by John Corwin
Chapter 3
The light turned green and the Range Rover zoomed away before I could raise an arm or yell. I tried to get the license plate, but a bus trundled past, blocking the vehicle from view. I hurried across the side street, trying to keep pace, but the traffic signals turned green down the main thoroughfare and I soon lost sight of my quarry.
Though I'd managed to sleep last night, visions of the mystery man harried my dreams. True, he'd saved Isabel and me. He'd paid for our cab home. If he drove such a nice car, it stood to reason the fifty dollars hadn't been of much consequence to him. He looked like an ordinary citizen who just happened along and did the right thing. But it was the whole "not good with cops" thing that stuck in my mind. What was his secret?
I wondered if he came this way for work every morning. I wondered if it would be stalkerish of me to keep an eye out for him tomorrow. I also wondered it would be okay for me to take down his license plate and find out where he lived and why, oh why, he didn't want the coppers talking to him.
So entranced was I by the mystery of it all, I walked nearly half a block past OnTech before realizing it. Groaning at my mistake, I did an about-face and made my way inside the lobby. I rode the lift up to the top floor of the high rise. A redheaded receptionist met me with her cool gray eyes the moment I stepped off the lift and stood facing the transparent doors into the office. Taking a calming breath, I stepped forward through the doors and into the reception area.
"Emily Glass?" the other woman said, standing, and walking around the large desk before I could nod in the affirmative.
"Yes."
She held out a hand, gave mine a firm, brief shake. "I'm Sandra. Follow me, please."
First stop was a small break room with a couple of microwaves, a large stainless steel fridge, and an industrial coffee machine among other things.
"From now on, you will arrive here at the same time I do, six forty-five. I'll let you in, and you will prepare the coffee." She showed me the precise number of scoops, water, and time it should take to make the kind of rubbish coffee people in offices drank.
I took out a notepad and wrote down her instructions. After that, she took me to the supply closet, explained my duties in keeping it stocked and tracking all the items inside to be sure nobody was filching.
She handed me a key to the closet. "Never, under any circumstances, let anyone borrow this key. I don't care if it's Mr. Jameson himself."
"But he's the owner."
She turned and raised a penciled-in eyebrow. "Who do you think made these rules?"
I shrugged. Wrote it down.
I trailed behind Sandra for the better part of two hours, jotting down notes, asking stupid questions, and watching her raise one or both of her drawn-in eyebrows at me every time I dared open my mouth. She was one of those people who probably never yelled, preferring instead to show cold contempt for those she considered beneath her.
"There are forty-five programmers here and twenty salespeople. I am the office manager," she said, her back to me as she led me through a room full of empty cubicles. I heard snoring and saw a man dozing under his desk, a horseshoe pillow around his neck, and a pair of earmuffs over his ears.
"This is Stan. Ever since his wife kicked him out, he's been working late and staying here." She shuddered. "Apparently, Mr. Jameson doesn't mind."
"You don't like him sleeping here?"
Again with the eyebrows. "I find it distasteful." She led on to the other end of the room where a woman in her forties sat at a desk drinking something from a paper coffee cup, and nibbling on a box of donuts.
Sandra stopped. "Emily, this is Janet. Janet, Emily."
Janet brushed donut crumbs off her shirt and offered me a cheery wave. "Hello, Emily. Great to meet you."
"She's the new intern," Sandra said, her tone snottier than a baby with a cold.
Janet swallowed a chunk of donut. "I'm the receptionist for Sales."
"She handles most incoming calls." Sandra motioned around the room. "I directly liaison with the executives."
I could only imagine what that entailed.
As I trailed Sandra back toward the front, I watched the way she swayed her hips in a suggestive and obviously practiced manner. I looked over my shoulder, trying to see if my butt swayed too, and bumped into her when she stopped.
"Excuse me," the executive liaison said, looking down on me from atop her six-inch heels.
"Sorry," I muttered, backing away.
