The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  "Just some personal stuff, I guess," Andrew answered, now feeling a bit embarrassed.

  "Between you and your girl?" Abigail asked, like she knew all about it. "I do get to hear office gossip, Andrew. It's no secret that you and that girl have broken up. You can't get over it, is that it?" she asked sympathetically.

  "No, that's not it, not really," Andrew answered, feeling a bit awkward. "I may have a break-through on some names," he hurriedly said, hoping to distract the woman.

  "We'll get to that in a minute," Abigail said firmly. "Whatever is going on with you is affecting your work and I'd like you to take this time and tell me what it is that's distracting you from your work here, do you understand?" she asked like she was now back in her role as the boss.

  "Yes."

  "You've got a broken heart and you can't concentrate until you get back with your girl, I understand that. We've all suffered from a broken heart at one time or another in our lives."

  "No, that's not it exactly," Andrew said, feeling like she was belittling him. "She's gone missing," he then said and surprised himself by the amount of relief he had felt by simply stating it our loud. "My ex-girlfriend, Fiona has gone missing and I'm a bit concerned, that's all."

  "Gone missing?" Abigail asked like it was a shocker. "That's not a minor something, is it? I can see why you'd be so concerned. That's a serious matter indeed!"

  "Yes," Andrew admitted heavily, hoping that she wasn't going to ask him how recent he had been told the news.

  "Well, that explains everything," she said, looking clearly sorry for his troubles. "What are you going to do? Have you called the police?"

  "No, not yet. That's my next phone call, I guess."

  "That's a good first step, Andrew, but I wouldn't get my hopes up about the efficacy of the police. You do know that the police are notoriously incompetent when it comes to finding missing persons?"

  "I have heard that, yeah," Andrew admitted.

  "Why don't you let our people handle it?" she asked, like it was the best solution. "I don't know if you know it, why should you, but the security people that work for the organization are world class. All of them experts in their fields, ex-military, ex-CIA, ex-Marines, you name it. Why not give them a shot?"

  "Really?" Andrew asked hopefully, not knowing what to think about her offer.

  "They still have connections with law enforcement; in fact, they have connections that you have no right to ask them about, and shouldn’t if you know what I mean."

  "Oh. Yes, great," Andrew said, "Sure, I’ll give them a shot. If they can find her, great. Of course, it could be that she just went off somewhere, to be alone, I don't know."

  "Leave it to the professionals, Andrew. No job too small or too large, I’m told. Just consider it a perk of the employment. I'll have someone call you for more details. Now, you mentioned a break-through… with the list?" she asked, settling into the seat like she wanted to hear some good news.

  "Oh, yeah, uh, I do have to go over some things, double-check and everything," he said, and hated that he sounded like he was back-pedaling. Not liking the look of disapproval descending upon the head of the organization’s face, Andrew typed something meaningless into his computer and pretended to read off some good results. "Yep, I'm also done with the first level encryption," he said with hope in his voice. "A few good hours and I'll have some names for you, fresh from Simon's inner sanctum files," he said with a knowing smile.

  "I look forward to receiving them," Abigail said in her scary, no-nonsense voice. "You'll have them on my desk this afternoon?" she asked as she stood up.

  "You bet," Andrew said, still maintaining his cheery smile.

  "Excellent," she said and left.

  It wasn't until he looked back at his desk that he saw that Simon's prison letter was sitting sprawled out in front of him. He tried to swallow and found that his throat was too dry. Would she have seen it, he asked himself, his mind reeling? He rubbed his forehead and considered the moments that Abigail had spent in his office. Had she looked around? They’d maintained eye contact some of the time but he’d looked away. She could have seen it. She must have but, question was, would she have known what the letter was and from whom it had been sent?

  Fiona woke up in darkness. The only light to permeate the small room came from the crack beneath the bedroom door. She had no idea of the day, never-mind what time of day it was. Her head still ached and she felt groggy. There was zero sunlight streaming through the cracks in the boarded-up window and the light from the hall outside told her nothing, except that it was any time between sunset and sunrise.

