Paper-Thin Walls

by Melanie Jones Brownrigg

  “I’ll tell you what. Let’s get Patterson in here and see what he has to say for himself,” Mr. Campbell suggested.

  “Fine by me,” Ryan wholeheartedly agreed.

  Mr. Campbell buzzed Shannon’s desk to have her send Jason Patterson down to his office. When she didn’t answer, he buzzed again. “She might be on the other line,” he speculated. After a few more minutes, he buzzed again, but still didn’t receive an answer. “I’m going to see where she is.” He pushed away from his desk and got to his feet, thundering down the hallway to the reception area with Ryan following behind him.

  Sure enough, Shannon was missing in action. On a hunch, Ryan suggested. “Let’s try Jason’s office.”

  Backtracking to the way they came, Mr. Campbell banged on Jason’s door. “You in there Patterson?”

  Everything was quiet on the opposite side of the doorway. Ryan reached for the knob and pushed open the door. “What?” he mumbled upon seeing Jason leaning against the front of this desk with a worried look on his face. Shannon was standing in front of him, as if she thought something might be about to happen.

  And it was.

  “Uh, Ryan, aren’t you supposed to be in Florida? What are you doing here?” Jason inquired, peering nervously between Ryan and Mr. Campbell.

  “I’ve got a better question,” Mr. Campbell said, taking a few steps in. “What are you doing here?” His question went to Shannon. “Get back to your desk,” he ordered, pointing an index finger at the doorway.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, taking long strides to get past her boss.

  Mr. Campbell threw his gaze at Jason. “I have a couple of videos in my office. One shows Sinclair leaving my birthday party. He looks perfectly sober. Some twenty minutes later, you’re carrying him into the lobby of some building.” Mr. Campbell gave him the stink eye. “What do you have to say for yourself, Patterson?”

  “Ryan does drugs. When we left the party, he did something.” Jason turned his gaze to Ryan. “What drugs are you on?”

  “None, you damn liar,” Ryan mouthed off, taking a step toward Jason and narrowing his eyes.

  “Yeah, he did,” Jason said, returning his comment to Mr. Campbell. “We had to take him over to Shannon’s after he shot himself up with something … cocaine maybe. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Liar!” roared Ryan. “Shannon injected me with something. It knocked me the hell out. Then you took the keys from my pocket and came over here and stole my plans. Didn’t you!?”

  “I most certainly did not,” Jason snipped. “You’re out of your damn mind.”

  “Did you for one minute think you’d get away with this? You fool. Surely you must’ve known I wouldn’t just set back and let you take the credit for my hard work.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You said I could use your plans for my pitch. Those drugs are interfering with your memory. You need to seek professional help.”

  “I am not on drugs and if there’s anything wrong with my memory, it’s because Shannon shot me up with something.”

  The two men yelled accusingly at each other for the next several minutes.

  “Stop it,” Mr. Campbell interrupted. “I’ve heard enough. We’ll see who’s lying and who’s telling the truth,”

  “How, sir?” Jason asked, suddenly taking on a concerned look.

  “I have a hidden security camera in the reception area. Either you came in sometime between Friday night and Monday morning, or you didn’t.”

  “Well, I did, sir. I came up here and worked all weekend on my presentation.” Jason suddenly felt good about his answer. He was covered.

  “And I have another camera recording the hallway. We’ll see if you went in Sinclair’s office.”

  “Well, I did, sir. Ryan told me to take over the Clark Anders Development Center, and he’d take over the Luxury Towers. We agreed on it.”

  Mr. Campbell stood there for a moment, his gaze bouncing from one man to the other. “You know Patterson, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that you were hauling Sinclair into Shannon’s apartment. That just doesn’t look good. And now you’re admitting to coming up to the office on the weekend to supposedly prepare for an interview on a project that Sinclair, just out of the goodness of his heart, suddenly wanted you to have. If that were the case, the security cameras should show you giving Ryan the Luxury Towers workup so he could present it on Monday morning.” He paused and shook his head. “But instead, Ryan presented his own project and didn’t have the Luxury Towers … and do you know how I know that?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Because I see it right there on your desk. You still have the Luxury Towers and Ryan doesn’t.”

