Standing in the Shadows

by Shannon McKenna

Tonia’s derisive tone was the final blow. Erin’s face crumpled.

  Tonia swerved into a gas station parking lot to the angry blare of several horns, and killed the engine. She pulled Erin into her arms. “Oh, come down off your high horse for a minute,” she soothed.

  “I feel so bad. I can’t stand much more of this, Tonia.”

  “I know you can’t.” Tonia’s voice was soft and hypnotic. “Of course you can’t. And you won’t. You’ll see.”

  Erin didn’t want her goopy nose to leak over Tonia’s white linen suit, but when she tried to pull away, Tonia just pulled her back down.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Tonia said. “This means I get to fix your face. No matter what you think of Mueller, you’ve got to go in there with your head high. You’ve got to show some attitude.”

  “Whatever,” Erin said wearily. “Fix my face. Do your worst.”

  Tonia started pulling hairpins out of Erin’s bun. “We’ll start with the hairdo,” she said briskly. “It’s hateful, and it must go.”

  Erin sniffled and tried to laugh. “Thanks, Tonia.”

  Tonia pulled her into an embrace so tight, the back of one of Erin’s stud earrings stabbed into her neck. She gasped at the sharp pain, and tried to extricate herself from Tonia’s grip.

  Tonia hung on. “It’ll be over soon, Erin,” she crooned. “I promise.”

  Connor shoved the glass doors open and strode over to the clinic’s front desk. He had to struggle to control the trapped feeling that came over him. There had been times when he would’ve gladly chewed off a limb to get out of this place. Not that the staff wasn’t great. They’d all done their best for him. And oh, good, there was Brenda, one of his favorites. A heavyset lady in her fifties was behind the reception desk, peering at a computer through gold-rimmed half-glasses.

  “Hi, Brenda,” he said.

  She looked up at him blankly, and then her eyes lit up. “Connor McCloud! Why, look at you!” She scurried out from behind the desk and gave his face a maternal pat. “You’re looking good, honey! What brings you in here? Just come by to say hello? I’ll have to call your PTs. JoAnn and Pat worked with you, right?” She reached for the phone. “I’ll just buzz them and—”

  “Actually, I’m not here to visit. I’m in a hurry.” He was sorry to cut her off, but he was too edgy to shoot the breeze with the clinic staff. “I came for some information. You’ll have to tell JoAnn and Pat hi for me. I’ll drop by to see them sometime. I’m doing pretty good. Those months of torture paid off.”

  “They sure did, you handsome devil. What did you need to know?”

  “I’m looking for information on a nurse who worked here during the period I was in the coma,” he said. “Her name is Tonia Vasquez.”

  “Hmm. Doesn’t ring a bell, but this is a big place. Tell you what. I’ll buzz Annette. She does admissions up there. Maybe she’ll recognize the name.” Brenda dialed. “Hi, Annette, it’s Brenda. Guess who I have standing in front of me? Remember Sleeping Beauty?…Yep, in the flesh. Cute as can be. He’s got a question for you. Could you pop down, or should I send him up?…OK…Yeah, tell me about it, honey. I’ll send him on up, then. Thanks a bunch.”

  She hung up and waved Connor toward the elevator banks. “Third floor, left out of the elevator, then take the first left again, and you’ll find her in the glassed-in internal office.”

  “Thanks, Brenda,” he said fervently.

  Annette’s office wasn’t hard to find. He knocked at the open door. A tall, smiling black woman in her forties hurried over to greet him. “Well, hey! Connor McCloud! Looking good!”

  He shook her hand, smiled, and did as much of the chitchat routine as his nerves could handle before he blurted out his question.

  Annette’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember anybody of that name, but I’ll beep Geoffrey. He’s in staffing. He knows everybody in the clinic, and their great-aunt’s birthday, too.” She punched the number into the phone. “If anybody will know, it’s Geoffrey.”

  Conversation lagged while they waited for Geoffrey to respond. Annette gave him a cheery smile.” And how’s your lovely girlfriend doing?”

  He was frozen into total immobility. “Excuse me? My what?”

  Annette hesitated, wide-eyed and wary of a gaffe. “I was just asking about your, ah…girlfriend.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend. I sure as hell didn’t have one then.”

