Imminent Peril

by Melissa F. Miller

  Think.

  What was she even doing home in the middle of the day? Why wasn’t she at work?

  He’d planned to rifle through her possessions in search of some personal information he could use as leverage to guarantee her silence—a lover back home, a sick parent, something. Now he was trapped in the small apartment with her—and without a plan.

  Not good.

  He crept to the window and tried to raise the pane. It didn’t budge. He looked more closely and noticed that the pane was caulked to the frame. Glued closed. Not very safe in the event of a fire. Or an intruder. He tugged at it, but the caulk held. Sweat dripped from his hairline.

  He was going to have to confront her. There was no other choice. He’d menace her, make some vague veiled threats about remaining silent, and leave. Less than ideal, he realized. But it would have to do for the time being. He walked stealthily toward the front of the apartment.

  Prachi grabbed a knife from the block near the windowsill as her mind went into analytical overdrive, calculating how many hiding spots there were in the eight-hundred-square-foot space: hall closet; bathroom; behind the couch. Three possible places where an intruder could conceal himself.

  Her legs trembled and her heart raced as she stalked through the small space, gripping the knife tightly. Although the sound seemed to have come from the back of the apartment, possibly her bedroom, she decided to begin her search with the hall closet because it was closest.

  She tiptoed to the closet door. She could hear her heart thumping wildly. She stared at the door for a long moment, gathering her courage; yanked the doorknob with her left hand; and thrust the knife into the closet. Spare sheets, neatly folded towels, her parka, a large box of Indian spices from the spice shop in the Strip District. Otherwise, the closet was empty. She closed the door and leaned against it until her heart rate returned to normal.

  As she walked into the living room space to check behind the couch, the tea kettle whistled, high and shrill. She jumped and let out a shriek of her own. Laughing at her jumpiness, she changed course and headed to the kitchen to remove the kettle from the stove. She rested the knife on the counter and turned the burner to the ‘off’ position.

  “Were you looking for me?” a deep, male voice said behind her, so close to her ear that she could feel the speaker’s breath on her neck.

  Prachi froze, unwilling to turn around to see the intruder and unable to think of a way out.

  He reached out his hand and snatched up the knife. “I think I’ll take this.”

  Throw the boiling water at him, her brain finally said, breaking through the ice that seemed to encase her. Count to three, reach for the handle, press down to open the spout, and splash. One motion, fluid and fast. You only have one chance.

  “Dr. Agarwal, I have to say, you aren’t being a very good hostess.”

  She didn’t recognize the voice. But the fact that he knew her name sent a secondary chill of terror coursing through her.

  One. Two. She tried to steady her shaking hand. Three.

  She grasped the handle as she turned and sloshed the hot water toward the stranger standing in her kitchen.

  He howled and his hands flew up to cover his face. The knife clattered to the floor.

  Pick it up or run?

  Run.

  She raced past him, making a beeline for the front door. Her trembling hands slipped off the doorknob. Tears streamed from her eyes, making it so hard to see. Behind her, the man bellowed like an enraged animal and charged at her.

  She gripped the door again, turning the knob—and he threw himself at her, slamming her into the door and knocking the breath out of her. He clamped his hand around her wrist and pulled her away from the door, away from safety.

  She tried to wrench away, but he was much stronger than she. His face was red, a combination of rage and shiny burns from the water.

  “I just came here to talk. You shouldn’t have done that.” He forced the words out from between clenched teeth.

  “I’m ... I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

  “You will be,” he growled.

  “Help!” she shouted as loudly as she could, praying her voice would travel down the hallway and one of her neighbors would be home midday and willing to investigate.

  The man’s entire demeanor changed in a nanosecond. It was as though he flipped a switch from wild and furious to controlled. “I’m here to deliver a message. That’s all.”

  He released her wrist and spread his hands wide in a gesture she imagined was intended to allay her fears. It did not.

  “Help!” she yelled once more, more desperately this time.

  “Be quiet,” he thundered.

  His face darkened, and the only way she could think of to describe his expression was ‘murderous.’ She lunged for the door again.

  The crisis management consultant sighed heavily as he looked down at the body. Things had not gone according to plan, to put it mildly. The skin on his cheeks and forehead burned, raw and hot, from the dousing with boiling water. A matching heat rose from inside his chest.

  He ran through the list of mistakes and surprises, both avoidable and unavoidable, while he retraced his steps through the apartment, wiping down every surface and item he had touched. She wasn’t supposed to be home in the middle of the workday. That was the principal surprise, which led like a tipped-over domino to all the mistakes that followed, one after another in a cascade that ended with Prachi Agarwal’s dead body on the tile flooring between her front door and her kitchen.

  Killing her had, of course, been an accident. More problematic, it was also an error. His client had been very clear about her importance to the project.

  It never occurred to him to panic, though. After all, this was what he did for a living.

  He lowered himself to a kitchen chair. Disposing of the body would be easily managed. Handling his client would take some finesse. He looked from the body to the bound journal lying open on the table in front of him and then back to the corpse. An idea was bubbling up in his consciousness. He closed his eyes and allowed it to fully form.

