––––––––
Rei was the first person in the office the next morning. Since Justin and Bethany were supposed to announce their intentions to marry to the press in a few hours, Justin had told Rei that she and Stan could wait a few hours before coming in. Which meant that the office would be empty until the press conference was over at 2:00pm. The set up worked well for Rei. Now that she suspected what Stan was up to she needed to clear her tracks. She was sure that he would find out that she’d been snooping, but she only needed a little time. Just a small window to get the evidence she needed. After that she could present her findings to Justin.
She’d just stepped off the elevator when an arm snaked around her throat, yanking her clear off her feet. Her purse clattered to the ground and she tried to scream, but the pressure across her windpipe was unbearable. Rei kicked out and the man behind her cursed when the heel of her pump connected with his shin. Swinging her around to slam her face first into the wall. Her nails drug through the skin of his forearm, and she reached back, clawing, and scratching until the ski cap that covered his head came away in her hands. She threw it to the side, shoving against the wall and sobbing madly. Scrambling, struggling, and trying desperately to make some sound. To let someone, anyone, know that she was in trouble. If she could just yell for help, maybe someone would hear her. Maybe someone would save her.
But...
But fear made her throat tight, her struggles made it hard to draw breath. She could do no more than whimper as, from behind her, the nameless man grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face into the wall.
Her head reeled and blood filled her mouth. He slammed her head forward once more and her arms went limp. A third time, and her legs gave out. The world was getting fuzzy around the edges, and when the man wrapped his arm back around her throat, her chin resting in the crook of his elbow, it was almost as if she were floating. Flying away.
He squeezed a little harder, pulling her tight against his chest and Rei’s head pounded like a drum. Everything hurt, every part of her cried out for relief. Her lungs pleaded for air and tears fell from her eyes as her vision faded to black.
Then the pressure was lifted away and Rei was falling to her knees, sucking in a grateful lungful of air. Past the sound of her own madly racing heart, she heard something crash. There was a curse, the sound of flesh striking flesh, and then silence.
She didn’t bother investigating; she was too busy fading into unconsciousness.
********
“You ok?”
She winced as Justin wiped the blood away from her forehead. Her head ached, a nail in her brain, and it was hard to focus on his face. She was pretty sure she had a concussion, but the ambulance hadn’t arrived for her yet so there was no way to confirm it. She was ok with the delay though. It turned out that she enjoyed the attention.
“I will be once I get some painkillers.”
He smiled, but the expression looked forced. “Fair enough.”
His thumb brushed against the cut at her hairline and his jaw worked.
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “I got off the elevator and he grabbed me.”
“Did he say anything? Demand any money?”
Rei shook her head, trying not to vomit at even that slight movement.
“I don’t know what he wanted or why he was here.” She said, wondering if Justin would be opposed to her taking a little nap while they waited for the cops to show up. “Where is he anyway?”
“Supply closet.”
“He’s not getting loose is he?” she asked, anxious and starting to shake at even the possibility.
“Larry’s keeping an eye on him. Old man is pretty handy with a broomstick.”
Imagining the 60 year old custodian beating off her assailant with a broom brought a smile to her face. It faded quickly however, and once again Justin asked,
“Are you alright?” he shook his head. “You’re alright.” He said decisively. As if simply saying the words was enough to make them true. She opened her mouth to reassure him but the paramedics finally arrived. They were remarkably efficient, and soon they had her patched right up. They checked her vitals but wanted her brought in to the hospital to be sure that she didn’t have anything more serious than a concussion.
“I’ll give a statement to the police.” Justin told her, and relieved, she allowed herself to be taken to the hospital.
Hours later she was laid out in a hospital bed, a saline drip in one arm. They wanted to keep her overnight for observation and she tried not to chafe at the delay. She wanted to get back to the office, to finish what she’d gone in to do in the first place.
Now, that didn’t seem so likely.
She sighed and turned on the television mounted on the wall opposite her bed.
The sight that greeted her did nothing for her headache.
Tuned to a local channel, Rei found herself watching Justin announce to a room full of reporters that he would be married in three months time.
“My fiancé and I hope you can help us make July the 24th a day we’ll remember for a long time to come.”
The camera panned to focus on his beaming fiancé and Rei’s hand tightened on the remote. Bethany Marcus was beautiful and the knowledge was enough to make Rei sick to her stomach. If Bethany had been ugly, Rei might have felt a little better about the whole thing, satisfied in some way, but it was no dice. Scowling at the television she turned the set off and tried to get some much needed rest.