  Annette blinked. “She came so often, I just assumed—”

  “Who came to see me?” he barked. “What was her name?”

  Annette’s face stiffened. “I don’t recall her name. And I don’t appreciate being spoken to in that manner.”

  He let out a long, slow breath through clenched teeth. “I’m sorry, Annette,” he said carefully. “Forgive me for snapping at you. I shouldn’t have. Could you describe this girl to me, please?”

  Annette was mollified, but still suspicious. “She had long brown hair and a lovely smile. She was always dressed in a suit. She came on her lunch hour and read books to you. She signed in every day. I suppose I could look for some old registers, if you’re so curious—”

  “Please,” he said. “Please, Annette.”

  She went into an adjoining room and rustled around for a minute. She came back out burdened with two thick three-ring binders and dumped them on the desk in front of him. “There you go. Be my guest.”

  He opened the book at random. The name practically leaped out into his face. Erin Riggs.

  He turned the page. There she was again. He flipped over another page. Every time, his eye fell right onto her graceful cursive script, as if pulled by a magnet. Erin Riggs, Erin Riggs, Erin Riggs. His heart was galloping. He riffled through the pages rapidly.

  Every goddamned day.

  “Did you find what you’re looking for?” Annette asked.

  He looked up at her. Something naked and desperate in his eyes made the frosty hauteur fade out of her face, to be replaced by cautious concern. “Yes,” he said. “More than I was looking for.”

  A chubby young man with a receding hairline swept into the room in a cloud of flowery aftershave. “Hello, beautiful! I saw your number on my pager, but since I was headed here anyway, I thought I’d just—”

  “Do you remember Tonia Vasquez?” Connor demanded.

  Geoffrey gave him a blank look. “Who are you?”

  “Connor was one of our patients a while back,” Annette explained. “He’s looking for a nurse who worked here sixteen months ago. I thought you might remember her. That’s why I beeped you.”

  Geoffrey exchanged quick glances and nods with Annette. “Tonia Vasquez? Yes, of course I remember Tonia. You said sixteen months, though? Wait a second.” He leaned over the computer. “Can I close out of this document and access the database, Annette, o light of my life?”

  “Mi computer es tu computer, cupcake,” she responded.

  Geoffrey typed with blinding speed, tapping and scrolling. “Here we go. Very strange. Her employee status is still current, but it shouldn’t be, because Tonia moved down to San Jose over three years ago. She wanted to be closer to her daughter and her grandchildren.”

  “Grandchildren? No way! This woman is in her twenties!”

  Geoffrey shook his head. “The only Tonia Vasquez who ever worked for us was pushing sixty. Lovely woman. Odd about the employee status. Must be a glitch in the system. I wonder if she’s still getting paychecks. Wouldn’t that be a howl? I’ll have to call payroll and check it out right away.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Connor said.

  Somehow he managed to shake hands and thank them for their help. He sprinted down the hall, knees wobbling. He’d thrown out his net, and instead of darting fish, a writhing sea monster had boiled up out of the depths. And Erin had chosen Tonia to accompany her to Mueller’s lair. No, Novak’s lair. He was convinced. There was no time for the luxury of self-doubt. Erin’s life was on the line.

  He ran past the slow elevator. He would take
his chances with the stairs. He groped for his phone, but there was nothing in his pocket.

  Of course. He’d given the phone to Erin, she’d turned it off, and he didn’t know where she was. Again. God. It was like a bad joke.

  There was a pay phone in the stairwell. He dug for change, and plugged it in with shaking fingers. He tried Erin, for the hell of it. In vain. He was the last person on earth she wanted to talk to.

  But she’d come to see him during the coma. Every goddamn day.

  He pushed it away. Later for that. No time to process mind-boggling revelations right now. He dialed Seth.

  “Who the hell is this?” Seth snapped.

  “It’s me. Look, Seth, I’ve got an emergency—”

  “Why is your phone turned off? And why are you calling me from a land line? I can’t scramble you on a land line!”

  “I don’t have time for this, Seth. Listen to me. Novak’s not dead.”

  Seth was silent for a moment. “Uh…I heard it was confirmed,” he said cautiously. “How do you figure?”

