Friend Me (30 page)

Scott leaned in and listened as they talked. Rachel was obviously excited about what she was hearing.

“Is Ms. Montalvo your primary software architect?” Rachel paused, listening, then nodded to Scott.

“Where did she graduate?” . . . “And you say she's originally from here in Indiana?”

Scott leaned in close, scrawling down notes as he heard them.

“Oh, really? How awful.” Rachel turned to Scott, eyes like saucers. She started pointing at the phone and nodding.

“No, my husband and I probably hadn't come here yet. We were just getting married back then. It's a wonder the company survived.”

She rolled up her eyes and shook her head slowly back and forth.

“I understand, yes, sir. Thank you so much. I'll call back to set up a definite time for the class.” Rachel's smile extended from ear to ear. “All right, Mr. Locarno. Good-bye until then.” Rachel pushed the END button, terminating the call, and let out a long breath. “Wow.”

“Wow, what? What did they say? Who's Locarno?”

Slouching back in the booth, she said, “That was a guy named Bob Locarno. He's the second in command for their software.” Her eyes turned intent. “Scott, he works for her. I mean, directly for her. He knows all about her.”

“So what did you learn? Tell me.”

“Scott, you won't believe this. Something happened to the guy who started the whole project. Locarno wouldn't tell me the details, but it was somewhere around five years ago. We'll have to check that out. You don't suppose . . .”

“He just disappeared, or what?”

“I don't know. It sounded really odd. But Melissa has his job now.”

“Wow.” Scott let out a deep breath. “Maybe we weren't the first. Did he tell you the man's name?”

“No. Let's make notes so we don't forget anything. Here.” She handed the pen and notepad to Scott. “You write and I'll talk.”

“Melissa Montalvo came to work there over four years ago. She's the one that hired this guy Locarno. The man before her disappeared. What is important is that she is the brains behind the whole virtual friend thing.
She invented it
. She's in charge of everything.”

Scott's eyes opened wide. “So she has her fingers in every bit of it. There's nothing she can't do.”

“Exactly. There are over sixty people who work for her on their system. Locarno is like her deputy for everything that goes on. The guy almost worships her—I could tell that from the way he talked.

“Her office is on the third floor. When I bring my ‘class' by, he says they'll show us her office. She can control everything from her desk. He says we'll be amazed.”

“Did he tell you where she lives?”

“No, but we can figure that one out ourselves. Let me get all this out and we'll get our notes complete.”

Scott scribbled notes as she talked. From time to time he asked a question. When they had finished, he sat back.

“Now we find out where she lives.”

•  •  •

THEY PARKED THE TAURUS
at the far end of the parking lot, where a landscaping truck obscured them. At four-ten, Melissa Montalvo exited the front entrance of the Virtual Friend Me building and got in her car.

Scott fired up the engine and followed the Audi out of the parking lot. He allowed a long distance between the two vehicles. When they turned onto the main thoroughfare he let other cars come between them, but always kept the Audi in sight.

“She's turning. Her right blinker is on.”

Scott slowed as she turned into an old residential neighborhood close to downtown. He made the turn just in time to see Melissa pull the car into a detached garage beside an older gray home with a large bay window in the front. “Can you see the address?”

“Got it: five-one-two.” Rachel snapped more pictures as they drove on by the house.

Once they were out of sight of the house, he pulled the car up to an empty space by the curb. “I know what we've got to do.”

Rachel met his gaze. “What?”

“Go back where it all started. Back where the secrets are.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Everybody's got secrets, and I'm willing to bet this woman's past has some things in it she really doesn't want people to know about. Things we can use to fight her.”

Rachel nodded slowly. “You're right. She knows all about us. We need to know even more about her. And that means . . .”

“Going to where she came from.”

“But why there?”

“When you kill a weed, you dig out the root. We start at ground zero.”

Helpless

T
hat useless woman was still alive
.

She'd known as much, but hadn't wanted to believe it. Now she had seen for herself.

Melissa gripped her tablet, arm stiff with tension. She wanted to throw it across the living room, let the screen shatter against the hard plaster of the wall. The display had been polluted with Rachel's face again. She bent her arm, fingers pinched tightly on the thin case.

No, she had to get control. She was better than that. She would not react to the situation. She would enact, take charge.

She laid the device down on the coffee table, facedown so she would not have to be reminded of what had just been on it.

She turned out the room lights. Then, sitting down on the sofa, she pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around her legs, and looked out through the window. The amber light of the streetlamps puddled on the windowsill. She wore a long black nightgown, just the kind that Scott had liked
when he first had Alicia wear it. She would wear it again one night and it would be with him alone.

Rachel
.

She wanted to be done with her. Out of her life. If there were ever less excuse for a person being left on the earth, it was Rachel. She was like a foul odor in the refrigerator that wouldn't go away.

And what of Scott? Four days and not a word.

With
her
the whole time. Not good, not good at all. She'd worked too hard pulling them apart to give them any unnecessary time together.

Where were the children? She didn't like not knowing. A good mother should know where her children are. Everything was turned against her now.

Surely not Scott, though. He would never turn against her.

“A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.”

No, not them. She and Scott would have many years together.

Closing her eyes, she lay her head back on the soft cushion of the sofa. She fantasized about being back at the cabin, high on their mountaintop. She sat on the outer balcony again. A cool breeze washed across her as she lay back, letting the heat of the setting sun drain off her body.

Soft noises came from inside the room behind her. Her love was there, preparing drinks for both of them to share as they watched the sun finish its descent behind the beautiful valley to the west.

How happy they were.

