“Mr. Mont! Did you knowingly distribute a poisoned product to the unknowing public to avoid taking a loss on the faulty supplements?”
“Could you give us a comment, Mr. Mont?”
“Mr. Mont! Is it true you attempted to harm yourself after receiving word that your company is being sued?”
“Mr. Mont, is it true that you have spent the last week on suicide watch?”
If it was not for the security team, I would probably punch one of these reporters. Soon we are in the building, and the back door is locked tight to prevent any unwanted guests from making their way inside. I cringe slightly and relax my right arm in the sling. “Are you all right, sir?” the head security guard asks.
“I’ve been better,” I say.
The guy fiddles with his fingers for a moment, “Um… sir…. What they’re saying about you isn’t true, is it?”
I poke out my chest like I want to fight him right now –it would be a huge mistake, really; he’s twice my size, and I have some mildly fractured ribs, “No! It’s not true! Whatever this is, we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
“I certainly hope so.” Voice rings out over the small crowd of employees that have gathered around me. I look up and see an officer, a crime scene investigator, staring back at me. “Mr. James Mont, I presume?”
I frown. This guy is looking at me like I’ve done something. “I hope you have a warrant,” I say with a hiss.
“Believe me, I do.” He says, “And I hope you are planning on cooperating fully with our investigation.”
I take a breath and straighten myself up, “Of course.” I say, although I already have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach about this guy.
He crosses his arms, “Good. We’re just now beginning our investigation today. Your brother kept insisting that we bring a warrant, so that’s just what we’ve done.”
Good job, Eddie, I think to myself. I nod, “As well you should. I don’t know what is going on here, but I can assure you we have never committed any sort of business negligence here at Shattered INC.”
“I’m sure.” The man comes closer to me, “Agent Roman.” He sticks his hand out at me. I frown. He sees that my arm is in a sling. He chuckles and switches hands, and we do an awkward left-handed shake.
“James Mont.” I say, “CEO. I can assure you, sir, that I have no idea what is going on here.”
“Well, hopefully, my team can shed a little light on this situation.” He is looking at me like I am to blame for all of this, and it is really pissing me off. “I don’t know if you are aware how serious this is, Mr. Mont.” The man says, “The body count has risen since yesterday.”
“What?” I raise a brow, “What do you mean?”
“I mean we have nine bodies in cold storage with similar symptoms in LA plus two additional bodies nationwide –all confirmed to have been taking your supplements.” The inspector says.
My throat tightens, “Eleven dead?”
“Eleven.” He says, “And there are dozens more in the hospital with similar symptoms to the deceased. And so far, you sir, are the only common denominator. Your brother already called for the products to be pulled from the shelves; it did not take much convincing from our part. We’re confident whatever is going on originated here. Now it’s a question as to what.”
I think I’m going to be sick. “Where is Eddie?”
“He’s in your office. Being carefully watched to make sure he does not try to dispose of anything. And I will warn you right now, Mr. Mont, don’t try to cover anything up.” He has a serious look on his face, “The last thing you want right now is to be accused of tampering with evidence.”
“I won’t.” I say, “Believe me, I want to get to the bottom of this just as badly as you do. Probably more. I’m going to take a look around at the factory, but after that, if you need me, I will be in my office.”
He nods, saying he has a lot of work to do, and I head to the factory to do a little investigation of my own.
23
After several hours of roaming around aimlessly in the factory, I wind up in my office sitting behind my now empty desk. The investigating officers cleared pretty much everything out: my hard files, my computer, and they even emptied out my desk –even taking that stupid picture of my old man and me from when I was a kid. Eddie is nervously sitting in a corner. He looks like he is losing is mind even worse than me. I suppose that makes sense. I have a pretty hefty inheritance to fall back on if everything goes to shit; he has everything resting on the success of this factory. Right now, the factory is shut down –which means he’s not getting paid, which means his debt is only getting worse with each passing second.
We are silent for a considerable amount of time, “Are you going to be okay?” I ask finally as I lean back in my desk chair.
He looks up at me, “I don’t know.” He admits. I can tell he is still angry with me; he probably has a huge mix of emotions right now. He stretches slightly in his chair, “I looked at everything in that factory. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. The investigators are going to be taking samples of all of our products back to some lab to do some testing. They say after that we can restart production; there is nothing they can do legally to keep us from working right now, but the brand name is being drug through the mud by the media.”
“I looked around too, and I didn’t see anything. I even went through half those files before the cops took them away and nothing.” I say.
I hear Eddies’ cell phone start to go off. He sighs and answers it, “What?” he hisses into the phone. He pauses and then looks up at me, “Do you know a Sylvia?”
I nod, “Yeah.”
“She wants in,” Eddie says.
“Tell them she can come in,” I say, and Eddie tells whoever he’s talking to, to let her inside.
“So who is she? Some new fling?” He asks.
“I’m not sure what she is,” a slight smile passes over my lips, but I quickly try to hide it. Eddie noticed, I think, but he does not say anything about it.
