The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  Perhaps he lacked the vision or the ability to see the bigger picture that led to the demise of his morality. For instance, he failed in his capacity to see ahead and plot correctly the consequences of his decisions. Always taking the short term view, he would then seem surprised when faced with longer term concerns, as if he never saw those inevitable dangers coming. Acting surprised, when he finally met up with consequences, he didn’t see that he was the one that created them, in the first place.

  Would Andrew act any differently? Would he be smarter in his decision-making and especially regarding his discernment about with whom and what to align himself with? Would he be the one that surprised them all? Or, like Icarus and all the great heroes that suffered a fall, would Andrew rise to the heights only to tumble back to the bottom and crash at a lower depth than he had even started out from?

  Fiona knew that at some point she would have to make a stand. If Andrew further committed to the path that he was on, she could see the day coming when she would either have to stand by his side even though she would feel spiritually and otherwise challenged in doing so or… or… or she would have to walk away.

  The very thought of turning her back on Andrew made her feel weak with disgust and horror. How could she go on living without Andrew by her side? The very concept of breaking apart their relationship, their heart and soul connection, was inconceivable to her. It was so unthinkable to her that she felt like she would rather die than be without him. When they had joined their hearts and souls together, it had been no childish notion. Not only did their blood join that day but, so too, their destinies.

  Try as she might to consider any other alternative, a life without Andrew was just not even possible. If he was destined for greater things, then so too, was she. If he was to rise and fall, then so also would she; her fate was that aligned.

  Whatever they would do or be in the world, they would be and do together. Their fates had been decided that day on the cliff when they merged their paths together; when they united their very souls. She must own up to that reality and live it as best that she can. To walk away from Andrew would mean to walk away from herself; to walk away from and to disown her very own life and soul.

  It wasn’t that now she had no choice; it was simply that the choice she had made for herself was far more simple. She could live her life with Andrew by her side and all that that entailed or she could cease to live at all. Period.

  “Are you going to eat anything at any stage of the day?” her father asked when he lightly knocked on her open bedroom door and stood amiably in the doorway. “I haven’t seen you once come into the kitchen today, or yesterday, for that matter, all the time that I was here, anyhow. You know what the doc said about eating, right? Have to keep your strength up and all that.”

  “Have I been of any help to you, father?” she asked, her pensive demeanor unchanged.

  “What do you mean, sweetheart?” he asked, stepping closer.

  “Do you think that I have helped your soul in any way by staying here all this time, standing by your side?” she asked, her face a study in philosophical inquiry.

  “I suppose,” her father said, unsure of her question but at the same time uninterested to query any deeper. His child often seemed so unnecessarily melodramatic. “Yes,” he then answered, hoping that that was the answer she was looking for; the answer to make her feel happier about herself. “Most definitely.”

  “Would you do me a big favor, then?” she asked seriously.

  “Anything, pumpkin.”

  “Would you have Andrew fired from his job?”

  “Seriously?” he asked, wondering if he had heard her right.

  “Yes. Could you see to it that Andrew lose his job in some way?”

  “I’m not sure I follow, sweet pea,” he said as he sat on the side of her bed. “What about his money situation and his court case and everything? Has he asked you to ask me?”

  “No, of course not. He wants to keep the lousy job; he’d kill me if he knew that I was asking you.”

  “What’s this about, sweetheart? You two have a fight?”

  “Yes, but that’s not why I’m asking. I’m more concerned about his soul than about the money and prison. He doesn’t see it now but he’ll thank me later,” she said with an earnestness that brought an unwelcome smile to her father’s face.

  “Hold that thought,” he said when he checked out the caller ID of his vibrating cell phone. “I have to take this, do you mind, sweetie?” he asked kindly. Without waiting for her approval, he took the call and stepped out into the hallway. “Yes?” he answered, sounding familiar with the caller, yet respectful.

  “Andrew Cox belongs to you?” the male caller asked.

  “Yes,” Simon answered wearily. “What has he done now?”

  “He was right about Yakomoto.”

  “So? The call was fifty-fifty; he could just as easily have been wrong.”

  “The kid could have something.”

  “The kid’s an idiot,” Simon said, walking further away from Fiona’s room. “He spoke out of turn.”

  “Exactly. When was the last time anyone spoke out like that at a meeting?”

  “In my recall? Never.”

  “If he is an idiot, maybe that’s the kind of idiot we need. He could be an asset.”

  “I doubt that,” Simon said, hoping not to sound too negative.

  “I don’t know. I have a feeling about this one,” the voice said.

  “If you say so.”

  “Take him under your wing. Put him on the fast track and let’s see what he’s got. Unless you have a problem with that. Do you have a problem with it?”

  “No, no problem,” Simon said reluctantly. “I just hope you’re okay with it when I say ‘I told you so.’ That’s all.”

  “I was right about you, wasn’t I?” the voice asked and hung up.

  Simon paused and cursed to himself before he reentered Fiona’s room. “Sorry about that, precious,” he said sweetly. “I’d really like to do what you ask about your boyfriend, truly I would.”

