Desperate (15 page)

A
nna called the next morning before I got in the shower. I was a bit foggy from a fitful night’s sleep plagued by bad dreams. They were all horrible, all somehow related to Roy’s dark energy, but one was especially bad. Roy and I were buddies, involved in some crime together, until he turned on me, with no thought, no remorse, no emotion showing in his dead, dark eyes as he plunged a six-inch knife into my gut.

“Hey, baby,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” I said, wondering again if I should tell Anna about Brad’s warning. Yesterday she’d had enough on her plate to worry about.

“You know why I’m calling so early?”

“You’re reminding me about the folder?”

“Smart man.”

We’d spoken about it last night, after Lily and Roy went off for that six-pack. I’d found the folder on Anna’s desk, right where she said it would be. It was a big green folder filled with papers. I’d been instructed to leave it there until Anna came up with a workable plan to get it to her.

“I called FedEx and they can get it here in time for my meeting, but you have to get it to them before ten. Can you do that?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Can you do it from work? I don’t want you to have to make an extra stop.”

“Yeah, no problem. They can ship FedEx.”

“Thanks, honey. So you’ll put it in your workbag, you won’t forget?”

I didn’t carry a briefcase (who does these days?), but I did have a black canvas workbag that looked a lot like a computer bag. When I didn’t shuttle my laptop to and from the office, it functioned like a purse without the embarrassment.

“I’ll put it in before my shower,” I said. “That’s a promise.”

“Do it while I’m on the phone,” Anna said. “Not that I don’t trust you, love.”

I laughed but complied.

“Remember, you’ve got to get it to them before ten,” Anna said.

“Do you want me to fax you anything so you get it sooner?” I asked.

“No, that’s all right. As long as it gets here tomorrow I’ll be fine. I’m so stupid for having forgotten it. I never forget anything. You know me. I’m all about the details.”

“Well, you have some other things on your mind, sweetie.”

“That I do. Anything new about our upstairs companion?”

“Roy,” I said, as if Anna needed the reminder. At the mention of his name, I couldn’t resist telling Anna the latest developments. Maybe I was pissed about Roy sneaking into my dreams—you know, to kill me. “Brad met him,” I said.

“And?”

“And he got the creeps. I mean he got a very bad vibe about this guy.”

“Oh, shit. What does that mean?”

I sighed into the phone. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what else to do, short of telling Lily we’re not comfortable with Roy living here.”

“No,” Anna said. She sounded panicked, as if simply voicing the idea would be enough to derail all our plans. “We can’t do that. We’ll lose her. We’ll lose the baby. We’ll lose it all.”

“So what do you suggest?” I asked. Her anxiety was contagious.

“I’ll run a background check. One of my clients owns a PI agency, so I’ll get him to do it for me. We’ll see what we can learn. For now, we’ll just be careful.”

“I didn’t get his last name.”

“I’ll get it from Lily,” Anna said.

Of course that made the most sense. Anna and Lily were tight, while I was the guy questioning our birth mother’s motives.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Now go get us that big, new client.”

“I will as long as you mail me that folder.”

I pictured Anna smiling on the other end of the phone, and it made me miss her. We each took a turn saying, “I love you,” and the conversation ended.

On my own, I’d learned about CORI, Criminal Offender Record Information. It was a process to request a criminal record, and I was glad Anna had the resources to get that done. We’d both sleep better knowing more about who was sleeping above us.

The rest of the morning was rather uneventful. I was still foggy, but perked up a bit after my shower and coffee. I dressed in the usual khaki pants and polo shirt, took my workbag out to the car, drove off, grabbed a bagel at Bruegger’s, ate it in my Charger, and listened to NPR all the way to work.

I went straight to my desk before heading to the postal center. Before I got there I bumped into Matt Simons. Adam Wang had only been gone a day, so Olympian was down a program manager. Since nature abhors a vacuum, even in the workplace, Simons had stepped in as de facto leader. I didn’t much care for our new boss and Simons knew it. That didn’t stop him from acting like Wang’s anointed successor.

“The new battery is ready to test,” he said. “I hope there won’t be a repeat of the last time.”

“There won’t be if you don’t dick around with the formula for this build like you did the last one.”

I didn’t know what had gotten into me. Maybe it was Roy. Or Lily. Or it could have been the dark energy overcoming my better judgment. Whatever it was, it felt good to be the bad guy, the hard-ass guy, to inject a little Royness into my personality.

Simons took a step back. His eyes widened. He started to speak, but stammered. His words got snared in a prickly thicket of whatever lies he was preparing. Maybe Roy
was
rubbing off on me, because I knew I’d nailed it. Just watching how Simons shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, off balance, and how he moved back a step, and how he couldn’t find his voice, I knew I had him dead to rights.

“What . . . what are you talking about?” Simons managed to say.

I patted Simons on the shoulder.

“That’s the best you could come up with? You should stick to sabotage. You’re much better at it.”

Simons looked like a guy who’d been sucker punched. His panic-stricken face made me smile.

