by Carmen Faye
Tarek, on the other hand, worked alone and although he looked menacing, there was a subtle appeal to him that still seemed approachable. On the other hand, I had seen the trouble that followed him. These men, if they knew Graham, could potentially truly be my rescuers. I tried to hope that like Tarek they were only rough around the edges and putting on heirs to intimidate me.
It was working. The driver stared me down, never letting his gaze break from my own.
“Analise,” he said softly, tilting his head like a scolding father figure. “Analise, your friend is not who you think he is and he cannot protect you. He has dragged you all over the city, a moving target, only to get you deeper into a mess that he is sinking in. You don’t have to go down with him.”
I couldn’t help but nod. If I had not followed Tarek this far, I would have probably been bouncing back like the rest of the people recovered from the incident when police arrived, which was moments after I joined Tarek on his motorcycle after rescuing him.
“Things have seemed to only get worse,” I noted aloud.
The driver turned and sat back in his seat. The other men sat more relaxed again as well.
“We were in an apartment on 42nd. If we head back that way I can probably point you to it,” I admitted.
“Do you think you could give us a floor and apartment number?” the driver asked.
“I was in too big of a hurry,” I replied honestly, “but I could probably tell about which window I looked from.”
I could see his smile in the mirror as he rejoined traffic. Now, he was headed in the direction I had come from. Traffic was light. We reached the places I remembered viewing from the window above and parked. A second, similar vehicle did the same. Both drivers exited the cars and met with each other. Occasionally, one of them would glance toward the building as they talked. When they parted ways, I could see a gun under the jacket of the second driver.
I panicked and started screaming and bucking.
“Don’t hurt him,” I yelled. “Don’t kill Tarek!”
I kicked my feet into the chairs ahead of me and swung my coupled fists from side to side trying to inflict any damage I could to the men around me and the car we were in. I felt like I was holding my own pretty good until suddenly I caught a quick, hard hit to the cheek. I couldn’t tell if it were fist or elbow, but I immediately felt the side of my face begin to swell. I was disoriented. A moment later, another swift blow came, and every ounce of fight in me was drained as I fell unconscious.
When I came to, I was in the same car with the same men, but they were far less animated.
“Annie, welcome back,” one of them said as if addressing a long gone friend who had appeared unexpectedly.
My vision was a little blurred, but it cleared as I blinked a few times. There was a ringing in my right ear. As best as I could tell it was from the blows I had taken, most likely the most damage came from the first hit.
“I was wondering if I might have hit you a little too hard,” the front passenger said. “Then, I thought about it. Fooling around with an MC leader, you probably like it rough.”
“Some women just like to get hit,” the man to my left agreed. “I’ve been with some that can’t get off without it.”
He leaned in close and sniffed my hair and neck. He made an ah sound like my scent had quenched some kind of thirst.
“Actually, I can’t get off without it either,” he added, putting an arm around me.
“That’s enough. We’re here,” the driver said. “Put your hands on yourself before the boss or somebody sees you. We don’t know that she doesn’t belong to one of them.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it didn’t seem like the right time to ask or correct him. I looked over at the man sitting to my right and out the window. We were parked in front of a large unmarked building.
I had been unconscious for the drive, so I hadn’t had the opportunity to make a note of any landmarks to track where I had ended up. Most of the surrounding buildings were being built or renovated, so there was nothing close to give me any hints either, but everything still had the distinct look and smell of New York.
Traffic had picked up, and it was a milieu of taxis and commuters. No one driving by seemed to think anything was suspicious. I continued to look through any window and angled for some clue as to my location, but we seemed to be on the backside of wherever we had arrived instead of a main road or entrance.
***
Tarek
Aside from the green and blue dates, there were yellow and red periods. These were less frequent, so their warm colors among a sea of gray, green, and blue seemed a stark, eye-catching contrast.
Yellow was notated as Ali’s “personal time.” The actual events where this occurred in the calendar had no additional notes, unlike other colors that had times, places, and in some cases even a little briefing or tip of some sort. Yellow events only declared themselves as personal time, nothing further.
Red only had my name. While there were no more blue after the gala. There were several red in the coming months. Then, there were no more of them either.
When I opened these events, they only said “private meeting.”
I called Catarina back, and the phone rang, but no answer.
“Come on, now. Don’t leave me high and dry just because things are square and your little secret is clear,” I said, gritting my teeth.
I hung up when I reached her away message and immediately dialed again.
“Poole Pharmaceuticals,” she greeted politely. “You have reached the Office of Research and Development. How may I direct your call?”
