by D. B. Henson
She shut the laptop computer and rubbed her eyes. First thing in the morning she would go down to Chadwick & Shore and get his record from the personnel department. She wished she had thought to do it earlier when she was there.
Toni rinsed off her plate, stuck it in the dishwasher, and then tossed the plastic soda bottle in the trash. Leaving all the lights on, she carried the hunting knife up the stairs.
CHAPTER 13
Toni had lain awake most of the night, the hunting knife tucked beneath her pillow, listening to every creak and pop the new house uttered as it settled. She kept the lamp on her bedside table turned on. She knew she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t help it. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Brian’s face.
After finally getting a few restless hours of sleep, she got up at dawn, showered, and then searched for an outfit that would hide the knife without leaving an obvious bulge on her side. She finally decided on a pair of charcoal gray slacks with a matching jacket that wasn’t too fitted.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Checking from different angles, wondering if anyone would be able to tell. The weapon felt strange on her side, yet at the same time, comforting.
Downstairs, she ate a quick breakfast of buttered toast and orange juice. With all the lights still on, she set the security system, and then left the house and drove to Chadwick & Shore.
She wheeled into the parking garage at seven thirty-five and nudged her car up to the guard station. The man inside immediately drew her attention. He didn’t look right. He was hunched down in the booth. She could see something small and black in his hand.
Could it be a gun?
A sudden jolt of fear ran through her. Was he the regular parking attendant? There was the slightest hint of familiarity, but that might just be from his uniform. She couldn’t be sure. He had his cap pulled down, hiding his eyes.
What if he was the one?
The attendant looked up, meeting her gaze. Her face grew warm and she could hear the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. Then the security arm started to rise, and the attendant turned away. Now she could clearly see the paperback novel open in his hand. He had been reading.
The pounding in her ears subsided. This had to stop. It was one thing to be cautious, but she couldn’t let her imagination run wild. Otherwise, she was going to drive herself crazy.
Toni drove through the gate to the Chadwick & Shore parking area. The office didn’t officially open until eight o’clock, and she noticed that neither Clint’s nor Jill’s car was in the garage. One less thing to worry about. She wanted to get into the office and get the information on Nico without running into either of them. She didn’t want to have to explain her reasons for being there.
Instead of parking in Scott’s space, she circled around and pulled into a space two rows away. Wedged between an SUV and a minivan, no one would ever notice her car. Hoping that Clint and Jill wouldn’t arrive until she was safely inside, she hurried across the parking garage and boarded the elevator.
When she reached the office lobby, she walked past the empty reception desk and read the directory posted near the elevator. The human resources department was located on the same floor. She turned left and then right, following the arrows to an office near the end of the hallway.
She tried the door, but it was locked.
She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes till eight. She had hoped the personnel employees would arrive early. The clerical staff at her own office usually did, giving themselves time to make coffee, have a doughnut or muffin, and chat a little before settling in for the day. She would just have to wait.
She had noticed a ladies’ room a few doors back. If she hung out there, she might be able to lower the chances of someone seeing her. She could call her office and check on her listings while she waited.
As she headed for the restroom, a young woman with chestnut hair pulled up in a ponytail walked down the hall past her. The girl looked barely old enough to be out of high school. Toni turned and watched as the girl unlocked the door to the human resources office and went inside.
It seemed her wait was over. She followed the girl into the office and stopped at the reception counter. The personnel employee was a few yards away on the other side, her back to Toni. The girl’s ponytail bobbed up and down as she fidgeted with something on her desk.
“Good morning,” Toni said.
“If you’re here to fill out an application,” the girl said without turning around, “they’re on the table in the corner. Just help yourself.”
“I don’t need an application, just some information.”
The girl turned and saw Toni, a look of recognition filling her eyes. She walked up to the counter. “Miss Matthews, I’m so sorry about Mr. Chadwick.”
“Thank you.” Toni searched her memory, but she had no recollection of the young woman. “Have we met?”
“No, we haven’t. But I’ve seen your picture in all the real estate magazines. And I saw you at the funeral. I’m Marcie.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Marcie.”
“The same here.” The smile Marcie flashed revealed her obvious love of teeth whitener. “I’ve been thinking about getting a real estate license myself. Is it hard work selling all those houses?”
“At times it can be. It all depends on the property.”
“Yeah, I guess so. You said you needed some kind of information?”
“Yes. I need the personnel file for a subcontractor named Nico Williams.”
Marcie’s smile faded. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with that.”
“Why not?”
“Mrs. Duvall is our human resources manager. She’s the only one who can give you access to the personnel files.”
“Okay then, I’ll just wait for her. When will she be in?”
“Not for a few hours. She has a doctor’s appointment this morning. Maybe you could come back.”
