Naughty and Nice

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said, but even I recognized the strain in my voice.

  “More billionaire deep, dark secrets?” she asked, squeezing my hand.

  “Something like that,” I said, distracted. Simon texting me could only mean one thing: Manuel was still in town, and something wasn’t right.

  Cassie

  The day after our dessert and cocktail outing, I woke up with a sense of déjà vu. The day was beginning just as the day before had: me waking up alone in bed. I gazed over at the empty side of the bed and sighed. I moved my hand across the empty sheet, hoping to still feel some warmth from Brad’s presence, but the sheet was cold.

  I laid in bed trying to figure out what to do with the day. Brad had offered me the full use of his credit card, which was currently in my purse, so I could go do some shopping. But, I had no desire to go out and buy things for no real reason; I had gotten that out of my system in the first few days.

  I had work to do; I knew that. I got out of bed and dressed casually in yoga pants and a t-shirt. I made my usual coffee and grabbed my laptop from my bag. I opened it and frowned when the screen didn’t light up.

  “What the fuck,” I said out loud, pressing buttons. I plugged the cord into the outlet, assuming my battery was dead. After a few moments, however, I realized that wasn’t the problem. My laptop was dead. “Dammit!” I swore, pushing the computer away. I knew that Brad could have his tech people look at it, but that wasn’t going to help me until I got home.

  I walked around the condo, pacing, trying to keep my thoughts away from the bad things and moving only toward memories of Brad and me together. Then, it dawned on me; I could use his computer if it was still available. I walked into the dining room and smiled when I saw the laptop sitting on the table. I opened it and started it up, then clicked on the “guest” account next to Brad’s name and password blank.

  The computer happily beeped and, within a few seconds, I was looking at the desktop. It was blank except for a few icons. The usual ones—the recycle bin and some shortcuts—were there, of course. There was also an icon that looked like an Outlook email dated from yesterday. I looked around, my finger hovering over the mouse.

  Don’t you dare, I thought to myself. Brad trusted me, and I didn’t want to do anything to violate that trust. Of course, when he left in the mornings, he tended to be gone for hours; it was more likely than not that I would be able to get away with looking at whatever I wanted to on the computer without him walking in on me.

  I listened for Mrs. Wheeler, but I didn’t hear her. I knew she was probably taking advantage of me being out and about in the condo to clean the bedroom.

  I closed my eyes and clicked on the email. When I opened my eyes, it took me a moment to take in all of the information before me. The email was a pdf file of an invoice that looked like an extensive inventory. The items listed in the description weren’t anything I recognized; it looked like just a bunch of letters and numbers. The quantities were mind-boggling, though. In that column, next to the description, the numbers ranged from 500 to 10,000 and everywhere in between. I scrolled down through the list. What on earth was this? And who was it to and from? I looked at the subject and address headings, but I didn’t recognize either of the email addresses; neither had Brad’s name in them.

  My eyes caught on one description: AK-47Z. I knew what an AK-47 was… but what was an AK-47Z? Was it just a coincidence that the letters and numbers were the same as a semi-automatic weapon? There was no way, was there? That this list could be a listing of guns; what on earth would Brad be doing with that?

  I selected another description and plugged it into Google. I knew I needed to remember to erase the history and cookies when I was finished. The page that came up stunned me. It was a modified version of a gun known for its ability to fire multiple rounds per second. The modification had been to add grenades to the chamber, so that the gun would not only fire bullets, but it would release a grenade at the same time. I read through the articles quickly, double checking my work by looking at multiple sites. Each site I looked at confirmed what I had read on the others.

  My stomach sank. What was Brad involved with? Clearly he worked in some form with illegal weapons. I felt fear beginning to press in on my brain. Was he a buyer? A seller? Or was he just a contact for the type of person who would buy and sell these weapons? That wouldn’t make it right, of course, but… my brain struggled to understand. The more I read through the list, the worse it got.

