What She Saw

by Sheila Lowe

  She took it to the computer and tipped the device into her hand. The CPU was under the desk, but there were no vacant USB ports on the front. She pulled up her skirt and got down on her knees. She crawled under the desk and reached around to the rear panel of the CPU, feeling for open slots.

  “Jen?” Simon’s voice. Her head jerked up in surprise and banged against the underside of the desk drawer. “Do you ever knock?” she asked, exasperated.

  He leaned over the desk, where her rear was sticking out, and whistled. “Now there’s a delectable sight. What are you doing under there?”

  Feeling a complete fool, she backed out and slid up onto her chair. She kept her fingernails, which were thick with potting soil, curled in her lap. “If you have to know, I dropped a grape.”

  Simon regarded her protein pack with the egg, the triangle of cheddar and the handful of red grapes in disfavor. “No wonder you’re so skinny. All you eat is rabbit food.”

  “Something I can do for you, Simon?” she asked, acutely aware of the flash drive lying on top of the CPU under the desk.

  “Have you set up my meeting with Dr. Kapur yet?”

  Who is Dr. Kapur?

  “I just got back from picking up lunch, remember?”

  “Christ, Jen, what did you do all morning?” He took the guest chair across from her desk and seemed prepared to stay for a while.

  “You left me a lot of projects. I’ve been working my way through them.”

  “How’re you feeling, babe?”

  “I have a headache,” she said, hoping it would discourage him from staying.

  “Get something from Keisha’s first aid kit. I don’t want you sitting here feeling like crap.” He sounded sympathetic and she took a moment to study the long, almost feminine lashes that fringed cobalt blue eyes; the full lips that must have roamed her body a thousand times. Her cheeks burned again, remembering the rough way he had kissed her this morning.

  The words “Project 42” brought her back to what he was saying. “...noticed that the files have been removed from your work station.”

  “Of course I noticed. Who was in my computer?”

  “I didn’t mention it sooner because I wanted to give you a chance to get back into the routine. Don’t take it personally, babe, okay?”

  “It feels personal.”

  “Kapur is going to be sending a couple of the client’s own employees to handle what’s left of the project. Their people will be working here on site for this part of the operation. They’ll be using the private lab you set up for the rest of the clinical trials. Which means they won’t need the same kind of hands-on participation from us from here on out. You won’t have to deal with the admin tasks anymore.”

  “Well, that’s convenient.” Jenna didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm, but she would have killed to know what he was talking about. Remembering what he had said to her that morning, she asked, “Did taking everything off my computer have anything to do with those questions I was asking last week?”

  “Of course not!”

  He was too quick with his answer, and the way he refused to meet her eyes convinced her that he was lying. “Did you send someone to clean up the computer in my apartment, too?” she asked.

  Simon stared at her stunned as if she had just stepped off a UFO. “Your apartment?” Then he looked uneasy. “Please tell me you don’t have any Project 42 files at home.”

  “Of course not. I was joking.”

  “Well it’s not funny. You almost gave me a heart attack.” He shook his head as if clearing it. “Call Dr. Kapur and get the meeting set up as soon as possible. We’ve got a lot to discuss.” He reached out and before she could stop him, tipped her chin up. “Jen, I know I don’t have to remind you that this project is still completely confidential. I can’t emphasize enough that it has to stay that way. It’s top security, regardless of how you feel about it.”

  She jerked away from his touch. “Of course, you don’t have to remind me.”

  “Okay, good. I damn sure don’t need any more problems at this point in the game. Call Security and let Kevin Nguyen know about the changeover. He’s a pain in the ass; he’s going to make a fuss, so give him some time to get over it.”

  “When’s the changeover scheduled?”

  “Monday. Kevin’s out this afternoon at a meeting, so you can call him tomorrow morning. Don’t leave it on his voicemail.”

  “That doesn’t give him a lot of time to get over it.”

  “I guess that’s his problem, isn’t it?”

  Simon flashed her a grin with such charm that she couldn’t help grinning back at him. “Okay, boss. I’ll get right on it.”

  He stood up and angled his tall frame across the desk, but Jenna lowered her head and started writing herself a note to contact Kevin Nguyen. She glanced up as Simon left her office, his shoulders slumping, and for the first time in her short new life, felt powerful.

  The feeling lasted until she realized how close Simon had come to seeing the flash drive she had unearthed from the rubber tree plant. She scrubbed the dirt from under her nails in the ladies room, quite certain that it was no coincidence that all files referencing Project 42 had been removed from her computer and that she’d buried a flash drive in the rubber tree plant.

  She could think of no good reason to hide the drive unless her access to its contents was unauthorized. If Simon had found unauthorized data on her monitor she would be toast.

  Then and there, she decided not to risk looking at the drive’s contents at work. She would take it home and check it out. Someone had done a thorough job of cleaning her office and her computer of any files that might be related to Project 42.

  As clean as the computer at the apartment.

  The connection raised her suspicions. The strength of Simon’s denial had felt plausible when she had asked if someone had removed files from her home computer. But if someone had not removed files, why was it so empty? Or was she just being paranoid? That was how Simon had described her.