Scott was so long coming back outside to her. She wished he would hurry.

Her hands clenched and unclenched. She wanted him now.

•  •  •

OUTSIDE
, a box truck thumped and clattered as it passed by the house.

Melissa shook herself, tried to clear her head. A walk, she needed to get outside and take a walk. Get some fresh air so she could think clearly.

With a loud “Mmmm,” she lifted herself off the sofa to look more closely outside. Deciding to check the temperature, she opened the front door until the chain caught. Cool air forced its way in through the opening. She clicked the door shut and turned back through the living room to the kitchen, where she picked a zip-up sweat top off the back of a high chair.

She zipped it up almost to her neck, picked up her keys and mobile phone from the countertop, and put them in the jacket side pockets. The material was soft, loosely woven. She wanted to carry something sharp, just in case, but anything she put in those pockets would surely pierce the material and be poking her or getting lost.

Just this once, she'd go outside with no other protection. After all, it was her own street, her own neighborhood.

There was no one else on the sidewalks. Melissa started a slow jog, silent in her expensive running shoes. As she approached the end of the block, she looked ahead. A streetlight was out, leaving the next section of the road cloaked in darkness. She turned left, redirected herself toward the entertainment district four blocks south. A neighborhood movie theater, a couple of clubs, a Plato's Closet. More secure than running on the dark walkway.

As she ran, she imagined Scott running along beside her.
He would comment on her appearance, and she would enjoy the looks of the admiring women who watched them go by. No, not everyone in this world was as lucky as she was. And the harder she worked her plan, the luckier she was getting.

Her breathing came harder now as her heart rate increased with the exertion. “It's all . . . worth it . . . whatever . . . it takes.”

Cars were parked closely together along the sides of the road. Off-street parking was limited, where it existed at all. High-banked yards rose to her right as she accelerated through the blackness toward the next streetlight.

It sounded like a cat mewing the first time she heard it. She slowed but didn't stop, strained to hear it again.

And there it was, still ahead of her, but off to the right. Melissa slowed her jog to the speed of a fast walk.

Not a cat, something else. She moved silently, watchful, wondering what could be making the sound.

•  •  •

“JUST HOLD STILL.”
The voice was rough, insistent. She jerked her head in alarm, but saw no one. Melissa stopped, stood close to a wide tree on the narrow beltway, and fought to control her labored breath. Who had spoken?

A high hedge separated the two houses next to the sidewalk, ten feet beyond the foot-high retaining wall. She made out a white T-shirt as a man turned, his back toward her. She couldn't see his face in the darkness. His arms were in motion, doing something.

Wary now, she backed herself behind the tree and peered around, up into the yard where the figure stood. If there was danger here, she wanted no part of it.

Now she made out a second man in dark clothes standing just beyond the first. The sounds came more clearly now. One of the men breathed heavily.

And the other sound.

“Oh, God, please no . . .” It was a young voice, a girl.

Melissa couldn't see her, evidently hidden behind the end of the tall hedge.

“Hold still, I said.”

The white-shirted man's shoulders turned rapidly, then she heard the dull sound of a hand striking someone.

“Uhhhh.” Sobbing. “Okay, okay. Please don't hurt me.”

Fear rose up within her like ice water. What if they saw her? She didn't dare move.

The terror clutched at her heart like an old enemy, one she remembered well. The words she heard were the same words as the other time.
It's happening again
.

What if they saw her?

Weapons. She quickly patted her pockets. Nothing but the cell phone and her keys.

She snatched the phone out, turned behind the tree so the light would not show, and dialed 911. She laid it on the ground.

People used keys as weapons. Her heart skipped as the keys jingled coming out of her pocket. She looked up quickly, fearing she'd been heard, but the men paid her no attention.

The white shirt was kneeling. A low sobbing sound was coming from the unseen girl.

She held the key ring so that the long Audi key stuck out like a knife blade, gripped it securely, and stepped back onto the sidewalk.

The dark man turned toward her. “Go away.” Rather than approach her, though, he backed up into the shadows.

“I'm leaving, don't worry.”

The girl was lying on her back alongside the hedge. The white-shirted man was on top of her, breathing heavily, his hands on her shoulders.

“Get her, Bobby. Before she calls someone.” The voice was labored, insistent, as he turned back to the girl.

Melissa backed up into the street, turned to run down the dark lane toward the lights at the end.

She was only six feet away when a heavy, rough arm came up under her chin, and she felt herself being thrown to her left.

She thudded onto the ground, felt something brittle and sharp dig into her temple, and then the impact of the dark man as his full weight pounded her once again against the unyielding ground.

The air rushed out of her under the crush of the heavy body, as he came to rest on top of her.

She tried to pull her hand free so she could fight back with the key, but felt instead sharp pains flash up her arm as she tried to move her fingers.

Twisting under his weight, she tried to turn her head to see her attacker. As her face came up, pain exploded in white light as his fist caught her by her left eye.

She tried again to pull her hands free, but the man's body seemed to be everywhere. He felt enormous, invincible, as she tried to move under his bulk. Now his fists started pummeling her face and shoulders.

Left, right, left, right. Her head snapped one way, then the
other as the blows fell. The world began buzzing in her ears. A rough hand tugged on her sweatpants.

He's going to rape me
.

She felt the hairy arms of the man on her face, felt her pants pull free.

She seemed to float in the air, detached from the spectacle beneath her, as she lifted away, away . . .

The last thing she heard was the crying of the girl as Melissa yielded up her consciousness.

•  •  •

RUNNING, RUNNING
. A soft, insistent chirping sound stole into Melissa's dream.

What . . . where am I?