  She needed to release her bladder but she had no idea how to go about taking care of her bathroom needs. Was she supposed to yell for assistance or wait for someone to appear and see if she needed to go? Perhaps they expected her to urinate on the spot, as, judging by the smell, the others before her seemed to have done. Last thing she remembered was that she had been drugged. Then again, the more that she thought about it, the more that she remembered. She recalled that they didn't inject anything into her but instead had extracted some of her blood. What was happening to her?

  What were they going to do with a sample of her blood? Were they checking to see if she had some disease, perhaps? Maybe it was a sex-trade thing, she thought, which terrified her even more. They had to be checking to be certain that she was disease-free. Because their high class customers were paying so much money, did they insist that the women brought to them be "clean?" Would it be normal for them to ask to see a blood test as some kind of proof?

  Having been strapped down in the same position for so many hours, Fiona's muscles were sore. Her back, in particular, ached. Although she resisted moving, for fear of disturbing her full bladder, she moved her arms and legs to the extent that she was able to do so in order to improve her blood circulation. With her bladder on the verge of exploding, she knew that she would have to call out for assistance. As much as she was terrified of seeing that man again, she knew that lying in a pool of her own urine, for hours on end, would be too much for her to endure. She took a breath to calm herself.

  "Hello?" she called out tentatively. Waiting a few seconds for acknowledgment of her call, she realized that increasing her volume bit by bit might give away the keeper's position in the house. Knowing how far away from the door that her keeper was stationed could be a vital piece of information, useful for future reference. "Hello?" she called out several more times, each time slightly louder than the first. When she finally heard footsteps approach, she counted them in order to ascertain the distance that the approaching man had to walk in order to reach her.

  By the time the man walked to the bedroom door and fumbled for and found the right key, it sounded like he had walked about twelve feet. By her reckoning, that placed him inside another upstairs room, probably down the end of the hall. She would look for an open door once allowed to go to the bathroom.

  Also, the fact that both times that the man had arrived at the bedroom door he had to sort through a large set of keys on a key ring suggested that there were many similar rooms requiring lock-down in the house. Whether or not those rooms were currently occupied she couldn't say but, judging by the absence of noise and general lack of activity in the place, she presumed that the rooms on the upstairs floor of the place must currently be vacant. Her kidnappers could have other occupied rooms out back, or in a converted garage or basement, but there was no way that she could tell.

  When the door finally opened, the harsh light from the hall instantly flooded the room and hurt her eyes. She squinted. "What do you want?" the man asked gruffly and remained standing in the doorway.

  "I need the bathroom," Fiona answered unapologetically.

  The man paused and sighed, as if either he was thinking or he was just plain irritated by her request. Perhaps she was taking him away from his TV program, which she could now faintly hear coming from down the hall. Judging by the sounds, she reckoned it was a sports channel. Obviously
deciding it best to let her out, the man finally approached the bed and untied the many straps holding her down. "No funny stuff," the man said and stood back to allow her to pass.

  Getting up was hard. Fiona's muscles were sore and felt rigid from inactivity. Once on her feet, she struggled to steady herself. She tamped down all fear, knowing that it could only prevent her from making progress toward an escape.

  "It's the first door on the left," the man said. His tone made it clear that he was more impatient than intending to be helpful. "There's nothing in there, so if you need paper or something, you're out of luck," the man said as if her stupid needs were ruining his life.

  Stepping gingerly into the bathroom, Fiona felt joy just being allowed move her body. Standing erect was a huge treat. Once in the bathroom, she closed the door and quickly made her way to the toilet bowl. It was filthy and didn't have a pull down seat. Deciding to squat over it, without having her skin actually touching it, Fiona did her best to urinate and not fall over.

