End of the Road

by LS Hawker

“What are you—”

  “Jade. Now. Out the back door.”

  Her legs went watery at the sound of her name. She hadn’t been imagining it back at the barbershop. He took hold of her wrist and yanked her toward the exit.

  As he looked back at her, her warped reflection in his mirror sunglasses displayed the terror on her face. The man was shorter than she but burly and ungodly strong, his grip like a coyote trap, and she couldn’t shake free. Her tennis shoes slid along the tile floor as if she were roller-skating. She reached out to grab a shelf and only succeeded in knocking boxes of denture cleaner to the floor.

  “Elias!” she yelled, and the man grimaced at her and yanked harder.

  Elias appeared at the head of the aisle. “Hey!” he shouted, and the man spun Jade around, as if he were going to shield himself from Elias with her body. She felt his hand on her ass, and thought, oh, great. One quick feel before he escapes. Gross.

  Elias sprinted toward them.

  But the man shoved Jade toward him and ran out the back door.

  Chapter Two

  Elias locked eyes with Jade then turned and pursued the man out the door.

  Jade took a step to follow but her legs turned tottery and she collapsed onto the hard floor, belatedly hit with adrenaline that made her shake all over and breathe in shredding gasps.

  What had just happened?

  Oscillating spots appeared in her vision and she was glad to be so close to the ground now because she felt light-headed. She leaned back against the shelves and rubbed her wrist, which felt raw and sore, the bones loose and brittle.

  Had the guy been following her? For how long? Had he seen her before in town?

  If he wanted to kidnap a girl, why had he chosen her, six feet tall and a hundred and eighty pounds? It didn’t make any sense.

  Her thoughts bounced around chaotically, now lighting on a memory from college. She’d been in a bathroom stall when she overheard two girls she didn’t know well talking about her. They called her the Clydesdale. An accurate assessment, but it still hurt.

  So she couldn’t imagine this guy had seen her galumphing down the streets of Miranda and said to himself, I gotta get me some of that.

  She also couldn’t prevent her imagination from following the logical path of what might have happened had he dragged her out of the store and into a minivan. One thing was for sure—she would have put up a hell of a fight.

  Elias burst in through the back door, gleaming with sweat but only slightly out of breath. The guy was in incredible shape.

  “Where did you go?” she asked.

  He gave her a perplexed look. “Where did I—I thought I heard the ice cream man. Where do you think I went? I went to catch that guy. But he drove away in a white crossover. I lost him. What the hell happened? Are you hurt?”

  “Not exactly,” Jade said, and an inappropriate urge to laugh suddenly seized her.

  He squatted down next to her and examined her bright red wrist.

  “Grabbed my ass, is all,” Jade said.

  Elias wrinkled his face in disgust.

  “At first I thought he was an undercover cop who thought I was shoplifting, but then he tried to pull me out the back door there.”

  “We need to call the cops.”

  “We don’t have time,” Jade said. “We’re going to be late getting back.”

  Why on earth didn’t she want to go to the cops? She turned it all over in her mind. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t right.

  “Screw that,” Elias said. “They can damn well wait.”

  “Investors are coming. That’s why you got the freakin’ haircut, remember? The presentation? Money waits for no man.”

  She worried less about holding up the presentation than describing to policemen how some guy had tried to kidnap her, because she could just imagine the skeptical looks on their faces.

  Really? Someone tried to kidnap a heifer like you?

  She couldn’t explain this to Elias. It was ridiculous, a childish reason for avoiding the cops.

  A better reason occurred to her, however: What if her folks found out about this? It would be one more in an endless, agonizing list of things to worry about, to stress out about.

  She was mentally and emotionally exhausted and had to reserve the little energy and brainpower she had left for the presentation.

  She endeavored to focus on the upcoming dog and pony show, but her mind kept wandering back to the grocery store.

  The guy knew her name. Somehow, he knew her name.

  “We could reschedule the presentation,” Elias said.

