by C J West
Brad envisioned himself stuck in a prison cell for the next twenty years. His feet rooted themselves to the floor. He should have gone to the office, but he couldn’t move. Refusing to follow orders was risking his life. Still he sat paralyzed for over an hour, his eyes cycling from the phone, to the CD then the bag.
The phone rang.
“If you’re there, I guess you have my six million.”
“I’m not going to make it.”
“You don’t make it, the shortfall comes from your share.”
“Screw that. I do all the work. No way I’m giving up four million.”
“People have to be paid, important people. If you value your share, get in there and get it.”
“Impossible. I can’t run this thing again”
“Don’t turn into a coward on me, Foster.”
“Coward? I’ve got the new internal auditor breathing down my neck. She’s not a complete idiot like Stan.”
“She’s not a cop either. She’s not staking out the building you dumb shit. She’ll look at the access records. Keep pointing them at our friend.”
“It’s going to take a lot more than that.”
“Let me worry about the details. Get going. There was a good swing today.”
“What about Fletcher? She’s there day and night. If she digs in the right place, we’re going to jail.”
“C’mon, Foster. Stop making excuses. You’ve been bashing her for two years. Don’t tell me you can’t keep her busy for a week.”
“I assigned her support duty for the new system, nothing else.”
“Are you that stupid?”
“I thought she’d quit.”
“She didn’t, did she?”
This guy thought he had everything figured. If he dealt with her for two weeks he’d know better. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Give her a new toy to play with. Keep her happy. In a few weeks Sarah will put it together. You two go to Marty together, wham Erica’s gone. You make a quick exit and I hang around until the dust settles then retire.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It could have been if you weren’t so stupid.” The line went quiet for a moment. “This is going to work out well for you, Foster, even as stupid as you are. Make this run and make sure it looks like Fletcher was there. Help Sarah find what she’s looking for. She’ll do the rest.”
“Are you nuts?”
“She’s going to blame Erica. Don’t you get it?”
“She’ll start with Erica, but that’s only going to hold water so long. The two of them are going to talk and she’ll figure out Erica’s innocent. There’ll be a full-blown investigation and that sucker will be pointed right at us.”
“The investigation will be brief. Now get my money.”
Brad imagined leading Erica into another dusty warehouse. She’d be smarter than Stu. She wouldn’t come easily and bruises wouldn’t support the story very well, if they found her body, that is.
“How are we going to do it?” Brad asked.
“Worry about that when the time comes. For now, just get to work.”
“She’s a lot smarter than the last guy. Two of my team dying in three years is going to look suspicious.”
“Listen, Chicken Shit. I can put you away a lot easier. You’ve seen the file. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Try to disappear, try to rat me out, you know what’ll happen.”
Brad gave a longing look toward his bag.
“Get in there and get this done.”
The line went dead.
The next week was going to be the most difficult of the ordeal. He didn’t want to think about where Erica’s body would end up or what part he’d have to play. He picked up the CD. One or two more runs. A few lies to the girl from internal audit and one last trip to France.
Brad imagined himself on a beach buying fru-fru drinks for a young woman in a dangerously small bikini. He did his best to hold onto that image as he headed back to work.
Chapter Twenty-nine
A few minutes before eight, Erica walked into her office, clicked her computer on and sat. The routine collapsed when she touched down. Gone were the all-important missions that kept her running full-speed to meet impossible deadlines. Gone were the project plans with pages of excuses to defer social entanglements. The frenzy had vanished. She was left gazing at the awakening computer, wondering what was next.
Unaccustomed to such moments of introspection, her psyche seized the moment to ask why she pushed herself the way she did. Completely out of sync, she felt out of place and time in her own life. It was as if her consciousness had arrived long after her body, plopped down now into the middle of her life, suddenly self-aware for the first time. Could she have run this long, this hard in the wrong direction? She searched back through her past for the time she’d begun the chase. Her professional career was a marathon of overachievement with a supreme focus on learning more and producing more than anyone. She overwhelmed her competition with fanatical commitment. Back further still, high school was more of the same. She recalled grade school, a time when she spent most days transported into stories.
The feelings came flooding back, too. The torment from the other students felt fresh. The other first graders called her mother a killer. They said Erica would grow up to be a killer, too, and any boy dumb enough to be her boyfriend deserved what he got. Some kids were truly afraid of her, the others pretended to be.
Ashamed, Erica vowed never to become a victim like her mother. Surviving her father and the hazing after his death set Erica on a path to unequivocal self-sufficiency. That’s when it all began. She pushed herself to the edge of physical endurance and mental toughness. Governance by an unrelenting will intensely sculpted mind and body, but left the whole of her emotional life untouched. Abandoned at an early age, her romantic desires lay unexamined, an unopened gift adorned with bright paper and ribbon, waiting. It wasn’t clear what she was trying to achieve all these years or who she was trying to convince of her worth; the first graders, her mother, or herself.
