by Robin Mahle
That soft blue light reflected into the lobby as the security guard logged out of the system, preparing to hand over watch. Monitors, tucked below the overhang of the desk, remained constant. Their crystal clear, high-definition images were currently frozen on the 3rd, 5th, and 15th floors of the building.
“Evening, Jim.”
Jim hiked up his black trousers as he approached the desk, ready to take over. “Evening, Erik. All quiet today?”
“You didn’t hear about Mr. Monroe? It’s a damn shame.”
“No, I didn’t hear anything. Did he quit?” Jim prided himself on staying abreast of all the comings and goings at Winters Financial.
“That’s what they’re saying. The guy just up and quit on Friday night.”
Jim propped his hands against his round hips and dropped his eyes to the ground. “He was here on Friday night.” He spoke quietly.
“What’s that, Jim?”
“Nothing. It’s just a shock, that’s all. Listen, you go on home. I’ll set the cameras and lock up.” A hearty handshake was exchanged.
“You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine. Need to process it. That is a damn shame, though. Charlie was a stand-up guy.” Jim pursed his lips.
“That he was, Jim.” Erik handed over his radio. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Jim finagled his pear-shaped lower half into the ergonomic chair that never seemed to be very comfortable for him. As he reset the monitors and switched the system to night-mode, he recalled Charlie’s words on that late Friday night as he waited for the elevator.
“You know what, Jim? You and me are getting too old for this shit. But I can tell you. I’m not long for this place. I can already see me and Margaret on that beach in Cabo. Retirement’s calling my name!”
Jim had smiled at him, waving a hand in his direction as Charlie stepped inside the opened elevator car. He knew this FBI investigation was important, but it did strike him as odd that Mr. Winters and a few others were hanging around that night. What files had they needed so urgently that it couldn’t have waited until Monday morning?
Jim prepared to start the first of his nightly rounds. The parking garage was on the top of the list. He always checked the cameras once his shift started to make sure everything was working properly. The system could generally be counted on to indicate if something was wrong. A flash on the screen would point out the malfunctioning camera. However, on more than one occasion, he’d spotted a camera or two down completely and had to manually reset it from the back. Little glitchy things like that always seemed to happen, so Jim had made it a point to check each floor when he got in at night. Gave him some much needed exercise too.
In a former life, he’d run security for the old Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. That was back in the days before digital recorders, Angel Eye scanners, and data-mining on so-called “player card” holders. Back then, everything was analog and used VCR recordings and black and white cameras. Reliance on the pit bosses to identify card counters, muckers, and the like was common. After the first mega-resort, the Mirage, came online in the late 1980s, things had begun to change quickly in that town. Jim had grown tired of the business and wanted something less stressful. So, in 1992, he and his wife moved to Seattle. With the kids already in college, they were free to move just about anywhere, but his family had originally come from Washington, so it had felt like home anyway.
He considered going to work for Seattle PD, but his wife dissuaded him, saying it would be even more stressful. Since they’d already built a pretty good little nest egg, he didn’t have to rely on a job with big earnings; just something to keep him occupied.
Jim headed towards the parking garage to check cameras 1 through 5. All seemed functional. As he continued his rounds, checking each floor, he couldn’t recall actually having seen Charlie leave the office that night. Mr. Winters and Mr. Winslow had finally left around one a.m. and when he’d asked where Charlie, Abbott, and that guy from IT had been, Frank Winslow had piped up, saying they must have left when Jim wasn’t at his desk.
“Must’ve been when I was checking out that noise in the server room,” Jim had replied.
He didn’t think anything of it after that.
Jim returned to his desk, staring at the monitors that now flashed between the different cameras. His innate skills of observation were an essential part of his previous job; skills he hadn’t been required to put to the test as of late. Now, in light of this Charlie situation, he wondered why it was that Mr. Winters had been meeting with mid-level staff and Frank Winslow at midnight on a Friday. He’d assumed it had to do with the Sea-Tech investigation. Everyone knew about that. Maybe it was just that the man wanted to keep a lid on things; keep the rest of the staff from getting nervous. It made sense enough at the time, but Jim started to feel that pang in his gut again.
He’d felt it before, when he’d had that card counter tossed out back in ’91. The feeling that there was more to the situation. And as it had turned out, there was. The man was diverting the attention of security while an accomplice, a driver for the armored truck that was being loaded up at the time, simply drove away with millions. Jim never forgot that sinking feeling and now it was back.
Whatever you’re thinking, James Francis Hart, stop it. Stop it right now! But he couldn’t; it wasn’t in his nature.
He punched in the file path to pull up the video from Friday night. The logs were extensive and contained every minute of every day on every camera in the building. That amounted to several thousands of minutes of video on a daily basis. He narrowed down his search for video between the hours of 10:00 p.m. on Friday night to 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, just to be sure. “I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me tonight.” The sound of his lone voice echoed softly in the spacious lobby.
***
Since Colin had stormed out on Saturday night, Claire had only received a single text from him, stating that he was staying with his friend Rick, if the kids needed him. It was now Monday night and she wondered if he would ever come home.
