Roger nodded.
“I’m gonna head home,” Morgan said. “I’ll start looking through the e-mails from the rest of the employees. Well, I should say I hope they’re sending me some. That they’re piling up. Maybe they’ll have some good ideas. I also need to query our people to find out whether they have any actual AV evidence of the contract trickery for us.”
Thursday afternoon
Morgan pulled into his driveway and parked his car. Then he abruptly wondered why he’d chosen to go to his house. Arlette’s car was there so his home certainly wasn’t a haven where he could work in peace. She’ll be all over my ass the moment I walk in the door, he thought. I should’ve gone to a coffee shop. Though he’d have felt guilty about the fact that he didn’t drink coffee. He shook his head, I could’ve had tea or something.
He decided it was too late. If by any chance Arlette had seen him drive up, she’d grill him later about why the hell he’d come home, then left without coming inside. Deciding it’d be less painful to stay, he opened the door quietly and headed directly for his little home office. Maybe she won’t notice me for a while. It’d be great if I could get some of this stuff done before she starts to rant.
He got into his office without being seen. Lifting on the door to take the stress off the hinge, he slowly closed it—not all the way, that would’ve been suspicious—but enough that it’d block the usual line of sight to his desk.
As he waited for his desktop computer to come out of sleep mode he started to relax. He’d always been a problem solver. When he wasn’t thinking about how badly he’d just been screwed for his naïveté, he looked on this problem as another challenge to be solved. He even had a moderate anticipation that he’d succeed.
He’d just opened the first email when he realized that some kind of rhythmic sound was bothering him. Maybe Arlette’s exercising? he thought. Then another possibility dawned.
Quietly rising, he peered out into the hall. The sound was louder to the left. Getting out his phone, he brought up its video camera and put it on record. As he slowly walked down the hall toward the master bedroom, the rhythmic creaking gradually got louder. He heard voices. Though he couldn’t understand what they were saying, one voice was plainly Arlette’s.
With the camera still recording, Morgan turned and walked quietly down the hall, out the back door, and around to the master bedroom window. Staying out of sight, he pushed camera end of the phone out just far enough that he could see the inside of the bedroom on the display.
He saw just what he’d expected. After recording a couple of minutes, he turned and went back in the house.
He propped the cell phone, still recording, against a bowl on the kitchen counter. It was a location that provided an excellent view of who came and went down the hall.
Then he went back into his office and sat back down at his computer. Shouldn’t I be in a frenzy? he wondered. In a movie the betrayed husband would be bursting into the bedroom, intent on mayhem, wouldn’t he? Morgan thought back to how he he’d been fairly calm when he’d found out that his friends were trying to screw him out of his share of Matilda. Arlette’s always saying I’m emotionless, maybe she’s right?
He thought about it for a while, deciding that he hadn’t loved Arlette for years.
In fact, he despised her.
All in all, her affair could be thought of as a good thing. It’d end their marriage and his life would become a lot less aggravating if it didn’t Arlette in it.
But maybe she’s right about me being emotionless.
He went back to reading his email.
He’d gotten the gist of what people were writing to him. He wasn’t exactly sure how many people worked at Matilda—it just wasn’t something that he’d found terribly interesting. However, he thought he had emails from 80 to 90% of what he thought might have been about a hundred employees. He drafted a boilerplate reply, saying he understood their concerns. He told them that he and Roger were trying to assemble a legal team to represent the employees. It asked them to write down their recollection of how they been induced to sign the contract and requested any evidence—especially recordings—that anyone might have of the event.
He was rereading and editing his reply a second time when he heard the bedroom door open. He slid his chair forward to make himself even less evident through the partially open office doorway. He heard the man ask a question, but Morgan couldn’t understand what he’d said. They were nearing his door so Arlette’s response was clear. “My lawyer says it’d be smart to wait till the money’s in our accounts before I file for the divorce.” She sighed happily, “But we won’t have to sneak around much longer.”
