Never Forgotten Love

by S. M. Stryker

  “Raven, it’s ok, we don’t have a non-fraternization policy here if that is what you are afraid of,” Richard states.

  “No, it’s not that.” She looks up at Richard.

  “Is he harassing you?” I ask. As her eyes dart to me.

  “No, but, well…” she stammers. “Everything was going good, we had a couple more drinks at his place, he can’t handle alcohol very well, anyway he started asking questions about you,” she says as she looks at me.

  “What kind of questions?” I ask quizzically.

  “He started asking about you and Harlow. At first, I didn’t think anything about it, but it was as if he was obsessed with her. He asked if I knew where she lived, where you lived, how long you had been dating and then he asked me if I had the key to the office and to your office, what the alarm code was and what your cell number was…” she looks up at me with a scared look on her face. “He also said something about your mother. Then I remember my first day here when you said not to put her calls through. I was just playing along to see what he would say or do.”

  “He was talking about my mother? How would he even know who she is?”

  “He had had quite a lot to drink, he was kind of rambling. I don’t know how he knows her, but he said he contacted your mother and that he was going to help her find you. It really freaked me out. Then he told me not to say anything to you, I knew I was in trouble, but I played along with it so he wouldn’t suspect me of doing anything. Luckily he passed out before anything happened between us.” She looked down, a look of shame on her face. “I called a taxi as soon as he passed out and left him a note as if I had a good time and thank for the night, but I was really scared. I didn’t know what to do so I went online and Googled him. I went to one of those sites that you can pay to find information out about someone, but I needed more of his information.” Richard and I look at each other and then back at Raven. “Well, last Monday, I pulled his personnel file to get his application, I went back to the site that I found on the web, and I looked him up again with the information on his personnel file.” A tear rolled down her cheek as she quickly wiped it away. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been in the personnel files, and I know I’ll get fired for this, but I just had a bad feeling and I had to check it out even if it did cost me my job. He isn’t who he said he was.” She lifted her shirt exposing her waistband of her skirt, pulling out some folded papers setting them on my desk. Richard stands and walks over behind me as I look at the papers.

  The documentation that was pulled with the social security number on his application was for a Bradley Dillon Thomas from West Seattle. My heart skips a beat as my stomach flips; I feel the blood draining from my face. I look at Richard, then to Raven. “Do you know where he is right now?”

  “He said he had an appointment this morning, this was the soonest I could get to you, I just received the information this morning, and I didn’t want to bring attention to me by talking to you. He scared me when he said not to tell anyone.”

  “How long has he been gone?” I ask.

  “I came in here five minutes after he left. I just needed to print these off.”

  I pick up the phone and call Harlow. She answers on the third ring. “Harlow, are you ok?” I ask.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I had to pick up some supplies, why? What’s going on?”

  “Do you still remember my alarm code?”

  “Yes, why? Beckett you’re scaring me, what’s going on?”

  “Please listen to me and do what I say. I want you to go to my house, there is a keypad for my garage door opener on the pillar outside, the code is your birthday it will open the garage door. I want you to pull your car into my garage and shut the door as soon as you get out of the car. Turn off the alarm then arm the alarm when you get back into the house. Brad is in town. I’ll send a security person over to the house. Do not open the door for anyone, not even if they say they are security, ok?”

  “Ok,” she says.

  “I’ll call you back soon, don’t wait just go there now. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I hang up with Harlow and call Mitchell filling him in on the papers sitting in front of me. I take pictures of the papers and send them to Mitchell. He is sending someone out to the bakery, to Nicole’s and to my house to keep watch over them.

  “Raven, did you give him any information or addresses?” Richard asks as I finish the call with Mitchell.

  “No, but I don’t know if there is anything in here that would have any of your information on it. I just played dumb, because I was just hired too,” she said “I’m really sorry, but I needed to alleviate my curiosity. I’ll go and box my desk up and leave,” she asks sorrowfully as she stands to walk toward the door.

  “No!” Richard and I both state at the same time.

  Raven stops and turns as a tear roll down her face looking between Richard and me in confusion.

  “You mean I can’t get my things?”

  “No, you are not going anywhere,” again, both Richard and I say at the same time. Weird.

  “But…”

  “Raven, you’re not fired in fact I’ll add to your job description and give you a raise for being proactive,” Richard says. “Go back to your desk and we’ll talk about this later, we need to make sure Mitchell knows this information.”

  Richard calls Nicole and explains the situation. Richard insists that Nicole stays at his place for a while. He tells her that he will have a security system installed in her house to keep her protected in the future, but for right now, he wants her with him.

  Richard and Raven slip out of my office so no one will see them.

  I call Harlow back to see if she has made it to my house yet. “Yes, I just got here. I have closed the garage door and turned off the alarm, but I need to unload my car before I turn it back on.”

