The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  The tiny neighborhood store had several shoppers, all of the people in the market were individuals shopping alone but none of them Caucasians. Remembering that he still carried a photograph of Fiona in his wallet, Andrew whipped it out when the older male cashier had finished with the previous customer. "Hi, I wonder if you could help me," Andrew said as casually as he could. The cashier didn't acknowledge his request but looked at Andrew with a blank expression as if he were waiting for Andrew to request a purchase.

  "I'm looking for my friend," Andrew said, holding up the photo for the cashier to see. "She was coming here to shop but she never got back home."

  The man barely glanced at the photo and looked back at Andrew as if he didn't want to commit himself one way or another. "I'm not a cop," Andrew said and waited.

  The man slightly shrugged his shoulders as if he didn't know, didn't care, or couldn't be bothered to try and help out. The man’s expression was a response that was hard for Andrew to read. "She probably bought some milk and maybe some popcorn," Andrew suggested.

  The man pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders again, his head tilting to the right side and back again quickly. Was that a yes? "So, she was here?" Andrew asked hopefully. When the man performed the exact same gesture, it was clear to Andrew that he wasn't going to get anything definitive from the foreigner. The guy probably didn't speak any English or, if he did, in this instance, he preferred not to. The man's eyes turned to a customer who now stood in line behind Andrew.

  "Thanks for your help," Andrew said and tried not to sound too bitter. On his way out he looked up to see if there were any security cameras which, at some stage in the future, might come in handy: he couldn't see any.

  Feeling more and more concerned for Fiona’s safety, Andrew walked slowly back to the house. Now he looked into people's houses, peered behind bushes, and glanced at front gardens, in an attempt to find any sign of Fiona. He looked for remnants of a struggle, such as spilled milk or groceries.

  Trying to avoid a full-blown panic, he told himself that Fi could have arrived back at the house while he was at the store. He hurried back and made all kinds of bargains with and promises to the Universe, sort of wish-prayers, promises to be a better person, if only he could find Fiona. He turned the final corner toward his mom's home and saw the neighborhood with fresh eyes. When he looked down the street, and noticed his own parked car, a shock-wave went through his brain. Of course! She had recognized the car and bolted!

  Formerly belonging to her father, the Mercedes would have been intimately familiar to her; she would have recognized the automobile, straight-off! She must have been a passenger in the vehicle, many times over, and most probably had even driven it herself.

  Chastising himself for his stupidity, Andrew returned to the house with his head hanging low. He’d blown the first real chance he’d had of finding her: what an idiot!

  "Did you see her?" Angela asked straight away when her son walked through the door.

  "She won't be coming back," Andrew said dejectedly. "At least, not while I'm still around. She saw my car and ran."

  "Oh," Angela said, thinking that was a very plausible explanation for why Fiona hadn’t come home.

  "She's probably gone to a coffee shop to wait it out. She'll assume that I'm not going to stay long and..." he said and stopped when he became too distraught to finish his statement.

  "If that's the case, why don't you park the car out of sight, come back and wait for her?" Angela suggested helpfully.

  "Nah," Andrew said, taking a deep breath in order to chase away his tearful state. "If she's that keen to avoid me..." he said and stopped. "I'm done," he said, realizing that he didn't have anything left in his tank; he was emotionally spent. "I've been everywhere, shoved this photo up into people's faces a million times," he said as he pulled the picture from his wallet and tore it into little pieces. "I’ve generally made a complete nuisance of myself, several times over. Enough is enough. She doesn't want me… and I need to... face up to it, I guess."

  "Will I say anything? When she gets back?" Angela asked, looking like she too was clutching at straws.

  "Mom," Andrew said and she hugged him. He relaxed into the huge hug, which he badly needed. "You've been great and… you know what? You don't have to say or do a thing. She knows where to find me, if she ever..." he said and stopped. "Look after yourself," he said as he pulled away. "I love you, mom," he said and left.