  Jason’s face went white. “Uh, he gave it back to me and said he wanted to work on the Waterline Condominium project. That’s why he went off to Florida.”

  Mr. Campbell’s face turned an angry red. “Now that’s complete bullshit. And I’ve heard enough bullshit. Patterson you’re fired.”

  “I don’t think Ruby is going to like that you’ve fired me,” Jason instantly brought up.

  “My wife is only distantly related to you. If she hadn’t been close to Rita, your second cousin, you would’ve never had a job here in the first place. And if you want to know the truth, Ruby thinks you’re a shady weasel. She isn’t going to bat an eye that I’ve fired you.”

  Jason took a hard swallow and looked like he might throw up.

  “Hop to it, Patterson. I’ll sit right here and watch you clean out your personal belongings. Security will escort you out of the building.” Mr. Campbell plopped his big old butt down in a guest chair and crossed his arms. “Now, Patterson. Get moving.”

  “I’ll get you a box,” Ryan gladly offered, wasting no time to go find one.

  “Tell Shannon to waltz herself back down here while you’re doing it,” Mr. Campbell requested. “Tell Sue to cover the phones.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ryan quickly located a box from the storage room, then headed for Shannon’s desk. “Mr. Campbell wants to speak with you in Jason’s office.”

  “Oh, what about?” she asked innocently.

  Ryan shrugged. “I have no idea,” he lied. Then he looped around to Sue’s office. “Mr. Campbell would like for you to cover the phones.”

  Sue often covered the phones during lunchbreaks and on days when Shannon took off. “Yes, I’m on my way,” she agreed, climbing to her feet and following Ryan out the door.

  Ryan worked his way back to Jason’s office. “Here you go,” he smirked, handing the box to Jason.

  Jason gave him an evil look but went to placing items in the container.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” Shannon asked, after having taken her sweet time to get back to Jason’s office.

  “You’re fired,” Mr. Campbell abruptly announced. “Ryan, please go watch her clean out her desk. Make sure she doesn’t take anything that’s not hers.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ryan readily agreed. He hid the smile on his face until he was walking down the hallway behind Shannon.

  “Why’d you do it?” Ryan asked as Sue moved aside to let Shannon into the desk drawers.

  “Do what?” Shannon asked, continuing her innocent pretense.

  “Almost ruin my marriage. That’s what. I know Jason wanted the keys to my office to get at my architectural plans. That’s easy to figure out. But why did you do what you did? You drew attention to me being out all night. You knew my wife wouldn’t gloss past that. Then you sent that picture, probably expecting that she’d discover it. You knew she’d be hunting for answers and wanting to know where I was and what I’d been doing since I’d never stayed out all night before. Why’d you do it?”

  “Because, you idiot, we had to have the keys. The only way we could get them was to drug you and snatch them.”

  “They were in my jacket pocket the whole night at the restaurant. Jason was seated right next to me. He could’ve swiped them at any time, especially considering I left my jacket on the ba
ck of the chair while I went to the restroom.”

  “Don’t you see, if we would’ve taken the keys, it would’ve included your car fob? How could you have driven home without that? Jason tried to swipe them once while you were in the bathroom, but your good friend, Jeff, was keeping an eye on your coat. The rest of the time, you were right there. There wasn’t an opportunity to take the set and separate your office key from the ring. We had to go to Plan B.” She rolled her eyes at Ryan as if he were dense.

  “Once you had the keys, why didn’t you simply stick me in my car and call my wife to come get me. She’s listed in my favorites, and you could’ve used my fingerprint to gain access.”

  “Man, you really are stupid. Don’t you see, we wouldn’t have had an opportunity to return the office key to your keyring. It had to be done like it was.”