“No, I can’t. I’m too pushed for time today. All I need is his address and phone number. It’s really important. Do you know where the files are kept?”
“Well,” she hesitated. “Yes, but I still can’t help you. Mrs. Duvall has very strict rules about who’s allowed in the files. She’s the one you need to talk to.”
Toni was losing her patience. She realized that Marcie wasn’t being difficult on purpose; she was just trying to do her job. Toni smiled and forced a pleasant tone into her voice. “Did you know that I own one-half of Chadwick & Shore now?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It’s true. I’m going to be working here,” she lied. “I’ll be buying land and developing subdivisions. Chadwick & Shore has been wanting to break into the residential market for quite a while. So now, I’m heading up that department. I’m moving into Scott’s old office. And when I do, I’ll need to hire a complete staff to help me. It would be nice if I could find a really good personal assistant. Preferably someone from inside the company. Someone I could trust. Someone who would be loyal to me.”
She saw a light come on in Marcie’s eyes. Toni felt a little bad about the deception, but she was glad the ploy was working.
“Well, since I do know where the files are, and since you actually own part of the company now, maybe it wouldn’t hurt just to let you have a quick look at it. So long as you didn’t take it out of the office.”
“That would be great. I really appreciate it.”
“What was the subcontractor’s name?”
“Nico Williams. It might be listed under Nicolas.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Marcie smiled again and then disappeared down a hallway. Only a few more minutes and Toni would know how to contact Nico. She hoped he would be free to meet with her today. Whatever information he might have, she didn’t want to discuss over the phone. She wanted to meet him face to face. Explain just how important his memories of that morning could be.
But Nico wasn’t the only person she needed to speak with.
&nbs
p; Toni leaned across the counter and picked up a pen and a sticky note. She wrote down Gloria Keith’s name. She might as well have Marcie check for a file on her while she was at it.
A few minutes later, Marcie returned, the file in her hand. “There’s not much in it,” she said. “He wasn’t really a subcontractor, per se. He was hired by the drywall company, so he was actually an employee of that subcontractor, if that makes any sense.”
“Well, it sort of does, I guess.”
“I had to search the computer to find out who he was. We file all the information under the main subcontractors’ names. When we contract subs to do a job, they have their own people who do the work. We pay the subcontractors and then they pay their crew. If the company we hire has their own workmen’s comp policy, then we have no idea who their employees are. If they don’t have their own policy, then we have to cover their employees under ours. Luckily, that’s the case with Mr. Williams. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a file on him at all.” She handed the folder to Toni.
Marcie was right; there were only two sheets of paper inside. All the information Toni needed was on the first. She was disappointed to find that Nico had listed his address as a post office box. She went ahead and jotted it down anyway along with his phone number. As an afterthought, she copied down his driver’s license and social security numbers as well. You never knew what you might need.
Toni closed the file and gave it back to Marcie. “Oh, and if you don’t mind, there’s one more person I need to check.”
Marcie took the sticky note. “Gloria Keith. Is she a subcontractor too?”
“No, I think she would be one of the clerical staff. Maybe even a temp.”
Marcie left the note on the counter and walked over to her desk. “Do you just need her address and phone number, or do you need to see her file?”
“Just address and phone number would be fine.”
“I can pull that information up on the computer.” Marcie sat down at her desk and began typing on the keyboard. She waited a second and then her nose wrinkled into a frown. She began typing again. A few seconds later, she shook her head. “No, there’s no record of her. She’s not clerical, not a temp, and not a sub.”
So much for that idea. “Thanks anyway for trying. I wasn’t really sure if she worked here or not.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”
“But you did help. You got me the information on Nico Williams, and that’s something I won’t forget.”
Marcie’s perfect, over-whitened smile returned.
Jill stepped off the elevator, crossed the lobby, and headed down the hallway toward the accounting department. Clint was running late again, so she had agreed to pick up some cost reports for him. He’d been up most of the night studying the specs for the different projects Scott had been working on. It was a lot to digest. The project managers were all looking to him for guidance, asking questions he didn’t know the answers to. Until now, he hadn’t realized the magnitude of the load Scott had carried.
And then this morning, he had gotten a call regarding an apartment complex in Antioch that was nearing completion. Somehow, they had installed the wrong cabinets in forty of the units. Cabinets that were double the price of those originally quoted. The supplier refused to accept the blame, claiming to have shipped the right order.
They could pull the cabinets out, send them back and reorder, but that would extend the completion date by at least four weeks and there would be additional labor costs. Or, they could just keep the higher priced cabinets. Either way, Chadwick & Shore would lose money. They needed to figure out which option would be the least expensive in order to make a decision.
Jill pushed open the door to accounting, walked past the desks belonging to the various clerks and then down the hallway to the senior accountant’s office. She knocked once and then went in without waiting for a reply.