Anna had asked where her father was and Claire made up some story about work. Robbie knew better. He knew his dad had been fired. He was old enough to handle that sort of information, but he didn’t ask her what happened, only gave her the look. The kind that suggested he knew it was bad and wondered if divorce would follow.
Divorce. Something she couldn’t think about. Not now, not ever. It was all she could do to get out of bed these past two days. Charlie was gone, Colin was gone, and Claire was on her own. No one questioned why she hadn’t been at work today. No calls came from the man who had been a party to her betrayal. The same man with whom she feared even being in the same room.
It occurred to Claire on more than one occasion in the last forty-eight hours to pack up the kids and leave. It was what Colin had wanted before she confessed. Maybe now she was ready. Her life was in tatters. Her marriage, quite possibly, over. The desire to see this through to the end, to clear Beth’s name, to possibly vindicate Charlie; none of that mattered now. She’d broken her husband’s heart, torn apart her family, and destroyed her career.
Claire didn’t recognize the woman staring back at her in the mirror as she readied for bed. Black rings had formed beneath her once-bright eyes, her cheeks appeared hollowed. She hadn’t eaten in almost two days; it was no wonder her skin looked grey. “What happened?” she pondered.
Acceptance of blame for what she’d done had come without hesitation, but Claire struggled to come to terms with the fact that she simply had no memory of it. Never once had she been so drunk as to lose such large chunks of time.
Winters is a man of great means, Claire. She recalled Charlie’s words of warning. She also recalled the terrified look in Beth’s eyes, fearing for her life. Claire thought back to that moment when Evan had taken hold of her, out from beneath the kind man who’d offered assistance that night. In all her hazy thoughts, it was the look in his eyes that had made the hai
r on her arms stand on end. She’d never seen that look in anyone before. Obsessive, monstrous. Deadly.
“A glass of champagne, two glasses of wine,” she said to her reflection. Yes, for her, it had been a little too much, but not that much. Her chest soon began to heave; her heart pumping faster, working to acclimate to the rising adrenaline. Her pupils began to dilate, eclipsing the light blue color surrounding them. The ashen skin on her face now turned ghostly white. Was it possible? She already knew that, yes, of course it was possible. The man gets what he wants. How could she have not realized it before? Because who would think such a thing could actually happen? But it happened all the time, didn’t it? What did they call it? The date-rape drug? Maybe he hadn’t used that exact form, but Claire knew now—she’d been drugged.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm down before she passed out. “Colin. I have to call him. He’ll believe me; he has to.” Claire rushed to her bedside table and picked up the phone. “Please, please answer.” His cell continued to ring. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing it was about to go to voicemail, then…
“It’s late, Claire. Are the kids all right?”
It was the first time she’d heard his voice in two days and he wasn’t asking about her. His only concern was for his children. Claire tried to pull herself together, to sound clear-headed so that he would understand and, hopefully, believe. “Colin, I think the reason I couldn’t remember what happened was…” She feared sincerity would elude her in the moment she needed it most. “I believe he drugged me.”
Silence.
“Nothing else makes sense. I swear to you, I hadn’t had that much to drink. And I would never knowingly hurt you. Please, Colin. Please believe me. I love you so much.” There was no other way to put it. She had to pray that she could get through to him. That after fourteen years of marriage, she would not lie to him.
“And why would he do that?” His cold, flat tone wasn’t coming from a man who had been convinced.
“I think it was part of the plan. Charlie getting the pictures. Blackmail. It was how they planned to keep me quiet, or to bring me in. Maybe both.” She felt steadier now. He hadn’t hung up yet. That was a good thing.
She waited. Still nothing. Just the sound of his breathing. “Please, come home. You know me. You know who I am. I need you, Colin.”
“Okay.”
Had she heard him correctly? His tone was so low, so guarded, but her heart raised at the thought that maybe he was coming home.
“I’ll see you soon.” He ended the call.
Claire dropped the phone and fell back onto the bed; relief swept over her as she sobbed quietly. She would wait for him downstairs.
***
The turning of the door latch echoed through the ground floor at the early morning hour. He was home. It had been almost two hours since they had spoken and he was finally home. Claire wondered if he’d had second thoughts, knowing that Rick only lived twenty minutes down the road. He could take as much time as he needed to come to terms. She couldn’t expect him to just accept the situation without some reservations. Coming to terms with it herself seemed a nearly impossible feat. This had changed her. It would change their family too.
Claire slowly raised her eyes to meet his as he walked through the darkness towards her.
He appeared almost as frayed as she had been. The lump in her throat pressed hard, but she managed to swallow it back down. Colin now stood in front of her. Unmoving, seemingly unsure of what lie ahead.
“Screw that job. Let’s just pack up the kids and get the hell out of here.” He moved in, pressed his lips against her neck, and kissed her smooth, delicate skin.
A sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cry, escaped her as she threw her arms around him. “I’m so sorry I’ve put our family through this. I love you so much.”
“I love you too. I’m sorry for walking out. We’ll get through this. He won’t get away with what he’s done to you.”