  He picked up the pen and began to write. When he finished, he read it over, nodded with satisfaction. Then he mopped up the puddle of water on the kitchen floor and dried the kettle, wiped it down, and placed it on the back burner where women seemed to like to store their tea kettles when not in use. He surveyed the space with a careful eye to see if there was any stray detail that he’d overlooked.

  He needed to call in a specialist for the rest of the job. But using his cell phone here, from inside her apartment, would be reckless to the point of stupidity. What option did he have? He couldn’t leave a dead body lying on the floor just inside an unlocked door. And he couldn’t very well lock up behind him.

  He paced across the floor and tried to come up with a solution, but there was no other option. He’d just have to ensure no one ever had reason to triangulate his calls. He took out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts to find the right contractor for this job. He settled on Dutch, a surly, nearly-mute mountain of a man from Uniontown, and placed the call.

  Dutch answered on the second ring. “Aye.”

  “I have something for you. Disposal.”

  Silence on the line. “Twelve thousand.”

  “Rates have gone up, eh?”

  “It’s twelve thousand.”

  The consultant didn’t care to dicker. “Fine.” He recited the address for the cleaner and gave him instructions to park behind the building.

  “How do I get in?”

  “I’ll let you in. Then I’m leaving.”

  He wasn’t squeamish by nature, but Dutch’s methods were both thorough and brutal. It wasn’t a show he particularly wanted to watch. He ended the call and squatted by the body. Damn you, Prachi Agarwal. Why did you come home so early?

  Although he knew Dutch was meticulous, he nonetheless removed the woman’s jewelry. There was no reason not to take every possible step to inhibit iden
tification, just in case Dutch missed something. He checked the pockets of her flat-fronted trousers. The left pocket was empty. From the right, he fished out a business card. He stared down at the spare, modern typeface, not believing his eyes: Sasha McCandless-Connelly, Partner, McCandless & Volmer.

  He thought back to a Chinese saying a client had once shared with him: No coincidence, no story.

  His client’s point had been that human beings are hard-wired to seek meaning in events, but sometimes a coincidence was just a coincidence with no serendipitous or universal message. He agreed with the argument. But, at this moment, this specific coincidence seemed rife with import. His slipped the card into his wallet, pointedly ignoring the faint hint of a tremor that barely shook his fingers.

  16

  Sasha squirmed in her desk chair, her eyes ping-ponging between the classroom door and the large, gray institutional-style clock on the wall above the whiteboard. Although Karen Hogan had already entered the classroom, closed the door, and begun to write the day’s exercises on the whiteboard, it wasn't yet quite six o'clock. So, technically, anyone who came into the room in the next ninety seconds, give or take, wouldn’t be tardy.

  Sasha shifted her attention to the empty seat on the other side of the circle. Carla, Gracelyn, and Lani seemed unperturbed by their classmate’s absence. Truthfully, Sasha was surprised at her own level of concern.

  The clock ticked loudly. The minute hand jittered and jumped to the twelve. Karen Hogan’s wristwatch beeped. She capped her dry erase marker, checked the wall clock, and gave a little cluck—whether of disapproval or disappointment, Sasha couldn’t tell. “Well, ladies, it appears we’re down to four.”

  Without further preamble, she began to explain their first assignment of the night—a role-playing exercise designed to teach them how to empathize with other points of view. Sasha dragged her eyes away from the door and pulled her desk across from Gracelyn’s, at Karen Hogan’s direction.

  As Sasha and Gracelyn took turns being the boss in a far-fetched scenario that made clear Karen Hogan had never worked in retail, Sasha paid only partial attention. Most of her energy was devoted to wondering what would've caused Prachi to miss the class she needed in order to stay in the United States and fight her company’s bad behavior.

  “Sasha? Sasha!” Gracelyn's voice cut through her musing.

  She pulled her attention back to the classroom and her partner.

  “Sorry. My mind wandered for a minute there. Can you repeat yourself, please?”

  Gracelyn gave her a put-upon look. “I said we've gone through the whole list, and Carla and Lani are already done.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Gracelyn stared at her. “Mrs. Hogan said we could take our break early tonight, but you’re a million miles away. You’re not coming down with anything, are you? I don’t have any sick days left—I can’t miss work.”

  “I'm just a little distracted,” she promised.

  She stood and waited while the others gathered up their cigarettes and cell phones and filed out of the classroom. Karen Hogan sat behind the metal desk at the front of the room and flipped through the pages of some sort of manual. As Sasha approached, she marked her place with her finger and looked up.

  “Can I help you with something, Sasha?”

  “I was wondering if you knew anything about Dr. Agarwal's absence.”

  Karen pressed her lips into a thin line. “I know all I need to know. She missed class. She’s out of the program. It’s a simple as that.”

  “Right, sure. I just wanted to know if she contacted you—is she ill or was there some sort of emergency?”

  The social worker’s face softened momentarily. “It's clear that you’ve become friendly with Prachi. While I encourage my students to form relationships so you can provide continuing support for each other after the class ends, the reality is that not everyone who takes this class is fully committed to it. Sadly, the dropout rate is fairly high.”

