by S. J. Lewis
“Let me save you the trouble, you bastard,” Claudia said. She gave him her address, heard Dianne’s gasp of surprise.
“You kinda took some of the fun out of it, Red,” he complained mildly.
“Tough.” Claudia responded. “Now stay away, from here and from me.”
“Don’t think your heart was in that, Red,” he said. “Nor your pussy neither.”
She could just hang up, couldn’t she? She didn’t have anything to say to him, and didn’t want to hear anything he might want to say to her. But Dianne was still there…
“Put Dianne back on. Please.”
“Sure thing, Red.”
“Claudie…” Dianne sounded as if she were going to cry. “I’m sorry! Why did you do that?”
“He’d have found out, one way or another.” Claudia shrugged. “He would have enjoyed it too, damn him.”
“Oh…” Dianne’ voice was small, faint. “I see.”
Claudia ran fingers through her hair, trying to think. There wasn’t anything more to say, unless she wanted to catch up on things with Dianne, two friends chatting over the phone. Under the circumstances, that would be bizarre.
“Is there anything I can do?” Claudia asked at last.
“I don’t think so.” Dianne managed a weak laugh. “There isn’t much I can do either.”
“And you’re really, truly okay?’
“Ah…I guess.” There was an awkward pause. “Claudie?”
“I’m here.”
“Claudie…is this really what he did to you…back then?”
“Pretty much.” Claudia acknowledged. There might be some difference in details, but she was sure he had given Dianne the same treatment. For all the conversations the two women had had since that vacation, this had never come up before. “He used ice cubes, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Over the phone, she could almost hear Dianne’s shiver at the memory.
“Are you enjoying it?”
“I was…” Dianne responded uncertainly. “Until now, anyway. I never meant to bring you into this, Claudie! Please believe me!”
“I do believe you.” Claudia reassured her. “I’d probably have spilled my guts too, under the same circumstances.” In her mind’s eye, she pictured Dianne staked out in a bed somewhere, still helplessly available for whatever he was going to do, and shivered herself, remembering, remembering….
She derailed that particular train of thought with an effort. She was already edgy enough, and this wasn’t helping at all.
“Dianne…” she began.
“Yes?”
“I want you to call me as soon as you can after he lets you go, okay?” She sat back down in the chair, still feeling wound up, tense.
“All right.” Dianne’s voice was small, quiet. “I will. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Dee,” Claudia answered, using her own code word. “Really. You just call me as soon as you can so I know you’re okay too.”
“I will…” Anything else Dianne might have said was interrupted by her startled yelp.
“Dianne? Dee?” Claudia leaned forward in the chair. She could hear sounds: More bed-creaking, rustlings, Dee’s muffled protests. What was he doing?
“I’m back, Red,” he said. “I think little Dee here was runnin’ out of things to say. Have a listen, though. She ain’t out of noises to make.”
In the background, Claudia could hear a series of feminine “mmf”-ings, repetitive nasal grunts. He must have gagged her again, because the noises were muffled. She bit down on her lower lip just enough for it to hurt a little. The sonofabitch was doing this just to get her thinking, wanting…and it was starting to work, too. She shifted uncomfortably in the chair before standing up to pace yet again
. She could just hang up now, couldn’t she? Shouldn’t she? Yet she kept listening with a hungry, almost horrified fascination as Dianne’s grunts came faster and faster, higher pitched. There were no rhythmic bed-creakings, so he was probably using his hand, down between her legs, fingers slipping up inside her….
Claudia wrenched the phone away from her ear, holding it at arms’ length. She could still hear things, but the sounds were now far away, tinny, with no more power to arouse her even further than she already was. She should just hang up. She should: But somehow she just KNEW he was expecting her to do that, and that old, odd reluctance to give him even an inch came back to her. Damn him! Damn him! This was his game, and no matter what she did, he was going to win it. Wasn’t he?
There was a final, unidentifiable noise from the receiver, then silence. She took a deep breath before putting it back to her ear. Now she could just barely hear Dianne’s breathing, a murmured sound of pleasure.
“Still there, Red?” his voice intruded. “Brings back old memories, don’t it?”
“You’re an arrogant bastard.” Claudia snapped at him.
“I love it when you sweet talk me,” he chuckled. “Bet you’re all steamy now, ain’cha, Red?”
“It doesn’t matter either way. I don’t want to see you again.”
“That’s easy,” he replied. “I’ll just blindfold you like I did before. Anyways, if you really mean that, how come you’re still on the phone? You could’a hung up any time.”
“Go to Hell,” she snarled. “Don’t bother me!”
“I like to get you bothered, Red,” he answered. “You get that funny, dreamy look in your eyes.”
“I’m hanging up now,” she said.
This time, she did hang up. Damn him! DAMN him!
She didn’t sleep well at all that night. She was too angry, too upset…and too “hungry”.