Freed from her reputation by time and circumstance, Erica led people naturally. She learned at an inhuman pace and put forth incredible effort to reach her goals. This was how she came to work for Brad, to pour out two years of her life and propel him to a promotion he didn’t deserve. She would have accepted her role with grace if he hadn’t betrayed her so purposefully; more so if he’d been the first.
Wasn’t she the model employee?
Few worked as hard as she did, but here she sat with an assignment that signaled it was time to move on again. She’d known Brad wanted her out from the beginning. Still, her resume lay half-drafted at home.
She fumed through the walls at Brad.
Her mother would say she’d misplaced her anger for her father. She refused to take orders from any man and that doomed her to a succession of disappointments. She needed to learn to go along, to talk through issues instead of bottling them up. Then she would succeed. Erica agreed that she managed-down well and managed-up poorly. She needed control.
Melanie saw a great opportunity to heat things up with Farm Boy. “Take a vacation. Get naked,” she said. After all she’d put into this company, a shift into the slow lane was in order, but Erica wasn’t looking to slow down. It was time to get even with Brad.
Gregg appeared in the doorway carrying two dozen bursting red roses and Erica knew precisely what had to be done. The answer had been sitting on her desk for weeks.
“Hello, stranger,” he said as he strode around the desk, all smiles. He set the etched glass vase on the desk and kissed her cheek.
“Great way to keep the office romance low key.”
“You get flowers all the time. I just deliver.”
“Marking your territory?”
“No need. I did an email blast last night, handed out flyers in front of the building this morning, and I’m running a full page ad in the Globe on Sunday. The flowers are an excuse to visit.”
/>
“You picked a bad day.” Erica caught him up on her conversation with Brad and her suspicion that he’d taken credit for her work and ruined her reputation with the board. He had turned her promotion into a demotion, giving her the choice to support client services or quit. Brad would prefer the latter.
Gregg’s expression sagged as the details rolled out. His empathy for her situation shouldn’t have been a surprise, but this wasn’t what Erica had come to expect from relationships. Gregg had been intent on her for over four years. He listened and he knew innately what she thought and felt. She couldn’t stop babbling, burdening him as she was and yet he couldn’t have been more tuned in. He was interested. Not just in her looks or her financial success, all of her. She had the urge to get up and throw her arms around him, but resisted.
Gregg brightened after a lull in the conversation. “Why don’t we get away from here? We could spend a few days on the farm. It’s quiet this time of year and my folks would love to meet you.”
“Really? Why me?”
“What’s not to like? Brains, beauty, and I hear their son has totally flipped for you.”
“What happened to taking it slow?”
“This is taking it slow. My first thought was the Caribbean. You in a bikini and me in surfer shorts for two weeks or so. It would be a lot more fun than the farm, but I didn’t imagine you’d go for it.”
“You imagined right.”
“Think about the farm. Getting away from all this concrete will do you good. I could show you a few trees and some animals that don’t live on crumbs in the park, you know, nature.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
Gregg ventured a step toward Erica’s side of the desk. She looked down her nose toward the open door. He faltered a step, but came around and kissed her anyway.
She watched the hall long after he’d gone.
The rest of the day offered few distractions. Erica dug into an old problem that promised to show how unfit a leader Brad was. He’d angrily rejected Gregg’s request for help and soon everyone would know just how wrong he had been.
Hours passed quickly. She set up some new equipment and reloaded the December data. She had the system working by six-thirty. It felt odd, but she packed up and left the problem unsolved for the next morning.
She didn’t notice the thick man in the dark suit on the corner. He appeared heavyset under the straight-cut suit, though closer inspection would have revealed bulging muscles. He watched as Erica weaved out among the concrete planters that guarded the building. He talked into his phone, shifting his feet as her sneakers bounced across the street and headed off through the park.
He followed from a full block’s distance, limiting himself to a hurried walk even though he couldn’t match her pace. He’d try to keep her in sight, but he knew where she was going.
Chapter Thirty
Erica shoved the door closed.
Melanie curiously poked her head around the corner. She held three tank tops, none warm enough for the late spring weather.
“What’s the occasion?” Melanie asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What are you doing home? It’s not even seven.”
“Good thing you weren’t throwing a wild party. I’d have to get lost.” Melanie knew better than to bring her college friends here. She’d done it once and Erica was clear she wasn’t letting her apartment turn into a college hangout with beer cans piled high and food stains on every rug. Melanie had been the perfect house guest since.
They’d grown surprisingly close given the twelve year age difference and the late hours Erica kept. Erica’s influence mellowed Melanie a bit and Melanie lightened the mood whenever she saw the chance.
“Something up at work? Gregg spending too much time in your office?”
“He brought me roses today.”
“The boy’s in love. You would be, too, if you’d stop pushing him away for five seconds.”
“Someone’s got to keep a cool head.”
“Yeah, don’t go running off and doing something rash like having sex.”
“He kissed me twice in the office today.”
“You have a real office, with walls I mean?”
“So?”
“Don’t be such a prude. Shut the door and grab those tight little buns.”
“All I need is my boss to walk in and find us making out in the middle of the day.”