  There was a small shower, which, along with the rest of the place, needed some major cleaning. The window had also been boarded up and Fiona wondered what kind of neighborhood the house must be situated in, if the neighborhood allowed such a shabby exterior. From the outside, the house must look like an eyesore. Obviously this community must have a very weak or non-existent neighborhood association.

  "Are you done?" the man asked loudly as he knocked brusquely on the door.

  "Yeah, coming," Fiona answered as she stood straight and flushed the toilet. After splashing her hands and face with cold water, she wiped away the water with her tee-shirt. Taking a furtive look around, as she entered the hall to return to her room, she counted three other closed doors and one further room down the hall with its door open.

  "Come on, move it!" the man said, like he was losing his patience.

  "Why are you keeping me here?" Fiona asked, not really expecting a response or an explanation, and made her way back to the room.

  The man remained silent and stood in the doorway so that she could pass. "You're in big trouble when my father hears about this," she said in her best authoritative voice.

  Pushing her the rest of the way into the room, the man didn’t respond and closed the door behind her. Then he locked it. Although still confined, Fiona was shocked and relieved that she wasn't being strapped down to the bed. Left in the empty room, all to herself, she felt freer.

  "Any noise out of you and you'll be strapped back down," the man said gruffly from the other side of the door.

  "Okay," she answered weakly and was glad to hear his footsteps retreating. Feeling much better, now that her bladder had emptied, she realized that she was quite hungry. In fact, the more that she tuned into her body, the more she realized that she was actually ravenous. Thinking twice about calling out to demand some food, she managed to hold herself in check. Heaven knew what kind of food she would get, maybe something completely inedible or downright poisonous, if he fed her at all. The man might get so annoyed with her that he would strap her back into the bed.

  Completely unable to understand or figure out her predicament, Fiona lay back down on the bed and allowed herself to cry softly and quietly. What she wouldn't give to be in Andrew's arms again, where she had always felt safe and protected. The fact that he was now holding someone else in his arms, while she suffered, chilled her to the bone and, against her better judgment, made her cry even harder and louder.

  As much as she longed for her true love’s touch, she made herself a promise that she wouldn't think of him, ever again. To want him and have him be thinking of someone else, while she was trapped and terrified, with no hope of escape, was too much for her to bear. Sometimes an animal has to chew off one of their limbs in order to escape a trap and survive. For Fiona, to banish Andrew from her thoughts and life forever, it felt like she was forced to cut out her very own heart.

  Not wanting to talk to anyone for the rest of the day, and especially not Abigail, Andrew waited until Abigail had left the office. He then placed on her desk the list of names he had taken from Simon’s letter, as she had instructed.

  Unable and unwilling to go back home to the Palisades, to face an empty mansion full of painful reminders of his absent love, he returned to his mother's house. Telling himself that he thought it best to keep his mom company while Fiona remained absent, he was oblivious to the fact that it was he who so deeply desired his mother's company. As strange as it seemed, in order to feel closer to Fiona, he thought that he’d like to sleep in the bed that she had last been sleeping in. He got to the house and flipped through channels on the TV, not really able to focus and watch anything with interest.

  "You think that she's okay?" his mother asked soon after she walked into the house. She made a microwave meal for one after Andrew let her know that he wasn’t hungry.

  "Fiona is tougher than she looks," he replied as he stretched out on the new sofa and realized that he was trying to wipe his mind by aimlessly watching some TV. "It would make sense that she went back to the desert and is staying with that guru dude. They don't get any cell reception out there, so she couldn't make a call, even if she wanted to."

  "So, how did she get out there, then? How do you explain her leaving her car on the street?" his mom asked when she sat to eat her microwaved meal on the chair beside him.

  "She saw my car and didn't want to risk being seen by getting any closer. So, she froze, maybe panicked a bit. I’m guessing a bus pulled up and she impulsively got in. She's very impulsive, like that, don't know if you know that about her," he said, looking over to her for confirmation.

