PALE Series Box Set

by Mac Flynn

  That piqued my interest. "Like things I don't know?"

  John smiled, leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me. With a squeak from me he pulled me onto his lap so my legs straddled his hips. "Is my angel curious?" he teased me.

  "I am if you keep secrets from me," I countered.

  "Then I suppose I'll have to tell you there's a secret panel in the room, but I won't tell you where," he tortured me.

  I frowned and glanced around the room. The place was hard to peruse with heavy black curtains over the large windows behind the desk, so I didn't spot a thing. "I give up. Are you going to tell me or do I have to get rough?"

  His eyes lit up, though not with the horror I wanted to see in them. His grip on my hips tightened, and he pulled me closer to him. "You promise?"

  I put my hands on his chest and glared at him. "Don't you ever have anything else on your mind?"

  "Not when I have such a lovely lady on my lap," he replied. We both heard the Knock of Annoyance from the hall; somebody was at the front door. John growled and set me off his lap so he could stand. "I'll rip that door knock off..." I heard him grumble.

  John stalked his way to the front door with me on his heels. He opened the door to find his arch-nemesis, Greg Monroe, standing on the threshold of his home. If looks could kill Monroe would have exploded. Monroe smiled at us. "Good afternoon. Lovely weather with the sun shining so nicely," he commented

  We both understood the mockery in the comment; a sunny day was a bad day for John. I latched onto John's arm before he could comment on the weather with a fist to Monroe's face. This was going to be a long day. "Won't you come in?" I asked Monroe. It wasn't like we could keep him on the doorstep all day, though John looked like he was considering the suggestion. That was probably the mildest of scenarios in his mind, especially when Monroe stepped inside and took one of my hands.

  He smiled up at me as he bent and kissed the top of my fingers. "What a beautiful assistant you have here, Mr. Benson. I might consider stealing her for myself."

  "I believe you did that with one of my other assistants," John snapped.

  Monroe's smile twitched, but didn't slip. "I see you already heard about Sievers." He walked past us and partway down the hall, glancing at the architecture while he removed his gloves. "But what else could I do? The girl was out of a job and knew the company very well, and I was in need of an assistant myself."

  John frowned. "So you hired her after she was fired?"

  Monroe turned to us with a quizzical expression. "Of course, when else would I-" He paused and glanced between us. "I believe there might be a misunderstanding between us. Miss Sievers didn't come to see me until she was fired, no earlier." John and I believed that like we believed in Santa Claus; a nice lie for a kid but it wouldn't work on us. We knew better.

  Even if we knew better, though, we were still stuck with this trouble that wore a suit. John breathed in and out deep enough to be considered a renewable resource, and gestured down the hall. "My study is-"

  "-down the hall," Monroe finished for him. "Sievers told me."

  "Before we start on business we'll have to discuss everything Sievers told you," John warned him. "But would you excuse me for a minute? You can wait in the study. I'm sure you can find your way." Monroe grinned, bowed his head and retreated into the study. John turned to me with his teeth clenched together so tight it sounded like car brake's grinding together. "I want you to stay out of the study." I opened my mouth to protest, mostly to save the life of Monroe, but he held up his hand. "I promise I won't do all the things I wish I could do, but when we get to business I don't think you'll be able to keep up."

  My shoulders drooped; he was right there. I was still learning about the investing business and education-wise was the equivalent of a kindergartner. If I put myself between them I'd be in a class of high schoolers studying calculus, and me without an abacus. "You promise not to kill or maim him?" I asked him.

  John smiled; it was strained, but still a smile. "Not even a little maiming?" he pleaded.

  I solemnly shook my head. "Not even a paper cut." John looked playfully disappointed, and I cupped his chin in my palm. "If you're a good boy then I might give you a treat." Both his heads perked up at my teasing reward, and I patted the one at the waist. "Easy there, boy, not yet. First you have to deal with Monstroe in there."

  John snorted. "Not a bad name for him."

