“Yes, sir. I confirmed receipt of it last night and everything is ready for you in the conference room.”
“Perfect!” John sat down and started reviewing his documents for the meeting.
“Coffee, sir?” Cathy offered.
“Yes, thanks.”
Trudant’s managing director, Allen Nolan, and four senior partners: Tony Farnham, Gregory Tomlinson, Cedric Larrimore and Grant Turnquest who were all present for the preliminary meeting, entered the conference room together. John and Cathy were already there ready to begin. Stanley Lee walked in at exactly eight o’clock, accompanied by his young Asian assistant, Chang Wu. Everyone stood when they both walked in and the men all greeted one another.
“It’s great seeing you again, Mr. Lee.” John shook his hand.
“Likewise, Mister Reed. My hope is that we can reach a mutually beneficial agreement today.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure we will.” John couldn’t resist a smile.
The conference room was large and exquisitely designed, and everyone took their seats in comfortable, leather chairs at the oval, mahogany desk in the center of the room. Cathy had provided coffee and light refreshments for each person, then took her seat next to the television and CD player. She’d downloaded the file from the email John had sent the night before and saved it on a CD. She now awaited John’s cue.
John stood at the front of the room, a few feet away from Cathy. His documents were on the desk before him, positioned in key spots for easy reference. Allen Nolan had expressed his pleasure in what John had shown them the day before and was eager to get the deal signed. Stanley Lee and his assistant, for the most part, were quiet and their faces void of expression. It was undoubtedly clear to all present that the men meant business.
After a brief introduction, John took his seat and gave Cathy the nod. She then reached over and pressed PLAY on the CD and the visual presentation began. At the beginning, John did not face the TV screen, but rather kept his focus on the men around the table. He was good at reading expressions, which often gave him a heads up on how effective his strategy was before officially learning of the end result.
What he saw on the faces of Stanley Lee, Chang Wu, Allen Nolan and others in the room was one of shock and he heard Cathy gasp. Turning in her direction, he saw the horror in her eyes, then caught wind of what they were all viewing on the television screen. It was him and another man locked in a romantic embrace. Everyone could tell that they were in a bedroom, whether inside of a house or that of a hotel. The unfolding scene spoke a thousand words.
“Shut that off!” John told Cathy who was clearly stunned.
She immediately sprang into action, ejecting the CD from the player.
John could barely manage to face the men in the room again, but knew he had no other option. “I…I don’t know how that got in there,” he said. Then, he looked at Cathy. “Cathy, what happened to the correct file?”
“This is what you sent in your email to me last night, sir, marked as the latest presentation,” she answered.
“Didn’t you check it before we got here?”
“I just downloaded the file onto the CD. I didn’t think I needed to check it. I’d never been told to check any of your other presentations, sir.”
John could see the embarrassment on everyone’s faces for him. Allen Nolan appeared to show a mixture of embarrassment and disgust.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen. If you’ll be a bit more patient with me, I’ll retrieve the correct file for viewing. It’ll just take a few minutes,” he said.
“No need.” Stanley Lee rose to his feet; his assistant followed his lead. “Perhaps, some other time.”
Lee nodded. “Gentleman…”, then headed for the door.
Allen stood up at the same time. “Please allow me to walk with you,” he said to Lee, who did not object.
One by one, the others got up and left the room, looking down at John as he sat there feeling deflated.
Holding the CD, Cathy said. “I’m very sorry, sir. I had no idea that was on the attachment you sent. I wish I would’ve checked.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I really don’t know how that happened, though. I knew I’d attached the correct file.” He looked up at her. “I know how bad this looks, particularly since I’m married, but I don’t know where that recording came from, so how could I have sent it to you?”
She was flabbergasted and tried not to appear as if she was judging him.
He pulled his laptop closer and started searching his emails.
“Here it is!” he exclaimed, moments later. He clicked on the file in his Sent box. “This is what I sent you at 9:07 PM. See—the attachment shows the correct file.”
Cathy leaned in. “Yes…I see. But that’s not the last one you sent, sir. The last email I got from you was after eleven o’clock. I can show you if you’d allow me to log on.”
“Go ahead, but I didn’t send you any other email, Cathy. Either that or I’m going out of my mind!”
She logged on to her email address and clicked her Sent Box. “See!” she said. “This is what you sent at 11:01.” He pulled the laptop closer, viewed his name and address as the sender and clicked on the attachment. The same file they’d mistakenly shown in the meeting was attached.
“I didn’t send this though!” John insisted.
“Your name is on it, sir, and that’s your same email address. Perhaps, you didn’t realize…” Cathy started.
“I said I didn’t send it, dammit!” He slammed his hand on the desk.
Cathy stepped back.
“I’m…I’m sorry, Cathy. It’s obviously not your fault.
“John, can I see you for a minute?” Allen Nolan appeared in the doorway.
“Sure,” John answered, getting up immediately.
The look on Cathy’s face was one of worry.
“We’ll talk about this later.” John sighed.
“Okay, sir.”