The guy responded, but by then they were past his door and Morgan couldn’t hear what he said. Listening carefully, Morgan heard the gentle creak of the back door as it opened and closed.
Morgan sat silently, staying as far as he could out of line of sight of the doorway. He didn’t want to have a confrontation at the moment. He heard Arlette putter in the kitchen briefly. He didn’t hear her walk down the carpeted hallway toward the bedroom, but after a bit he heard it when she turned on her shower.
Morgan went down and got the phone off the kitchen counter. Returning to his office, he copied the video file onto his home computer, his laptop, and onto cloud storage. He watched the video, still surprised to be taking this so calmly. Even watching the video he’d shot through the bedroom window brought disappointment, but not anger. Arlette’s boyfriend wasn’t familiar. Morgan opened the door to his office wider so it’d obviously be different from when Arlette had passed it earlier.
I may need a record of what she has to say when she does see me, he thought. With a sigh, he turned video recording back on in his phone. He propped it on a shelf across the room and went back to editing his email.
He’d just sent the email when Arlette appeared in his office doorway. “You’re home way early. Did the sale go through?”
Morgan nodded without looking at her.
In a disgusted tone, she said, “I don’t suppose you got around to negotiating a better share for us?”
Shaking his head, Morgan turned to look dispassionately at her. “Like I told you, I don’t think screwing over our friends is ever the right thing to do.”
“Well, what did we get?”
Morgan multiplied his $200,000 annual salary by his seven years with the company and said, “$1.4 million.”
Arlette blinked a couple of times. Dread in her voice, she asked, “What do you mean?”
Feeling a small evil rush, Morgan lifted the letter that’d been taped to his box office desk and held it out to her.
She paled as she read it. When her eyes rose to his, she was trembling. Morgan wasn’t sure whether her tremor was due to horror, or rage. Her lips pulled back in a rictus as she hissed, “What did you do?!”
“It looks like I probably signed something I shouldn’t have. Terrence told me it was a document they had to have in order to sell the company.”
“You idiot!”
She had him there, so he nodded and shrugged, “Yeah…”
“You are so oblivious. Such a freaking patsy! It’s not bad enough you’ve ruined your life, you had to suck me down with you.”
Your life’d still be fine, Morgan thought. He thought of how many billions of people around the world would be ecstatic to live the way Arlette did. He wondered if he should tell her there were reasons to believe his new employment contract might not be enforceable. Nah.
Then he thought to himself, That’s pretty passive-aggressive.
Not wanting to feed the fire of her insults, Morgan had just been sitting there staring at Arlette as the thoughts went through his mind. Suddenly she launched herself at him. Slapping and clawing, she landed on top of him in his rolling desk chair. It rolled off the plastic carpet mat and at that point its wheels arrested in the soft carpet and it toppled over. Morgan’s head hit the corner of the cabinet behind him, leaving him stunned. They crash
ed to the floor, her flailing assault continuing undiminished. She kept scratching at him, so he wrapped his arms and legs around her in an attempt to immobilize her.
She bit his shoulder.
He twisted her around so her teeth couldn’t reach him, then just hung on as if he were trying to calm someone having a seizure.
After what Morgan thought was about five minutes, Arlette settled down to quiet sobbing. He gradually relaxed his hold. She jerked away from him, rolled over and slowly climbed to her feet. When she turned to look at him, the hate in her eyes was a terrible thing. “We’re done! Get the hell out of my house,” she rasped, pointing in the general direction of the front door.
“Okay,” Morgan said, feeling relieved. He didn’t want to stay. What are we going to do about Adam? he wondered. He didn’t ask. I’d imagine the Adam issue’s low on her priority list.
When Morgan got up, he was unsteady for a moment. As he braced himself on the desk, his eyes were drawn to a large red spot on the carpet. He bent down and touched it. Sticky, red, warm, it’s blood! He reached up and touched his head where it’d hit the corner of the cabinet. His hair was soaked with blood.