  “Erin’s best buddy Tonia posed as a nurse at the clinic when I was in the coma. She must’ve used the employee ID of a real nurse who retired three years ago. I’m at the clinic now. I just found out.”

  Seth grunted. “OK. Whatever. I’ll buy it. I’d rather hunt Novak with you again than have you be crazy. You got a plan?”

  “No,” Connor said desperately. “I don’t know where she is. She went to the millionaire art collector’s house today. Mueller is Novak. I would bet my life on it. And I never got the chance to tag her stuff.”

  “Huh. Well, I’ve got some info for you, too. Remember when you told me to check out your girlfriend’s apartment?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Connor said harshly.

  There was a delicate pause. “Uh…. that sucks. But anyhow, I just left the place, and I found something really weird—”

  “I don’t have time for this, Seth!”

  “Bear with me. It’s relevant.” Seth’s tone was hard. “There was a vidcam mounted behind the wall paneling. Rigged with a short-range remote transmitter. Probably the receiver and recorder are in the same building. The setup is crude. Looks homemade.”

  Connor swallowed, hard. “Holy shit. That is weird.”

  “Oh, I haven’t even gotten to the weird part yet,” Seth said. “About that vidcam, uh…you don’t know anything about it, do you, Con?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Why would I? What is it about the goddamn vidcam? Spit it out, Seth!”

  “It’s yours,” Seth said bluntly. “I sold it to Davy, and he passed it on to you. It’s the one that got stolen in that burglary at your house a few months ago. I know it’s yours. Because I marked it.”

  Connor tried to find space in his mind for that piece of info. His brain refused to accommodate it. “Huh?”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me, Con?”

  Seth’s voice had a cold, suspicious edge to it that Connor had never heard, at least not directed toward him. Panic jolted through him, at the thought that even Seth might abandon him.

  “Fuck, no!” he burst out. “I didn’t plant that thing. Not me!”

  “Good.” Seth’s relief was palpable. “That’s sort of what I figured. A hidden vidcam in a girl’s bedroom isn’t your style. It’s more like something I would do. You’re too much of a tight-ass Dudley Do-Right for a dirty trick like that.”

  “Thanks for your touching faith in me,” Connor said.

  “Anytime, man, anytime. The first thing you need to do is to turn on your phone so I can scramble you. It makes me nervous to talk—”

  “I don’t have the phone,” Connor said. “I gave it to Erin.”

  “You gave the phone to Erin?” Seth repeated slowly.

  “Yes! I did!” he yelled. “Will you guys please stop giving me shit about the fucking phone?”

  “And she has it on her now?” Seth persisted.

  “How the hell should I know? She put it in her purse last night. I assume she has it. Why shouldn’t she?”

  Seth started to laugh.

  “What is so goddamn funny?”

  “You just solved all our problems in one blow,” Seth said. “We’ll use the phone to find her.”

  Connor’s hand tightened on the phone. “Come again?”

  “There’s a beacon in your phone. It feeds off the battery, so if it’s been charged recently, it should be transmitting.”

  “You planted a beacon on me? Why?” he demanded.

  “You never know when you might need to find your friends in a hurry.” Seth’s voice was defensive. “I put ’em in Davy’s and Sean’s phones, too, so don’t take it personally. Besides, you get your ass in a sling on a regular basis. I felt more than justified.”

  Connor started to grin. “I’m gonna pound you when this is all over for planting shit on me,” he warned.

  “Yeah, but right now, when I’m useful, you love me and I’m golden. I’ve heard that tune before. I’ll head home and key the code into my computer. Get over here, and we’ll mobilize.”

  “Call Sean and Davy for me,” Connor said.

  “Watch yourself,” Seth said.

  Connor bounded down the remaining two flights like his feet were on springs. It was beautiful, it was amazing, it was awesome, that his pathologically sneaky gearhead friend had actually had the brilliant good sense to plant a bug in his phone. He dodged and spun around gurneys and wheelchairs, leaving shouts of furious protest behind him. He sped toward the parking garage and dug out his keys.

  The door of the gray SUV with tinted windows parked next to his car swung opened, and discharged a tall, black-clad bald man.

