Jordan had a bad feeling.
Because of her family’s immense wealth and the potential for kidnapping or personal harm that came with it, Jordan’s father employed round-the-clock shadow security. The teams job was to keep his family safe whenever they were in public. The highly-skilled operatives were experts at maintaining a covert overwatch, blending into crowds and remaining inconspicuous, yet were never far away. The members of the Farrow family - Jordan, her husband Keith, and her parents - had each been given a special word, a panic word they were to call out if they suspected they were in danger. Jordan’s word was Shortcake; the playful nickname her father had given to her when she was a child. Growing up, she had been warned of the consequences of using it, and that it was only to be used in an emergency. If she yelled the word right now members of her security team would surround her within seconds and escort her to safety. The threat would be dealt with accordingly.
The strained conversation and odd behavior of the stranger made her uncomfortable.
She had never used her panic word before. Now she found it on her lips.
A man and woman emerged from the crowd and casualty positioned themselves on either side of the odd man.
Marsden removed his hand from his waist and placed it in his jacket pocket.
The man moved in behind him, to his left, the woman to his right. She brushed past him and skimmed her hand across his waist. She smiled at Marsden, apologized for bumping into him, then looked at her partner.
No weapon detected.
Jordan realized the man and woman were members of her shadow detail. Perhaps additional operatives were circulating in the crowd or standing at the adjoining tables. Until their services were needed she would remain unaware of their presence. All that was important right now was that she was safe.
“What police department are you with?” Jordan asked. She signed the man’s book and handed it back to him.
Marsden tucked the book under his arm. “I’m not.”
The operative on Marsden’s left moved closer. The woman walked to the side of the signing table, opening a direct path between herself and Jordan.
“I knew your father, Michael Farrow. Sonofabitch took everything I had.”
Jordan stood up. “Excuse me? Who are you? How the hell did you get in here?”
Marsden removed a pen from his pocket, pointed it at her, then threw it on the table.
“You’ll be hearing from me.” Marsden glanced at the operatives beside him. “Count on it.”
The woman looked at her partner. She shook her head as if to say, ‘don’t engage.’
“Get out!” Jordan yelled.
Marsden touched the brim of his cap and smiled. “Good day, Ms. Quest.”
Jennifer Bleeker returned to the conference room as Marsden walked out. She looked at Jordan, then glanced back at the man. Something felt wrong.
“Everything okay, Jordan?”
“It’s nothing, Jenn. Is the car ready?”
“Whenever you are.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
Jordan looked at the pen laying on the table. The Farrow Industries logo was printed on the barrel.
She threw it in her purse.
INTRUDERS Chapter 5
JENNIFER WAVED goodbye as the limousine pulled out of the parking circle at the front entrance of the convention center.
Rock Dionne glanced in his rearview mirror. “How did it go?” he asked.
“Huh?” Jorden replied.
“The conference. How was it?”
“Oh, that,” Jordan said. “Great.”
“Good thing you’re a psychic,” Rock joked. “You’d make a pathetic salesperson.”
Jordan was preoccupied with Marsden’s threat. You’ll see me again. Count on it. She removed the pen from her purse.
“Sorry, Rock.” Jordan said. “I had a rather weird encounter before I left.”
Rock was affable, friendly. Jordan liked and trusted him. “What do you mean by weird?”
Jordan rolled the pen between her fingers. “Rock, how long have you been part of my dad’s protection detail?” she asked.
“Three years,” Rock replied. “Why?”
“Do you ever recall my father mentioning a guy by the name of Marsden?”
Dionne shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Seems he had some kind of falling out with my father.”
Dionne looked concerned. “Anything serious?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened back there, Jordan? Did this Marsden guy threaten you?”
Jordan hesitated. “Let’s say whatever problem he has with my father was motivation enough for him to crash the conference to tell me about it.”
“What did he say?”
“That I'd be seeing him again.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think he could be a problem?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Dionne sounded worried. “That’s cause enough for concern. Your father needs to know about this. So does his detail.”