She sighed. Pointed down a hallway. "These are the executive suites. You are not to enter here unless expressly told to do so." She put a hand to her breast. "I am the one who handles their requests. The only room you will enter is the conference room." She opened double doors to reveal a long room with a rectangular table down the center, and a fantastic view of Midtown Atlanta. "If there is a need for this room to be set up, you will use the cart in the kitchen to bring coffee and food in here."
By the time she'd finished laying down the law about every aspect of my new working life, including bathroom breaks and lunch, I considered shoving her out a window. Working here was going to suck. Then again, I'd never had a job that didn't suck, most likely due to my aimless wandering through life.
The programmers rolled in around nine AM. I had to play kitchen wench, keeping the coffee pots full, and putting dirty mugs into the dishwasher. Lunchtime came, and while most of the programmers went out, those who remained were slovenly enough to leave the kitchen a filthy mess. I began to wonder if I'd secretly been given yet another waitressing job, except this time I had the responsibilities of bus boy as well. Perhaps they should provide me with an apron to go along with the household chores.
Sandra dragged me out of the kitchen the moment I finished the brisket I'd brought for lunch, and ordered me to cut cardboard and play elementary school teacher to help one of the sales teams prepare for a presentation to clients in the boardroom the next day.
I was exhausted by the time the clock struck five.
"How was work?" Isabel asked the moment I dragged my body into the flat.
"Meh." It was the only word I had energy for.
"Let's go for drinks." My roommate turned off the telly and jumped off the couch, clad only in black boy shorts and a bra. "I just need to freshen up a bit."
"Drinks?" I said. "Are you bloody kidding me?"
Isabel tilted her head a notch. "You need something harder? Heroin, perhaps? I know a guy—"
I rolled my eyes and laughed. "Fine. I could use a pint."
"Was work that bad?"
"I'm sure it'll get better." Yeah, right!
We threw on some jeans, ankle boots, and sweaters, looking totally like sisters from another mister despite my plain brown hair and fair skin, compared to her silky black hair and lovely olive complexion. Okay, so we didn’t exactly look like sisters, and the matching sweaters wouldn't fool anyone, but at least I could wish I had some of Isabel's hotness. Against my better judgment, we went back to Gronsky's.
"Just because I have amnesia about a crazy guy sexually assaulting me doesn't mean I have to give up my fave bar." Isabel waved to Alex and ordered us drinks.
I went with a pint of beer. It might have been worse for my figure, but at least it wouldn't get me drunk. As I told Isabel about my first day at work, I couldn't help but glance furtively at the door every time it opened, expecting Stephen McCreepazoid to slither through, casting rapey glances our way. Being a Monday and all, the pub remained uncrowded. We left around seven and grabbed some sushi from a place down the street.
"Is this the alley?" Isabel asked on our way back to the flat. She looked down the dark, narrow tunnel.
I grabbed her arm and dragged her away as nerves twisted my belly into knots. "Let's go, let's go. Bloody hell, girl, are you mental?" Gronsky's had been trauma enough without standing at the mouth of hell and tempting fate. I shuddered.
"Okay, okay!" she said indignantly. "I just find it hard to believe—"
"That's
because you don't remember it. I do, and it gives me the heebie jeebies." I increased my pace enough that even Isabel and her long legs had trouble keeping up.
When we arrived back at the flat, Isabel sat down on the couch, a glass of white wine in hand. "I'm sorry, Em." She made a pouty face. "I wish I could remember. It's just not fair."
"Believe me, you're better off not remembering," I said. I glanced at the time. It was nearly ten, and I had to play like an old lady and go to bed early if I expected to meet Sandra's high expectations.
I prepared lunch, laid out my clothes, and sat down to meditate in order to gird my mental facilities for the night ahead. My attempt at achieving Nirvana failed, as usual. Even in my calmest moments, my brain had a million things going through it, none of which I seemed capable of filtering to silence.
After lying in the dark for what seemed like hours, my mind rewinding back to the dark alley over and over again, I grunted in frustration and flicked on the lamp. Grabbed the dog-eared copy of The Princess Bride off my nightstand, and turned to the part where Buttercup finally realized she loved Westley. I'd read this part so many times I'd lost count, and still, it never grew old. Perhaps because a small part of me still clung to the romantic notion that true love existed out there somewhere, along with pink unicorns and fairy princesses.