Allen was waiting for him outside the door.
“Sir, I’m really sorry about all that…” John immediately sought to apologize to his boss. “Someone must’ve hacked my email or something…”
“I understand, John.” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps, you should take the rest of the week off. You’ve been working really hard for weeks and could use a break—paid, of course.”
“Thank you, sir, but I’m fine. I’ll give Mr. Lee a call and set up another meeting at his convenience.”
“No need. Lee’s not interested at this point. He will let us know if he’d like to proceed at a later date.”
“But I can convince him. Allow me to try,” John said.
Allen sighed heavily. “John—Stanley Lee is old school; he doesn’t understand these things. You know—certain types of relationships outside of the scope of a man and a woman—and he’s quite shocked at what he viewed on that disc. He just needs some time to digest it and hopefully, we’ll be back on the roll with the proposal, okay? Pushing him would only cause him to back off permanently. So, let’s just leave that alone for now. I insist that you take the remainder of the week off. Use the time to relax, so you’d be refreshed next week.”
John nodded, reluctantly. “As you wish, sir.”
Allen walked off down the corridor toward his office.
The drive from work that morning was a stark difference for John compared to what it had been on his way there less than two hours before. He felt like the world had crushed him and everything he’d tried to achieve was yanked from under him. His exposed rendezvous was with a guy he’d met at a bar some months ago, whose name he didn’t even bother to get. John had been in the closet for years and had every intention of remaining there. However, his secret was now out in the office and he knew it was just a matter of time before it got even further.
“I can’t believe this!” he yelled at himself. “This can’t be happening!”
When he arrived home, he noticed the front door was widely ajar. Strange, he thought. Pam would’ve never
intentionally left it open as she was home alone.
He dashed into the house and called out to her.
She was heading downstairs with two suitcases.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“As far away from you as I can get!” she barked.
“Why? What’s going on?” He approached her at the landing.
She dropped both suitcases at her feet. “All of these years, I couldn’t figure out why you treated me so coldly— like you didn’t want to have anything to do with me. And now, I have my answers,” she said with a sternness across her face. “You deceived me, John! If you’re gay, you could’ve told me. I would’ve let you live your life and I would’ve moved on a long time ago. Instead, you left me here, day after day, while you went out enjoying your life, making me feel like I was lower than the dirt you walk on. And God knows what you might’ve exposed me to!”
“I’m not gay!” he countered. “I love women; that’s why I married you.”
“If you love any woman, John, it’s surely not me. I’ve had enough years to prove that! I saw the recording, John—of you and that man. When was the last time you ever held me that way, huh? When was the last time you whispered sweet nothings into my ear?”
He stood there for a moment without rendering a response.
“Exactly! I’m filing for divorce, John, and I’m taking everything I can get for the years of misery you inflicted on me while I was here trying to be a good wife. I hate you and I hope you rot in Hell!”
She picked up her suitcases, put them in the trunk of her Jaguar and pulled off.
John stood in the doorway and quietly watched her leave.
Two hours later…
“You’re gonna be all right!” Steve told his Mom as ambulance officials were taking her from the apartment to be admitted to the local psychiatric hospital.
“Don’t let them take me, Steve! I’m not crazy,” Rachelle cried.
“I know you’re not crazy, Mom, but you need help. I don’t want you to hurt yourself anymore.”
Her wrists had been bandaged where the blood escaped her veins and trailed down onto her pants leg. Steve shuddered to think what he would’ve found if he hadn’t trusted his instinct to stay home from work that day to watch his mom since her behavior from the night before had worsened. She’d managed to cut both wrists in the tub when she went to have a bath. Fortunately, Steve went and checked on her after she was taking a little longer than usual in the bathroom.
Belinda was on the scene, but said and did very little to comfort her sister, and Steve wondered why he’d even bothered to call her.
“You’ll be notified by the hospital when she’s settled in,” an officer in white told Steve. “She’ll be well taken care of.”
“That’s all I want—for her to get better.” Steve had tears in his eyes.
Something prompted Belinda to go over and rest her hand on his shoulder as the ambulance rolled away. “You did the right thing,” she said. “Rachelle needs help.”
He nodded. “I didn’t wanna come home after work one day and find her dead. It could’ve happened today.”
“You’re right.”
“She kept talking about seeing Granddad and that he wants her to die. I don’t understand what’s happened to her,” he said.
“Me neither. We all know the dead can’t talk.”
John had told Belinda about his disastrous presentation and how his boss had subsequently given him the remainder of the week off. He also told her that Pam, on a whim, had upped and left him, which Belinda deemed wasn’t a bad thing since she never liked her in the first place. John, however, didn’t share the details of the meeting that morning with her, neither the reason for Pam leaving him.
“So much is going wrong in this family,” Belinda said to Steve. “In the past few days, it’s been one crazy thing right after the other. I suddenly feel like we’re cursed or something.”
Steve shook his head, unsure of how to respond.
“I guess Toby needs to know what happened to Rachelle, so I’ll give him a call,” she said.