  “You can put the refrigerator items in the garage fridge, it doesn’t have a lot in it, and the dry goods can stay in the car for right now. I’ll stop by the bakery, check in on the girls, and let them know you won’t be coming back today. I also need you to text me things I need to pick up from Nicole’s house for you. Nicole is going to stay at Richard’s. I think he will be stopping by to pick things up for her too.”

  “What am I going to do about the bakery? If I don’t bake, I’ll lose my daily clients, I can’t afford that to happen, I’ll lose my business.”

  “We’ll figure something out; do any of your employees help you?”

  “I had just started training one of them, but she doesn’t have the recipes and if they aren’t made right then… Oh Beck, what am I going to do?”

  “Let me see if I can get some of Mitchell’s guys to come watch the building while you bake.”

  “Ok,” she says sadly.

  I call Mitchell back, “Hey Mitchell, it’s Beckett. I am going to need someone to watch the bakery tonight so Harlow can get in there and do her baking. I’ll also need someone to install a security system at her aunt’s house; Richard will be calling on that one. We need someone to make sure no one follows us after we leave the office and bakery. So far, I do not think this guy knows where Richard or Nicole live, but he might know where I live, but he does know where we work and possibly, where the bakery is, I also need someone to watch Raven; she is the one that informed us of what Brad was up too. If he gets wind that she talked, I am afraid of what he might do.”

  “Shit, Raven?”

  “Yeah, she and Carson, the other tech guy went out a week ago and he was asking her all kinds of questions about Harlow and me. She did a little searching on the side and found out that he works in our office.”

  “You mean in your office building?”

  “No, I mean in my office, we just hired him as one of our techs.”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “Mitchell, this is one of those things I would never shit about.”

  “Fuck! How did we miss
this?”

  “He used a fake name. I don’t know how our system wouldn’t pick that up, but it didn’t and he has been here under our noses for the last couple of weeks. There is no telling what information he might have found lying around here.”

  “Fuck man, I am sorry. I’ll get someone on Raven that was a good call on her part to get the info on him.”

  “Thanks, man, I don’t want to have this comeback and bite her in the ass.”

  “That’s not a problem Beckett, I’ll have my guys go to the bakery and do the install now, and then to Nicole’s house, I’ll talk to Richard about that. I received the documentation that you sent to me, and the picture of Brad. I have sent it out to all my people. We are looking for the car, but that isn’t always easy, he could always rent a car. I have a man watching your house right now, he won’t go to the door unless he sees something happening, and I’ll get someone on Raven and your office, just in case. I’ll contact you with any new information as it comes in.”

  “Thanks, Mitchell! I really appreciate your help on this.”

  I hang up with Mitchell and leave my office to see Richard. Tapping on his door, I walk in and sit while he finishes his phone call.

  “Richard, do you remember the app that Thomas, I mean Brad brought in to show us during his interview?”

  “Yes I do, it was a cool app, and it has a lot of possibilities.”

  “Well, hopefully, he doesn’t have either of our cell numbers. I was hoping that maybe he has it somewhere in the office that we could tap into it. I’m sure we can get his cell number and find him that way.”

  “I’ll talk to Raven to see if she remembers any information about it, maybe he was bragging about it. Raven probably has his cell number too,” Richard says.

  “I’ll start checking his office.”

  Leaving Richard’s office, I walk toward Brad’s office, checking the handle, it’s locked I take out my master key unlocking it. I slip inside and close the door behind me. Inside everything looks neat and orderly. His desktop is clean; I pull each drawer out looking for anything that might help me. The only thing I can find is a legal notepad.

  Taking the notepad back to my office, I lock my door behind me. With a pencil, I lightly rub it across the tablet to see if it reveals anything important, I look at it, shaking my head at what I found and place it in my desk drawer. I call Carson into my office after unlocking the door.

  “Hey Carson, come on in,” I say, Carson looks and acts like he should be a surfer dude out on the beaches of California instead of a highly intelligent computer geek, with his curly dirty blonde mop of hair, golden tanned skin and brown eyes standing at least six feet tall, he would fit into the surf scene easily. “Take a seat; I just wanted to see how things are going and how you and Thomas are doing and if there are any issues and how you like your job so far?”

  “Things are going good. I really love it here; you guys are so laid back, not stuffy or micro-managing. As far as Thomas goes we have hung out a couple times, nothing major, Raven went out with us a couple times…that’s ok isn’t it?”

  “Oh, of course, it is, we just want to make sure that our employees get along and make sure if there are any personality issues they are taken care of immediately.”

  “Well, I probably won’t be hangin with Thomas anymore.”

  “Oh, is there a problem?”

  “To be honest, the dude is a little…how do I say this so it’s politically correct… He is effin crazy, like just got out, as in escaped from the funny farm crazy. The dude was going off on some chick he dated years ago, how he was going to find her, and the crazy shit he was planning on doing to her and her boyfriend. Bat shit crazy. He even got the dudes mother in on it.”

  “Whose mother?”