Life is pain, Highness.
The older I became, the truer that statement seemed.
Somewhere in the middle of my musings, I must have fallen asleep, because my alarm screeched in my ear what seemed like only scant moments later. Still, I felt remarkably well rested.
Walking to work, I kept an eye out for the mystery knight's Range Rover, but saw nothing of it. Considering I'd left nearly twenty minutes earlier to meet Sandra's ungodly early deadline, it seemed highly likely he wouldn't even happen along until I was already at work.
A man dressed in a black suit leaned against the wall of one of the high-rise condos a few blocks from work. At first I thought he was a doorman, but he caught my eye and walked to intercept me. "Excuse me, miss. Might I have a word with you?"
The image of a bright white sphere flashed in my mind. I automatically jumped back a step. I rarely saw anything about people. Normally it was just a feeling. Either my intuition was completely out of whack or I was seeing things. I'd been so discomposed with the new job and the attack the other night, I could hardly blame my senses for being a bit scrambled.
"Who are you and what do you want?" My words hung heavy with frost. I did not like strangers accosting me from out of the blue.
"I'm trying to track down someone who may be a danger to others." He flashed a smile I didn't trust for a moment. "It's possible you might have come into contact with this individual, and we—"
"We who?" I looked him up and down. "You'd better show me some credentials right now or I'll call the police."
He raised a hand defensively. "I assure you there's no need for that." He took out a wallet and held it out to me. The sidewalk was busy enough with other pedestrians that I felt it would be safe to take the wallet from him without fear of him grabbing me. I snatched it and stepped back. The badge was from the Centers for Disease Control and identified him as George Walker, a disease vector analyst. I took the ID from behind the protective screen in the wallet and looked it over. It looked and felt authentic, but touching it sent a tiny shock into my fingers. Girl you're losing it.
I'd often wondered if my vibes were real, or simply a wild imagination. Either this sixth sense of mine was maturing, or I needed a visit to a therapist. I handed back his ID. "I'll be late for work. You'll have to walk with me."
"No problem." George smiled amicably and easily kept pace with me as I adopted a running walk.
"What does this individual look like?" I asked. Before he answered, I realized who he was talking about. I stopped in my tracks. "You're talking about the man who bit my friend, aren't you?"
"Perhaps—"
"Yeah, well, he's a good-looking chap goes by the name of Stephen." I touched my chin. "He bit my friend and had her blood all over his lips." I thought back to the frightening scene. "If you want to catch him, I suggest looking around the Midtown clubs. He looks like the sort who's always trawling the waters for stupid little fish he can take advantage of." I felt bad for including Isabel in that group, but she was such a ditz when it came to men.
George looked slightly confused. "You say he bit your friend and was drinking her blood?"
I hadn't exactly phrased it like that, but perhaps his statement was more accurate. "Fucking creepy, right? The man is obviously sick in the head." I realized I was just standing there and resumed my pace. Second day to work and I was already cutting it close. I reached the front door. "When I was near him I felt this cold sensation."
"He was cold?"
I shook my head. "No, just a cold feeling—I don't know how to explain it." I abruptly realized I would come across as quite the lunatic by trying to explain my intuitive feelings to the man, so I shook my head. "I really must go to work."
"I'll look into it." He stopped outside. "Perhaps we'll catch him."
I turned to enter the door when something else occurred to me. I spun around. "How in the world did you know—" I stopped speaking because the man was gone. I spotted him jogging across the street where he vanished around a corner. I didn't have time to think about this odd encounter, because I wanted to be on time. I took the lift up. The receptionist's desk was empty. I'm the early bird today.
Sandra and her stenciled eyebrows greeted me by arching in unison when she stepped off the lift and saw me standing there. I checked the time and noted with some satisfaction she was five minutes late. She knew I knew she knew she was late and both her eyebrows dove toward the center of her forehead in a little attack "V."