  What had happened between her ‘storming out’ of BioNeutronics on Friday, as Simon had described it, and Sunday evening when she awakened on the train to a blank memory? She was not being paranoid about that. It was a goddamned fact.

  And just like that, the little demon was back with a vengeance, battering his pickaxe against her skull.

  Keisha took a first aid kit from a drawer in her desk and handed over the painkillers Jenna asked for. “Is he giving you a bad time?” she asked.

  “A bad time?”

  The receptionist shot her a knowing look and lowered her voice. “Hey, Jen, I haven’t forgotten how pissed you were when you took off out of here on Friday. I could see with these two little peepers that something big happened between you guys. I’m guessing that’s why you didn’t come in yesterday.”

  She made a gun finger and pointed it at Jenna. “Don’t let him get to you, girlfriend. By the way, that bitch was here on Monday.” She gave a delicate shudder. “Do you think she might actually get elected? Imagine Christine Palmer in the White House! Puke.”

  “Simon’s wife was here? What for?”

  “Hell if I know. They went down to the lab and left her security goons up here. She told them she didn’t need a security detail babysitting her in the lab, thank you very much and go sit in the lobby like good little boys and wait for her. You know that annoying snitty way she has. They weren’t too happy, but you know how it is. When there’s no cameras, all that sugar and honey goes bye-bye.”

  The phone lit up then and put an end to their conversation. Keisha got busy connecting calls and Jenna headed back to her office, stopping in the lunchroom for a caffeine recharge. She thought about what she had just learned: Keisha had confirmed Simon’s remark about her “storming out” last Friday.

  And while Jenna was wandering around town with no memory, Simon’s wife—whose name was Christine Palmer, not Lawrie—had paid a visit to the lab. Was that a coincidence?

  Was “that
bitch” aware of her husband’s indiscretion? She had a security detail of her own, she must be some kind of heavyweight. It hit Jenna all over again: his wife is running for President, for Christ’s sake!

  By the time five o’clock rolled around, Jenna had gone from frustrated to cranky. She was itching to get the flash drive home. It was tucked in an interior pocket of her purse, along with a building map she’d found. The map detailed an emergency evacuation plan and diagrammed escape routes throughout the building. Each of the four floors in the building plus the laboratory, which was in the basement, had a page of its own. The names of each office occupant was printed in the relevant space, which would help her learn the names and locations of her co-workers.

  After powering down the computer and closing up her office, she knocked at Simon’s door to let him know she was leaving. There was no response and when she tried the knob, found it locked.

  At the first floor lobby, Jenna joined the line inching toward the front doors. The man ahead of her turned, his mouth bunched into a resentful moue. “What the fuck’s wrong with your boss, Jenna? Another goddamned surprise security check. They think they’re the frigging TSA with their goddamned pat downs.”

  Jenna’s heart skipped a beat. “What’re they looking for?”

  “Who the hell knows? Maybe they think we’re stealing drugs, or trade secrets, or some damned thing. Wasn’t Friday enough? This is ridiculous, I’m putting my resume on the street.”

  “Friday? I left early.”

  “Well, I guess you missed out. It’s turned into the friggin’ Gestapo.”

  People in back of her were grumbling, too, as others joined the line. Near the front doors, two security guards, one of each gender, were searching briefcases and purses, wanding everyone before allowing them to exit.

  It had never crossed her mind that security at BioNeutronics might be so high. She quickly discarded the possibility that the flash drive in her purse had nothing to do with the mysterious Project 42. The chances of such a coincidence were impossibly slim.

  Three people were left between her and the exit when one of the guards pointed at a middle-aged heavyset woman. He crooked his index finger at the woman, indicating that she should step out of line. She glared at him, her face as flushed as if she had run a mile. The female guard came over and escorted the protesting employee to a privacy screen at the rear of the lobby.

  Murmuring to no one in particular that she had forgotten something, Jenna turned and walked rapidly back to the elevator. She could not risk losing the flash drive without knowing what it contained.

  Shutting her office door behind her, she plopped down at her desk. “What do you think, Ariel?” she said to the little mermaid propped against the monitor. “How do I get it out of here without getting caught?”

  She might have hidden the flash drive in her bra or underwear, but after witnessing that employee being pulled out of line, the all-too-real possibility of a strip search had turned that alternative into a losing proposition.

  Rotating her chair in a slow circle, she looked for something to inspire her.

  She considered the logistics of dropping the flash drive out of the window and returning to pick it up later in the evening.

  The device was about an inch long and maybe a half-inch wide. If it fell into the hedge that surrounded the building, she would never find it, especially at night. It would need to be inside something bigger and easier to spot.

  She retrieved the baggie from the trash and zipped the drive back into it, then stuffed it into the Starbucks coffee cup. After crumpling a paper napkin on top to keep it from rattling around, she snapped on the lid and went to the window.

  And found it sealed shut.

  Dammit! Jenna slumped back into her chair. Even the smallest things seemed beyond her reach. Sudden movement from the corner of her eye. Her head jerked up.

  For a surreal moment she was sure she had seen something on the computer monitor, people in motion, but the monitor was as dark as a cave.