“See you at the standup meeting.” My tone was intentionally patronizing. I had no proof that Simons did it, but fear lingered in his eyes. Simons would spend the rest of the day wondering if I had evidence against him. We were both on the Security Breach Team, so I was sure he felt confident about how he covered his tracks. Still, I was going on a hunting expedition when I had the time. I owed it to Wang. He was a good guy who got a raw deal. If Simons had left a digital trail, I’d do my best to find it.

After a quick stop at my desk, I went to the company mailroom near the building’s main entrance. Abby, a stout woman with a haircut bordering on a mullet, was working behind the counter. She greeted me with a warm smile and a friendly hello. I was still on a high from my run-in with Simons. I’d been the victim for so long, the suffering widower, the grieving father, and Lily’s punching bag, that it felt amazing, utterly empowering, to be the aggressor at last.

“Well, somebody is in a good mood this morning.”

I didn’t even realize I’d been smiling.

I set my workbag on the counter, trying to force my expression back to center. It was hard while savoring the terrified look on Simons’s face.

“What can I do for you this morning?” Abby asked.

“I need to FedEx something to my wife in Minneapolis.” I undid the latches of my workbag. “If it doesn’t go out before ten I’m going to be setting up permanent residence in the doghouse.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Abby said.

I opened my bag and reached inside. I brushed up against some loose papers, a paperback book, and a spiral-bound notebook, but no folder. Dread overcame me. It was a sick feeling—a reply to all when the e-mail conversation should have gone private, forgetting a term paper on the day it was due, rear-ending the car stopped at a traffic light, not having the critical folder I needed to FedEx before ten o’clock—that kind of dread.

Abby eyed me with increasing concern. My stomach did loops as my palms turned sweaty. I’m sure I looked pale. I checked again, turning my bag upside down, dumping the contents on the mailroom counter, tearing through the pile like a crazed person.

Abby took a step back, her concern for me shifting slightly into concern for her own safety. Was this guy about to go postal?

“What the hell?” I said out loud. I knew how important the folder was to Anna and her Humboldt deal. If I couldn’t get this done for her, I’d be the object of her lingering resentment, the reason she couldn’t take a year off to bond with the baby. I pushed most of the contents off the counter and onto the floor in one big, sweeping motion.

“Hey! Gage, are you all right?” Abby asked.

“No,” I said, breathing hard. “No, I’m not all right. I put the folder in my bag right before my shower.”

I was in a bit of a trance, retracing my steps from the morning, squeezing my eyes shut to force out every drip of concentration. I could picture myself putting the folder inside the bag, and it felt right. It felt like something that had happened, something real. Or had it? Wasn’t I in a fog from a bad night’s sleep? Could I have imagined putting the folder in my bag? Maybe it was the side effects of Adderall. Maybe I was starting to hallucinate.

A new thought: perhaps it had fallen out of my bag on the way to work. Maybe the latches had come undone. It was a possibility, an outside chance at best. Finally I had another thought—a little bug of a thought with a nasty stinger, a thought that left me panicked, confused, and angry all at once. And I could sum it up in a single word, too.

Lily.

T
he missing folder wasn’t on the floor of my car. It hadn’t shifted under the seat, either. I drove home with a black rage swirling through my head, a gathering storm, whirling and twisting my thoughts. I kept fantasizing about my upcoming confrontation with Lily, and none of the pictures were pretty. My hands gripped the steering wheel hard. I was grinding my teeth enough to chip away at the enamel. At some point, I glanced at the speedometer and cringed at the number that would have amounted to a four hundred dollar speeding ticket.

To calm myself, I thought of another possible outcome. One where I entered my home, went into Anna’s office, and saw the folder on her desk. I checked the time on the Charger’s dashboard. It was 9:30. I’d canceled my meetings for the day and informed Patrice I had to go home to deal with a personal matter. There was still an outside chance I could get the folder off to Minneapolis in time for Anna’s meeting—assuming, of course, the folder was even in the house.

And that was a big IF.

I made it home in record time. Walking up the front steps, I tried to stay positive.

It’ll be on the desk . . . it’ll be on the desk . . .

Inside now, marching down the hall.

I’m upset for no reason . . . I know it’s there . . . it’ll be there.

I went straight to Anna’s office. All was quiet—a different sort of quiet. It was a “nobody is supposed to be here right now” kind of silence, and it made me feel, for a moment at least, like an intruder in my own home.

My eyes went first to the desk. No folder. I started shuffling through stacks of Anna’s papers. Nothing. Still no folder. I stormed outside, walked across the front porch, and came to a stop in front of the door to the upstairs apartment. I could have knocked or rang the doorbell. Instead, I grabbed my master key to open the door to Lily’s apartment.

Each stair groaned a bit from my weight. At the top of the landing, I squeezed my eyes shut. I contemplated backing down, returning to my condo and calling Anna with the bad news about the folder. But I didn’t. It was a cloudless day. Sun spilled inside, forming columns of bright rays that shone through the bank of windows overlooking the street. It was the sort of light that gets apartments rented on a very first showing.

