“Maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t,” Tommy said, with a chuckle. He was obviously amused by my response, as well as by my response to his restraints. “But I’m not the only one in on this—and, if my partner wants you dead, you’re dead… So, like I said, it’s in your best interest to cooperate.”
In that instant, there was only one question on my mind.
“Who?” I asked.
Tommy turned and looked at something on a distant wall. My vision was still fucked up, and I couldn’t quite make out what he was looking at, but it was round and familiar, like a clock. He paced back and forth for a moment, laughing a little, and he relit his joint and took a few more drags.
“I tried to tell you earlier,” he said after what seemed like forever. “In Burger Bistro, when I asked you if you wanted to hear about the rest of my dating history.”
I heard a noise from above me—the sound of a closing door, followed by footsteps.
“After what happened at that rEcore party,” Tommy went on, “I tried everything I could to get back together with Gretchen. But I guess that was the final straw, and she wanted nothing to do with me.”
The sound of the footsteps was growing louder. Then they stopped, and I heard a door open.
“Really, I tried everything I could,” Tommy repeated. “I even showed up at rEcore and demanded to see her… But, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get past security.”
As I heard footsteps descending the nearby staircase, I shook my head from side to side. I knew exactly whose face I expected to see round the corner…only it wasn’t her face I saw first. It was her tits.
“Hey, baby,” Stephanie said, walking over to Tommy. When she got to his side, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. It was one of those kisses that was both disgusting, yet, under the right circumstances, incredibly hot. Their tongues lapped at each other outside of their mouths in a way that was very, very vulgar.
“She doesn’t need to know our entire back story, you know,” Stephanie said, finally pulling away from their unnerving kiss.
“She doesn’t need to know,” Tommy repeated. “But I want to tell her. She thinks she’s so smart. I want her to see everything she overlooked…and maybe if I tell her what she wants to know, she’ll tell us what we want to know. It’s only fair, isn’t it?”
“Okay, whatever, Tommy,” Stephanie said. “But let me cut the chase and get to the point for you.” Stephanie turned her attention to me, taking the seat Tommy had occupied earlier.
“I wouldn’t let him up to see Gretchen,” she explained. “I’d been given specific instructions that he wasn’t to be let in, and he was trying to explain to me why they were bullshit. He tried to get in the next day, too, but I wouldn’t let him… After that, we ended up talking, then fucking, then dating.
“Tommy got offered some money to do some hacking and innovation harvesting, but he couldn’t do it at his firm…so I suggested that he do it at rEcore. My brother worked there, you know.”
Tommy came over and rubbed his hands over Stephanie’s shoulders, pressing his body against hers. “Let me tell the rest?” he whimpered.
“Go ahead,” she sighed.
“All it took was a couple roofies to get Evan to spill everything I needed to know to access rEcore’s system using his credentials,” Tommy said, picking up the story as if he’d rehearsed it. “And after I was in, I was in for good… I was able to gain higher level access and eventually tapped into Gretchen’s accounts.
“But then Gretchen caught wind of things. She saw some strange activity in Evan’s logs and fired him, which threw a huge wrench in our plans. I still had the access I needed, but I didn’t have a middle-man fall guy lined up for my big finds.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes a little. She seemed a little tired of this story. I, however, was intrigued and couldn’t help but want to hear more.
“When I saw your HR file come across Gretchen’s e-desk a few months ago, a little lightbulb went off in my head,” Tommy went on. “If you’re wondering how you landed such a great job, you can thank me, in part, for it. I fucked with some of the other candidates’ résumés and communications to make you look like the obvious hire—and, once you were hired, I just had to wait for the perfect moment.
“That moment came when your stupid reporter friend used your tablet. Since I had access to Gretchen’s account, I had access to yours—and, when I saw who was using your equipment, it was like a dream come true for me. I hadn’t envisioned a media leak being part of my mining, but, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a blessing. It would help muddy any path that led to me…I thought.”
As I listened to Tommy speak, I heard some flaws in his logic, but I was more disturbed by his behavior and the excited way he was recounted his nefarious activities. I couldn’t say for sure, since my vision was so still blurry, but I was pretty sure he had a huge boner while telling his tale.
“When I set things up to fall with the music app,” Tommy continued, “you were supposed to take the wrap for it. I couldn’t predict how anyone would act for sure, but I was pretty confident that the higher-ups at rEcore wouldn’t do very much about it, for fear of exposing more of their tech secrets, and pretty much expected you to sit back and take the blame, then run away with your tail between your legs… That’s what the Patty I knew would’ve done.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Stephanie interrupted. “But that was Patty, and this is Trish… Whatever.” She sounded even more tired with this part of Tommy’s story.
“Whatever,” Tommy echoed, “but it’s true.”
Tommy walked away from Stephanie, over to a workbench a few feet away. He picked up an object and started examining it.
“So, you’ve got tons of calls and texts from Julie Benson,” he noted. “But who’s this ‘Unknown’ number on here? Who else knows about your investigation—who else is involved?”