  “No we can’t,” Jade said. “They had to charter a plane, remember? We have to do it today. I’m fine. And let’s not tell Martin. I don’t want to give him another excuse to treat us like third-graders. Okay? Promise me.”

  Elias said, “But what if—”

  “Listen,” she said. “This would be one more reason to regret hiring a woman, right? Kicks up a huge fuss just because some guy grabs her butt, gets the cops involved because she needs to make a point. If it had happened to you, you would have shaken it off and gone on with your day.”

  Elias searched her face.

  “Are you hiding something from me, Jade? Like a police record or something? Is that what this is?”

  “No,” she said, which wasn’t exactly lying.

  She didn’t want to tell Elias the guy knew her name. But why? Because now that she thought about it, maybe he hadn’t mouthed her name standing outside the barbershop. Maybe he hadn’t said “Jade” in the grocery store. Now that she thought about it, it sounded crazy. Maybe Elias would think she was some paranoid nutcase.

  “Let’s forget it, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said, reluctant. “But I reserve the right to force you back here to file a police report later.”

  “You could try to force me,” she said, attempting to inject her voice with menace.

  He smiled. “Did you get your toothpaste?”

  Jade had completely forgotten why she came here in the first place. “Oh, right,” she said, and held up her hand. Elias pulled her to standing and she grabbed the first tube she saw. He looped his arm around her waist without her asking—she was listing a little. She put her purchase on the counter and pulled out her wallet.

  The clerk picked up the toothpaste and inspected each end of the box, looking for a price tag, Jade guessed. Once she found it, she turned to the electronic cash register and stared at it.

  Jade glanced at Elias, but still the clerk stared. She stretched out a hand toward the keyboard, as if it were electrified and pressed number buttons. Then she stared some more.

  “Do you . . . need help?” Jade asked.

  Flustered, the clerk said, “This is my first day on the job. I’m not quite sure how to . . .”

  As Jade reached forward, she saw the look on Elias’s face, his eyebrows drawn together. But Jade showed the clerk how to work the cash register then handed her a five-dollar bill.

  The clerk stuffed it in the drawer and then puzzled over how much change to give.

  “A dollar eighty-four,” Jade said.

  The clerk gave an embarrassed half smile, dug the cash out of the register, and handed it to Jade, who put it in her wallet and returned the wallet to her pocket. She stuck the toothpaste in her front shirt pocket.

  Elias and Jade walked outside into the September heat.

  “That girl was lying,” Elias said.

  “What do you mean?” Jade said.

  “I’ve seen her in there before. This is definitely not her first day on the job.”

  Jade turned back toward the store. Buzz buzz buzz. “Why would you lie about something like that?”

  “There’s a lot of screwy stuff going on here today,” Elias said.

  “Is it a full moon or something?”

  Elias shrugged then headed toward one of the company cars they’d used to drive the three miles to town, the blue Chevy Volt. “Want me to drive?”

  She t
ossed him the keys and he got in the driver’s seat and pressed the blue start button as she got in the passenger side.

  “I'll never get used to this,” Elias said. “It's more like a golf cart than a car.”

  “The environment thanks you,” Jade said.

  She turned up the car stereo, blasting Beyoncé. Elias sang along, not well, but with gusto.

  He drove out of town, taking the dirt roads to the Compound that had been built specifically for SiPraTech’s inaugural project, which would kick off the new start-up. She remembered the first time she’d seen it, rumbling down this dirt road. The only difference between this dirt road and those near her hometown was that the first time she’d come to the Compound, she’d been riding in the back of a Cadillac Escalade, driven from the Salina airport by a silent man.

  Right after SiPraTech had officially hired her the last week of May, she’d made the move out here, and on that day, the prairie was green and full of wildflowers, dotted with oil wells, tractors, grain silos, and barns. The sky was a large, hazy blue, with massive puffy clouds on the horizon.