“It’s me again,” I said.
“Oh, I’m surprised you let me get through the whole bit,” she said, chuckling at herself softly. “I feel like I sound like a well-practiced robot, just human enough to lure people to their doom.”
“Then, you must be employee of the month,” I said, trying to tease back, but I was too distracted to come up with anything cleverer. “I’m calling about that calendar you sent me.”
“What’s wrong? Did it not come through properly?” she asked. “I can change the file type and resend it immediately.”
“I see why you have lasted so long as Ali’s secretary. Efficient doesn’t even begin to describe how on top of things you are,” I said.
The compliment was genuine. Ali had always been an organized mess, but with Catarina at his side, he was perfection. The two of them were truly synchronous perfection. There were times I thought his appreciation of her talents and skills would be enough to open his eyes to the catch she was for him and make him want more, but he had never made that move.
I couldn’t remember the last time the guy had a date.
“Thanks, Tarek,” she replied sweetly. “I always like to feel that I am doing my best.”
“It shows,” I replied. “The file came over fine. I’m calling because I was wondering if you might have any details on these red and yellow squares that aren’t in the calendar comments.”
“Since your name is all the red marks, I assumed you knew about those,” she declared. “Ali always says his personal time is his business and I never pry. You know he keeps very little telling personal effects at the office, so even when I bring things to his desk, I don’t get any hints.”
“I can imagine. I know how Ali is,” I agreed. “Okay, just thought I would check.”
“Sure,” she said brightly. “Have a good day.”
“You, too, doll,” I said before hanging up the phone.
I went back to looking over the calendar, but I couldn’t click my way to any more details than I had before. It wasn’t like Ali to spring things on me at the last minute, but it was suddenly becoming an unpleasant trend.
I rifled through the desk of the home office I had been using and had only a limited understanding of what I found there. One thing I did find was private research that Ali seemed to be conducting as well as test results on a few subjects. The most recent do
cumentations seemed to be on Man 1, a first human study.
His work always seemed to use less English and more Latin and scientific lingo that made little to no sense to me. The documents I had found were no exception, but just as Ali had made a case against Annie, she had made one against him. Right now, I was beginning to feel more alone than I ever had as each of their concerns seemed more and more to ring true about the other, making me a pawn to them both.
I set that thought aside to try to remember anything I had learned while I was in school or in working for Ali that would make anything in these pages make sense. I tried to piece together the things I understood, to give me clues to deciphering everything that still made no sense after looking up what I didn’t understand.
Latin words like regeneratus, adulescenetia, and carare frequently appeared as well as a chart recording dosages and effects over a period on the subject. Equally intimidating words like esoteric, abnormal cells, and degenerative also appeared in English just as frequently. Between the two languages, all I could tell is that things did not appear to be going well for Man 1.
I glossed over several pages until there were passages where Ali had recorded the treatments Man 1 received and observations following each administration as well as the process as a whole. His voice was detached from the patient completely, though his tone showed clear enthusiasm for the research itself. In the results, there was a clear disappointment.
The document read, “Man 1 is showing greater degenerative effect than benefit from treatment overall. The recommendation would be to direct subject to specialized medical practitioner and recommence research with animals before further human trials.”
I wondered if Ali had done something regrettable, and Hamilton had found out, but that didn’t seem something that would warrant the events of the past few days. I wondered if there were more up to date research that showed a better result than the study I read, but there was nothing else on the matter in this office.
I needed to know. At the moment this was the only lead I had to anything.
My thoughts went back to Annie and her boss, Graham Stevens. I wondered if it could be possible he was doing favors for multiple suits without asking details. He and Hamilton had appeared in photos for several events Ali or I had attended. Perhaps Man 1 had even attended as well. It was possible that he was Man 1 or that another guest might be.
I tried to piece the puzzle together, but every solution I could think of left too many open-ended questions. I scoured the photos one more time, hoping another face or odd detail would reveal itself to me. Nothing and no one, in particular, stood out.
I was left with only a few solid guesses and scenarios for what could tie all the known secrets together. First, Graham Stevens was Man 1 and for some reason had become involved with Perry Hamilton. Second, Man 1 was unrelated to the feud or the exact opposite – the heart of the feud - with the final research being so great an impact that Perry Hamilton would have stooped to lengths of sabotage that I had been thwarting all this time or, alternatively, desperately trying to steal the research and treatment. My last thought concerned how I would have any value in the matter versus being disposable to either side: I was Man 1 and didn’t know it.