Eddie sighs, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. One of my sister's kids is in trouble again, and I-”
“You don’t have to do anything.” I snap. This is what really pisses me off. Ever since Eddie found out my dad –the man who raised him –was not his real father and that he has all these other half siblings, he’s been blowing his money on every one of those leeches. They keep taking advantage of him, and it is really starting to get to me. “This is why you’re in debt, Eddie.” I say, “I mean it, man. Knock it off. Stop letting them screw you like this.”
“They’re family, James.” He says.
I roll my eyes, “I’m family. You hardly know these people.”
He stares at me with this perplexed look for a minute. A wry smile crosses his face, “James, are you jealous of them?”
“I’ve never even met them,” I say.
“No, but you have always been my only baby brother until all this craziness.” Eddie says, “Does it bother you?”
“Fuck you, man.” I say, “That’s not it. What bothers me is how you keep letting them take advantage of you.”
“These people did not live with the way we did.” He says and stands, “I’m going to go try to talk to the guys in the factory to see if they know anything.”
“The police are probably already doing that,” I say.
“Yeah, well… I have to do something.” Eddie says and leaves the office.
I’m not alone for too long. Soon Sylvia is entering into my office, and her presence makes me feel a little less miserable. “Hey, beautiful,” I say, and she smiles.
She holds up a little brown bag and says, “I was on my lunch break… thought you could use a pick me up.”
I stand up and meet her halfway across the room. I want her, and I wonder if she is starting to realize how desperate I am. I reach around her waist with my left arm and decide to give her a flirty pinch on the ass. “Cute.” She says, sounding a little annoyed.
She bypasses me and puts the bag on the desk. She turns back around to face me and sits herself down on top of my desk. “This place is pretty fancy.”
“Come on,” I say and hurried towards her. She is wearing tight yoga pants with a zebra print waistband and nothing but a sports bra; she has clearly been out testing equipment today. She tests gear for a living: bikes, skateboards, rock climbing gear –anything kind of extreme. There is something about knowing she’s been out there doing that sort of thing that really has me turned on. I can imagine that tight little ass of hers on a skateboard. I wonder if she is any good. Probably if she tests skateboards for a living. “You show up at my office dressed like that, and you get mad because I give you a little pinch on the-”
She puts a finger to my chest so that I keep a few feet away from her. She smiles at me, “I'm not teasing.” She says with a wink. “But you are still on pain meds, remember? Last time you and I got a little frisky, you fell asleep on me.”
“Not my fault,” I say.
“You and I have not exactly had the best of luck.” She says, “The first time we tried, we got interrupted because you found out your company was getting sued. The second time you passed out. Do you think fate is trying to tell us something?”
“All fate is trying to tell us is that you have to work for something if you really want it.” I smile, “Besides, a woman like you, you’re worth the wait.”
“Well then, I guess I’m just going to have to make you wait a little longer.” She lowers her hand.
“Sylvia….” I sound like a child pleading for an extra cookie at snack time. She laughs at my plea and then waves me over with her finger. Finally! I came towards her and stood between her legs as she sits on the desk. We kiss for a bit first, and then I decide I got to get my arm out of my sling, which I manage to figure out after a minute of incredibly ungraceful gestures. She laughs and wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me closer to her.
I remove my suit jacket, flinching slightly when I pull my right arm out, but I’m more than happy to push through to get to the final prize. She unbuttons my shirt and leans forward to kiss my bare chest. “Mmm….” She whispers in my ear, and I shake slightly with anticipation. This is about to be a dream come true: doing my fantasy girl in my office! And it’s just a bonus that she’s wearing an outfit similar to the one she modeled in on the building board I’ve stared at every day on my way to work.
The door flies open. It’s Agent Roman. He looks embarrassed, but he doesn’t excuse himself. Sylvia jumps away from me, quite embarrassed. She embarrasses easily, I’ve learned, which means one thing: fucking Agent Roman just cock blocked me. “Um…” Roman loosens his shirt collar, “We’re rounding up everyone for interviews.”
“Of course, you are.” I snap. Well, doesn’t look like I’m getting laid today.
24
The voicemail on my cell was alarming enough to get me up out of bed at four in the morning. It was from Eddie, and he sounded completely freaked out. As I am getting dressed, I work on calling Eddie back –struggling to throw shoes on my feet and get them laced up as quickly as possible. I hold the phone between my shoulder and ear as I finish getting dressed, doing my best not to fall over or injure my sore arm. As I am getting my arm into my sling (I had taken it off to sleep because it is painfully uncomfortable), Eddie answers the phone in a whisper. “Hey… James?” he says.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I get my shirt buttoned; I had already called my driver, so I know he is on his way and that I need to be ready shortly.
“We need to meet –now.” He says anxiously.
I frown, “All right. I’ll meet you at the factory in like half an hour. My driver is on the way-”
He cuts me off, “No. Not the factory. Meet me at the gym.”
