Sidney Greenspan.
Ann couldn’t believe it. Sidney was one colleague Felicia considered a friend, someone the entire Morhardt family had trusted for well over the seventeen years that Ann had known them.
This revelation caused her to question her own ability to judge people. She had always considered Sidney a blowhard, someone greedy and selfish. But not a person who would go to such unfathomable lengths to get what didn’t rightfully belong to him.
Sidney Greenspan. One minute she was standing in Michael Scott’s office, watching Michael walk out, Sidney walk in. The next thing she knew, someone else approached her from behind and slipped a thick hood over her head. She screamed, struggling to free herself.
A man’s voice, filled with menace, silenced her. Still, she tried kicking out, until a slap caught her across the cheek and stunned her.
She half-walked, was half-carried down a flight of stairs. Everything was darkness. A door opened and closed. She felt a whiff of fresh air. A side entrance to the building, she figured.
The stranger’s voice again, instructing her to get into a waiting vehicle. When she hesitated, he pushed her rudely, forcing her inside and onto the floor of what seemed to be a truck or SUV.
Over the course of the ride in stop-and-go traffic, Sidney only spoke to give directions.
A trickle of fear raced inside Ann’s belly. She couldn’t see. Not even a glimmer of light passed through the fabric that was covering her face and head.
Michael Scott, she thought in disbelief, had set her up. For what? Money? A lucrative new account? And who was the third person in this triangle?
She couldn’t even guess.
When they came to a stop, Ann heard Sidney’s voice moving away, then the squeal of a door being opened. A set of hands grabbed her. She thought of kicking out, but her feet had gone numb.
She swore she would not make a sound. She would not give them the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid. Despite her silence, strong fingers clamped across her mouth, causing some of the fabric of the hood to scratch her teeth.
Then the man took hold of Ann’s arm. She tried to shake herself free, but the hold tightened, to the point where it became too painful to struggle.
She was being led inside a building that had a stale smell about it. Was it a warehouse? she wondered. Where was she?
The man beside her paused.
Ann purposely slid to the cement floor. He tried to get her up again, but she willed herself to remain limp. All she could do was try to make this as difficult for him as possible.
He finally gave up the effort but not before shoving her hard. She flew backwards and hit something solid. Her shoulder started to throb where it had made contact. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.
Suddenly, the hood was yanked off her head and she was face to face with her assailant. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the light. Gradually, she could make out her surroundings. She had been right—it was a warehouse. She could see hundreds and hundreds of boxes.
She turned to the man. He was in his mid-to-late fifties. A stocky build with full head of brownish-gray hair. There was something intimidating about him. And something vaguely familiar. He had a gruesome looking scar that ran down the left side of his face. But what struck her most were his dead eyes.
The man seemed to smile, a creepy smile that wasn’t really a smile at all. Her stomach went into spasms.
“Hello, Ann,” he said, looking at her intently. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”
She shook her head from side to side, averting his gaze.
The man’s hand abruptly reached out, cupped her mouth hard and squeezed. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, goddamnit!”
She bit her tongue, felt blood. Please, prove me wrong, she prayed.
But the man’s voice, his scar.
Sweet God in Heaven …
“My friends call me Vincent,” he said. “But your mother named me Mad Dog.”