“I’m a big girl, Rock. I can take care of myself. Besides, when I was in practice I received dozens of threats. Nothing ever came from them. The guy’s harmless.”
“In my line of work everyone is harmless until they’re not,” Dionne said. “That was different. You were a criminal prosecutor back then. This sounds personal.” He picked up his cell phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Nick Parsons. Maybe he knows what this is about.”
“Thanks, Rock,” Jordan said.
Rock smiled. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it.” He checked his watch. “We should be at the gate in forty-five minutes. Grab some shut eye. I’ll wake you when we arrive.”
Jordan settled into the deep leather seat and closed her eyes. “Sounds good.”
Nick Parsons commanded Farrow Industries security team. Several years ago, at his suggestion, Michael Farrow had begun providing him with transcripts of his telephone calls and business meetings, all of which had been recorded. The transcripts were retained in order to serve as proof of any threats made against him. Farrow knew that on his way to building a computer technology empire he was bound to run into his fair share of tough competitors and probably make a few enemies along the way. Perhaps Marsden was one of them.
Jordan tried to rest but couldn’t. She held the pen in her hand and concentrated. Although Marsden wore gloves she could read the latent energy signature off the writing instrument from when he had last handled it.
The images came in rapid succession: Marsden using the pen to sketch out the layout of a building. A meeting with a man; black, muscular, intimidating. He hands the man a document… plans… along with several photographs, the first of a steel cabinet stocked with an assortment of items; brass couplings, push-on hoses, rubber O-rings of various sizes. The second photo was the inside of a building. A wall-mounted chemical spill clean-up kit and plastic goggles hung on the wall. Machines and equipment of various types, their purposes unknown to her, were located about the room. The vision also revealed the smell of paint so noxious it forced Jordan to cover her nose to quell the assault of the phantom odor on her senses. The structure was massive. Jordan moved within it and inspected the facility to which the pen had transported her. A tool lay at her feet. As she knelt to pick it up a brilliant white light formed at the end of the structure. Jordan shielded her eyes as the strange light grew brighter, wider, and soon it had become all-encompassing, blinding her, filling the vision. When the sensorial overload finally proved to be too strong Jordan broke the connection.
She dropped the pen. The vision vanished.
Jordan held her hands to her head. The effect of the psychic journey had been short-lived, minor in comparison to past object readings.
Her senses returned to normal. The foul smell was gone. No h
ead pain remained.
“You okay, Jordan?” Rock asked.
Jordan apologized. “I’m fine, Rock. Thanks.”
“Another vision?”
“Yes.”
“Looks like it was a bad one.”
“More unsettling than anything else.”
Rock checked his mirrors, executed a lane change. “Mind if I ask you a personal question, Jordan?” he said.
“Sure.”
“This gift of yours… to be able to see and feel things the rest of us can’t. You can control it, right?”
“Most of the time, yes.”
“Do you ever wish you could just turn it off?”
Jordan flashed back to her childhood. Lying at the bottom of the pool. The coldness of the surrounding water. The rising whine of the ambulance defibrillator as it recharged. The shock of the paddles that threw her small body up from the gurney with each electrical jolt. The flurry of activity in the emergency room to save her life.
This was how The Gift had been delivered to her. Not kindly or gently, but violently and nearly at the cost of her life.
She answered Rock. “No. It’s part of me now. Not to accept it would be wrong. It was given to me for a reason. I have a responsibility to pursue the visions wherever they lead me.”
Rock smiled. “I’m glad the Man upstairs gave you a second chance. I can’t think of anyone more deserving. Even if you do freak me out a little.”
Jordan laughed. “Try being my husband.”
“Keith’s a brave man.” Rock answered his cellphone, spoke with the caller, hung up. “Jet’s on the tarmac ready to go. Keith and your parents just arrived.”
“Are you coming with us?”