  Connor reeled back with a gasp. The guy was a hideous apparition: pallid and hairless, blue eyes burning out of dark pits, a scarred, grotesque face. A gap-toothed leer.

  Georg Luksch.

  Georg’s arm flashed up, took aim. Connor heard a popping sound, felt a stab of pain, an explosion of helpless fury. A dart was poking out of his chest. He fought it, but he was already sagging onto the asphalt.

  Shadows overtook him. The world melted into formless darkness.

  “Punctual, as always,” Tamara murmured, when she met them at the door. “And who is this?”

  “This is my friend Tonia Vasquez,” Erin said. “Tonia, this is Tamara Julian. I told you about her.”

  “How do you do? What a fabulous outfit,” Tonia gushed.

  Tamara gave her a lofty smile. “How kind of you to say so.”

  Tamara was dressed in black, a severe high-necked jacket paired with a billowing black taffeta skirt. The heels of her shiny, pointy-toed boots clicked over the dizzying swirls of antique tile on the mosaic floor. She glanced back over her shoulder. “I’m relieved that you made it. Mr. Mueller was distressed when you ran away last night. He was afraid he’d offended you. We weren’t sure you’d be back.”

  Tonia slanted her an odd glance. “Ran away? What’s this?”

  “It’s a long story,” Erin said stiffly. “It had nothing to do with Mr. Mueller, though. He needn’t have worried.”

  “I see.” Tamara’s face looked pale and drawn beneath her flawless makeup. Her emerald eyes looked haunted and shadowy.

  Or maybe it was just Erin’s own bleak perceptions, reading ominous portents into every innocuous thing. The dread in her belly got heavier. Flutters of the panic that had mastered her the day before stirred inside her, and she clamped down on them ruthlessly. She would get through this job, close this chapter gracefully, and that was all she would ask of herself. Professional suicide or not, once she delivered that report, she would be politely unavailable to Claude Mueller forevermore. She would refer him to other experts who would all fall over their feet in their eagerness to consult for him. In the meantime, she would be taking typing tests, filling out W-4 forms for temp secretary and paralegal jobs. And she would be cheerful about it if it killed her. Yippee. What a joy. You shape your own rea
lity, she reminded herself.

  Unless you allow other people to shape it for you. The thought flitted through her mind like a bat’s shadow, almost too quick to catch.

  God, how she hated this house. It seemed to give her a constant, low-level electrical charge, just enough to feel nauseous and dizzy, and determination alone wasn’t enough to manage it. She’d bolted out of the place in a full-blown panic attack last night, like Cinderella fleeing the ball as the clock tolled midnight. But here she was again, putting one foot in front of the other, cold sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades. Trying to act like a grown-up.

  Tamara stopped in front of the door to the salon. The heavy, ornate door was like the mouth of some monstrous creature, gaping wide to swallow her whole. Erin stomped down on the childish, queasy surge of panic, and tightened her belly into tempered steel.

  Mueller was staring out the window, as he’d been the day before, the deep-in-thought-aristocrat pose. He turned, and smiled as he came forward to greet her. “Ah, excellent. I wasn’t sure I would see you again,” he said. “I am sorry if I upset you yesterday. You look pale.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” See? Polite, pleasant, nothing wrong with this picture. Novak is dead, on the other side of the planet. Everything here is perfectly normal. I will not let someone else’s fear control me. It raced through her mind in the blink of an eye. “I’m so sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.”

  His teeth looked so sharp when he smiled. “And who is your lovely companion?”

  “Tonia Vasquez. Glad to meet you,” Tonia said, when Erin took too long to reply. “I’m Erin’s shadow today. I hope I’m not in the way.”

  “Not at all. Any friend of Ms. Riggs is welcome. One can never have too many beautiful women in one place.”

  “That depends,” Tonia purred, “on the circumstances.”

  So Tonia was going to flirt with him. Fine. It made her flesh creep, but if it diverted his attention from her own unhappy self, she could weep for gratitude. Soon this would be over, and she could retreat to her dingy mouse hole at the Kinsdale and lick her wounds in the dark.

  And maybe she was being unfair, but it was going to be a very long time before she called Tonia again. If ever.