  She’d boxed up her life at the University of Kansas and called for a UPS pickup, using the account number emailed to her by Martin Felix, the project supervisor. He assured her all her things would be waiting for her at her destination.

  The company people called it the Compound, which of course made her think of The Godfather and the gated, guarded enclave of Corleone family houses. But what met her gaze was different altogether. At the top of the short rise in the prairie at the end of the road, nestled between two wheat fields nearly ready for harvest, was a cluster of three brand-new structures. The largest was an office building, surrounded by lush sculpted landscaping. To the north, across a greenbelt sat a sprawling, ranch-style house, similarly landscaped with a waterfall, pond, and rocky river extending from it. At the eastern edge of the greenbelt was another building marked FITNESS CENTER/CLUBHOUSE.

  She started getting excited. It was so pretty. Next to the fitness center was a large swimming pool surrounded by palm tree sculptures, cabanas, and a bar. The setup reminded her of one of the major tech company campuses, Facebook, Google, Pixar. It appeared SiPraTech had spared no expense.

  A ten-foot-high chain-link fence surrounded the entire Compound, and her driver drove up to the gate, rolled down his window, and waved a keycard in front of a reader on a stand to the left. The gate swung open and they drove through. The gate shut automatically behind them.

  The driver parked in the office building parking lot and opened her door for her.

  “You can wander the Compound if you’d like, see what’s here before your first meeting,” he told her.

  “Thanks,” she said, and put her purse over her shoulder. She walked the perimeter of the pool, the cool deep blue of the water and the evocative smell of chlorine making her think of coconut-scented sunscreen and hamburgers frying at her hometown pool. Inside the clubhouse were several enormous flat-screen televisions, air hockey, foosball, and Ping-Pong tables, even an old-fashioned pinball machine. There was an Xbox One, a PS4, and a Wii U. One wall sported a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, stuffed with books. There were smartphone docks everywhere.

  Jade’s heart swelled. All her favorite things were right here.

  Once she’d thoroughly investigated the workout rooms, she walked to the house and knocked on the front door.

  When she’d accepted her position with the company, she’d been given the choice of either renting a house in Miranda, or living rent-free on the property itself. She’d chosen the rent-free option. For now anyway.

  A gardener looked up at her and said, “You don’t need to knock. It’s open.”

  Jade tentatively opened the door and surveyed the spacious living room and, beyond that, the vast kitchen. She went upstairs and counted five bedrooms, and found the one with her name on it. She turned the doorknob, but it was locked.

  “Hi, Jade,” said a voice from the end of the hall, startling her out of her happy reverie.

  She whirled around. “Hi,” she said to the woman standing there, a blonde in her thirties, dressed in jeans and a red top.

  “I’m Greta. Welcome to your new home!”

  “Thanks,” Jade said.

  “It’s my job to make sure you have what you need to feel at home here. If you’re missing anything, just let me know. But you won’t see me unless you need me.” She handed Jade a business card. “This is my cell number, and you can call it anytime of the day or night. If you get sick or injured, you call me and I’ll get you medical help. If we don’t have food you like, let me know.” She smiled. She pulled a lanyard out of her pocket with a badge attached and handed it to Jade. “This is your ID as well as electronic keycard that will open your bedroom door and any other door you have access to, including the front door of the house, your work area, and so forth.”

  She turned to go but then said, “Oh, by the way—there’s no Internet here.”

  “You mean it’s down?” Jade said.

  “No. The program you’re working with must be contained. It has to be secure, and if any of the computers or your devices are networked, the program could leak out and do who knows what. You’ll notice you can’t use your smartphone to access the Internet either, or make or receive calls.” Before Jade could object, Greta said, “Don’t worry. We have landlines you can use for phone calls. We’re not trying to cut you off from the outside world, of course.” She smiled at Jade, who smiled back. Funny they hadn’t mentioned any of this when she signed her employment contract. She lived more than half of her life online. It would be inconvenient, but not intolerable. She hoped.

