Absolute Zero (23 page)

“It was two years ago Ian. You’ve moved on, haven’t you?”

“Yes…and no. I go back there and the whole town is like a shrine to her. It’s…strange,” he admitted in a small voice.

“She wanted it that way,” Lena stated confidently with an underlying tone of bitterness to her words.

It wasn’t appropriate to speak ill of the dead, so she would keep further comments to herself.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” She pressed the button for the speaker and settled the cell on her countertop.

“How’s Shrek?”

Who?
Oh, geez
.

“He’s gone. And stop calling him Shrek,” she added before placing an onion on her cutting board.

“You know, I looked him up on the Internet just so I could put a face to that voice and you know what? Nothing. No pictures. What’s up with that?
Is
he a troll?” Beth asked.

“No,” she answered probably a bit too quickly. “He’s not,” she breathed out. “I noticed that too when I was researching the place before I took the job. I had no idea who he was when I first met him,” she stated with a small smile, remembering their first encounter in the small conference room.

“I
did
notice pictures of your Director of Operations. Holy shit, Anne. He looks like Blair Underwood. Completely hot…”

“His
wife
thinks so too…” Anne quipped.

“Ha ha. I’m just making an observation, that’s all,” she stated. “So, back to Shrek, what do you mean he’s gone?” she could hear Beth’s disembodied voice ring out in the kitchen.

“Gone as in, he had to go back to Scotland,” she stated as she grabbed a knife.

“That’s too bad. That
is
bad, right? Did you at least get it on while he was there?”

“Not really,” Anne answered distractedly as her eyes wandered over to the gorgeous display of color on her kitchen table courtesy of one Ian McClellan.

“
Not really
, hmm, let’s analyze that answer…” Beth’s voice drew Anne’s attention back to the phone.

“Let’s
not
,” Anne cut her off.

“
Not really
means that something
did
happen, just not to the degree I may have been referring to,” Beth stated smugly. “So spill it,” she added.

Anne placed the knife on the cutting board and shot a glare at the phone.

“It was nothing,” she sighed out although she could feel the familiar heat rising from her neck to her cheeks.

“Uh huh, let me decide. What exactly did you two kids do?”

“Just kissed. That was it. I told him it was mistake and…that’s it,” she finished simply.

“He kissed you? The owner of the company you work for planted one on you. Was it good?”

Anne stared at the phone before her head turned to scan the empty room for some weird reason.

“Earth to Anne!”

“Yeah,” she admitted. This
was
Beth. They told each other everything.

“Yeah? So…now what?”

“Now, nothing. He’s gone. He probably won’t be back for a long time, at least from what I hear, so I think I’m safe.”
Except for Instant Messaging and random floral deliveries…

“Safe. You crack me up.”

“What? I mean it! I can’t be in a relationship with him, that’s just ludicrous. Look how well messing with David went.”

“Speaking of David…” Beth trailed off.

“What?” Surprisingly, her body didn’t react at all at the mention of his name.

“Well, I ran into him this weekend at Chez Loma. He pulled up in a brand new Maserati Quattroporte. Business must be boomin’.”

“Was Ingrid with him?”

“Of course. She’s sporting quite the sparkler now, I noticed. They must pay that asshole an inordinate sum of money,” she stated before the tone of her voice decreased in volume, “I’m sorry, does that bother you?” she asked.

“Not at all. Are you kidding? I’m very happy for them. They deserve each other. Karma and all that crap.”

“Ok, I just thought you might find that interesting. It really doesn’t sound like you care.”

“I never did. It was just sex, Beth. I went into it knowing that. I just wonder if he was with both of us at the same time. If that’s the case…” she shrugged and focused her eyes outside the window beyond the deck in the backyard. There was a nice patch of level land that would be perfect for a garden…

“Yeah, I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Let’s talk about Roddy McHottie instead…” she heard through the phone.

“Oh my god, Beth. Please stop,” she struggled to speak before a laugh erupted from her throat.

*****

Your message to Ian McClellan:

I was wondering if I could plant a garden in the backyard?

She hit the send button early the next morning, not expecting the ping that sounded almost immediately after.

Ian McClellan’s message to you:

I don’t care

Her mouth opened before clamping shut.
What kind of response was that?
A split second later, she noticed the bottom of the message box indicated he was typing.  Her eyes were glued to the screen waiting for a response.

Ian McClellan’s message to you:

As long as you cook something for me the next time I come for a visit.

Well, that seemed somewhat friendly and much more in line with a response she would expect from him. A smile of relief formed on her face as she typed.

Your message to Ian McClellan:

Agreed. Thank You.

That seemed easy enough. Especially since he rarely visited America…

Ian McClellan’s message to you:

Thank You for what? The garden or the flowers I sent you?

Amazing how he could unsettle her with only a few typed words. She shifted in her office chair, suddenly uncomfortable as the fingers poised on her keyboard clenched and unclenched. Her mind raced to come up with a response but her fingers were incapable of pressing the keys.

Both
. That was a good response, nice and simple. She should type
both
and be done with it.

Ian McClellan’s message to you:

The proper response is ‘both’. Just in case you were wondering. Now, get back to work. I’m not paying you to Instant Message me all day.