  I grinned. "I thought it was pretty witty myself, but get a move on." I turned him around and gave him a push toward the study. "I'll be just out here creepily listening in on your conversation, so behave!"

  "Yes, Mother," John replied with a smirk. He walked down the hall and disappeared into the study. The sound of their murmurings echoed to me, and I sighed. I could see why John didn't like this arrangement; less privacy. I also had no idea what kind of a treat I'd give him if he did behave. I'd implied something X-rated, but I still wasn't sure about this relationship. That meant I had to get creative, and an evil thought entered my mind. I rubbed my hands together and gleefully chuckled. He wouldn't like it, but I would be laughing all the way to the unemployment line.

  While I was concocting my evil plan the voices in the study changed from quiet murmurings to homicidal hollering. I could have marched down the hall with a battalion of heavily armed guards and they wouldn't have heard me, but I still tiptoed to the closed door. I didn't need to put my ear against the surface to hear them.

  "I won't let you at those records!" John yelled.

  "You don't have a choice," Monroe argued in a softer voice. His strained voice told me he was one stretched rubber band away from snapping.

  "I have a choice to throw you out of my house!" John countered.

  "And if you do you'll have to talk to the board," Monroe replied.

  I knocked loudly on the door. "Do you boys need a babysitter?" I called to them.

  I heard Monroe chuckle, and footsteps came up to the entrance. John opened the door and I was nearly vaporized by the angry glare. "We're fine."

  "If that's fine then I'd better worry about bad," I quipped. I smiled and slipped past him into the room; that didn't help his mood.

  "I told you you weren't needed today," he reminded me.

  "I think things changed when the door closed," I returned.

  John grabbed my shoulders and turned me back to the door. "We're fine. We were only discussing-"

  "Perhaps she's right, at least in interrupting us," Monroe pointed out. "I think I've tried to move too quickly in this relationship. I've laid out what I need and I'll give you a day to think about it," he said, addressing John. Monroe picked up his briefcase, bowed his head at both of us, and swiftly left the house.

  John turned to me with his scowl. I sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "At least I got him out of the house."

  John sighed and dragged his hand through his hair. "I don't know which one of you will drive me insane first, though speaking of driving, I have a surprise for you."

  I perked up at the word surprise; surprises from a billionaire could mean a new island all for myself. Still, this was my mischievous boss, and he was always trying to get ahead, or on top, of me. "What kind of surprise?"

  He smirked, took my hand, and led me to the kitchen. From there we went out the side door that was covered with a tarp to keep the sun off the path to the garage door. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped to the ground when I saw a brand new, four-door black sedan. Somebody had parked it face-first into the garage, and there it sat all for me. That is, until I noticed the car had tinted windows; I glared at his smiling face. "Very funny..." I bitterly told him.

  He raised an eyebrow. "What joke did I make?"

  I gestured to the car. "Your last car not fancy enough for you so you got a new one?" He pointed to a dark shape beyond the new sedan. It was his old car with the heavily-tinted windows. "Or, um, maybe not?"

  He raised his hand and showed off a shiny set of car keys. "You want to
test drive it?"

  I tilted my head and my face twisted into an expression of confusion. He was giving me enough information to piece together only the border of the puzzle, and the rest of it was white pieces. "Is this some sort of a trap? Are you going to shut me in the driver's seat and tell me to drive you somewhere?"

  "I'm asking if you want to drive your new car," he explained to me.

  My mind nearly short-circuited from shock and glee. "But...but why? When? How?" I sputtered out.

  "Because this will save you the funeral expenses when your old car dies on you, yesterday, and by phone. The tinted windows are so I can get around with you." He jingled the keys in front of my face. "Now do you want to back it out, or do I need to return it?"

  I swiped the key and traded it for a quick kiss on the lips. "How about we take it for a test drive?"

  "That's a great idea," he chuckled. "Let me get on my sunscreen and I'll be ready to go."

  CHAPTER 4

  We climbed into the car and I glanced over the back of the seat to the garage door. I clicked the overhead garage door button and the door opened up to the bright road behind us. Now I had one problem: getting it out of the tight garage.