I stood in the foyer, perhaps a foot beyond the front door, and looked around the apartment. The place appeared normal, peaceful even, with the lights turned off. The movie posters were still hanging on the walls in the hallway. The little vase of silk flowers was there on the end table near the bathroom door, same as always.

Glancing through the entranceway into the living room, I saw the silhouette of a figure seated on the sofa. Her body was backlit from the sun, but it was Lily. She kept her body facing forward, while her head was turned to the side, looking at me. She made no effort to stand, offered no greetings, and didn’t even question what I was doing in her home. It was as though she’d been awaiting my arrival all along.

I took a step toward her. Just a single step.

“Hi, Gage,” Lily said in a soft and playful voice, flirty even. She kept her body perfectly still, hands resting on her knees, back rigid. I could see she was wearing a black skirt and pink tank top. Her gaze was fixed on me, but her face remained cast in shadows, and though I couldn’t see her expression, I imagined she was smiling. “What brings you here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

I took another step, drawn into the apartment like a moth lured to an irresistible purple light.

“Where is it, Lily?” I asked.

Force of will, I guess, but somehow my low voice managed to stay calm.

“Where is what, Gage?”

Lily said my name with hint of menace, lengthening it, mocking the way I had spoken hers, her voice lilting just a bit.

Gaaaagee.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about,” I said.

Another step. I was standing at the threshold to the living room. One more step and into the cage with the purple light I would go.

“I’m bored. I was going to watch a movie. Do you want to watch with me?”

The television was turned off.

I took another step—several, in fact.

Lily’s face was visible. The smile I envisioned was there—a teasing little lift to her mouth. The way she sat accentuated the swell of her breasts and exposed part of her rounded belly. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, calling attention to her long and slender neck. As furious as I was, it was impossible to ignore her beauty.

“Where is the folder? Don’t lie to me, Lily. I know you have it. You snuck into my condo while I was in the shower and you took it out of my workbag. You knew it was important. You had a conversation with Anna on the phone, so you knew damn well I needed to get it to her. You took it from me, and I want it back.”

My phone rang. I checked the number. Of course it was Anna calling.

I answered the call, but curtly. “Yeah.”

“Yeah? That’s how you’re greeting me these days? How nice. I’m just checking to make sure you got the folder off to FedEx.”

“There’s a problem,” I said.

“What are you talking about? What problem?”

“I don’t have the folder.”

Lily was just on the couch, watching my meltdown, delighting in it.

“Gage, are you kidding me? Please tell me that you’re kidding me.”

“No,” I said, rather calmly. “I’m not kidding. I don’t have it because Lily took it from the house.”

Lily touched a hand to her chest and made an insincere face—
Moi?

Anna made an angry noise. “This is out of control with you and Lily. It has got to stop. Where is the folder?” I could hear desperation in Anna’s voice.

“I told you, Lily took it.”

“Enough!” Anna shouted. “Enough blaming Lily! Gage, find my goddamn folder and get it to me now! Do you hear me? There is a lot riding on this! I can’t take it anymore! I can’t. Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but it has got to stop. You’ve got to stop blaming Lily.”

“Here,” I said. “If you’re so convinced she has nothing to do with this, then you talk to her. Ask her for yourself and see if you believe her.”

I handed my phone to Lily. She took it in a nonchalant manner.

“Hello?”

Of course I could only hear one half of the conversation.

“My apartment,” Lily said. “He just came up here looking for the folder. No.” She lengthened the word
no
as if to emphasize the impossibility of whatever question Anna had asked. I assumed that question was, Did you take the folder?

Lily said “No” again, and then, “I’m not worried. No, I’m fine, really. He’s not being threatening.”

My pulse dropped. Was Anna really worried I’d get violent with Lily?

Lily finished with a volley of short responses—okay, sure, all right, and no problem—and handed the phone back to me. It felt hot to the touch, but that was just my imagination. I put the phone to my ear with some trepidation.

“You get out of that apartment right now, right this instant, and go find wherever you put my folder,” Anna said. “And don’t tell me that Lily took it. Like she did the necklace? I don’t know what the Adderall is doing to your brain, but something is seriously wrong with you.”

“I’m not making this up.”

“You listen to me, and listen very, very carefully,” Anna said, seething. “I’m not going to give up the baby. I’m not going to do it. I want to be a mother again. I need this. I need it like I need air. With or without you, I’m raising this child. So go figure out what happened to the folder, turn over every piece of furniture in the house if that’s what you have to do. But you will get the hell out of Lily’s apartment, right now. You have no business being there. None!”

Blood thrummed in my ears. My mouth had gone cotton dry.

That’s when I saw Roy was standing in the entranceway to the living room with a grin on his face. And that was also when I got it. I knew what was happening. And I knew what I had to do.

“Anna, sweetie, you’re right,” I said. “Maybe it is the Adderall messing me up. I’ll look harder. I’m sure I’ll find it and I’ll call you back.”

I hung up before she could respond.

“How much?” I asked, looking at Roy. “How much money will it take to get you two leeches to leave my life forever?”

“Now we’re finally getting someplace,” Roy said.