“Erica, this is two thousand six. People are having sex in public. A kiss or two at work isn’t going to kill you. Don’t think your boss hasn’t banged chicks right on his desk, or yours.”
“Gross. I can see whose side you’re on. I suppose you think I should go to the farm with him this weekend.” The way Gregg and Melanie conspired, she’d probably known about the invitation for weeks.
“He asked?” She waited for a nod. “Absolutely. Go! Spend some quality time. Meet the parents. Who knows what could happen.”
“If I listened to you, I’d be married in six months.”
Melanie questioned why marrying Gregg was a bad idea. Erica argued the evils of marriage to Melanie’s recounting of Gregg’s boundless virtues. Neither budged. Erica changed into her running clothes and started out toward the river. Melanie headed for the shower to prepare for a critique group that featured more drinking and flirting than journalism.
Caleb Priestly watched Erica trot down the stairs and lift her leg to the rail for a stretch. She rested her head on her knee and grabbed the sole of her sneaker with both hands, something Caleb couldn’t do. She stretched the other hamstring likewise and then hopped down to the sidewalk. With one hand on the rail, she lifted the opposite foot and grabbed the toe of her sneaker. She stretched one quad then the other.
She didn’t act squirrelly like a target who was mixed up in something dangerous. She was a solid citizen from a nice neighborhood. She gazed off into the distance preoccupied with her thoughts. She didn’t react to the men who checked out her tight spandex pants as they walked by. She had no idea she was being followed and that would make tonight’s work simple. If he was careless then things would change.
She jogged off down the block and disappeared around the corner. Caleb timed two minutes on his watch before leaving the car. He should have tuned in to the microphones in the apartment, but there was nothing to hear. He followed her here and he’d seen her take off. Better to get it done quickly before she came back.
Traffic on Clarendon was thick with cars pulling off Storrow headed toward Newbury or Boylston, but on the Marlborough side, traffic was light. He palmed the pick and tension wrench and slipped across the middle of the block without drawing any attention. No one was within half a block of the building as he trotted up the stairs and checked the lobby. He worked the tension wrench into the keyhole then raked the pins once, twice. A few of them caught. He worked the pick carefully now, click, click, click and the lock turned. He pocketed the pick and wrench as he would his key and headed inside.
Two hundred two was at the top of the stairs. He’d never been inside, but he’d seen it on the monitor the rare days she went home while he was tailing her. The lock was newer than the one outside, but there was no one in the hall to watch him pick it. He could take a full minute and it wouldn’t matter. If someone came he’d feign key trouble and knock. He counted thirty-four before the handle turned. The door stuck on the threshold and he shoved it open. He quickly shut it and donned thin leather gloves.
Caleb needed a hiding place she could reach, but one that she wouldn’t discover between now and when the cops came looking. He wished he’d brought some packing tape to slap the envelope to the back of a bureau or bookcase and get out, but the boss had insisted he use things from the apartment to plant the stash.
The desk drawers held nothing useful. He checked his watch: four and a half minutes since she’d turned the corner. Plenty of time. He rifled the kitchen drawers until he found the typical junk drawer everyone seemed have. It held paper clips, a dish fi
lled with loose change, staples, and take-out menus. He clutched a roll of masking tape and turned toward the desk. He’d be gone in another forty seconds.
The shower stopped.
He’d heard it running, but assumed it was in the next apartment. Someone was here, it could be the boyfriend. If he’d heard the commotion in the kitchen drawers, he’d come looking. Caleb wheeled around. No doors except the one he came in and the closet next to it. He stalked across the kitchen and back into the living room. The place was sparse, nowhere for a two hundred twenty pound man to hide.
A towel ruffled briskly.
Caleb crammed himself under the desk, his knees jammed up under his chin. With the high-backed leather chair pulled up close, he was nearly invisible from most of the apartment.
The bathroom door opened. Moist steps, bare feet on linoleum. Closer. Across the kitchen and into the living room. Legs came into view, shapely legs, naked up to a light pink robe that looked damp. The roommate. How could he forget the damn roommate? Water dripped on the carpet. The feet turned toward the front windows and then the kitchen. If she knew he was lurking this close she’d scream her head off and he’d have to whack her. He should have listened to the microphones. Luckily, she walked over to the door and chained it.
She hesitated, looped through the kitchen and closed the junk drawer. Then, seeming satisfied she was safe, walked back to the bathroom. Her search took less than a minute. The blow dryer started immediately.
There was a recess beneath the top drawer, high enough so her legs wouldn’t hit it when she worked and low enough so it couldn’t be seen except from underneath. Suddenly less picky about his hiding spot, he pulled the large envelope from his jacket, careful not to disturb any of her prints that might still be on it. He fastened it to the underside of the desk with long strips of tape. Her prints were on the blue plastic holder inside.
Standing again, he eased into the kitchen and returned the tape exactly where it had been.
Quickly to the door, he removed the chain, eased outside and pulled it shut with a thump. Rattling downstairs, he palmed the last doorknob with his glove already removed. He pocketed the gloves on the landing and strolled down the steps casually as if he were heading out to dinner. He melted across the street and drove away.