  John noticed my hesitation. "All you need to do is back it up," he encouraged me. This wasn't going to be good; I wasn't used to pulling out of small garages. John realized this after I started the car and backed it out; the rear of the car turned gradually toward the wall of the garage. "Turn. Turn. Turn!"

  "I'm turning!" I yelled back.

  "The other way!"

  "Oh, right." I turned the wheel and coasted onto the driveway.

  John pried his hands from the dashboard as I drove down the road. "You don't pull out very well."

  I smirked. "Neither do you."

  He choked on his fear of my driving. "That was blunt."

  "I try to be honest."

  "Brutally so."

  "Blunt trauma helps the head."

  "No it doesn't."

  "It helps the soul?"

  "Not even close."

  I shrugged. "I guess it's the thought that counts."

  "Your thoughts are very violent."

  I winked at him. "But you like it rough."

  "And dirty."

  "I take baths."

  "You forgot to scrub behind your eyes," he teased. I threw up my arms, which wasn't a very good idea since I was still driving. After the swerving and the choking scream from my passenger, we were back on the road. "Before you kill me, could I at least know where we're going?" he requested.

  I brushed off his question with a wave of my hand. "Details. Details. Why not just enjoy the ride without knowing where you're going?"

  "Because you're driving, and we're drifting toward that power pole."

  I veered us away from certain doom and scowled at him. "Do you want to drive?"

  "Sure, just tell me where we're going."

  "Oh no, I'm not telling you until we get there. You'll be so excited about the place you'll want to leave."

  "Is this a one-way ticket to hell in a new, sedan-sized hand basket?" he teased me.

  "If I'm going in a violent manner I'll make sure to take more than one person with me, and to answer your question, no, we're not going to hell. Hell is next door."

  "So heaven?"

  "More like Purgatory."

  John frowned, but watched the scenery change from au natural, suck-a-monarch-butterfly-up-your-nose farmland to artificial un-intelligence of the city infrastructure. It was a city of maxed-out credit cards and bad film noir narration, with a dash of despair and pinch of poverty thrown into the mix. We drove past the fashionable uptown townhouses of the rich and indebted to the lower-end broken-down apartment buildings of the poor and indebted. Being a college student, I was one of the indebted, but didn't have to start paying until I stopped going to school, whether I was alive or not.

  We neared my block and I could tell John was nervous. "This makes me nervous. Are you sure you know where you're going?" he asked me.

  "Unfortunately, I know exactly where we're going."

  "And that is?"

  "My apartment building."

  John stiffened and whipped his head left and right at the decrepit high-rises of a smashed-in populace where an argument over a stick of gum could start a riot. "I think I'm going to insist on your coming home with me."

  "Don't be such a sissy. This is a great neighborhood." I cringed when I heard shots in the distance; there was even a touch of a woman screaming and police sirens. "It has such pretty music playing most every night."

  "I don't think much of assault-weapon serenades," John quipped.

  I pulled the car over and gestured to the old building on our right. "We're here!"

  He glanced up at the ancient building that dated from just after the fire in Rome, the one with the fiddler on the roof. I think I saw his eye twitch. "You're coming home with me."

  "You already said that."

  "But you're not listening."

  "Because I'm just fine here. I've learned how to be faster than a speeding bullet and when to answer the door after two knocks to let the paperboy in and three if it's the drug dealers."

  He cringed. "You're coming home with me."

  I rolled my eyes; the poor guy's brain had melted at the sight of the old apartment building. That, or it was the air. It had an odor akin to rotten eggs, baby diapers, and escaped wet zoo animals. "Come on inside and I'll show you something. It was supposed to be your reward for behaving, but now it'll be your punishment."

  "This isn't punishment enough?" he asked me as he nodded at the building.