  “But?” Fiona asked when he hesitated.

  “Well, it seems your boy has made a very good impression among the higher ups. It’s out of my hands now, I’m afraid.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Fiona asked, utterly horrified.

  “Means your boy just got himself a promotion.”

  Andrew didn’t know what to think about the connection between the CEO of Quanta Systems and the serpent meetings. Was it possible that the company that he was working for was using some kind of black magic to kill off the owners of companies that they wished to take over? As crazy as it seemed, it kind of made sense.

  Paying even more attention to the current rec sheet that he was working on, and the files that he was retrieving, his work rate had slowed to a crawl. Not gone unnoticed by Lily, she looked over at him several times during the morning to check on his lack of progress. “Everything okay?” she finally asked.

  “How do you mean?” he asked back, deliberately trying to avoid looking into her dazzling blue eyes.

  “You’ve been working so slowly I thought that maybe you were having a bad day or something,” she said in a tone to suggest that she wasn’t trying to bust his balls. “Are you hungover?”

  “No,” Andrew answered and hesitated. “I just got weirded out about something,” he said, wondering how much he should reveal.

  “About what?”

  “You know that guy’s photo that they held up in the meeting for everyone to pray for? The Asian guy?” he asked, watching her closely for any telltale signs of guilt or complicity.

  “Yeah?” she answered with a smirk as she also remembered how funny Andrew was.

  “He didn’t make it,” Andrew said and paused.

  “He died?”

  “Yeah,” Andrew said, now watching her eyes closely. “His obituary was in the newspaper.”

  “And… you’re upset about that?” she asked uncertainly.
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  “Turns out he was the founder and CEO of Quanta Systems,” he said like it was a huge bombshell.

  “Okay,” Lily said, as if still waiting for the point he was making.

  “That’s the company we pulled all that info for on a rec sheet last week,” he said like it was a shocker. “Don’t you think that’s like, awful coincidental?”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t?”

  “No,” Lily answered like he was making a big deal out of nothing. “Well, if this company was doing some kind of business with the CEO of Quanta Systems, someone here probably knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t doing so well and needed some help.”

  “Yeah, but the newspaper said nothing about ill health or that he was sick beforehand. They said it was sudden and unexpected.”

  “And you believe everything you read in the newspaper? So, they got it wrong or didn’t have all the information; won’t be for the first time, right?”

  “You don’t think that the whole thing sounds fishy?” Andrew asked, beginning to doubt his own suspicions.

  “What’s fishy about it?” Lily asked, looking genuinely puzzled. “Someone at the company that does business with a man that’s sick brings his picture along to a meeting to get the group to pray for his welfare,” she said like she wanted to be clear about the facts. “The only fishy thing about it is that the LA Times or whatever newspaper didn’t have all the facts or stated the facts incorrectly. It’s a few lines of obituary, right?” she asked like it was so trivial.

  “Yeah,” Andrew reluctantly agreed, his elaborate conspiracy theory crumbling fast.

  “It’s not like they’re getting their facts wrong about weapons of mass destruction or something. Not that they ever got their facts wrong about something that important, you know?” she asked with a knowing smirk.

  “I guess,” Andrew answered, his smile a confirmation of his changed state of mind.

  “Who’s filling your head full of crazy ideas?” she asked as she returned to her work.

  “I made the mistake of visiting an old friend of mine in prison.”

  “You have friends in prison?” she asked, like she couldn’t imagine it.

  “Just one,” he answered. “It’s a long story.”

  Andrew almost dropped the file he was holding when the two men from before–the Enforcers–entered the room in their no-nonsense style. Stopping right before him and with expectant looks on their faces, Andrew froze. “You need to come with us,” one of the men said.

  Andrew put down the file he was holding and gave a quick glance to Lily, as if to say, ‘Oh, shit.’

  “Take your jacket,” the man instructed as Andrew was about to leave without it.

  “Now what?” Andrew asked as he followed them out of the room.

  Expecting to be taken to the same vacant side office, Andrew became increasingly unnerved as they led him into the elevator. “What’s this about?” he asked, trying not to sound nervous as the elevator doors closed.

  Ignoring his question, the two men walked from the elevator when the doors opened on the ground floor. Exiting the building to the street, Andrew put his jacket on as he followed them to their black Lincoln town car. “Get in,” the same man instructed as he held the rear car door open.

  Sitting in spacious, air conditioned luxury in the back seat of the town car was no consolation for Andrew as he paid careful attention to the route they were taking. In an effort to figure out their destination, he noticed each of the street signs that they passed. Feeling like he was suddenly thrust into a formula gangster movie, he figured that he needed to remember his way back to where they had started, in case he managed to escape from some derelict warehouse down near the docks.

  Expecting to be grilled about who he had been babbling to recently, he felt pressured to scramble together a prepared defense for himself. He hadn’t been talking to Fiona lately so most likely the alleged incursion involved someone else. Was Lily an informer? Was the office bugged?