Rock glanced in his rearview mirror at Jordan. “Do I look like a guy who would turn down a working vacation in Maui? Damn straight I’m going.”
Jordan laughed. “Will you be at my event?”
Rock shook his head. “An operations team is already at the convention center prepping for your appearance. I’ll catch up with you again when I return from Hawaii.”
“Sounds good,” Jordan said. She looked through the tinted window of the limousine. The sunny sky took on a foreboding, ominous appearance. Her thoughts returned to Marsden. The smile fell from her face.
Rock picked up on the sudden change in Jordan’s disposition. “Stop thinking about it,” he said.
“About what?”
“Whatever happened back there. Don’t give that joker another thought. We’ll check him out. Okay?”
Jordan smiled. “Thanks, Rock.”
The pen lay on the seat beside her. Jordan returned it to her purse. She would read it again on the flight. Perhaps it could tell her more about the stranger and whether he posed a threat to her family.
INTRUDERS Chapter 6
JAMES RIGEL was appalled by the smell. He had insisted the desk clerk in the small roadside motel check him into the most recently cleaned room and had paid extra for the request. When he opened the door, he expected to be met with a bouquet so fragrant and pleasing he would be quite content to spend the next hour sitting in the room, inhaling its exquisite aromas, and reflecting upon the exhilarating highlights of his road trip. Instead, his olfactory senses were assaulted by a wave of offensive odors: stale cigarette smoke, sickly sweet air freshener (that smelled nothing like any pine forest he ever walked through), lemon-scented furniture spray, the overpowering stench of ammonia-based bathroom cleaning compounds, and fabric softener. He considered marching back to the front desk, pulling the bastard over the counter, dragging him along the second-floor walkway back to his room, gagging the sonofabitch, and forcing him to sit in the stench that his cleaning staff had created. But the clerk would have to wait. He needed to tend to a matter of greater importance. Teaching the clerk a lesson would have to wait.
Rigel covered his nose and hurried through the room to the bathroom. He pulled a towel off the metal wall rack, laid it over the scarred cigarette-burned desk, and opened the wooden cigar box in which he kept his most prized possessions. He removed each of the items from the box with great reverence and laid them out in front of him.
The first was a bright-yellow tongue stud. It had belonged to a young lady he met a couple of days ago at a highway rest stop in Arkansas, west of Hot Springs. She told him her name was Cathy and that she was eighteen-years old. Likely no older than fifteen, she was physically developed beyond her years. Cathy took great pride in telling Rigel she was hitchhiking across the USA to California, that the better part of her last ride had been spent with her head buried in the lap of a long-haul trucker, and that she would be willing to make the next leg of his trip as pleasant for him as it had been for the trucker if he would give her a lift down the highway. Cathy said she preferred the road to home, that Hollywood was calling, and referred to herself as both a free-spirit and mistress of her own destiny. James was impressed by her natural beauty. He agreed that she had the looks to take the entertainment industry by storm. What most enthralled him most about the girl was the enticing smell of her body. The hint of shea butter on her copper skin, the faint honey-almond aroma of her hair, and the slight scent of citrus in her perfume. He accepted her invitation and enjoyed both her company and well-practiced talent for the next five-and-a-half hours from Hot Springs to Norman, Oklahoma. They finished lunch in a diner on the outskirts of town. When Cathy excused herself to the restroom, James agreed that a pee break was in order. He followed the girl downstairs, pushed her into the ladies’ room, snapped her neck, and ripped the stud out of her tongue. He opened the maintenance closet between the men’s and woman’s washrooms, removed the Closed for Maintenance sign, and hung it on the doorknob. Having left sufficient cash to cover the cost of the meal and provide a generous gratuity for their waitress under the salt shaker he left the restaurant, unnoticed, through a back door.
It had been a wonderful start to the day.