  "I love you too, Andrew." It wasn't until he closed the door and she watched him walk sadly to his car that she allowed herself to cry.

  Fiona woke up in a strange room. Her head ached. She strained to see. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling provided the only light. Fully clothed and strapped down to a twin bed that reeked—with what she hoped was animal urine—she scanned the small, barely furnished room. It looked like it wasn't the first time that her kidnappers had held a person against their will. The pathetic, dingy room contained a bedside table, a chair and a wardrobe. Each mismatched item of furniture was cheap and looked like it wasn't even good enough to be sold at a charity thrift store. The dingy carpet was worn, stained, and smelled of cigarette smoke.

  Forcing herself not to panic, she knew that she needed to stay alert, and vigilant, if she was to survive. Whatever was about to happen, she would maintain a hyper-awareness and gather clues concerning her whereabouts and, at every opportunity, seek to deduce possible escape routes.

  Still dazed, she noted that the only window in the room was above her and looked like it had been boarded up a long time ago. She could see marks around the sides of the wooden boards; it looked like someone had attempted to remove the body with insufficient tools, maybe a nail file, or heaven-forbid, their own finger nails. The tattered wallpaper had a floral design and, judging from its filth, had been hanging there for decades.

  The leather straps that held her down were as old, dirty, and decrepit as the remainder of the room’s furnishings and décor. The leather straps didn't have much play and prevented her movement. The restraints appeared to have been purpose-fitted to the bed. Apart from the slight sounds of distant car traffic, maybe there was a freeway nearby, there was little other noise. She couldn't hear a TV or radio from any of the other rooms in the house. The silence made it clear to her that she had no way of discerning if the house was vacant or occupied. She knew that she had to go on the assumption that at least one person was present. If they weren’t directly outside the room, they were, at the very least, somewhere in the house.

  Judging by the room she was being held in, she imagined the house to be small, possessing maybe one other bedroom, probably a master bedroom. She didn't feel like she was on the ground floor and the lack of street noise suggested that she wasn't in the city. There were many outlying suburban areas that sprawled outside of the city of Los Angeles, and, barring further clues to go on, she realized that she could be located in any one of them. Then again, she realized, she might just as easily have been taken across the Southern California border into Mexico. Her throat grew tight at the thought that she might be in another country.

  Absent of any other clues to go on, she realized she had to figure out the reason that she had been abducted. If this was not the first time that the room had been used for this purpose, then she could reasonably assume that the people involved were in the business of human trafficking. It was probably also a safe bet to assume that previous victims were also female and so, if her first assumption was correct, the she was a victim being sold as a sex-slave.

  Wondering to herself why she would have been selected, she decided that being kidnapped was probably a random event. She had simply been guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Considering the neighborhood where she was abducted, she would have stood out. As a white, young, pretty blond, she probably would be considered a good find. The thought made her sick to the pit of her stomach. The fact that she had been a young blonde on foot would have made her both highly visible and an easy target. To the sm
ugglers, it probably was as good as it got. Easy pickings. No doubt they would get a good price or maybe even a bonus from their employers for bringing back such a great catch.

  Fiona's heart practically jumped out of her chest when she heard the floor boards creak and the sound of heavy footsteps approached the door. It sounded like a heavy man wearing work boots had stopped outside of the door and was fumbling through a set of keys to find the right one. Her heart raced at the sound of a key inserted into the door lock, then quickly being turned. Bracing herself for the worst, Fiona could barely keep her eyes open and as the door swiftly opened, she felt more ill. The same man that had punched her in the car earlier walked into the room and set a tray down on the bedside table.

  Too terrified to speak, Fiona watched with wide-open eyes. Focused upon whatever he was doing, with what appeared to be hospital supplies on the serving tray, Fiona braced herself for the worst. When the guy held up a needle and a syringe, Fiona knew exactly what was going to happen next. She was going to be drugged, either as a prelude to being subjected to acts of unspeakable cruelty or because they were going to move her and deliver her to the buyers.