I was now blindly scrolling through photos, lost in my thoughts, until a glimmer of a familiar face caught my eye.
Annie was in the background of a photo.
She was carrying a tray of filled wine glasses. Her smile looked forced but beautiful. Her eyes were what drew me to her in the image; they looked sad. Even in the still, I could tell her eyes were shining as if she had just been crying or was giving her all not to. When I followed the article and saw the event post was a couple of years old, I realized it was probably around the time her dad died.
“If she has been honest with you,” Ali’s voice rang in my head.
Even if Annie had used me, it was hard to think that she would have lied about the death of her father. On the other hand, knowing of my own fatherless life might have been her “in” to bond with me. I needed answers from her just as much as from anybody else. I could find out the truth about her involvement with Perry Hamilton and the truth about Ali’s work and research on my own. I could even find out the truth about Annie’s past.
I was more worried about things I couldn’t control. I no longer knew where I stood with Ali. There were secrets he kept, but there had never been a secret from me. Now, it seemed there had always been a second world of sorts that I never knew about, even though I could very well be the center of it.
In Annie’s case, I hadn’t really known her long enough to truly say that she was more than an acquaintance or possibly a fling, but I felt like I knew her. Ali made a good point, though, if she worked for Hamilton, I only knew a version of her that was created for me.
Chapter 12
Annie
“Bring her in,” the driver said.
He and the man in the passenger seat exited the car. The man in the rear driver seat did the same and closed his door behind him, leaving only the man and me in the rear passenger.
He didn’t open his door or make any other efforts toward exiting the car. He faced me as the others simply watched from the outside. He put a hand on my thigh, pressing the tips of his fingers hard into my flesh. He slowly moved his hand forward, up my thigh leaving a red line that welted quickly as a reminder where his unwanted touch had been.
“A woman who can take a punch can typically take a lot of things,” he grumbled in what I imagine he thought was a seductive and menacing voice.
“I don’t repeat myself,” the driver said.
The man still in the car left his hand where it was, no longer moving. He sucked his teeth at me and sat back in his seat.
“Whatever you say,” he said.
He opened the door and snatched me out by the zip ties on my wrists, making them tighten and dig into my skin. I nearly fell as I stumbled out of the car behind him, not wanting to actually fall into him.
Once I was out of the car and reasonable standing, the man who had driven continued to lead the way. The others fell in behind him, with the man from the front passenger seat taking over my guardianship.
Just stay close, and behave yourself,” he said, tapping a gun I hadn’t realized was holstered to his him.
I gulped and stepped back slightly. Then I nodded my understanding and slowly returned to his side. He nodded as well and walked beside me with his hands folded in front of him.
We entered a large building through a service door, so I was unable to see a name or anything definitive for where I was. Once we were inside it resembled the halls of an office building of some sort. We passed through a mailroom and poorly cared for break area. I was hurried through, and the handful of employees either didn’t notice my bound wrists, or they didn’t care.
The first hall we entered was empty. We turned into another that led to a lobby. Before we exited the hall into the lobby, we reached a group of elevators. There were two elevators on each side of the hall, giving the impression that the building housed a lot of staff, though I had seen very few. One of the elevators was also marked ‘Closed for repair.’
One of the men from the back seat pushed the up button, and we all waited for whichever doors would open first.
One finally opened and I moved to step forward, but none of my captors did the same. In fact, the man from the front passenger seat who had revealed his gun to me gestured for me to step back as soon as I had moved to step forward. They waited as two more elevators came down and another person got out, a woman nose-deep in a file.
Finally, the last elevator, which appeared to be broken, made its way to the landing where we were waiting. With a soft ding, its doors slowly glided open as if their tracks needed oiling. They seemed to have an equally difficult time closing. The tiny room smelled on its own, but being that much more closely surrounded by my captors I became acutely aware that the stench could also be attributed to them.
There were on
ly two buttons on the side panel, one on top of the other. The bottom button was marked with an ‘L’ for Lobby. The other was worn or rubbed away. I could not tell which with any certainty.
I tried not to look at any of the men around me, not even their reflections in the doors in front of us. Instead, I focused on the screen counting the floors as we rose higher in the building, wondering where we would stop and who or what would greet us. I looked at the zip ties on my wrist and wondered what would or had happened to Tarek when he was found. I wondered if he was truly a good guy clinging to an old friend keeping him on a bad path.
After several floors and few times feeling like the elevator was going to stall, we seemed to reach our destination.