He went to the hall bathroom and started trying to wash the blood out of his hair without restarting the bleeding. He was wondering how much longer he had before Arlette realized he hadn’t left the house when he heard Adam’s voice behind him. “Dad?!”
Home from school, Morgan realized, surprised it was that late. He turned and tried to give his son a grin, though he suspected it was a bit wan. “Hey Adam.”
“What in God’s name happened in your office? It looks like someone was murdered in there.”
Adam looked pale and Morgan realized he might be worried that someone really had been murdered. After all, Morgan and Arlette hadn’t been getting along for years. Now Adam finds his dad in the bathroom trying to wash off blood. “Um… My chair fell over and I whacked my head on the file cabinet. I guess it made quite a mess, huh?”
Adam nodded slowly, not looking reassured. “What happened to your face?” His eyes dropped to Morgan’s arm, “And your shoulder and arm?”
Morgan looked at the mirror, seeing several scratches from Arlette’s nails on his face, one of which had gouged away a little flap of skin that Morgan hadn’t trimmed off yet. Then there was the bite mark on his shoulder. The bite had broken his skin right through his shirt. It hadn’t bled a lot, but Morgan hadn’t gotten around to washing off any of that blood yet. When he looked down at his arm, he saw several more scratches. Feeling embarrassed, Morgan produced a wry grimace, and looked back up at his son. “Um, my chair fell over ‘cause your mom and I got in a little fight. Sorry to have…” He shrugged, “She was pretty pissed.”
“Holy shit! I think it was more than a little fight.” He glanced toward the master bedroom, “Is she okay?”
“I think so.” Morgan thought about how tightly he’d gripped Arlette while waiting for her to calm down. “She might have some bruises… Maybe you should go check on her.”
Adam glanced down the hall toward the bedroom, then back at his dad for a moment. He shrugged, said, “Okay,” and headed off down the hallway.
Morgan resumed trying to clean himself up, now wondering whether it might be hard to check into a hotel when he looked like he’d been in a street fight. He trimmed off the little bit of dead skin on his forehead and washed the blood off his chest and arm. He’d gone back to keeping pressure on his scalp wound while trying to soak the blood out of the hair around it when Adam reappeared in the bathroom doorway. Morgan said, “How is she?”
“Pretty incoherent. She did make it clear that she wanted you out of the house.”
Morgan’s shoulders sagged, “Yeah,” he said despondently. “I don’t think our marriage’s going to survive this one. Sorry.” He looked at Adam questioningly, “I know a lot of kids blame themselves when their parents break up. I hope you’re not worried this’s your fault?”
Adam shook his head slowly, “No. Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”
“Nah,” Morgan tried to grin, “scalp wounds are famous for bleeding a lot. It’s stopped now.”
“But you hit your head.”
“Didn’t knock me out. Didn’t even make me dizzy. I’ll be fine. The issue’s what we should do next. I told your mom I’d get out of the house. Will you be okay here?”
Adam’s eyes widened, “I can’t come with you?!”
“Of course. I just wasn’t sure you’d want to.”
Adam drew back as if astonished, “I don’t want to stay here with the psycho bitch!”
“You shouldn’t say…” Morgan trailed off as he realized Adam was just saying what he himself thought. His initial response had just been a knee-jerk reaction from years of trying to keep peace in the house. “Sorry, I guess maybe you don’t like being around her any more than I do.”
Adam slowly shook his head, “No, not at all. I can’t believe you stayed with her this long.”
“Oh…” was all Morgan could think to say, realizing that staying with Arlette for Adam’s sake wasn’t what Adam had actually wanted. I probably should’ve asked him what he wanted, rather than thinking I knew. But then Morgan realized that he wouldn’t have had the courage to ask for fear that just the question would’ve upset his son. “Well, let me see if I can get Arlette to give me a clean shirt.”
“Just a minute,” Adam said, pulling out his cell phone, “I should get some pictures of you.”
“Why?” Morgan asked uncertainly.