  Ryan flicked his gaze to Sue, then back at Shannon. “Why wake up like I did? And why the picture? How did that play in?”

  Shannon twisted her gaze to Sue. “He means naked. He woke up naked with me and I texted him a picture of us having sex.”

  Sue, a middle-age, conservative, gasped and threw a hand over her mouth.

  “They drugged me. I was passed out and we did not have sex,” Ryan quickly explained to Sue before turning back to Shannon. “Why’d you strip me down and take that picture?”

  “Because we needed time. Jason had to go back down to the office. He had to find the plans. Then he had to spread them out and take pictures, make duplicate copies, and organize notes on all the details so he could present it as his own. It took most of the night before he returned and was able to slip the keys back in your jacket. There had to be a reason you were out all night long. I knew you wouldn’t remember anything the next morning and it just seemed like a good cover story to make you think we’d ended up in bed together. The picture solidified the reason you didn’t go home all night. Besides, everyone knows you’re this great family man. If we threw a kink in your perfect marriage, you’d be distracted with your marital problems and less focused on pointing any accusatory fingers at Jason. Sorry,” she said, not meaning it at all.

  “Why didn’t Jason simply present his work on the Luxury Towers? Why did he think he had to steal my ideas? And why didn’t he leave me with the Luxury Towers presentation? It would’ve made his lie sound more believable.”

  “Because it was the truth that those plans fell in the pool. Jason couldn’t very well give you something he no longer had. He’s been trying to recreate them. That’s what’s on his desk right now and he’s been diligently working on them, even taking them with him to Arizona to work on. Besides, you always have better ideas, and he wanted that promotion. It takes Jason longer to come up with designs. Even recreating something he already had has proven to be a task beyond belief. He had to come up with something, otherwise, he didn’t stand a chance at the promotion without a completed project.”

  “Then why duplicate my plans? He could’ve left me hanging dry.”

  “He wanted to cinch the deal. Since he was being interviewed first, once he pitched the idea, he put a bug in Mr. Campbell’s ear that he’d taken over the Clark Anders Development Center project and that you might be planning to claim it as your own. When you went in for your interview, Mr. Campbell already had it in his head that you’d stolen Jason’s plans.”

  Ryan shook his head. “Why did you agree to help him?”

  “Because I love him. We’re a couple.”

  “Unbelievable,” Ryan muttered.

  “You about ready?” Mr. Campbell called out to Shannon as he and Jason appeared in the reception area. Jason was standing a few feet behind Mr. Campbell, holding the box of personal items and looking very much like a deer in the headlights.

  “Yes, sir. Just let me get my purse and a couple of pictures.” Shannon crammed the framed photos in her purse, along with a package of breath mints, a nail file and a small cosmetic bag. “I’m ready,” she announced, sidling up to Jason and seemingly not having a care in the world.

  Mr. Campbell marched them to the door and had them wait for the security guard to arrive. “Escort these two from the building. And please deactivate their pass cards. They no longer have permission to enter these premises.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard responded, directing Shannon and Jason toward the elevators.

  Mr. Campbell strode back to the reception desk. “Sue, if you don’t mind, you’re going to need to cover the phones until I can hire a replacement.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be glad to,” she agreed.

  “Sinclair, come on down to my office and we’ll discuss your promotion and new salary.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Hailey

  The next morning, my crawl out of bed was filled with sore muscles and a neck that could hardly bend. My face was covered with too many bruises to cover up. But I’d be damned if I let Bill be the reason for taking off work from my new job. So, like a trooper, I forged forward and arrived at work promptly on time.

  Ryan had started his day at the same time and was planning on having a word with his boss. Hopefully, he’d get him straightened out.

  “Good luck, honey,” I told him as I stepped off on the 15th floor and he continued the elevator to the 25th floor.

  Within the first few minutes of entering the accounting department, I had told my story to Sarah, then to James, and then to Carter. And now Ms. Davis had entered the room and was on her way to her office when she stopped and glared at me. “What the heck happened to you?”