I realized, then, that Tommy was examining my cell phone—phone-1. I wriggled around in my seat a little and brought the tips of my fingers to my ass. I could still feel phone-2 in my pocket, and I wondered, in all his maneuvers (from kidnapping me to tying me up), how Tommy hadn’t found it.
I wriggled around a bit more, hoping for the unlikely. How many times have you been in a situation where you “ass-dialed” someone? You know, where your phone is in your pocket or purse, and you inadvertently hit some buttons and end up calling someone. I prayed, in that moment, for an accident like that to happen.
While I was wriggling, Tommy was still looking at my cell phone—but, unfortunately, Stephanie was looking at me. My movements were a little strange, given the situation, and they’d attracted her attention.
“Why the hell are you fidgeting around like that?” Stephanie asked, jumping up from her chair and rushing at me. The next thing I knew, her hands were all over my body, groping my chest, my legs, and, then, my ass.
“For Christ’s sake, Tommy,” Stephanie yelped when she cupped my right buttock. “You didn’t even give her a pat down, or check her pockets? She’s got another phone back here!”
With that, I felt phone-2 being pulled from my pocket, then felt a hard thump on the back of my head, followed by blackness and silence.
~ Chapter 15 ~
“You really need to go on a diet.”
Those words didn’t really make sense to me—nothing did—as I came to, again, in the unfamiliar basement or garage where I was being held captive. My eyes focused on what was directly in front of me, and it took me a moment to register it as Stephanie’s huge tits. Her arms were wrapped around me near my shoulders, and Tommy was at my legs. They were lifting me and carrying somewhere.
My head fell back, and I moaned in pain. I had a terrible, terrible headache—even worse than before—and could barely even think straight. I tried focusing on the ceiling to get my sense back, but it seemed to be moving by me too quickly.
Suddenly, my carriers stopped carrying me. We came to a halt, and I saw strange line
s and contours. Then I felt something cold and hard, and everything around me shifted to neutral. It wasn’t until I heard a slamming noise that I realized I’d been laid down on the back seat of a van.
The next noises I heard were metal on metal, churning. Then, all the neutral-ness turned to brightness, and I heard a cacophony of other sounds. Birds chirping, vehicles purring, and people talking. I struggled to scream, but all that came out was a heavy breath.
The voices around me grew louder, and I heard other noises that I couldn’t quite identify. Talking turned to shouting. Shouting turned to fighting. I heard thuds, clonks, and clicks, then…silence again.
I had no idea what was going on, and was so dizzy, but, nonetheless, I tried my best to sit up, so that I could get a better view and footing. But as soon as I tried, I collapsed—and it was then that I heard another noise.
The same van door that had been shut only moments earlier opened again—and when I raised up my head, I saw a pair of steely gray eyes and a mop of chestnut hair. I dropped my head back and sighed—and prayed to God that I wasn’t dreaming.
“She’s over here,” I heard J.R. shout as I felt his strong arms wrap around me. The blackness came again—but this time I did not fear it.
The next time I opened my eyes, I saw an incredible variety of colors. Bright red, deep purple, sun-kissed yellow, and waxy green. I knew, for sure, that I had to be dreaming… It was as if I was in a jungle of some sort.
The colors around me slowly started taking shape. Flowers. Yes, I was dreaming—and, yes, I was in a jungle… I had to be—right? But there was something off about this jungle. The light in it seemed artificial…fake.
I jolted a little and blinked my eyes. I was just short of pinching myself.
But when I opened my eyes again, the flowers and artificial light were still there, and I was all the more confused.
Other things around me were starting to take shape as well. I saw a window, a chair, and a hodgepodge of generic-looking furniture… And, then, I saw a figure hunched over in the corner.
“J.R.?” I asked—and, just as I asked it, J.R. raised his head from his hands.
J.R. jumped from his seat and ran over to me. “Trish?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”
The question seemed moot, but I answered it anyway.
“Yeah,” I said. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital,” J.R. responded. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Barely,” I answered. “I know that Tommy and Stephanie had me locked up somewhere, and I remember them putting me in a van…then seeing you.”
“Well,” J.R. said, taking my hand into his, “that’s the basics… But there’s a lot more that happened beyond that.”
“Tell me,” I demanded, though my demand must have sounded not so demanding.
“I will,” J.R. said. “But let’s give you a little time to recover… The doctors will want to check you out. In fact, I should go tell them you’re awake now.”
“Okay,” I said, relegating myself to my position.
As J.R. started to stand, I reached out and grabbed his hand to stop him.
“Just one question for now though,” I said—and, this time, I must have sounded demanding.
“All right,” J.R. said, relegating himself to my position.
“How did you find me?” I asked. “Was it through my cell phone?” I still wanted to know if I’d succeeded in ass-dialing anyone, or if anyone had been wise enough to try and track either of my numbers.
“No,” J.R. said, running his fingers along my arm. “It wasn’t your cell phone.