  I had a thought and began to add Brad’s name to the weapon in the search engine. If he was involved, his name should come up at least in proximity to the weapons. But, to my confusion and relief, no results included both the weapon and his name.

  I looked back at the two addresses. I couldn’t make out any way that either address could relate to Brad; they looked like spam addresses. And, why had it been sitting on the desktop? Was it a test for me? Had he left it there for me to find? Had he disabled my computer so I would? He was certainly capable.

  “Stop it!” I said to myself out loud. “Stop it right now.”

  “Ma’am? Are you okay?” Mrs. Wheeler called from the next room. I slammed down the lid on the laptop.

  “I’m fine,” I called. “Sorry, just talking to myself.” I waited, my breath shallow, for Mrs. Wheeler to come into the dining room to confirm I was telling the truth. The laptop was closed; hopefully that would make it blend in.

  But, she didn’t come into the room, just called back that she was sorry to bother me. I counted to thirty and then opened the laptop again. I erased the cookies and browser history, and wiped down the keyboard. I basically wanted to get rid of anything that would connect me to viewing anything on the computer.

  I tried to click on Brad’s account once again, but the password protection was still in effect. So, clearly he didn’t want me seeing everything, if, in fact, he had lured me to finding this one particular email.

  I closed the computer down again and began to pace from the living room to the dining room to the kitchen and back again. I was restless, waiting for Brad to get home so I could ask him… what, exactly? What’s that invoice with tens of thousands of illegal weapons doing on your computer? How involved in illegal activity are you? Does it bother you that I’ve been in regular conversation with an NCA agent?

  The more time passed, the more upset I got. I called the Embassy and asked for Brad’s friend. Again, I was told that his friend was unavailable. When I asked about the status of my passport, the woman who had answered the phone said that she was sure the paperwork was being processed.

  “We’re doing everything we can, Miss,” she admonished me.

  I hung up the phone and continued pacing. I checked my phone every few seconds, willing Brad to call me. Of course, he didn’t. I began to piece things together. For instance, where was he right now? He always told me he had meetings, and I’d had no reason to think he was being dishonest.

  You still don’t, the voice in my head said. Oh come on! another voice argued in my head. He’s living a total lie!

  I shook my head, making the argument in my mind disappear. I had to talk to Brad. I called him… and got his voicemail.

  I was about to shut my phone off and go pour myself a cocktail so I could think when my phone rang. It was Patrick. Of all times! I clicked “accept” and took a deep breath.

  “Listen, Patrick,” I began, “You have to stop calling me—”

  “Who is this?” a stranger’s voice asked.

  I stopped short. “Who is this?”

  “This is Mavin Toller. I’m calling because your number was the last number dialed from this number. There’s been an accident. The man who owns the phone… he… he’s in bad shape, I guess is the best way to say it. Are you his wife?”

  I didn’t answer right away, my thoughts suddenly delayed, running on slow motion.

  “Hello? Ma’am?” The voice on the line was impatient.

>   “I’m not his wife,” I said. “I’m… I’m a friend. What happened?”

  “I don’t know, I just came upon him like this. I called an ambulance. He doesn’t have an emergency number listed in his phone that I could see, so I just called the last number dialed.” Now I could hear the tremor in the man’s voice.

  “Where are you?” I asked. “Is the ambulance on its way?” A sudden jolt shot through me. “Is he alive? Is he breathing? Did you do CPR?”

  “He’s alive,” the man said. I could hear the faint siren of an ambulance getting louder. “The ambulance is here, Ma’am; I have to go.”

  “Wait!” I yelled into the phone. “What hospital is he going to? Where should I go?”

  “I’ll call you back,” the man said, and the line went dead.

  The Billionaire’s LEGACY

  Dangerous Times

  Sarah J. Brooks

  Cassie

  “Come with me, or I’ll shoot you right here,” the man said in a raspy, whispery voice. He reached out and grabbed my wrist, tugging me out into the hallway. I hadn’t noticed when I walked to the bathroom exactly how separated it was from the rest of the restaurant. Rather than walk back toward the dining room, my captor took me in the opposite direction, down a hallway, and through a back door into a parking lot that was clearly the back side of the restaurant. In addition to a few cars, a dumpster, and recycling bins, there was an enormous black van. The man was tugging me toward it.