  Once again, I relayed my story about stabbing Bill. It wasn’t something I was bragging about. It was just what had happened. I wasn’t sure what to do with my new reality. But I knew there wasn’t anything that could be changed.

  “Come into my office,” Ms. Davis requested.

  Swiveling in my chair, I climbed to my feet, our five-two heights matching, except today she had on a higher heel. Following behind her, we entered her corner office where one huge glass wall separated her from the employees. Immediately, I took in the spectacular vista of the Trinity River from one side of the windows, and an amazing view of the downtown buildings from the other side.

  She strode to her side of the desk and slid into her chair. Opening a top drawer, she searched around past paper clips, pencils, notes and some yellow pads. Eventually she came up with a business card. “Here, take this.” She handed the card across to me and I took it.

  Across the front in bold black letters, was the word, “JUSTIFIED,” along with an address.

  “Justified is for people who have killed someone in self-defense,” she explained. “This group will help you. I attend meetings on the first Tuesday of every month. But they meet weekly if you’d like to go more often. It’ll help you, Hailey. I know. Remember, I’m in the same shoes as you,” she reminded me, holding my gaze.

  I slowly nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I had trouble sleeping last night and I don’t foresee myself ever getting over what happened.”

  She swallowed. “No, you won’t ever forget, but you’ll learn to forgive yourself.”

  “Would you mind if I went with you the first time? I think I could use some support.”

  “I’d be happy to accompany you,” she willingly agreed.

  We talked for a bit more, each discussing in greater detail our own circumstances, then I went to work. My heart felt a bit lighter just knowing I had someone who shared a similar experience.

  Mid-morning, Detective Sutton gave me a call and told me Kenna’s body was found at the bottom of the well and that after an autopsy was completed her body would be released to Greenwood Funeral Home as I had requested. I wanted to make sure Kenna had a final resting place.

  “It’s preliminary right now, but the medical examiner suspects it was death by strangulation. He’s already determined that there wasn’t any water in her lungs, meaning she didn’t drown in the well.” This didn’t come as any surprise.

  “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll call at n
oon and make funeral arrangements.”

  “Let me know. I’d like to attend.”

  “I’ll be glad to,” I promised.

  After calling the funeral home, I was informed that paperwork would need to be signed, so I ended up dropping by during my lunch hour to complete the burial arrangements, including a small service for Kenna. It wasn’t a lavish plan by any means, but it was respectful and took up my first paycheck and several more to come. She was to be interred this Friday morning at ten o’clock, which I relayed to the detective.

  Once the workday ended, after picking up Adam and arriving home, I went upstairs to lie down. Though I wasn’t exactly tired, I felt drained. I had only been relaxing for about fifteen minutes when the front door creaked open and then Ryan shouted for me.

  Scooping myself off the bed, I went to see what the commotion was. “What’s going on down here?” I asked, coming down the last step and turning down the hall.

  Ryan’s face went from an elated smile to one filled with pain. In three long strides he was up next to me. “Oh, baby, your bruises. You’re breaking my heart.” He cupped my face and took in the horrible purple, mixed with black and yellow. I’d tried hard to cover the discolorations with makeup so as not to frighten Adam, but it was impossible. “Honey are you okay?” he asked in a concerned tone.

  “Everyone keeps asking me that. And I keep telling everyone that I’m fine. So, yes, I’m perfectly okay,” I assured him. “It’ll just take a few days for my face to heal, then I’ll be good as new.”

  He gave me a doubtful look. “I hope so, because remember, we’ve got a hot date this Saturday night.”

  “That’s right … reservations at The Terrace.” I grinned at him, but it felt like my busted lip didn’t move on one side. “You know, you’ve already won me back. Do you want to cancel?”

  “No. Absolutely not. I’ll reschedule if you’re not up to it. But we’re going. I’m taking you out for a night on the town. Besides, didn’t you hear me when I came in?”

  “I heard some shouting. What were you saying?”