“Mom’s in there taking pictures of some bruises on her arms. I’m sure they’re going to show up in court. I think you need some ammunition of your own.”
Adam started taking pictures, both faraway and close up of all of Morgan’s injuries. As he did so, Morgan remembered his phone, still in his home office videoing the wall. The video of Arlette attacking him would probably help more than Adam’s pictures of his injuries when it came to court, but he liked the feeling that Adam was trying to take care of him.
Adam was taking pictures of the gash on the back of Morgan’s head when he stopped. He dabbed at it with some of the gauze from the first aid kit Morgan’d been using. “Oh, gross! You’ve got to go to the hospital for some sutures. This cut on your head’s open about an eighth of an inch.”
Morgan said, “I really don’t want to go to the ER—”
Adam interrupted, “You’ve got to Dad. It’s gross! You need sutures.”
“There’s a trick I’ve heard of,” Morgan said, glad his hair was kind of long. “Can you pull up a few strands of hair on either side of the cut and tie them together? They’ll act just like sutures.”
“I can’t do that!” Adam said, sounding appalled.
Morgan looked at his son in the mirror, “Come on, you can too. It’s just like tying a couple of threads together.”
Adam rolled his eyes, then said, “Let me get some gloves.”
When Adam finished tying Morgan’s scalp together and taking the pictures, he said, “I’ll go ask Mom if I can get you some clothes. It’ll probably go over better coming from me than from you.”
“Okay, thanks. It’d help if you could get my travel kit. It’s a blue nylon bag in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I’ll be getting my laptop and some other stuff—My phone, he thought—out of my office.”
While Adam was in enemy territory getting Morgan’s stuff, Morgan backed up his desktop computer onto his external hard drive and copied the new phone video onto his laptop and from there onto cloud storage. While he was doing so, their landline phone started ringing. They virtually never got anything but sales calls on it. Morgan kept thinking he should have it taken out, but so far he hadn’t. He sometimes thought he was the last person in his generation that had a landline. He often wondered what’d possessed him to have one installed in the first place. In any case, no one answered that landline, they just let the calls go to voicemail. He was still fooling with his phone when he heard the machine pick up, “
Hello, this’s Officer Lincoln of the Asheville Police Department. I’m trying to reach Morgan Djai about your brother Daryn.”
Morgan sat bolt upright. When the officer left a phone number, he entered the number in his phone then sat, staring into space. He and Daryn had been estranged for eighteen or nineteen years, but Morgan had tried to reconnect several times during the last ten years. Unfortunately, he hadn’t known where his brother lived or even if he lived. He hadn’t had any contact information. Their last name was rare enough Morgan didn’t think Daryn should’ve been difficult to find, but apparently Daryn didn’t have a listed phone number. If he had a publicly listed address it didn’t have his own name on it.
He finally decides to call me on the day my whole life’s going to hell? Or, worse, he has the police call me. Does he need bail money or something?
Bad timing or not, Morgan tapped the number to make the call. But then Arlette appeared in the doorway of his office. She started screaming, “You’re still here?! Get the hell out! Now!” She pointed imperiously in the direction of the front door.
Morgan stood, putting the phone in his pocket. A glance showed him that the external drive had finished downloading his desktop. He unplugged the drive and dropped it and his laptop into his backpack. As he moved toward the door, Adam walked behind Arlette carrying a couple of bags and gave Morgan an affirmative nod, apparently trying to indicate he had their stuff. Arlette held up her arm, “Look what you did to me!”
Morgan saw a faint bruise, but he imagined it’d look worse tomorrow. “Sorry,” he said, restraining himself from pointing out what she’d been doing to him when she got the bruises. For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t move out of the doorway, but then she jerked herself aside and Morgan slipped by.
When he got outside, Adam was already in the car, sitting in the driver’s seat. Although Adam took advantage of his learner’s permit every chance he could, somehow Morgan had expected to drive on a day like this one.
The Transmuter's Daughter Page 5