  “The old boyfriends mother, he said something about the dudes mother being almost as crazy as he is and she was going to get to him as a distraction to get the girl, then he was describing everything he was going to do to the chic, hopefully he doesn’t find her, because he is one twisted fucker.

  “He also has some chic that is obsessed with him that is trying to get close to either the old boyfriend or the chic; she tried to get a job at the old boyfriend’s office but wasn’t hired so she went to the girlfriends shop. He didn’t say what she was going to do there, but it’s eyes and ears on her. When he started talking about it, I just rolled with it not showing I cared. But that guy is once sick mother fucker, excuse my language.”

  “Really? When did he say this?”

  “A week ago Friday night, he, and I left from here and Raven came a little later. He said he had tracked her down, but she didn’t go home. He thought he found the old boyfriends house, but we haven’t gone out since then and to be honest, the guy freaks me the fuck out.”

  “Did he say how he found her?”

  “He said that he remembered the girlfriend saying the ex’s name, actually, he said that all she talked about was the ex-dude, said that she had a bracelet with a half a heart on it that she wouldn’t…Dude,” Carson looks down at my wrist, staring at my bracelet. “You’re the dude, aren’t you?”

  “That would be me, yes. Listen Carson…”

  “Like dude, no worries, I won’t be talking to the crazy motherfucker, he scares the shit out of me, what he wanted to do to you and yours. He found you, well your mom online and well; with computers, you can find anything or anyone. Thomas found that your mom move to Oregon he focused his search for you down here and obviously found you. He did something to the mom to get her to agree to help him.

  “Do you know what he did?”

  “She is on some crazy meds, and he took them from her, said he would give them back when she did what he said.”

  “Wow! He does seem a little on the deranged side.”

  “Just a little, crazy fucker. Sorry for the language.”

  I laugh, “don’t worry about it, and thanks for your candor; I value that in an employee.”

  “Anytime, but if I were you, I would hide my ass as well as your babe’s.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.” Carson stands to leave. “Hey Carson, I was going to talk to him about the app that he showed us for his interview, did he talk to you about that?”

  “Yeah, he did talk about it; he thought it would make him millions” Carson turns back and sits back down, his eyes light up.

  “What do you think of it?”

  “What I saw when I downloaded it and played with it, was that it had a flaw in it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, in order for it to work it calls the other phone you want to track and if that phone is answered it grabs the location and it is able to connect and track it through its GPS.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that,” I say as I rub my chin with my thumb and forefinger.

  “But if you are looking for the same kind of app that doesn’t call the person you are trying to find, I have one you might want to look at. I took some of what he had and tweaked the coding and it works great. I’ve been testing it.”

  “Really? Do you think I can get some copies of that app? Let’s call it beta testing, if it works as you say, we will do everything in our power to push it through so you can sell it.”

  “Dude! That is way cool. Let me get it for you.” Leaving the office, Carson exits to get the app. When he returns, I download the app to my phone. He explains how to work the app. I thank him, he leaves to go back to his office, as he gets to the door, he turns and says, “Make sure you cover what’s yours, you don’t want that sick bastard to get a hold of her.” I nod as he closes my door.

  I get up to take the app to Richard, but first I walk to the front desk to talk to Raven. “Do you happen to have Thomas cell number?”

  “Yes, in fact, he has a couple numbers.” She reaches for her cell and writes them down for me.

  I walk back to my office to call Mitchell. “Mitchell, it’s Beckett, I have an app that I want to get to you and your guys. It can track anyone by their cel
l number without having to load it onto the other person’s phone or having to have their password. I think you will find it very handy in your business. I also have a couple of cell numbers for our boy. Where do you want to meet up?”

  “Right now I am at Nicole’s house finishing her install, I’ll be here for another thirty minutes to clean up the mess.”

  “Ok, I’ll meet you there; I need to pick up some things for Harlow anyway.” Ending the call to Mitchell I walk back into Richard’s office. “I’m heading to Nicole’s house; do you need me to pick anything up while I am there?”

  “No, Nicole is going to go home after work and pick a few things up then drives over to my place.”

  “According to Carson, Brad knows where Nicole lives, he knew Harlow didn’t go home Friday, the only way he would know that is if he was watching her house, so tell her to be careful. Mitchell is over there now. Give me a call if you need me,” I say. “I also have to stop by the bakery and tell them that Harlow won’t be in the rest of the day.”

  I walk to my car, scanning the lot for Brad. I unlock the Jeep and climb inside. As I start the Jeep to meet Mitchell, I call Harlow. “Hi Baby, I am on my way to the bakery, then to Nicole’s house, can you text me a list of things you need me to pick up for you.”

  “Give me about five minutes and I’ll send it over. What did you find out about the bakery?”

  “Mitchell will drive you there and stay with you inside, he will also have a guy positioned outside. I believe he has already installed the system in your shop with a panic button.”

  “Thank you, Beckett. I don’t know what I would have done without all your help.”

  “Oh, that reminds me, have you received any calls where there wasn’t anyone on the other end of the line?”