Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
It was getting harder to focus at work now that there was a body.
Even though I wasn’t surprised, the news still landed differently.
Oswald had been shot in the head sometime after his arm was removed.
That was all it said. That was a quick death.
That was a hit, not a hobby. There was a reason to kill him and that reason was me.
The killing was eliciting a stronger reaction than a couple of arms, and I was struggling to dissociate.
A game I was playing in the shadows was following me into the daylight.
It would probably have been easier to manage if I’d had a decent night of sleep, but I was acting recklessly and had gone to a house party on a Sunday night even though Gwen Tanner had to be at work on Monday morning.
My office no longer felt immune to Marin Haggerty.
The comfort I used to find in the high security of the building diminished once I started worrying my stalker might have the same laminated badge that I did.
I stood up in my cubicle, like at that precise moment I would catch him or her across the bullpen, sawing through an elbow.
All I saw were the tops of three heads and I sat back down.
Could it be someone I’ve worked with for years?
I’d had two interviews before I got the job, but it had been Karen Gloss who’d pulled me in.
I met her at one of those college mixers.
Did she seek me out? I was the only person in the whole office with a patchwork degree from a community college.
Maybe she was privy to my actual résumé?
Karen was gossipy. Loose-lipped. I couldn’t imagine she could keep even a small secret.
Plus, she didn’t sign my birthday card last year.
There’s no way that whoever was doing this to me would miss that opportunity.
Obsession needs to be fed, even with crumbs.
Is a fresh face more likely? Their newfound proximity to me kicking off the chain of events?
There were six new hires that quarter. Which one would it be if I had to guess?
Right now. Off the top of my head…Sam Nelson.
Why? Why did I pick him? It was that day in the elevator.
He worked on the fifteenth floor, but he didn’t get off there.
He stayed on and got off on the seventeenth with me. Why did he do that?
Or what about Henry Fowler? He was a managing director and had no real obligation to attend more than two or three recruiting events a year, but he was always a little too eager to volunteer.
Why was he always showing up? Meh, free alcohol and college girls.
Thinking he was there to stalk me was giving Henry way too much credit.
This was paranoia. Plain and simple and probably the point.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Then I counted the keys across the top row of my keyboard.
My father used to say that paranoia was the crutch of a feeble mind.
There was little consistency with how his zealous statements were delivered to me.
He could be holding my hand, my school backpack over his shoulder as he walked me home from the bus, mumbling.
Or we could be in a stranger’s home, a body behind him on the floor as he crouched down to my eye level, pinching my cheeks, drilling the words into me, neither of us daring to blink.
“You cannot assume everyone is out to get you; you have to assume they want something from you,” he would say. “And their want is their weakness.”
Paranoia is only noise, noise created by fear, fear driven by wants.
It was hard to argue with my father’s logic at the moment, since the more I wanted answers, the more paranoid I became.
I had to fight the noise. It couldn’t be anyone.
Not really. That was weak thinking. It was an excuse for why I hadn’t been able to figure it out.
This person wanted something from me.
Elyse Abbington was inviting me to knife parties. Dominic was desperate to find Marin Haggerty. Jake and his friends—stuck in a state of arrested development—were fixated on massacres and murderers. There had to be something there. But what?
My phone buzzed against my desk and I lifted it enough to stop the echoing rattle against the surface while I read the screen.
It was Dominic. C’mon—the timing! This was a joke, right?
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hey,” he said. “How was last night? I heard you were at Jake’s.”
“It was good.” I reached under my sweater, brushing the thin scab across my stomach. “They’re an interesting group.”
“You hear about the body?” he asked.
“Yeah, I bet you’re excited about that.” I was misplacing my residual disgust from the previous night.
“I wouldn’t say it like that. Wondering if they’ll find any evidence. I bet it will heat up the investigation now that there’s a body.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Sure,” he said. It was an odd response that didn’t provide me much insight. “What are you doing today?” he transitioned.
“I’m at work. It’s Monday.”
“Can you leave?”
“Why?”
“For an adventure.”
“What kind of adventure?” I’ll admit, I enjoyed Dominic, but I didn’t want to go on some forced mini-golf date because we had kissed.
“I’m going to Worcester to talk to James Calhoun’s ex-wife.”
“What?” I snorted. “Why?”
“I’m following a hunch.”
“The Marin thing?” I tried to be dismissive.
“Yes, the Marin thing,” he said, dismissing my dismissiveness.
I didn’t know what scent he’d picked up, but I couldn’t let him follow it without me. “I can take half a day. Can you wait until noon?”
“Really? Yes, for sure. I’ll pick you up. Where’s your office?”
“Financial district. I’ll meet you at Post Office Square. The pointy side by the FedEx.”
“That means nothing to me, but I assume it will once I get there.”
“Yeah, call me if you don’t see me.”
“Okay, bye.”
I hung up and pulled up the scheduling system, blocking out twelve to six as green Out of the Office—Personal before changing it to blue Out of the Office—Meeting just in case Karen or Sam or Henry had nefarious intentions after all. It’s okay to be a little paranoid.