  Am I crazy after all? Is that why I’m here, pretending to be Jenna Marcott, when I’m really Jessica Mack? Or am I someone else and haven’t found my true identity yet?

  I am Jenna.

  No, you’re not.

  The room began to spin. She squeezed her eyes shut, the specter of her amnesia taunting her. Had she been hallucinating?

  When she cautiously opened her eyes the office had stopped spinning.

  It felt like something wanted to break through; some memory flitting around the edges of consciousness. But like a sneeze that tickles the back of the nose, the something refused to fulminate.

  Jenna glanced down at the cup in her hands. The employees downstairs were already on the verge of mutiny.

  It seemed unlikely that there would be another security check tomorrow. If she reburied the drive in the rubber tree pot, she could walk it out to her at lunchtime and lock it up. She started to remove the lid from the cup.

  Her office door opened and Simon Lawrie strolled in, his suit coat slung over his shoulder. “You drink too much caffeine,” he observed. “Your hand’s shaking.”

  “I thought you left.”

  Simon shook his head. “I was down in the lab.”

  There was no denying the man was some nice eye candy. A few years younger, he could have modeled for Maxim magazine. “Do you need me for something?” Jenna asked pointedly.

  “I thought you could give me a lift over to Eric Ericsson’s. I’m meeting some people there for drinks and I don’t want to take my car.”

  Eric Ericsson’s. Memory clicked and locked into place. The restaurant on the pier near the Amtrak station. Jenna nodded. “Of course, no problem.”

  As she started toward the door, Simon reached out and pulled her against him. The man never gave up. The tip of his tongue brushed tantalizingly across her lips. “Meet me later at the Crowne Plaza,” he murmured, swaying as if they were dancing. “We can have that makeup sex we talked about.”

  “You mean you talked about,” Jenna said, pushing him away. “I guess we’re supposed to show up here together tomorrow morning, wearing the same clothes?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, would it? We’ve always been discreet.”

  She thought of the suit hanging in her closet, the razor and extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. She thought of his wife, Christine Palmer, and she remembered the torn photo in its smashed frame.

  Simon seemed to take for granted that everything was okay between them despite last Friday’s argument. That torn photo said he could not be more wrong.

  “It might not be the first time,” she said. “But as it happens, I have other plans tonight.”

  “What plans?”

  “Just...plans.”

  “But, Jen, you—”

  “I’ll give you a ride to Eric Ericsson’s, but one of your drinking buddies can get you home, or there’s always a taxi.” One thing she wasn’t worried about was his being able to afford a thirty mile cab ride to Montecito. Or, he could take a room in the hotel. Without her. She walked past him, Starbucks cup in hand. During their exchange, Plan B had come together in her mind. She said, “I’ll meet you downstairs. I need to make a pit stop.”

  Simon groaned. “You have to now?”

  Jenna held up the cup. “Like you said, too much caffeine.”

  “Well, just don’t take all night like you always do.”

  She gave him a falsely bright smile. “See you in the lobby.”

  The ladies room appeared unoccupied, but Jenna checked each of the stalls to make sure.

  High up on the wall was a window that opened inward about six inches. Jenna stepped out of her pumps and hiked her skirt high up on her thighs.

  It would be hard to explain what she was doing if someone came in needing to pee in the next two minutes. Testing to make sure it would bear her weight, she climbed up on the sink.

  Now, if she could just catch a break, any stragglers in the parking lot would be t
oo eager to get home after going through the security check to notice the Starbucks cup falling through the air.

  The coffee cup sailed through the window without a hitch, completing Step One of the plan.

  She jumped down from the sink, thinking about Step Two: a return to BioNeutronics later that evening to retrieve the cup. She was smoothing her skirt when the door opened and a woman walked in.

  Tall. Thin enough that she looked all angles. Nondescript brown hair scraped back in an old-fashioned headband. The name “Raisa Polzin, MD” was embroidered in blue across the left breast of her white lab coat.

  Dr. Polzin glanced down at Jenna’s stockinged feet, then at her shoes, and raised a critical brow.

  Jenna stepped back into her pumps and gave the woman a brief smile. “My feet were killing me.”

  “Not very sanitary.” The spoke with a heavy eastern European accent. “Toilet is not good place for bare feet.”

  “Good point. Good night.”

  Jenna’s hand was on the door when the other woman spoke again with a hint of derision. “I see Dr. Lawrie standing outside in the hall waiting for you. Good night, Miss Marcott.”

  f o u r t e e n

  “How late are your ‘plans’ going to keep you out?” Simon asked in a sulky tone as they left the building and headed for her car. He was pouting like a two-year-old deprived of his favorite toy. With that thought, echoes of the child crying in the backseat of her trance boomeranged and she couldn’t stop herself from snapping at him.

  “Stop it, Simon!”

  He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “I can get one of the guys to drop me at the apartment. If you’re asleep, I’ll just let myself in and wake you up, just the way you like to be woken.”

  “No thanks, I don’t feel all that great.”

  He settled into the passenger seat of the Nissan and as she drove off the lot, reached over and rested his hand on her knee. He moved it up her inner thigh and started to raise her skirt. “I can make you feel better, baby, you know I can.”