***
The clock radio came on again, the all-news station giving the usual dire warnings about the morning rush hour. Claudia was about to hit the snooze button just once more when she got a look at the time. She had to get up now, or be late for work. She might be the boss, and in theory could show up whenever she wanted, but if she started slipping, sooner or later so would everybody else. Throwing the light blanket back, she sat up and ran her fingers through her hair, yawning. It was going to be a bitch getting through the day. Way back when, she and Dianne had referred to such days by the number of quarts of coffee they would supposedly require to get through them. This felt as if it would be a one-gallon day.
She stood and stretched, yawning again before padding off to the bathroom, peeling off the tee shirt she normally wore for sleeping and dropping it in the hamper just inside the bathroom door. She started the shower, testing the water with one hand as she shucked her panties off with the other, hopping on one leg at the end. The hot water came in strong after a moment, and she made a last adjustment to the flow before stepping in to the needle spray. After a long moment, her face turned up to the showerhead, eyes closed, she turned up the cold water, bit by bit until she could just stand it. It always helped to wake her up, and this morning was no exception. She’d need every edge she could get today.
Damn him anyway, she thought to herself as she scrubbed shampoo furiously into her hair. He’d gotten her “bothered”, all right. In the back of her mind, she kept hearing the noises Dianne had been making. Some perverse part of her kept trying to picture Dianne in that bed, naked, sweaty, helpless….
With gritted teeth, she turned the cold water tap open wide. It was a point of pride with her not to yelp at the shock.
***
Her office was only a few miles away from her apartment, and the back roads she always took to get there never suffered from the same glut of traffic as the main arteries did. As she pulled into “her” parking space she saw Marabel’s old Chevy already there. It had been painted a lurid green, and was impossible to miss. She glanced at the digital clock on her dashboard. It read 7:53. The office officially opened at eight. She sometimes got there as early as 7:30, but no matter what time she arrived, Marabel was always there before her. She smiled at that. Marabel was so utterly reliable that she wondered sometimes how she’d ever gotten along without her
. She gathered up her things and went in.
Marabel was at her desk, sorting through mail. Somehow, she always found the time to check the post office box before coming here. She looked up as Claudia entered, nodded briefly, and went back to sorting the mail into three neat piles.
Claudia plopped her purse down on her own desk and went straight to the coffeemaker at the back of the room. The pot was full, waiting. Marabel didn’t drink coffee herself, only tea, but she considered it part of her duties to make the first pot of coffee in the morning. At first, she had made it so dauntingly strong that it was almost undrinkable. Nowadays it was simply almost-too-strong, but that suited Claudia this particular morning. She poured her personal mug full and went back to her desk. Sitting down, she turned on her computer and brought up the Bowman file. It wasn’t a big job, just an electronic security setup for a small plant making electronic components. Despite the installed security, they’d suffered three burglaries in six months and had called her in as a consultant. It smelled like an inside job to her, but she hadn’t figured out how it was being done yet. It would be a very good thing if she could figure it out before they had another break-in. The simplest thing for them to do now would be to hire a security guard to back up the electronics, but the owners were adamantly against it. They wouldn’t say why, which led Claudia to think they’d either had a bad experience with a security guard in the past, or that they had way too much faith in electronic gizmos. Could even be a little of both.
“Mail’s sorted,” Marabel announced.
“Anything interesting?” Claudia asked.
“Not today,” Marabel replied, getting up from her desk and coming over towards Claudia, a couple of envelopes in her hand. She invariably wore tent-like muumuus to the office, shapeless garments that nonetheless caught the eye because they were so…colorful. Today’s was a lurid concoction of bright greens, blues and yellows, and Claudia had to blink.
“Here y’go,” Marabel said, putting the small stack of mail down on Claudia’s desk. “Got the final payment from Hillsdale.”
“Good,” Claudia nodded. “Make a note not to take any more jobs from them in the future. They pay way too slow, and that CEO of theirs always tries to be much too ‘friendly’ whenever I’m there.”
Marabel grunted once. “Told you,” she said.
“Yes, you did.” Claudia admitted. “But how did you know?”
“Didn’t like him the one time I saw him.”
Claudia laughed ruefully. “I should listen to you more,” she said. “Any other checks come in?”
“Potter Industries.” Marabel was a woman of very few words. “Got a thank you letter from them too. Separate cover.”
“Okay, thanks.” Claudia took a sip of her coffee. It was still a bit too hot, but nice and strong. “Has Jerry checked in yet?”
“Not yet. Should be soon.”
“When he does, put him through to me. I think I may have something for him to check out on this job.” She waved a hand at her computer screen.
“Okay,” Marabel nodded before going back to her own desk.
***
Claudia scribbled a few notes on a scratchpad which she kept alongside her computer. She never used a pen for this, always a mechanical pencil. It was a lot easier to erase. Dianne hadn’t called yet, though, and every minute that went by without her calling made it harder to concentrate properly. She wasn’t really worried, she told herself. There had to be some reason Dianne hadn’t called, something perfectly ordinary or…
She frowned as one possibility occurred to her, then shook her head ruefully for not thinking of it sooner. She laid aside the pencil. Pushing her chair back, she rose and walked to the back of the office, carrying her coffee mug. There were four computers in the office: Hers, Marabel’s, Jerry’s and “the other one”. It was the only one of the four with an Internet connection, and it had no connection to any of the other computers. Nobody was going to hack into her office files if she could help it.