  “Help me!” I screamed. “Someone, help! Fire! Fire!” I’d heard that the real way to get someone’s attention if you need help is to yell ‘fire’—it makes people look around. But, I realized with horror, there was no one around. I’d never seen a parking lot so deserted. The infidel slapped his hand over my mouth and my eyes burned with the sting of it.

  “I’ll kill you right here,” he seethed. “Don’t do that again.”

  I tried to pay attention to his voice. It was a distinct accent, and one I knew well: I thought the man might well be an American.

  “My boyfriend is inside the restaurant,” I said, quieting my voice. “He’s going to come out here any second and catch you. He packs; he’ll kill you before you know what’s happening.”

  The man laughed. “He’s not your boyfriend. Your boyfriend is Bradley White, owner and operator of Legacy Luxury Hotels, which is a cover for one of the biggest arms manufacturers and distributors in the world.” I craned my neck to stare at him as he muscled me into the back of the van. He climbed in with me and handcuffed me, pressing my chest into the floor as he twisted my hands behind my back. His knee was pressing into my spine, and I found that I couldn’t move; I couldn’t squirm out from under him.

  He pounded on the side wall of the van, and the van squealed out of the parking lot. My captor nearly lost his balance as the driver turned sharply left and right, but he stayed on top of me.

  “The man you were having lunch with is Patrick Shim, an agent for the NCA. I know all about you, Cassie. And I know all about how you operate your life.”

  I stared at the floor of the van, not responding, my mind absolutely reeling with the information the man knew about me. I didn’t know if he knew I was a journalist. The thought filled me with absolute terror. It was well known how American journalists were treated in Middle Eastern countries. We were in Morocco, but that didn’t mean that I might not suffer the same fate if my captor knew my profession.

  “Nothing to say?” he teased, pressing his knee into my back hard; my chin hit the metal floor of the van and scraped it. Pain was beginning to radiate through my body. I closed my eyes and mentally reached out to Patrick, mentally reached out to Brad. I didn’t believe in that crap one bit, the idea that someone could psychically reach out to another person, but I was in a life and death situation here, and I figured it couldn’t hurt.

  “What are you going to do with me?” I asked, my voice muffled by the floor. My captor shoved his knee down one more time, then released and sat back. I tried to roll over, to sit up, but the van was moving too quickly; it seemed like every time I tried to shift, the van would turn and I’d go sliding back to my stomach. This seemed to amuse my captor, who was sitting against the wall of the van.

  “I actually have no interest in you,” he said. “You’re bait. A pawn. I want the big fish.”

  “Who’s the big fish?” I asked. “Brad?”

  My captor laughed loudly at this. “Bradley White? A big fish? No, sweetheart, Bradley White is a minnow in the ocean. He’s nothing. I’m after his boss.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Brad was his own boss. I thought of the documents I’d seen, the inventory with the lists of guns. I’d never been able to put it into context, and I hadn’t been able to find any other information besides that isolated list. Was this man an arms dealer?

  “I think you’ve probably got the wrong person,” I said, my voice shaking. “Brad is a hotel owner and operator, nothing more. He’s got money, though; you could be a very rich man if you give me back to him in one piece.” I wasn’t about to tell my captor how much money Brad had, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try to appeal to his sense of greed and self-interest. “Whoever you’re working for can’t possibly pay you as much as all this is worth. Brad could make sure you never have to worry about money again.”

  This was the wrong thing to say. My captor leaped off the wall and back onto my back, straddling me from behind and pressing his gun to the base of my head. I saw stars.

  “Do I look like I need money, bitch? Now shut the fuck up. If you talk again, I’ll kill you.” To emphasize this, he pushed the barrel of the gun hard against my head, and my forehead and nose slammed into the floor of the van. I sniffed, sure that my nose was bleeding, but I kept quiet.