Mitchell Phillips sat at his desk, a coffee cup in his hand. The rising steam clouded the glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Hello, Jill,” he said. “Can I get you some coffee?”
“Who has the time?”
Obviously perplexed by the remark, Mitchell put down his cup. “What can I do for you this morning?”
“We have a small crisis at the apartments in Antioch. I need to get the detailed cost reports to date as well as the original cost estimates. I have to meet Clint at the site.”
“No problem.” Mitchell leaned across his desk and pushed a button on the intercom. A female voice answered. “Bring me the files on the Wind Song Terrace Apartments,” he said.
In a matter of moments, a woman appeared with the files. Mitchell rifled through the contents pulling out several of the documents. He handed them to the clerk. “Make copies of all these, please.”
Jill took a seat next to Mitchell’s desk and forced herself to engage in small talk while they waited. When the clerk returned with the copies, Mitchell checked to make sure they were all there before placing them inside a file folder. He handed the file to Jill. “I think you’ll find everything you need here.”
Jill stood, dropping her purse on the chair. She thumbed through the reports. Satisfied, she closed the file. “This should do it.”
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
Jill left Mitchell’s office, nodded at the clerks as she passed their desks and pulled open the accounting department door. Across the hallway, one door down, she spotted Toni leaving human resources. She started to call out to her, but stopped when she heard someone calling her own name. She turned around. Mitchell was walking toward her.
“You forgot your purse,” he said.
Jill let go of the door, letting it close. She took her purse from Mitchell. “I’m glad you noticed. I don’t think I could have gotten very far without it.”
“I figured as much. Call me if you need more information on the apartments.”
“I will.”
Jill opened the door again and walked out into the hallway. Toni had disappeared. What had she wanted from the human resources department? Jill decided to find out. She went inside and walked up to the reception counter.
“Marcie, was that Toni Matthews I just saw leaving?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why was she here?”
Marcie picked a file up off the counter. “Um, real estate. My mother has decided to sell her house. Miss Matthews is going to put it on the market for her. She was just picking up the key.”
“I see.”
Jill glanced down. She saw a sticky note on the other side of the counter with the name Gloria Keith in Toni’s handwriting. So that was it. Toni was trying to find the mysterious Gloria. And she had told Marcie not to mention it to anyone.
Jill wished Toni could just forget about the circumstances surrounding Scott’s death. The longer she tried to make sense of it, the longer she put off mourning. Maybe that was the whole idea. Jill knew all too well how difficult it was to lose someone you truly loved. She had been down that road once herself.
She had been seventeen when she met Richard. He was tall and handsome with huge brown eyes. A private in the army, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He promised to give her a better life. Take her out of the squalor she had known.
As a benefit of being in the military, they would travel the world. Far away from her mother who drank too much. And more importantly, away from her mother’s steady parade of boyfriends. Each one slimier than the one before.
Finally, she had someone who really cared about her. Not someone who just wanted to use her for sex. Jill quit high school and married Richard in a little chapel in Clarksville. They moved into married housing on the base, and for nearly a year, her life was like a fairy tale. But then it all ended.
Richard was killed during a training exercise. For a long while, she thought she would die too.
After Richard’s funeral, there was no way she was going to return to her mother’s house. Seventeen years of that hell had been enough. She took R
ichard’s death benefits, moved to Nashville and got her GED. And then her real estate license.
Things had changed a lot since then. She had changed. All that was a part of her old life. The life she kept buried. Shared with no one. Tried to forget. But losing Richard was one pain she would always remember.
CHAPTER 14
Toni got into her car and pulled her mobile phone out of her purse. She punched in the number listed in Nico’s personnel file. She recognized the exchange issued by a local cellular company. Her own number began with the same three digits.
After one ring, a mechanical voice answered. “The number you have reached is no longer in service.”
“Uuuhhhh!” She banged her palm against the steering wheel.
Great. Now what? Nico had most likely moved on to another city. She would probably never find him.
She crumpled up the sticky note and tossed it into the trashcan hanging on the rear of the passenger seat. She had been so sure he had seen something. Had some sliver of information, the missing puzzle piece that would tie Brian to Scott’s death. Now, it looked like she would never know.
There had to be some way. Something she hadn’t thought of. She just couldn’t give up on Nico yet. She had to figure out a way to locate him.
She climbed between the two front seats and fished through the trash until she found the sticky note. As she was returning to her seat, she glanced through the windshield and saw Jill walking across the parking garage.
Toni ducked.
She watched Jill get into her car and speed away. Clint’s car was still missing. She needed to leave before he arrived. She didn’t want to pass him on the way out.
Toni drove out of the garage and headed toward interstate sixty-five. She picked up her phone again and dialed her office. Janet answered.
“Hi, it’s me,” Toni said. “I need you to do something for me.”