She pushed back slightly. His face was shrouded in hate and anger; love and betrayal. So many emotions. It was too difficult to see past them to the man he was only days ago. Claire felt a renewed sense of determination. Evan Winters had worked to destroy her family, her life, so that she would have no one left. Then he would get what he wanted and he wanted her. “If I stop now, quit; and we leave. I’m not sure that would be enough. That we wouldn’t always be looking over our shoulders. We can stop him, Colin. We can put an end to this.” She searched him for a reaction.
A desire for vindication seemed to consume him now. Impotence was the driving force. For his inability to protect his wife from the harm that had fallen on her. She could see it clearly now. Virtually nothing else could bring forth that level of darkness in a man’s eyes.
“I promise you that I won’t put myself in a situation where he could hurt me again. I know what he’s capable of now. I need you with me more than ever. I just know Charlie’s dead. Beth could be next. We can do something about it. We can stop him.”
She knew what she was asking of him. It seemed impossible to ask such a thing. But as Claire searched again for a response, searched for forgiveness and his willingness to help put Evan Winters behind bars, he began to speak.
“I’ll never let him touch you again.”
***
Jim grunted as he rubbed his balding head. He’d been at it for three hours and was only through a fraction of the video logs. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except for the fact that he still hadn’t seen Charlie or some of the others leave that night. He had to be getting close, now having viewed much of the tape up through almost midnight. The problem was, he couldn’t remember exactly what time it had been when he’d gone to the server room, but knew that it was somewhere past midnight. Unfortunately, he had to be sure nothing had happened prior, like when he went on a restroom break or performed his nightly checks. So, he started from the beginning. Now, he should be getting to the meat of the situation. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do tonight.
His large forehead furrowed and his eyes squinted hard at the screen. “What the hell?” Jim punched in a few more commands and focused in on the log files between the times of 12:15 and 12:50. He slowly scrolled through. They were in increments of five minutes. Any longer than that and the files started getting too big to manage. Emails or uploading would end up taking too long. “I’m missing time.”
He checked again. “There’s a gap between 12:30 and 12:45. Jesus! Where the hell are those files?” Jim reviewed the logs over and over, trying to find the missing files. There was no logical reason for the gap in recording. “That had to be when I was in the server room.” He rubbed the top of his skull again until it turned pink. “Charlie’s car is still in the garage here.” He scrolled through the video. “So are the others.” He scrolled through to the next set of files. “They’re gone now.” It quickly occurred to him in that moment who Chris Goyal was. The man who had quit last week and was an attendee at this peculiar meeting. “IT.” Jim shook his head, searching for an answer, but it seemed he’d already found it. “Ho-ly shit.”
CHAPTER 17
DETECTIVE STUART VANCE was the lead in the Charlie Monroe investigation. Margaret had filed the missing persons report on Saturday evening, after a visit from him.
This morning, he’d summoned Agent Sanchez to his office, wanting to share what he’d gotten so far. It wasn’t much, but he did get the phone records back.
“Charlie had texted Claire three times before he went down to the office on Friday night. We know the contents of those messages, based on what we got from Claire’s phone. But there were a few other calls he made late that night. An international call to Brazil, a call to Frank Winslow and, of course, the call to Claire, in which he’d left the voicemail. We’ve put in a request from the telecom company for the rest of the information. I’m hoping to get it today.
“Have you talked to Winslow yet?” Sanchez asked.
“I’m planning on heading down to WFC toda
y after I get confirmation from the phone company. I’d like to have my ducks in a row before I approach either Winters or Frank Winslow. The next step will be to request the security tapes. Find out when Monroe left the building. I’ll then put in a call to Transportation and request traffic cam footage for the surrounding area. Get an idea of where he went from there.”
“So you still think this is a missing person’s case, not murder?”
“I’ve got no reason to suspect that yet. I’ve got to take this one step at a time, Gordon. I can’t just barge into Winters Financial claiming the president of the company murdered a man. I’ve got no car and no body.”
The phone strapped to Sanchez’s belt started to vibrate. He yanked it out of its holder. “Hang on. It’s the office.” Raising the phone to his ear, he began, “Sanchez here.”
“It’s Derek. Listen, we just got a call on the main line. The man asked for you, but they patched him through to me. It was the night security guard at WFC. Says he’s got some information for us, but wants to meet up.”
“Okay. Why didn’t he tell you over the phone?”
“I don’t know. He insisted that we meet.”
“What time? I’m at Seattle PD. Vance is still working on the phone records.”
“I told him we could meet him at nine. We’re going to meet at the coffee house down the street from the office.”
“He didn’t want to meet at our office?”
“Nope. The guy seems a little jumpy. I don’t know. I think he’s got something. In fact, you may want to get Vance in on this.”
“Okay. See you then.” Sanchez ended the call. “What are you doing around nine? I think we may have something of interest for all of us.”
“Count me in,” Vance replied.
***
Tuesday morning, and Charlie had been gone for four days already. Claire walked past his empty office. It looked exactly as it had on Saturday morning, only now, with the sunlight peeking through the clouds, and only a shaft of light piercing the window, it appeared grey and cold. Little specs of dust caught the light as they settled thick on his desk.