  "So the bus goes wherever it's going and she gets off, maybe downtown somewhere or Union Station, maybe and then what? She gets a train to Twentynine Palms? Do the trains even go out there?"

  "I don't know, mom, I'm just imagining a likely scenario, that's all,” Andrew said impatiently. He did not want to think of his darling being in any kind of trouble where he was clueless of any possible danger and hence, powerless to do anything about it. “She could have gotten a taxi or some kind of rideshare, maybe. She's very resourceful, I know that."

  "Or maybe you're just trying to make something up so you don't freak yourself out. I don't understand why you can be so calm about this," his mom said as she blew on her pasta to cool it down.

  "Who said I'm calm?" Andrew asked, looking at his mom like she wasn't helping.

  "So, we just wait and see?" his mom asked, undeterred by his subtle chastisement. She was utterly shocked that her son was no longer phased by Fiona’s disappearance.

  "What do you suggest? Even if you did go to the police, what are you going to tell them? Fiona who lives here, but doesn't really live here, decided to take off somewhere rather than confront her ex-boyfriend, whom she now considers to be some kind of monster, apparently? They'd just laugh in your face or, at the very best, they'd make doodles in their little notebook just so they'd make it look like they were taking you seriously."

  "She doesn't think that you're a monster," his mom said lovingly. "You shouldn't be thinking that about yourself, or her, for that matter. You're right, she's a headstrong girl and very obstinate. I do appreciate you coming over to keep me company."

  "You're welcome."

  "Are you staying over? You might as well; it's miles to get to the Palisades and it's so late. I can change the sheets on the bed, just did the laundry yesterday. Will you stay?"

  "Sure," Andrew said, like he would make the concession just for her. "It's a long way back to the Palisades."

  "It sure is, you poor thing, you must be exhausted."

  "I am, mom. I most certainly am," he answered with a smile. "I like being home," he admitted, looking around appreciatively. He hoped that she wouldn’t question him anymore. He wanted things to be like old times, before he had a high pressure job, before he was a member of a secret society, before his Soul Love had run away to escape him.

  Andrew didn’t want to admit it to his mother but he
had been having trouble sleeping at night. The days were bad but the nights were the worst. Even though he hadn’t said anything to his mom, and he kept trying to downplay things to her, he felt incredibly panicked about Fiona’s continued absence. It was affecting everything. He could barely eat, had lost weight, and never felt rested. He laid in bed at night in Fiona’s bed in the mansion, unable to sleep, intensely aware of feeling panicked about Fi’s absence. When he drifted off to sleep, he got visual flashes, nightmares, of Fiona being locked up someplace. He’d finally realized that he was having night terrors.

  In these nightmares, he was locked up, hungry, cold and terrified. The dreams were so realistic and yet so bizarre, that they were disorienting and terribly confusing. In the night terrors, he would start off seeing, floating above her, and then he would fall, down, down, down, and become her. It was as if once he fell down onto her, he became Fiona in the dream, stuck in a creepy old house, terrified, alone, hungry, and hunted, intensely feeling everything that she felt. After days and days, of mostly sleepless nights, he’d begun to see some of the same fragmented images in the daytime. He believed that he was starting to hallucinate.

  Andrew began to fear that he was having some kind of nervous breakdown.

  Chapter 9

  For the first time, in many a morning, Andrew arrived early to his desk. Knowing that he needed to research the names that he had given to Abigail, he spent a good few hours searching on-line only to find very little information of value. Aware that he could be called into a meeting with Abigail at any time, he knew that he needed to be prepared for her questions. Abigail didn't suffer ignorant employees lightly and he didn't want to look and sound like an idiot, once she began shooting out her laser-sharp inquiries.

  Catching movement from the corner of his eye, Andrew turned to see Abigail approaching his office at a fast pace. Oh crap, he said to himself as he noticed her unhappy disposition.