  “I don't think she would have dropped out. She had a lot of reasons why she really needed to complete this course,” Sasha tried to explain.

  Mrs. Hogan shook her head sadly. “I've been teaching this course for years, Sasha. I can tell you that Prachi Agarwal was not dedicated to working on her anger issues; she was still in the habit of blaming others for her behavior. I’ve seen it many times before. One day, she may reach a place where she's ready to do the work, until then … well, it’s best not to get attached.”

  Sasha gave the woman a blank look. She had obviously made up her mind about Prachi, so continuing to argue was pointless. Besides, it sounded like Karen Hogan didn't know why Prachi had missed class, anyway.

  After a moment, she pasted an agreeable smile on her face and said, “You’d know best. But, as you said, I did become friendly with Prachi. I don't suppose you have a telephone number for her? Or perhaps you could give me her email address?”

  “I’m afraid that's not possible. To the extent she wanted to, she was, of course, free to share that information with her classmates; but it would be a violation of privacy law for me to do so.”

  Sasha cocked her head, trying to figure out what possible privacy regulations a court-certified anger management class fell under. Educational privacy law? HIPAA? Or was Karen Hogan making it up to seem important?

  “You could make an exception, just this once,” Sasha suggested.

  “Absolutely not. Now, the break is already half over. I suggest you avail yourself of the time that remains. I’m going to use the restroom before class resumes.”

  “Okay,” Sasha said meekly. She watched as the woman closed up her book and placed it beside her large teacher’s course agenda. “I suppose you're right about Prachi.”

  The social worker gave her a knowing smile. “I’m certain I am.”

  They walked together toward the door. Sasha waited until Karen was already through the doorway and several feet down the hallway. Then she stopped in her tracks and said, “Oh, I forgot my cell phone. I need to call and check on my kids. I’ll just run back and get it.”

  Mrs. Hogan clicked her tongue. “You make sure you close the door behind you, and don't be late coming back from the break.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” Sasha said.

  Mrs. Hogan turned and click-clacked down the hallway to the restroom. The sound of her sensible shoes striking the tile echoed as she moved along the corridor. Sasha started back inside and headed straight for Karen’s desk and her planner. She flipped through the pages until she found the class roster. A telephone number was listed beside Prachi Agarwal’s name. She committed the digits to memory and was about to close the book when she noticed the far right column, labeled ‘referred by.’ In Prachi’s row, a handwritten notation read ‘Playtime Toys Human Resources—M. Glassman.’

  Sasha's heart rocketed into her throat. She slammed the planner closed and hurried through the door out to the hallway. She rounded the corner and pushed through the door to the vending machine room. She hurled herself into the same chair in which she’d found Prachi crying exactly one week earlier.

  Playtime Toys? Prachi worked for the company that Recreation Group was planning to acquire? The very same company she had filed an arbitration claim against? She tried to convince herself it was all a coincidence, but the goosebumps rising on her arms said otherwise.

  Sasha smiled her way through dinner with Connelly and the twins, but her mind was racing a trillion miles a second. After they finished eating, Connelly cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes while Sasha bathed the twins. As was customary for pasta night, both Finn and Fiona had magically managed to get red sauce on parts of their bodies ranging from the backs of their knees to their armpits and the spaces behind their ears. She scrubbed away the evidence of dinner while they splashed around, playing a game that involved pirates, piranhas, and a manatee superhero.

  Once they were dried and dressed in pajamas, they wandered into their shared bedroom to continue their adventure on land. She heade
d down the stairs in search of Connelly and ran into him on the staircase.

  “Is the great marinara sauce massacre of 2017 but a distant memory?” he asked.

  “The water ran red,” she replied with the hint of a smile.

  He handed her a wineglass. “Want to finish off the Chianti while they finish off their game?”

  She followed him back up the stairs to the little sitting room they’d created between their bedroom and the nursery. They’d positioned a small love seat at an angle that provided a good vantage point to both watch the sunset through the window over the stairs and see into the kids’ room.

  “You were quiet at dinner tonight,” Connelly observed.

  “Was I? I guess I was thinking.”

  “I know you were thinking. You were doing that crinkle thing with your forehead. Were you thinking about the firm?”

  “No,” she answered honestly as she ran her fingers across her brow to smooth it as if that would remove the furrow. “I was thinking about my anger management class.”

  “Really? You mean what you learned?”

  “No,” she snorted at the idea. “One of the women—Prachi Agarwal—didn't show up tonight. That means she’ll be kicked out of the program. Since she’s here on an H-1B visa, she’s going to be fired and deported. I can’t believe she’d let that happen.”

  “Wow. That’s harsh. But, Sasha, you know, not everyone is as organized as you.”

  “She’s got a Ph.D. in chemistry or computers, maybe both. I’m pretty sure she could manage to add a repeating event to her calendar for eight weeks.”

  He frowned. “Where are you going with this, exactly?”

  She sipped her wine. “I’m worried something bad has happened to her.”

  “I think you're letting your imagination get the better of you. It’s understandable; you must be understimulated spending your day doing puppet shows and building castles out of magnetic tiles instead of crafting cutting edge legal arguments, but—”