  Without acknowledging her presence, with speech or even with his eyes, the ugly man roughly grabbed her right arm and injected the syringe into her arm. At the sight of her own blood filling the tube, Fiona lost consciousness. Darkness.

  Chapter 8

  Just like every other work day, the radio clock came to life at seven AM. The radio blared. As the Radio DJ team of Mark and Mike joked around in-between spinning classic hits from the eighties, Andrew awoke in Fiona's bed. Unlike other mornings, he did not jump right up out of bed and hit the shower running. Finding it hard to shift himself from a sleeping to a waking state, he allowed himself to stay in bed for just a few more minutes.

  Unsure of why he was feeling so uncharacteristically unsettled, Andrew tried to remember if he had gotten any bad news lately or if he was worried about something, some deadline at work, maybe. Although he was increasingly missing deadlines at work, he didn't feel that that was enough of a worry to make him feel as anxious as he did in that moment. Yes, Fiona had avoided him, once again, but even that concern didn't seem large enough to account for the unusual and unknown terror that he felt.

  The more he tuned into his emotional and mental state, and what his concern might be, the more he came to a sense that the terror wasn't actually his, which felt very strange. How could he be feeling someone else's terror and, if that was the case, then who's terror was he be feeling? It would have to be someone close to him, either in geographic proximity, or someone that he was closely connected to emotionally. Only one person came to mind: Fiona.

  Was he feeling Fiona's feelings? Or, more specifically, was he feeling Fiona's terror? And, if that was the case, what could she be feeling so terrified about? Could she be in trouble? Just as Andrew was having that thought, his cell phone rang. The caller ID displayed the smiling face of his mom. He snatched the phone up and answered. "Hello, mom," he said with trepidation. His mom had never called him so early in the morning before.

  "Hi, son," his mom said and then paused. His heart sank at the tone of her voice.

  "Mom?" Andrew asked, now concerned. Was he feeling his mom's terror about something. "Is everything okay?"

  "This may be nothing," his mom said and paused as if trying to choose her words carefully. "But since you already know about everything, I mean about Fiona being here and all…" she said and paused.

  "Mom, what's going on?" Andrew asked impatiently, his heart-beat accelerating quickly. "Is it something about Fiona? What’s wrong?"

  "Fiona hasn't come home, I mean, she hasn't come back yet, since yesterday and, I don't know… it doesn't feel right," she said uncertainly. "It could be nothing, I mean, she's her own woman, she can go where—"

  "Is her car still parked at the house?" Andrew interrupted.

  "Well, yeah, that's what makes it so odd. Where would she have gone without taking her car? I don't think she had much money with her and she's not answering her phone and she didn't call to say anything," she said in one breath. "But, it could be nothing."

  "Should we call the police?" Andrew asked. "Check the hospitals?"

  "Oh, I'm getting another call, it could be her. I'll call you right back," Angela said as she hung up on Andrew.

  Relieved that his mother was finally getting a call from Fiona, Andrew relaxed. Reacting to the time and realizing that he had already been admonished repeatedly by his superiors for his increasing tardiness at work, he skipped taking a shower. He quickly dressed, then went downstairs. Grabbing his mail and a croissant from the kitchen, he hurriedly left the house.

  By the time he got to work and was sitting behind his desk, he had still not heard back from his mom. Knowing that his mother was an extreme worry-wart, he decided that not hearing from her was probably good news. Looking through his mail, which was mostly impersonal junk, he stopped when he saw a letter of interest. The address on the envelope was handwritten and the return address was the downtown Los Angeles Correctional Facility. Smiling to himself as he opened the envelope, he had a pretty good idea who the communication might be from.