  After a moment, he got off of me and moved to the front of the van. He opened a small window between the back of the van and the front, and spoke to the driver in a language I didn’t understand. The driver said something back, and my captor grunted in agreement, and then shut the door again. He sat back.

  I looked around, trying to see anything I could use as a weapon. If I could get out of the handcuffs, or, hell, even if I couldn’t, I could get out of the back of the van and take my chances landing on the road if I was able to paralyze my attacker for even a moment. But, the van was stripped and completely empty. It was pitch black except for the light that came through the window in the front. That light was just enough for me to see the bulky shape of my captor against the black paint of the van.

  I tried to stay focused on him, tried to memorize his features. Sweat rolled into my eyes and, with my hands cuffed behind my back, I could only try to rub it away with my shoulder. The salty sweat stung, and the fabric of my shirt only added to the rough feeling against my eyes. I slumped back for a moment, blinking as I realized the salt in my eyes wasn’t just from sweat; it was from tears.

  I felt my breath shake as I inhaled and exhaled slowly. I wasn’t a yoga instructor anymore, but I had been one for five years in college and just after. The one thing I took with me from my yoga practice was that any posture, any obstacle, can be conquered with a strong, sound breath. Our brains functioned better, our nervous system calmed itself. Our fight or flight instinct disappeared. I forced my breath to move in and out as slowly as possible while I kept my eyes on my captor. I began to notice details about the van. The engine had a loudness to it that suggested trouble—it either had recently had work or would need it soon. The paint job was fresh; I could smell it. Who knew what color the van had been before, but the interior and exterior colors were likely not the same as how they had started.

  I tuned my ears into my captor talking to the driver. His accent was definitely American. I tried to place the region. Not Southern, and not New York or Boston. It was a fairly non-descript accent, which meant Midwest or, perhaps, the West Coast. I had heard about a number of terror cells being founded in places in the Midwest that wouldn’t normally draw suspicion: Minneapolis, Minnesota; Kansas City,
Kansas; Columbus, Ohio.

  With my journalist senses on high alert, I was able to keep my brain occupied enough to calm myself down. Distraction to focus. I continued to be watchful and alert, my brain moving quickly as I tried to envision myself escaping, somehow, before we got to wherever my captor was taking me. I knew if he took me out of the van, I probably wouldn’t be alive much longer.

  I laid back and closed my eyes. It was impossible for me to sleep, obviously, but I knew that I could trick my body a bit into relaxing further by mimicking the actions of sleep. Eyes closed, body slack, breath slow, I began to calm myself down from the inside out.

  “Hey!” A rough voice accompanied by a kick pulled me out of my trance. I opened my eyes, and looked up at my captor, still hooded and hidden from my view. “Hey, what the fuck?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. In two minutes, the van is going to stop. And when it does,” my captor said, making his way from my right side to my left, closer to the back double doors. When he mentioned the van stopping, my heart began to pound fast and hard in my chest. “When it does, I’m gonna pull you out, and you’re gonna come real nice. Real quiet. There’s no one else around anyway, so there’s no need to waste your screams.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” I asked.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled. “Stand up.” The van slowed to a stop and, in what felt like one motion, my captor grabbed me with both hands, kicked the door open with his foot, and pulled me out. I landed on the ground in a heap, the breath forced out of my lungs as I grunted. I looked around. We were on a gravel road, and the dust from the road clouded my vision. When it cleared, I could see that we were in a remote area, the country of Morocco, and we’d pulled up in front of a house that looked like any other non-descript Moroccan housing. A few walls slapped together made from metal that didn’t look as strong as it probably was, mixed with clay and stone. My captor picked me up by the back of my shirt and tried to drag me into the house. I let my feet slacken and my body turn to dead weight, though, inside, I was buzzing with terror. Again, I knew, if he took me into that house, I was as good as dead.