  “Thanks, Greta,” she said, accepting the lanyard and waving the keycard in front of the electronic lock. A green light illuminated, and she turned the knob and pushed open the heavy door then stood against it.

  She draped the lanyard around her neck. “When do the other . . . my coworkers get here?”

  “A couple are already here,” she said, glancing at her watch. “You’ve got your first meeting at four p.m. in the office. That’s the big building across the garden square from us.”

  Jade peered out the window and saw the “garden square” was indeed a square with grass, park benches, water features, landscaping—a miniature version of Central Park.

  “You can go in that front door and someone will be there to guide you to the conference room.”

  “Thanks,” Jade said.

  Greta disappeared.

  Jade’s things were indeed already there, and she sighed with relief. The walls were painted sky blue, her favorite color. Country modern furnishings occupied the room with an overstuffed chair next to a table and sturdy blue ceramic lamp, a window seat decorated with colorful pillows and a bookshelf beneath it.

  A Jack and Jill bathroom connected her bedroom to another. The smartphone dock in the wall linked to speakers hidden in the ceilings, so she connected her phone and put her music library on shuffle while she went about unpacking her suitcases and boxes. She put T-shirts, shorts, underwear, and socks away in the chest of drawers and the closet and the shelves. She found a hammer and nails in the closet and hung up posters of her heroes—Hermione Granger, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and Imperator Furiosa.

  As soon as she got them up, she had second thoughts. She was twenty-four years old. Wasn’t she too old for posters? But she needed the company of these fictional badasses to face her new coworkers, who, she’d been given to understand, were all accomplished, brilliant, and most likely good-looking too.

  Finally Jade hung up framed photos of her family.

  She undocked her phone and noticed it was quarter to four, so she stowed her suitcases in the top of the closet and then took the boxes out into the hall and closed her door behind her. It locked automatically.

  Striding across the Compound, she tried to quell her nervousness about meeting her teammates. Even though she’d bombarded the driver with questions, he’d had no answers for her. She wan
ted to know who her teammates were and where they’d come from. But she’d have to wait.

  She made her way to the office building and used her keycard to open the door. Inside, she found another woman, dressed in a skirted suit. Jade contemplated her own outfit. “Should I go change?” she said. “I think I’m a little underdressed.”

  “Oh, no,” the woman said. “We’re very informal here. We want you all to wear whatever makes you comfortable. Follow me.”

  Jade did, and her stomach churned. Her limbs felt stiff and uncomfortable. What was she walking into? What if no one liked her? She followed the woman onto the elevator and she took them to the top floor, three. Jade breathed deeply, trying to clear her mind, trying to relax, but it was impossible. She had to believe everyone else was nervous too.

  On the third floor, she followed the woman down the hall, where Martin Felix, her new supervisor, stood outside a door.

  “Hello, Jade,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. “You can call me Martin.” He wore a collared golf shirt and khaki slacks, his approximation of casual.

  “Am I the last one here?”

  “Yes. Come on in.”

  He held open the door to a large, generic-looking conference room. Jade inhaled to the count of three and then plunged in.

  Sitting with looks of anticipation on their faces were an Asian woman with peacock blue hair and a pierced nose, who smiled at Jade. Next to her sat a serious, ramrod straight-postured Latino man, likely older than Jade, but she couldn’t be sure. And across from them, an African-American man with glasses and large arms.

  “Jade,” Martin said, “This is Olivia Harman.”

  “Hi,” said Olivia brightly. “I’m so glad you’re a woman.”

  Jade smiled at this, and something loosened in her gut. “Me too,” she said.

  Olivia then regarded everyone. “We’ve got a regular United Nations here, don’t we?” She pointed at Jade. “Plus the token white girl, of course. The EEOC would love this crowd. The cultural diversity special interest money is going to come pouring in. Anyone gay? Do we have any disabilities represented? No? Too bad.”

  Jade didn’t know how to take her at first, and the other team members recoiled at her politically incorrect remarks. But Jade later learned Olivia was a force to be reckoned with.