  Consisting of two pages of handwritten, neatly written cursive writing, the letter began with an impersonal introduction about how much Simon loved fantasy baseball. More and more puzzled, Andrew glanced at the second page of the letter and saw that it consisted mainly of baseball scores and a listing of his top pick players for his fantasy baseball team. Not only was Andrew ignorant of Simon's interest in baseball (the man had never mentioned it even once) but it also appeared that Simon, to begin with, was pretty ignorant about the game of baseball. Andrew rubbed his forehead and scanned the two pages of the letter again.

  The baseball scores were so high as to be impossible. Scores in the hundreds? As for his fantasy baseball team, not only had Andrew never heard of any of the players but Simon had fifteen names listed on a team when there should only have been nine. Looking over the names again, Andrew realized that some of the names sounded familiar. None of the names were of baseball players, however. He had a wild thought and on impulse decided to check out his intuition. Quickly typing into his computer, Andrew smiled: the names that Simon had listed were all employees of the organization.

  Looking back over the two pages of the letter, he realized that the whole thing was all in code: the impossible baseball scores were to be read as a series of numbers: presumably numbers and passwords to Simon's off-shore bank accounts. He would need to study it more, to conclusively decode it, but Simon was a clever sort who would have provided the key to solving the code right in the document, maybe somewhere in the opening text.

  With names in hand, Andrew could use them to get Abigail off of his back and could maybe even use them to negotiate something desirable for himself. Of course, he had no way of cross-checking the names against anything other than employee records that would validate their existence but, beyond that, he didn't really care. If Simon was trusting him with numbers and passwords to his personal fortune, then it wouldn't make sense for him to be setting Andrew up to take some kind of fall with Abigail.

  Besides, he had already seen that Abigail was going to do what Abigail was going to do, irrespective of his input. The fact that he would hand over some names, at the very best, would only buy him some time and prove to Abigail that he was doing his job. What she would do with the names had no bearing on his lower ranking within the organization, as a whole. Such concerns were above and beyond his current pay grade.

  Realizing that his mom never called him back, and for the benefit of those who could see into his office, Andrew looked intently at his computer screen and made a call trying to appear as if it was work-related. "It's Andrew," he said when his mom picked up. "You never called me back. Is everything okay, now?"

  "Oh, no, Andrew, sorry about that, I had to go straight to work," his mom said, sounding harried. "I'm on call this week."

 
"So, that was Fiona?" Andrew asked, hoping to clarify.

  "No, that was work, calling me in," his mom answered, like she had told him that already. "I haven't heard from Fiona. Have you?"

  "No mom, I haven't heard from Fiona," Andrew said, losing his patience.

  "I have to go," his mom then said quickly and hung up.

  With the phone still pressed to his ear, Andrew stared blankly at his computer screen. Again, the feelings of terror stirred in his chest.

  "Are you alright, Andrew?" a voice asked and when he turned his eyes he saw that Abigail had been standing by his desk for some unknown period of time.

  "Oh, yeah, sure," he said, realizing that he must be looking a bit odd if she had asked such a question. How long had she been standing there? "I can't hold any longer," he said into the dead line on his phone. "You'll have to call me back," he said and hung up. "Sorry about that," he said pleasantly to Abigail, turning towards her to give her his full attention. "What can I help you with?" he asked.

  "Andrew, I hate to say this but you've been acting a bit strange lately," Abigail said, as if in confidence. "I'm not asking now as a boss but rather as your friend: is everything alright? With you?"

  "Yeah, fine," Andrew answered, as if her concern was entirely misplaced.

  "You're behind on your work, you go missing for hours without accountability, and I'm told that you've already been reprimanded on your late arrivals to the office on several occasions in the mornings. Are you telling me that that's acceptable behavior for a man in your position?" she asked with more of an edge in her voice.

  "Oh, no, I'm not saying that," he said, pausing for a long moment in an attempt to think of something better to say.

  "What's going on?" Abigail asked as she sat herself down. "This will be just between you and me," she said, like she genuinely cared. "Talk to me."