I pretended not to notice.
Sandra unlocked the door then paused to pull a tissue from her purse and blow her nose, which by the way, was quite red and icky looking. I'd been so focused on her eyebrows, I'd missed the telltale signs of a cold.
"Are you okay?" I asked, digging deep for a trace of human compassion and finding very little where she was concerned.
Eyebrows. "I'm fine. Please start the coffee."
I went about my morning tasks as the salespeople wandered into the office, conversing about sales stuff. Kevin, the leader of the team who was to meet with Mr. Jameson later that morning asked me to help him glue more pie charts to cardboard.
"Why not show the presentation on the projector?" We were well into the twenty-first century, and this sort of thing had gone out of style at least a decade ago.
He smiled in his plain little way and said, "Mr. Jones, the sales manager, doesn't like computers or projectors."
"Uh?" was the only thing I could add to that conversation. How bloody bizarre was that?
He shrugged. "Yeah, it all started a few months ago. Used to be he insisted we do it all digitally, and then he came back from vacation a changed man." Kevin leaned in closer. "And by that, I mean changed."
"He discovered Nirvana?"
He laughed. "I love British humor."
It took willpower not to roll my eyes. Obviously, I'd used Indian humor for that zinger.
Kevin cleared his throat and continued. "No, supposedly he went to Destin, Florida. Came back a week later with a spring in his step and a dislike for electronics. He even got rid of his smartphone and went back to a flip phone."
My lips curled up in disgust. "That's horrid. How does he manage?"
"I don't know." He pursed his lips, a thoughtful look on his face. "But I kinda like the new Mr. Jones a lot better than the old one. This one isn't on our asses every waking minute, demanding this report and that, and when he talks to clients, he woos them without breaking a sweat."
I put the final touches on the pie chart and held it up. "How's that?"
"Looks good." Kevin took a sip of coffee and stood back to admire the other charts.
It looked to me as if we were prepari
ng for a high school science fair or some such nonsense. All that was missing was the fake volcano and pimply young boys with thick glasses. Then again, there were plenty of nerdy types in the programming department.
The phone buzzed and Sandra's voice over the speakerphone shattered the atmosphere of calm contemplation. "Emily, I need you now!" CLICK!
Kevin chuckled. "Sounds like the queen bee has her panties in a wad. Better run unless you want to end up like the last intern."
I managed to give him a Sandra-like raise of one eyebrow before jogging in high heels to the front of the office.
Sandra greeted me with watery eyes, and a painful looking chapped nose. "I need your help," she said, her sinuses sounding well on the way to stuffiness.
"Yes?" Your Grace?
"Mr. Jones is coming in any minute. I usually run down the street and get him a black coffee from Java Hippo and a copy of the newspaper, but didn't have time this morning. I need you to do that." She handed me a sticky note with exact instructions for the coffee—apparently black coffee was more complicated than I thought. "And hurry. It's only fifteen minutes until the meeting."
I was riding the lift to the ground floor when I realized I hadn't asked her where this coffee place was. I stepped outside and pulled up directions on my mobile. I mean seriously, who the bloody hell could live without a smartphone these days? I'd be lost in my own backyard if I didn't have a GPS to sort it out for me. And who, pray tell, still read a physical copy of the newspaper? Oh, that's right, the Luddite, Mr. Jones.
The GPS happily informed me the shop was five blocks down. Five blocks down! I jogged my merry way down the sidewalk, high heels clicking and business skirt doing its level best to slow me. I drew curious looks as I ran, my cursing loud enough for all to hear. By the time I reached the coffee place, I'd exhausted my expletives for describing Sandra and this bothersome task. Thankfully, I wasn't ready to fall over, just yet.
As I waited impatiently for the coffee, I noticed a man standing outside the shop. He wore a similar suit to George Walker's. I blinked and the image of a white burning orb flashed once again behind my eyelids. I might have chased the man down were it not for the highly time-sensitive task. I paid for a newspaper from the stand inside the coffee shop and looked back toward the window. The man was gone.
