier. She was guileless and didn’t know what she should have been lying about. She probably even tried to be a good person most of the time. So Marcella didn’t need to force her. Simply inform her.
She touched her fingertips to Cortney’s chin and lifted her face so she met Marcella’s gaze.
“You can do better,” Marcella whispered. “You deserve better. Look for something that’ll fulfill you.”
“I deserve better?” Her voice was as incredulous as a child on Christmas morning after being told that Santa really got that oversized bicycle down the narrow chimney.
“Yes. And so do the people who’ve walked through that door thinking they’d be taken care of. There are smoking guns here, and Wes has had his hands on all of them.” She grazed her thumb over Cortney’s chin. “Talk to your coworker. Ask questions about Wes. Find out where he stands so you know what to do the next time he comes in.”
“But…I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ll know. And if you don’t, call this number and leave a message.” She dropped a business card atop the desk. The number belonged to the Shrew & Company tip line. The number was unadvertised. If anyone called not knowing what it was, they wouldn’t get any information. The prompt merely informed the caller to speak at the tone. If anyone were nosy enough to do a reverse search on the number, they’d learn it was registered to a Catholic priest who didn’t mind doing the occasional favor for Sarah.
“Can you do that for me?” Marcella asked, hand shaking as she forced out the last little bit of magical reserve she was holding onto.
Cortney pulled Marcella’s hand up to her cheek and nuzzled her palm. “You’re warm. So warm.”
“Can you do that for me?” she repeated. She didn’t want to knock Cortney’s hand away. Abruptly disrupting the connection was generally a bad idea for both parties involved, but Cortney was going to suck her dry. Usually, she was better at predicting the clingers. She’d misjudged.
Cortney was needy, and Marcella was a natural provider. She couldn’t stop people from taking. That was an unfortunate aspect of her magic.
Shit.
“You poor, sweet thing,” Marcella said. “You need someone, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Go home early. Call your mother.”
“Okay.” Cortney nodded. “I will.”
“I’m going to leave now so you can work, dearest.”
“Okay.”
“Finish your coffee, then see to your visitors.”
“Okay.”
Marcella pulled her hand away and left Cortney staring after her, blinking like a rabbit.
“Your coffee.”
“Oh.” Cortney picked up the mug and sipped.
Marcella hustled out of the cubicle maze, only to be brought up short at the sight of the person standing at the counter.
She’d misjudged. On the video feed, the person had appeared to be a man because of the coveralls, but that wasn’t a man.
That was Kim.
Damn it.
Kim’s eyes narrowed in recognition, and her lips parted, but before she could speak, Marcella tossed out energy she didn’t have left to demand she answer one question. “W-why are you here?”
“I’m not gonna let anyone mess things up for me,” Kim said. “Who are you? What do you want with my momma?”
She wasn’t supposed to ask a follow-up. She shouldn’t have been able to.
Marcella left without answering, pushing her heavy feet to take step after step as her vision blurred and skin crackled in warning.
No. No no no.
Glancing down the hall over her shoulder, she stabbed the elevator button repeatedly, willing the box to move faster. Then she put her back to the wall so she could get her glove back on. “Come on. Come on.”
She couldn’t fall apart there. Anywhere but there.
The elevator dinged. The door opened, and Marcella dragged herself into the empty box, struggling to pull air into her lungs, and no longer able to feel her extremities.
She slid down the wall in the corner and closed her eyes.
Just for a minute.
She needed to regroup, and then she’d let herself fall apart in her motel room.
“Hold on. Hold on.”
She kept whispering the mantra, again and again. She didn’t know how many times. At some point, she stopped hearing her own voice.
She stopped hearing everything.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Having grown impatient from pacing at the entrance of the parking deck, Soren backtracked to the office building. He gave the lobby receptionist a friendly salute as he passed the desk and bounded to the elevator bank with all the casualness of a robber on his first heist.
There was a crush of people waiting to get lifted to their floors, all huddled and chatting amiably about schedules and stock prices. All wearing conference badges that hinted they were affiliated with the event being hosted in between the three buildings.
When Elevator Two opened up and the crowd didn’t move—too distracted by their guide’s rip-roaring storytelling, apparently—Soren edged around them and ignored the apologies from the members on the periphery. Apparently, they were oblivious to their surroundings. Most people were.
They tried to squeeze into the elevator after him but he slapped his hands to the doors and snarled, “Get back.”
No questions asked, they did.
Maybe they were used to following orders. Or maybe they didn’t want to take chances with the snarling lunatic who wore leather and whose pockets projected with suspicious bulges.
Marcella was slumped in the corner with her head bowed low, her legs curled beneath her, and her dense, ropy hair shielding her face.
“Marcie?” He was on his knees so fast his vision blurred momentarily, so when he first pushed her hair out of the way to check her pulse, he wasn’t worried by how gray she looked.
But then he was seeing perfectly fine, and her color wasn’t. What should have been a rich brown was ashen and mottled, and slick with perspiration.
“Marcie. Wake up.”
Her skin was too pliant—like dough a child had left out and then tried to soften with a hopeless soak in water. His fingers left indentations that lasted too long, and he could feel her bones as if all the muscle and tissue beneath her skin had melted away.
“What’s wrong with you?”
It didn’t matter. It really didn’t fucking matter. Soren pulled Marcella onto her feet and pressed his fingertips against her neck. Her pulse was thready and her breaths far too infrequent.
She wasn’t going to be able to walk, but he didn’t want to be seen carrying her out of the building. They’d be too memorable. People would ask questions, and Dana didn’t like that shit. She didn’t like her crew drawing unnecessary attention, especially on routine go-sees that were supposed to be in-and-out jobs.
“All right, folks, get back,” he said to the lookie-loos holding the door open behind him. He draped his jacket over Marcella’s shoulders and pulled the hood up over her head. “She’s got extremely low blood pressure. I knew she was taking too long for some reason.”
“Poor thing,” one of the women in the group said. “I’ve got a granola bar in my conference bag if you want something quick.”
“You’re kind to offer, but she has provisions in the car. Unfortunately, this happens more often than I’d care to admit. She’s stubborn that way.” He scooped her into his arms and turned sideways to depart the elevator. A quick glance down the hall revealed a stairway door partially hidden behind a large potted palm. If his guess were correct, he could go down a floor and then exit the building through a side door that would put them in a narrow alley between the building and the hotel next door.
He offered his most pleasant grin to the group of professionals as he passed, and murmured some bullshit about hardheaded women who thought they were exempt from basic human needs.