Before I have a chance to ask why he hangs up. Something does not feel right about this conversation. Eddie is normally a pretty well put together guy, but the tone and uneasiness in his speech are setting off an alarm in my head. I start to feel just as anxious as Eddie had sounded. Soon I am in the elevator, hoping that my driver has already made arrangements. I really need to have him take me to a dealership to get me something new. I may be sitting on a large fortune, but I’ve never been a big car guy. I’ve always just had one car. I suppose I could have my driver get one of my dad’s collectible cars I had inherited, but it would feel strange sitting in the back of one of those after spending half of my childhood being yelled at not to come near them. They are still sitting in his warehouse he had bought to store them. I hate cars, but I really hate car shopping. Maybe I could just pick out one of the less extravagant vehicles in that warehouse to become my daily driver until I can make it to a dealership. Car shopping is just one of the last things on my mind right now.
I have to wait for a few minutes before my driver pulls up out in front of the apartment building. I tell him to head to the new gym, and I lean back in my seat –becoming increasingly nervous with each passing second. A part of me wants to tell my driver to step on it, but after my car accident, I’m not so willing to make such a request. Soon the gym appears in the distance. I frown to see the empty parking lot. The gym had only just opened before all of this craziness had started. Eddie and I had opened up the gym strictly as a publicity stunt to promote our new supplement line, so it looks like after the news of the poisoned product hit headlines people decided they were not going to support the supposedly corrupt company.
I had really been looking forward to coming to the gym full of people, but right now the parking lot is resembling a ghost town more than anything else. I tell my drive that I’m not sure how long I’m going to be, so to go pick himself up some breakfast or run an errand. He nods, and I head inside. The gym is empty. The employees are not even here; according to Eddie, most of them quit, so now the gym stays closed.
Eddie is not here yet. I try calling him, but he does not answer, so I wind up roaming around the empty gym for half an hour. It is a little depressing. I wind up staring at the rock climbing wall for a while wishing that I could give it a go, but the last thing I want to do is irritate my injuries. Then there’s the pool, the smoothie bar, the sauna, and the old school work out equipment. All completely meaningless. All out of commission because of some bad publicity. I wind up standing and staring at one of the large posters that reads “GET SHATTERED” with the picture of my bare chest; I had modeled for the promotional material myself. I wish I could work out; it has always been my fall back whenever I have needed a distraction, but there is no way I’m going to give that a try anytime soon. The doctor wants me to take it easy for another couple of weeks at least. My last x-ray had shown some pretty significant improvement, but I’m about to lose my mind from boredom.
Finally, my phone starts ringing just as I am making my second walk around the building. Apparently I had missed Eddie during my walk, and he made it inside to the second floor where the offices are, so I head up that way. I wind up running into him in the hallways, but he dips into an office quickly and waves me over. I follow him, and I close the door behind him. I feel a little awkward being in the same office where I had banged his girlfriend not too long ago, but we are both adult enough to pretend that did not happen. Eddie paces the room slightly, unable to start the conversation he had wanted to have.
“Why are we all the way out here, Eddie?” I ask.
He responds with a half-hearted explanation, “The cops are still swarming all over the office and factory.”
I stare at him, waiting for a deeper explanation as to what has brought us here today, but he does not seem willing to just offer up that information. Finally, I ask, “What’s going on, Eddie?”
“Okay, so, you know how the cops are sending off some supplement samples to be tested?” he asks.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Well… I was worried what it is they would find, so I sent off some samples to be tested myself.” He says, “And I got the results back.”
“Well, what
’s going on?” I ask.
“The supplement vitamins were laced with rat poison.” He says.
The room starts to spin slightly. Rat poison? What does that entail? “Rat poison?” I question, trying to figure out how the hell rat poison got mixed in with our supplements. “That’s not like an accidental mixture of bad combinations of shit! That’s weird and messed up… what… how… how did rat poison… I don’t understand…”
“Me either,” Eddie says, pacing slightly. He takes in a deep breath. “Someone poisoned the supplements, man. It’s like sabotage or something.”
“But who would want to sabotage Shattered?” I question. “All right, all right. Let’s try to keep our heads together for a minute here. Let’s inform the cops what you found, and then we can-”
“Whoa!” Eddie holds up both hands, “I don’t think we should tell them. They have their own samples of the stuff anyways waiting to be tested. They’ll figure it out on their own time. Instead, we should use this information to try to figure out for ourselves what is going on.”
“Are you serious?” I question. “You think we should just keep this to ourselves and do our own little private eye bullshit?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Eddie says, “Look, I just wanted to let you in on what is going on. Keep your mouth shut about this,” he points a finger in my chest, “Let me handle this.”
“If you say so,” I say, feeling somewhat bothered by Eddie’s bizarre behavior. How could he think calling the cops would be a bad idea? I write it off, but I cannot shake the unsettling feeling inside of my chest about Eddie. I can’t figure out what it is that is bothering me exactly, but I know something is amiss.
25
Filthy Desires: A Romantic Suspense Collection Page 58