  It did seem a little too coincidental that the last time the Enforcers had shown up, he and Lily were both talking about Quanta Systems, a possibly sensitive subject with the powers-that-be. Matter of fact, the first time that they had shown up he’d just mentioned his connection to Simon, while chatting over coffee that first time on break with Lily.

  As the car pulled into the same underground parking structure in the skyscraper that he had earlier visited with Simon, Andrew felt just a little bit relieved. He might still be in big trouble but at least he wasn’t being taken to some place more remote. If someone took you someplace remote, it was to kill you and dump your body. That thought made him incredibly paranoid and his tension increased. Once parked and out of the car, the Enforcers wasted no time in walking to the elevators and shepherding Andrew to the forty-first floor.

  Passing banks of noisy people shouting into phones; sitting at their desks with computer monitors and screens stacked almost to the ceiling, the place looked very much like a high-stakes brokerage firm. Offices of their managers and supervisors surrounded the open plan office, staffed by older businessmen that had the luxury of an extensive view of downtown and beyond.

  Escorted by the quasi storm-troopers into a corner office, which, judging by its placement, looked like it was the domain of the head honcho of the entire enterprise, Andrew was shocked to see Simon sitting behind the desk. Deep in conversation, on the phone, he made hand signals to the Enforcers to go about their business; their mission accomplished.

  Andrew looked casually around the large office and wondered if he should sit or remain standing. Deciding that he should sit, his bottom was half-way towards an armchair when he heard Simon shout, “Andrew!” in a friendly tone. Forced into the chair by gravity, Andrew quickly bounced back up again and attempting to regain his balance, he almost fell over.

  “Come sit over here,” Simon said, inviting him to sit in a chair by the large desk. “How is everything?” he asked in the friendliest way.

  “Terrific,” Andrew answered, unsure if he should let down his guard.

  “I’ve been hearing good things,” Simon said with a smile. “You’re doing good work.”

  “Great. Thank you,” Andrew said as he looked over his shoulder to make sure there were no surprises forthcoming.

  “You like working for the company?”

  “Yes. Yes, it’s terrific.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe your talents aren’t being fully utilized over there,” Simon said, his head nodding ever so slightly, “in the basement.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Yeah,” Simon said, looking at Andrew with squinting eyes as if he was making an evaluation. “How would you like to work over here, with the big boys?” he asked like he was making a flattering proposal.

  “I don’t know,” Andrew said, looking out towards the noisy and crazed open office filled with over-worked, stressed-out, unhealthy-looking odd-balls. “I kinda like it where I am.”

  “You like working with Lily,” Simon said but he said it like it had deeper meaning.

  “I like the work. It’s long hours but pretty much stress-free.”

  “Who needs stress, right?” Simon asked like he totally understood. “You should work over here, with me,” he then said, like his mind was made up. “Don’t worry, I won’t throw you into that lion pit out there. I’ll give you your own office and triple your pay, what would you say to that?”

  “I don’t mind,” Andrew answered, wondering if he actually had a choice. “Sure. Thank you, sir.”

  Chapter 7

  Although Andrew was given an office that adjoined Simon’s, he was disappointed by its small size and its lack of any kind of a real view. The front partition of glass did afford a look into the grand central area of fevered activity but, quite honestly, that was a view that he could have easily done without.

  The huge paycheck was Andrew’s saving grace; it made his new duties muc
h more bearable. Never tiring of the astonishment that he felt by the size of his compensation come pay day, he was able to put aside a decent sum of money in a relatively short period of time.

  He had mixed feelings about being separated from his former co-worker, Lily. Although he missed her company, he felt somewhat relieved that his attraction to her was not allowed to develop any further. Temptation is always easiest to deal with when the object of said temptation is working miles away in a basement obscured by stacks of bankers boxes.

  Ironically, one of his new duties entailed writing out the same rec sheets that in his previous job he had been fulfilling. Collecting all the requests for information from Simon and various other departments, he learned how to code them to match the filing system used in the basement archives.

  Spending more time with Simon also allowed him to see Simon more as an ordinary, three-dimensional human being. It helped that Simon acted friendlier towards him, of course, but the negative bad guy that Andrew had previously assumed Simon to be gradually eroded over time.

  Even the regular meetings of the serpents’ group that Simon had him attend became more enjoyable as the weeks went by. Taking him to a smaller and more elite group than the one he had attended with Lily, Andrew felt that his personal acclaim was increasing the more he was included and consulted on issues of concern that surfaced among its members.

  As members took turns each week to voice their concerns that they wished the group to help them with, Andrew felt increasingly encouraged as more and more his sharp intuition proved him right. Whether their issues concerned personal or business problems (from health issues to the volatility of their financial portfolios), Andrew usually excelled in his ability to foretell possible outcomes and opportunities.

  “The group is very happy with your progress,” Simon informed him when they stopped off for a cocktail in an exclusive hotel lounge that provided a view of downtown LA one evening. “So much so that they want to accelerate your training and initiate you at the earliest opportunity.”