A nurse was supposed to wake her up at regular intervals and like clockwork Rei felt a gentle hand shake her shoulder. Only, when she opened her eyes to look, it wasn’t a nurse she saw, but a man. He was dressed in a simple button down shirt and black slacks. There was a badge pinned at his hip and at the door of her room a woman dressed similarly to him leaned against the wall and regarded Rei sympathetically.
Detectives.
Rei straightened too fast in her bed and had to close her eyes until the room stopped spinning and the nausea passed.
“Sorry to startle you Ms. Donovan. The nurses said it was time to wake you up and I told them I could do it since my partner and I wanted to ask you a few questions. I’m Detective Richards.” He pointed at the woman by the door and she waved. “And that charming young woman over there is my partner, Detective Warren. Do you feel up to talking to us for a few minutes?”
“Of course.” She responded groggily. “Anything I can do to help.”
Detective Warren stepped away from the door and smiled softly.
“We talked to your boss earlier today. He told us what happened, but he only witnessed the tail end of the attack. We were hoping you’d have more to add.”
“There really isn’t much else to tell.” Rei said. “I came off the elevator, and he grabbed me. When I started to struggle he slammed me against the wall a few times. Justin came and pulled him away when he started choking me again.”
Just thinking about it, when her throat was still throbbing from the abuse, had her eyes filling with tears and she turned away. Trying to hide the shaking in her hands by burying them in the white blanket covering her body. Detective Richards sat beside her bed and leaned forward so that she could see his face.
“Did you know the man who attacked you, Ms. Donovan?” his words were soft and she thought of the face of the man who’d tried to kill her. She’d only gotten a glimpse of him after she’d regained consciousness and by then Justin had trussed him up like a pig with a length of extension cord.
Her attacker had been young, barely out of high school. Dark hair and an unremarkable face. When she shook her head she was just as confused now as she had been then.
“No. I’d never seen him before in my life.”
“Can you think of a reason why anyone would want to hurt you?”
Stan.
His name came to her immediately and she hesitated.
It couldn’t be.
But then, why not? If he was capable of embezzling what else was he capable of?
Richards angled his head so that he could look her in the eye.
“It’s alright Ms. Donovan.” He told her. “If you can think of something, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem, it could be extremely helpful to our investigation.”
“What investigation?” She asked, guarded. “It’s pretty open and shut right? Some thug came in, probably looking for money, and attacked me. You have the person who did it, so what else are you trying to find out?”
Warren exchanged a look with her partner before answering.
“The thing about your case Ms. Donovan is that it has a lot of holes. A lot of loose ends. We have the perpetrator, but we also have a lot of unanswered questions. Why you, why Reese’s personal secretary? Why was he waiting for you to come in? How did he know you would be there?”
“He could have been there for anybody.”
“Doubtful. There were hundreds of other employees in various departments who came in long before you did. If he were searching for someone random he would have gone after one of them. No. He waited there, in your office, for you to show up. Then he attacked. The question at this point is why?”
Rei bit her lip and her fingers twisted the blanket into an unrecognizable lump. She didn’t want to think that Stan had tried to have her killed, but it was the only thing that made sense.
“I started working for Justin earlier this week.” She stated. “I noticed some...discrepancies in his paperwork the first day I was there.”
“What sort of discrepancies?”
“His financial records didn’t make any sense.”
Warren lifted a brow. “Are you saying that you think Mr. Reese-”
“No.” Rei interrupted quickly. “Of course not. I found out last night that Justin is basically bankrupt. I don’t think he’s stealing, I think someone is stealing from him.”
“You have a name?”
She winced, but squared her shoulders. “I have a name.” she assured them and things progressed very quickly after that.
********
It was late afternoon when her door opened and Bethany Marcus stepped into Rei’s hospital room. To say she was surprised to see the other woman would have been an understatement and she gaped rudely as Bethany carried a vase of flowers over and set them on her bedside table.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to drop in and see how you were doing.”
It took Rei a moment to find her voice. “No. That’s alright. I appreciate the company. You’re Bethany right?” she voiced the question as if she wasn’t already aware of the answer.
Bethany smiled, “In the flesh.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate you coming but...why are you here?”
The woman laughed and sat in the same chair that Detective Richards had vacated just an hour ago.
“I was curious about you. Justin talks about you all the time and when I heard about what happened this morning...” she placed a hand against her breastbone and shook her head at the tragedy of it. “I just had to come see you.” She continued. “Check up on how you were doing and offer a little light conversation if you weren’t feeling too under the weather.”
Rei frowned apologetically. “I am a little tired.” She lied. “The doctors say that I can get some shut eye, but they’ll be checking in on me for most of the night.”
“Oh,” Bethany’s smile looked forced now. “That’s just too bad. How soon before you get a clean bill of health?”
“Early morning.”