From Oklahoma he journeyed to Texas. This was his first time traveling through the American Southwest and James was anxious to see as much of the region as his busy schedule would permit. He exited the Interstate at Lubbock County, explored the city, then drove through town until be found himself in the quiet town of Slaton. The red brick roadway and wild west mural in the Town Square paid homage to its ranching and railway heritage. It was in Slaton where he met the beautiful teenager with the pink barrettes.
His reason for stopping to talk to her seemed innocent enough–a lost traveler, having wandered off the Interstate, out of his way and in need of directions. The attraction was mutual and immediate. The girl rested her arms on the roof of his car, exposing the bottom of her breasts beneath her pink FCUK crop top. She asked him where he was from, where he was going, and if he would be interested in partying with her for a while before hitting the road. He lied in response to her first two questions but readily agreed to the third. She took a step back from the door, unfastened her belt, unbuttoned her jeans, pulled down her zipper and removed two joints from her G-string. She told him the pot was free. Partying would cost him two-hundred. He opened his wallet, pulled out four fifties, stuck them down his pants, and asked if she was ready to play. The girl’s eyes brightened. She introduced herself as Becky, promised him the time of his life, hopped into the front seat of his car, and directed him to what she called party central; an abandoned grain storage silo located on the outskirts of town. He kissed her when she sat beside him. Her skin smelled delicious- lavender and vanilla. He told her if she smelled as good downstairs as he thought she did he’d gladly double the two-hundred. She assured him he wouldn’t be disappointed. He insisted she go down on him hard. But when she did nothing more than tease him to the point of white-hot frustration, he dealt with her appropriately, nearly severing her head from her body with the retractable metal cord from the keychain he kept clipped to his belt. Professional assassination was his stock in trade. The device was one of his favorite weapons and had become his trademark. He
had even given it a name: Zippy.
When his rage had subsided, the girl slumped to the ground at his feet. He unwound the garrote from her neck and retracted its steel cable. The cord caught the pink barrettes in her hair, pulled them out. They fell to the ground. He pocketed the souvenirs.
He left the dead girl lying on the dusty floor of the granary.
In contrast to the perfumery of her lifeless body the surrounding air smelled of mold and mildew, and so grossly offended his senses he thought he might retch. He hurried out of the abandoned silo into the fresh air.
Rigel placed the pink hair clips on the towel beside the yellow stud.
From Lubbock he travelled to Roswell, New Mexico, and stayed at the Galaxy Motel Inn where he enjoyed a comfortable bed, a quiet room, and one of the most rejuvenating sleeps of his trip.
That afternoon he gassed up in Benson, Arizona. While waiting to pay for fuel, a thirty-something blond with exceptional legs jumped the line in front of him. He tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the customers patiently waiting in line behind him. The blond flashed a perfect smile, explained she was running late for a meeting with her divorce attorney and thanked him for his understanding, but never once apologized for her inconsiderate behavior. She paid for her purchases, strutted out of the store, jumped into a Porsche Boxster and raced out of the gas station, nearly running down a patron as he crossed the lot. Rigel followed her home (so much for the bogus meeting with her attorney) and parked across the street. He watched her house until she drew the upstairs bedroom blinds then walked to her back door, removed a professional lock pick set from jacket pocket, worked the lock and deadbolt until they released, slipped in through the kitchen, heard the sound of running water, ascended the stairs, entered the bathroom, grabbed her hairbrush off the vanity, pulled back the shower curtain, and drove it down her throat before she could form a scream. Zippy enjoyed itself. Blood streamed down from beneath the steel cord as he pulled it tightly around her neck, its coppery aroma blending with her magnificent grapefruit- and lilac-soap covered body. He watched as the last glimmer of life left her eyes. The woman made up for her exceptional rudeness with a perfect body and excellent taste in body wash. The hot shower steam accentuated the decadent fruit and flowery smell and made their special moment together more intimate and seductive. Rigel carried her out of the bathroom into the master bedroom, threw her corpse on the bed and raped her. It was the least she could do to make up for his lost travel time. He was glad they had met.
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