9
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A few days later…
Belinda always felt safe living in her own apartment building since tenants were right next door on both sides of her unit. She’d made its upkeep a priority since, from her experience, an attractive building often tended to attract tenants capable of paying their rent. She preferred those with steady, good paying jobs who were not about to give excuses month after month as to why they couldn’t find their rent money. She was not in the charity business and was always ready to print out an eviction notice if things got out of hand.
After eating the Chinese takeout she’d brought home that night, she had a warm shower and got ready for bed. Belinda never wore clothing to bed, insisting she always got a good night’s sleep whenever she lay down in nothing more than her birthday suit. That night was no different, except for the sensation of something crawling about her skin a few hours after she’d entered dreamland. At first, subconsciously, she attributed the feeling to the dream, but when she literally felt something at the tip of her nose, she brushed it off quickly and sat up in bed.
“What the hell?” she murmured, sleepily, while reaching over and switching on the lamp.
What she found in bed with her caused her to scream at the top of her lungs. Hundreds of maggots and other insects surrounded her and were crawling all over her. She jumped up out of bed and tried to get them all off as some were even in her hair. The bed was infested with creatures and more were on the floor.
Belinda soon heard knocking at the front door; someone was calling out to her. Still brushing off everything she could, she threw on her robe and hurried to the door. Chavez, her long-term tenant, stood on the other side.
“I heard you scream. Are you all right?” he asked.
“No, I’m not!” she exclaimed. “Creepy, crawly creatures are all over my bedroom!”
He rushed in behind her and was startled by what he witnessed when she flipped on the main light switch in her room. “What in the world…” he uttered.
Insects had swarmed Belinda’s bed to the point that only traces of the white sheet below them were visible.
“We have to wrap them up in the sheet and get it out,” he told her.
“Okay. Whatever you need to do…”
Chavez released each end of the sheet from the mattress and pulled the sheet together, tying the top of it. He then took it outside and dropped it into the garbage bin. Afterwards, he got a broom and swept the remaining creatures into the dustpan and deposited each heap into a large trash bag that Belinda reluctantly held for him. After the room was clear of them, he lit a match in the garbage bin alighting both the sheet and trash bag he’d put inside of it.
Relieved that the creatures were gone, Belinda was traumatized by what she’d endured and refused to sleep inside of that bedroom. She took another shower—actually threw on pajamas—then escaped to the guest room where she spent the majority of the night wondering how all those insects had suddenly appeared in her bed in the middle of the night.
* * * *
John called an emergency family meeting on Monday of the following week and asked that Belinda and Toby meet him at his house at five o’clock that evening. Since Pam had left, he’d not heard a single word from her, but expected he’d be served with divorce papers sooner or later. John intended to fight, as there was no way he was going to allow her to take everything from him he’d worked so hard for. However, he had a new challenge on his hand that he would share with his siblings that evening.
“What’s this meeting about?” Jonie asked Toby after he’d gotten the call from his brother.
“I have no idea. He didn’t say,” Toby replied.
She sucked her teeth. “They must think you have time to waste.”
“Maybe it won’t be a complete waste of time.” He kissed her neck, then gently rubbed her stomach. “I can’t believe I�
��m almost a father.”
“Almost?” Jonie grimaced. “This baby is alive and well, so officially that makes you a father already.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
She put her arms around his neck. “I’m so proud of you, Toby. You’ve been working so hard and getting those doghouses made and looking so beautiful. Can you believe we’ve actually sold more than a dozen of them?”
He grinned. “Good extra change for our baby.”
“Yes. I’m sure your days at the company will pick up soon too,” she said.
“Yeah. The boss is looking out for me, so I’m confident about it.”
Matt had kept his word and purchased the first doghouse Toby had built. His wife loved it and told all her friends who had pets where she got it from and Toby’s subsequent orders were basically via word of mouth.
Toby shared Jonie’s optimism that things would get better soon, but for now, he wondered what was so urgent about the meeting John called. Was it something to do with Rachelle still being in the psychiatric hospital?
10
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“Thanks for coming, bro,” John said at the door. “Belinda’s right over there, but we can all talk in the sitting room.”
“Okay,” Toby followed him.
“Belinda…” he hailed his sister, who’d made herself comfortable at the bar.
“Toby… good to see you again,” she replied, before taking another sip of her Chardonnay.
“I think we’d better get a move on,” John told her. “Meet us in the sitting room, okay?”
“Gotcha!” she announced, rolling her eyes.
The sitting room at John’s house had thick, red curtains adorning the tan-colored wall. Two bright red couches positioned one opposite the other, as well as an oversized armchair set a few feet between them stood atop a large Persian area rug. Above, in the middle of the room, hung a golden chandelier that looked like it belonged inside of a palace. Aside from the master bedroom, that was John’s favorite room in the entire house. He used it occasionally as a quiet retreat and very seldom allowed guests in there.
The Cornelius Saga Series (All 15 Books): The Ultimate Adventure-packed Supernatural Thriller Collection Page 95