Bethany clapped her hands together smartly, obviously pleased by the news.
“You’ll be able come then?”
“Come to what?”
“Stanley didn’t tell you?” Rei flinched at the sound of his name but Bethany was too busy shaking her head in disgust to notice. “That man, I swear.” She said. “I asked him to invite you along for when I go dress shopping tomorrow. I don’t have any female friends and I could use a second opinion.”
“Why me?”
Bethany laughed. “Well why not?”
Rei had no answer for that and for lack of a better response, she simply nodded.
“Excellent.” Bethany purred, getting to her feet. She stepped up to the side of Rei’s hospital bed and leaned forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek.
“Get some rest. We have a big day tomorrow.”
Then she was gone, her perfume leaving a trail of flowery pheromones in her wake.
Rei collapsed onto her pillows and blew a curl out of her face.
Wedding dresses.
Fun.
********
Her last visitor of the day came as she slept. He didn’t try and wake her. Instead he stood beside her bed and watched her as she slept, his eyes tracking the bruises marring the side of her face and the molted ring around her throat where her attacker had tried to strangle her.
Justin was exhausted. He’d been running around all day, first dealing with the authorities and then handling the wedding announcement. He’d spent most of the afternoon entertaining the press and his head ached with a dull intensity that left him feeling moody and irritable.
But he couldn’t stop himself from coming. From checking on her. He’d had to make sure for himself that she was alright. She was a little worse for wear but as far as he could see she seemed to be resting comfortably.
Now that he’d laid eyes on her he could focus on what the hell had happened this morning. The attack on Rei hadn’t been random and Justin was determined to find out what had brought a would be killer into his office. Leaning down, he pushed her bangs back long enough to press a kiss to her forehead. She rolled over, mumbling something about crazy white women and he smiled despite the serious nature of the situation.
When Rei’s eyes opened a moment later, she found herself alone. It was easy enough to let exhaustion take hold of her once again and soon she was fast asleep.
********
Stanly Williams cursed, throwing his cell across the room with such force that it crashed against the wall. That idiot. The job had been a simple one. Stan had laid out every detail for that moron Oscar, personally. Yet he still hadn’t been able to pull it off. He hadn’t wanted to take things this far so quickly but Rei had forced his hand. It didn’t help that his plans had begun to backfire. It was a shame since things had been going so well just a few days ago.
He’d started thinking that maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to get away with one more dip into Justin’s finances. Just a little something to see him off and make sure the first few years of his retirement were as comfortable as they could be. Some would call him selfish. Greedy.
Stan liked to think of himself as an opportunist.
If Rei had just minded her own business, he wouldn’t have had to take things so far. But she’d taken the decision out of his hands the second she’d started asking questions. It would only be a matter of time before she tried to take her findings to Justin. He’d needed to shut her up. It didn’t matter at the time if his methods were a little messy. After all, he’d only needed enough time to tie up some loose ends and get out of the country.
He was patting himself on the back for a job well done when he’d gotten the phone call from Bethany. She’d been pleased to inform him that Rei was doing fine and that the police had her attacker in custody. The news was enough to make him sweat. There was no way to get to Oscar now that the police had him locked up, and if they were even the smallest bit suspicious (which they would be unless they were completely incompetent), it wouldn’t take long before they started questioning Oscar about his motives.
Now that the job had been botched, Oscar had to know that he wouldn’t be getting paid. Which meant that Stan had 24 hours, maybe less, before Oscar told the cops everything they needed to know about who had hired him and why. Why was everything falling apart so quickly? What the hell had Justin been doing at work so early anyway? It had fucked up everything and killing Rei at this point wouldn’t make any difference. Everyone would find out what he’d been up to no matter what he did. He needed to leave, cut his losses, grab what money he could, and get out of the country.
Going into his closet he reached up and grabbed a suitcase from his top shelf. He was throwing clothes into the recesses of it when his phone rang. He thought about ignoring it, then figured that he couldn’t really afford to be out of the information loop. Going over to the corner of the room he reached down and picked the phone up off the floor, he answered it just as it was about to go to voicemail.
“Hello?”
“Stan? I know it’s late but I need your help with something.”
If Stanly had believed that things couldn’t get much worse, hearing Justin’s voice on the other end of that call disabused him of the notion. He pulled the cell away from his face and stared at it in abject disbelief.
“Hello?”
Justin’s voice was faint, and wide eyed, Stan put his ear to the receiver and tried his best to sound normal.
“Hello. Sorry. It was a bad connection there for a second. What can I help you with?”
“Can you see what you can find out about an Oscar Kennedy?”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Stan closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Yeah.” He said finally. “I’ll see what I can do.”