  "You can bleach your eyes later, now get out." I slipped out of the car and he followed so close behind I thought I'd gained two hundred pounds. "Do you mind?" I grabbed his hand and led him into the building and up to my apartment. John looked out of sorts in the hall as I unlocked the door; maybe it was the way he looked nervously about the place or the way he rammed me into the room and slammed the door behind us. He pressed his back against the door and scowled at me. "You're going home with me."

  I patted him on the shoulder. "You sound like a broken record, but that's probably the air."

  "What air? All I inhale is urine."

  "Just don't breathe too deeply." I gestured to my favorite chair and the couch, the few items in my living room I trusted to hold his weight. "Have a seat, I just need to get it from my bedroom."

  He suddenly liked the idea of coming here. "I can help you find it," he offered, and followed me like a six-month old, unfixed puppy.

  "Oh no. You just sit here and I'll be right back." I directed him to the chair and pushed him down into it. A cloud of dust obscured his view, and I dashed into and out of the bedroom. It was easy to snatch the item off my dresser and bring it back hidden behind my back. I stood over his coughing frame, he'd inhaled too much dust, and smiled evilly. "You want to guess what I have?"

  "A fumigation gun?" he suggested. He must have noticed my roommates, the cockroaches; that reminded me that they were behind on their part of the rent.

  "Nope, guess again."

  "A one-way ticket out of here?"

  "Nope, guess again."

  "If I give up can we leave here and go back to my home?"

  My face drooped. "You're no fun, but I guess I'll show you anyway." I whipped the item around and proudly showed it off to John.

  He looked between me and the garden gnome like I was insane, or maybe like the gnome was insane. He was whipping his head between us so fast I couldn't tell who the look was for. He pointed at the gnome. "This is why you brought me here?"

  I smiled and nodded. "Yep. Cool little guy isn't he?" The gnome was one of the usual ceramic yard ornaments, complete with red floppy hat, fat belly, and grin that could scare any child. His paint was a little faded from the years I'd kept him, and he was a little dusty.

  "Uh, I'm not sure if 'cool' is quite the word," he hesitantly replied.

  I frowned at him. "Wha
t do you mean? Don't you like Gnomy?"

  "Nomy?" he repeated.

  "No, Gnomy. There's a silent 'g' in there."

  He looked at the gnome, and his eye twitched. "Gnomy."

  I grinned. "Yep. He was supposed to be for my yard, but I noticed you don't even have a pink flamingo in yours so you need him more than I do."

  "There might be a reason I don't have a pink flamingo in my yard."

  "Oh, I know they're not too easy to find, but you can order them online now." I plopped Gnomy into his hands, and he cringed from the smiling face. "I think you two are going to get along just fine."

  "This was going to be my treat for behaving? What were you planning to give me if I failed?" he asked me.

  I shrugged. "I never expected you to succeed."

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

  "Anytime."

  He stood and clutched Gnomy to his chest. "Now that that's over, can I take you back home?"

  I scowled and folded my arms across my chest. "I'm not a stray, you know. I live here."

  "And that's exactly why I want to take you home. This is worse than any pound."

  I rolled my eyes and turned him toward the door. "We'll go back to your place just because I have to return you where I found you, but I'm not staying."

  "You know, you're very stubborn to your employer."

  "That's what happens when we have an employer-with-benefits relationship." I pushed him toward the door. "Now let's get you back to your natural environment before you start to wilt."

  I pushed the traumatized man, clutching at his disappointing prize, outside and back into the car. We pulled away and were quiet for a few minutes until John spoke up. "Did you really need to take me there just so you could fetch a lawn ornament?"

  I shrugged. "No, but we needed to take the car out for a test. There's no better test than these roads." I was being kind when I called them roads; the streets were more like potholes with patches of pavement in between.

  "But to your apartment?" he persisted.

  I sighed. "All right, I wanted you to know where I lived. You haven't asked much about me so I wanted to, um, show off my home. Neat rat-trap, isn't it? I'm serenaded by cats and car chases most every night."

  He shuddered. "You're going home with me."

  "Of course I am, I'm the one driving."

  "I meant permanently."