“It was Gretchen.”
~ Chapter 16 ~
If there was a contest for the most thorough medical examination of all time, hands down, the doctors at Lutheran General would have won it that day. The examination they gave me took forever and involved running tests on every system, muscle, and fluid in my body.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t the most thorough—or longest—examination in the history of the world…but it certainly felt like it. The longer I was awake, the more I came to, and the more I wanted to know about how I’d ended up in that hospital. I wanted to know how J.R.—or whoever—had found me, who’d “saved” me, and what had happened to my captors. When you’ve got questions like these on your mind, even a quickie exam feels like the world’s most attenuated one.
Finally, after I’d been poked and prodded for what felt like hours, I was cleared for visitors, and J.R. (who’d been hanging around the whole while) was allowed back into my room to see me.
He came and sat at my bedside, and I looked at him, silently asking him for details.
“It was pretty dangerous for you to do what you did,” J.R. said, picking up on my cues. “There’s a lot that could have gone wrong from you arranging some chance run-in between Tommy and Gretchen… But, luckily, it ended up working out to your advantage.
“After Gretchen saw you and Tommy together at Burger Bistro, she stewed over things for a while, and then decided to call me. She used my work lines and answering service, and I didn’t get her messages right away—but, when I did, I responded to them immediately.
“She told me about seeing you guys together, and she told me more about Tommy. She explained how aggressive and severe he’d been with her when they were together, and said she’d long been suspicious that he was up to no good before—and after—they dated.”
J.R. leaned over me and brushed his fingers through my hair. “She went on and on about what a ‘bad guy’ Tommy was and said she wasn’t even sure why she was calling me, but she knew that she had to. She said she figured Tommy might have his hand at play in all of this, and that I might want to look into him before letting all the blame fall on you… Little did she know we were already working on that.”
I tried to sit up in my bed, to make the conversation more of a conversation and less of a monologue, but J.R. shook his head and calmed me again by running his fingers through my hair once more.
“I tried calling you, but got no answer,” J.R. went on. “And I went to your apartment, but you weren’t there… That’s when I told myself enough was enough… I couldn’t keep playing private investigator behind the scenes. It was getting too dangerous. With all I knew about Tommy at that point, I was afraid…and, apparently, I had good reason to be.
“I decided to do what I should have done earlier. I called the cops—and, while I was still on the line with them, they called in the FBI… Believe it or not, the name ‘Tommy Ferguson’ rang a bell with them. The FBI already had him on their watch list, and already knew about his affiliation with Gretchen—and about his relationship with Stephanie.
“When I told them you were missing—even though you weren’t ‘missing’ according to legal standards—they put out a covert manhunt for you. They checked Tommy’s, but found nothing, and then put out feelers in Stephanie’s neighborhood… Once they confirmed that there was suspicious activity around her house, they initiated stake-out, and I did everything I could to convince them to let me join them.
“We were parked outside of Stephanie’s house for about two hours when they made their move and tried to move you… The FBI apprehended them—and I can only assume they’re interrogating them as we speak. Who knows? As soon as I found you in the back of that van, I stopped caring about them, and only cared about you.”
J.R. shook his head and looked away from me for a moment. I could see tears pooling in his eyes.
“If only we’d called the authorities earlier,” he said, “then you wouldn’t have had to go through all of this. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking… I mean, if only I’d trusted you from the beginning, or if I hadn’t…”
J.R. would have kept talking, but I interrupted him. “If only,” I repeated. “If only this, if only that—we can’t change any of it now.”
Whatever drugs the hospital had given me, they were good ones—because I meant every word I said.
“You’re right, though
,” I said after a much-needed breath. “If we’d done anything differently, I probably wouldn’t be in this hospital bed right now…”
J.R. regarded me during what was only a pause in my statement.
“But, then, you wouldn’t be here beside me either, now would you?” I added.
J.R.’s frown turned upside down, and he arched forward to kiss me on the forehead.
“I guess not,” he said, sounding somewhat giddy. “But I sure hope it was worth it.”
“Me too,” I replied, a little giddy myself. “You’ll have to prove to me that it was.”
“I will,” J.R. said. “I promise… Even if it takes me the rest of my lifetime.”
“I hope it doesn’t take that long,” I chimed back.
“I mean it, though,” J.R. said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this up to you—and to show you how much you mean to me.”
“Well, I appreciate that,” I said, fumbling beside me. I was looking for the remote to the bed—if J.R. wasn’t going to let me sit up on my own, I’d let the bed hoist me. “But, right now,” I went on, “can we start with one little favor?”
“Anything,” J.R. responded without hesitation.
“I could really go for a cup of coffee,” I said, raising myself to eye level.
J.R. stood up and smiled at me. “Black, with two teaspoons of sugar,” he said as he disappeared through the doorway. “I’ll be right back.”
I closed my eyes and sank into the pillow behind me.
~~~
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Blast From The Past 3 Page 6