“I’m going to check my e-mail,” she said over her shoulder and unnecessarily to Marabel. Checking her e-mail was about the only time she used “the other one”. Marabel always checked the office e-mail, deleting what needed deleting and printing out anything worthy of further attention.
“The other one” was already on and already on-line. Claudia called up her personal e-mail service and entered her ID and password. “The other one” was the oldest computer in the office, and it took its own sweet time to load anything. Claudia took another sip of her coffee and waited. To Dianne, an e-mail was the same thing as a phone call. As she had pointed out once, leaving an e-mail was no different than leaving a message on an answering machine. To Claudia, though, a phone call meant just that: Using a phone.
Ah, there it was. In the midst of all the junk e-mail, a message from Dianne. Claudia clicked to open it and took another sip of coffee as “the other one” slowly followed orders.
“Claudie:” it began. “I just got home and it’s almost six a.m. I’m very tired, but I wanted to let you know I’m okay. I’m going to take a shower and then go to sleep for about a week. Call me. Dee.”
Claudia sat for a moment just looking at the screen. Dianne must have been very tired indeed to leave such a short message, but at least she was home and all right. She sighed once before clicking back to her in-box, and then methodically deleted Dianne’s message along with all the junk mail. There were some other messages she didn’t delete, but those could wait until she got home. She closed out her e-mail.
Okay, now what? She leaned back in the chair and ran a hand through her hair before picking up her coffee mug again. Why had she told him where she lived? It had seemed to be a good idea at the time, a nice dramatic gesture, but this morning it didn’t feel that way at all. He would be coming for her now. There was no doubt about that, and the idea gave her an unsettling thrill. She fought it down. Everything she had told him two years ago still applied. Even if her agency was up and running well now, he would be a terrible distraction, and things would fall apart if she couldn’t keep focused. After he had used her up again, he would just move on to the next woman. The last time, she had had all the work of setting up her agency to keep her occupied. If she let him in again, getting over him when he moved on would really be too much like kicking a drug habit. No, she wasn’t going to set herself up for that!
She got up from the chair, retrieved her coffee, and went back to her desk. Work had helped her recover years ago, work could keep her focused now. But as she strode across the office to her desk, she was uncomfortably aware how her skirt brushed against her legs as she walked, how the material of her brassiere cupped her breasts, and how long it had been since she’d slept with a man.
***
Jerry called in a little after 9:00 a.m., and Marabel put him through to Claudia.
“Hi, Jerry,” she greeted him over the phone.
“Morning, boss,” he replied. She could hear traffic noises in the background. “You have something for me?”
“Yes. Where are you now?”
“At a phone booth out on Route 19. I got copies of those county records you asked for. You want me to bring them in now or tackle this other thing first?”
“Well, what I wanted you to do was to check on what company occupied the Bowman facility before they did. That’s an old industrial park, though, and there might have been more than one prior occupant. If there were, I want you to check them all. I’d like this done today. The documents can wait.”
“Okay,” Jerry replied. A loud truck horn blared and faded away. “Am I looking for anything specific?”
“Just the raw information for now.” Claudia replied. “After we’ve gone through it we’ll know more about what to look for.”
“Understood. I’ll get right on it. Anything else?”
“No. Happy hunting.”
“Later,” Jerry acknowledged before hanging up. Claudia hung up her own phone and leaned back in her chair. Until Jerry got b
ack with the information, she couldn’t do more than speculate, but she was glad to have anything to think about besides Sam, the bungalow, and especially that old barn. She closed her eyes, picturing the Bowman company layout. She had the floor plans, and had been on a tour of the building with the owners. She began running through that tour in her mind, comparing it with the building plans. It was a useful talent she’d developed. Dianne had called it her “personal virtual reality”. Somehow the thieves were getting in, some way that that bypassed the alarms. She’d already suggested that if they didn’t want to spring for a security guard they could at least put some sensors and alarms inside the building. They’d gone as far as putting an alarm on a vault that held finished components. Two days later, they’d arrived in the morning to find the alarm disabled and the vault looted. There was something wrong with the whole picture. More than once, it had occurred to Claudia that possibly one of the partners was either doing the stealing himself, or making it possible for somebody else to do it. The problem there was that she couldn’t come up with a motive for any one of the three to be doing that. The company had insurance to cover the thefts, but it was constantly missing shipping dates, and some of its contracts were now in jeopardy. What was even more peculiar to her was that Bowman Corporation hadn’t hired her—their insurance carrier had. That at least explained why the Bowman people had been something less than cooperative so far, but didn’t get her any closer to solving this particular problem.
She finished running through the tour in her mind. The exercise hadn’t provided any new insights or ideas as to HOW the thefts were being committed. As for WHY they were being committed…theft on this sort of scale, a couple of hundred thousand so far, was almost always for personal gain. So who was gaining?