Her mouth opened in shock as she read his response. Her initial inclination was to shoot something back equally snarky but she stopped herself. That was what he was expecting. She would simply close out of the conversation and let him wonder.

Little did he know, it practically
killed
her to press the X on the top of the box.

*****

She looked over the list of supplies and cells she would need for her research later that afternoon, still not 100% sure she should continue the research. She cradled her cheek in her palm as her pencil eraser bounced off the page in a constant rhythm filling the otherwise empty office with sound.

Was it possible that Ron got his hands on her formula? She shook her head as her eyes shifted to stare at the notebook page filled with his handwriting. There was no way. If what she heard was true, and from the corresponding dates in his reports, Ron was working on this around the same time she was, before his…episode. It wasn’t
exactly
the same formula, but close enough to cause concern.

One glaring difference between their research was the proposed point of administration. Ron’s research indicated direct injection into the pons and
not
the frontal lobe. Injecting into the pons would negate the need to drill into the skull, which was a definite improvement, yet the frontal lobe seemed the most optimal point of entry since decreased levels of serotonin in the pre-frontal cortex had been proven to contribute to increased levels of aggression. Of course, drilling a hole in a person’s forehead wasn’t exactly the most attractive option either. Effective? Yes. Attractive? Not so much.

To say she was intrigued would have been an understatement. The pons was after all, the messenger between front and rear brain activity.
Was it possible?
She could certainly test it out, the question was:
did she want to?

“Hey there! Working late again?” Her eyes jolted up to find Caleb standing in front of her desk, a large garbage bag in his hands once again.

“Hey,” she offered with a somewhat nervous smile.

“That looks familiar,” he indicated the opened binder on her desk. “They have you working on Ron’s stuff?”

“Umm, yeah…how did you…?”

“Oh, he used to work late every night too. I’d come in here and he would scramble to cover up this thing,” he stated with a small laugh. “Like I would even know what the hell he was writing in it. It was actually kind of funny,” he shrugged before setting the bag down.

“So…you knew Ron?” she asked, suddenly intrigued.

“Sure. I mean, just small talk. Actually, I used to try and pump him for info on his niece. I’ve been trying to get her to go on a date with me for like,
ever
. I’m wearing her down,” he grinned, revealing twin dimples on either side of his mouth. He was a rather handsome kid, she thought.

“Oh…ah, Ok,” she shrugged. “So, were you here when he, ahhh…”

“Went nuts?” he finished for her. “Yeah, who do you think had to clean up his mess? That would be me,” he jabbed his thumb at his chest to emphasize his words.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I dunno. He was always pretty quiet, kind of polite,
really
smart, or at least that’s what I heard. I have no idea what ya’ll do, to be honest. So anyway, he seemed normal one day and the next day? I come in to work and the lab is like,
destroyed
. It was crazy,” he stated as he folded his body into the chair at her desk.

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Why? You wanna visit?” he asked in an almost amused tone.

Actually, that thought had crossed her mind. She gave a small shrug.

“I don’t think that’s gonna happen. From what I hear? He’s totally fried,” he leaned in with a wide eyed expression on his face.

“Hmm. That’s…too bad,” she stated absently. “I have some questions,” she trailed off as her eyes wandered back to Ron’s handwriting.

“Tell you what, if I can ever get Lara to talk to me for more than like, 2 minutes, I’ll ask where he is. Ok?”

“Sure,” she responded halfheartedly. It really didn’t seem as if Ron would be much help if what Caleb said was true.

“Well, I need to get to work. You be careful with that, Ok?’

She looked up to find his eyes attached to the binder.

“We don’t want you goin’ nuts too,” he stated before standing from the chair. He shot her a small grin before he grabbed the bag and took a few steps back.

“Later, Anne,” he said before disappearing beyond the cubicle wall.

She didn’t respond. Instead, her eyes were focused on the wall he wandered behind.

What a strange thing to say.

*****

Click.

Twist.

One more twist and she assured herself the door was locked before she entered the master bath.

She immediately wandered toward the shower, turning the knobs before facing the mirror behind her. A small gasp and a muttered ‘geez’ escaped her as she looked at her reflection.

She was absolutely filthy. Her hair stood on end, smudges of dirt graced several spots on her face and her arms and on her shirt causing her to wonder if she had at some point rolled around in the freshly turned earth.

She had found a shovel in the garage and a few small hand tools and not much else earlier that evening. Luckily, the size of the garden was relatively small seeing as she would only feed one person from it. Well, two if Ian ever showed up again and made good on his request.

The thought made her brows rise before she gave her head a small shake. He was kidding. Maybe.

Besides, for as much as he visited, she would probably be long gone from his house, which in turn caused her face to draw into a frown. She would have to start looking for an apartment to rent at some point. That would leave an untended garden, or perhaps Irene could tend it after she left?

A snort erupted at the thought.

She wouldn’t worry about it. It would give her something to do while she was living here, at least.

Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the shower freshly scrubbed and slightly sore from the night’s activities.
Who knew digging was such great exercise?
She thought as she stretched before slipping on her nightshirt. She had worked well after the sun went down using the light from the back of the house to illuminate her work. She didn’t stop until she was satisfied she had dug the small plot to a decent size for at least three rows of plants.