THE CLOCK ON HIS office wall read one o’clock. But it seemed like the hands weren’t moving. Mark stared at his computer, trying not to look at the clock. The incessant tick-tock seemed to mock him.
His boss, Hank leaned in the doorway. “Mark, I need that file on the Hoffman project. I’ve got a meeting in an hour with Hoffman to go over any changes he might want to make before we move on. Oh, and could you run me another set of blueprints, just in case?”
“No problem. The blueprints are printing as we speak. I’ll finish up Hoffman’s file and get it to you in five.”
“Thanks, man,” Hank said over his shoulder as he swiveled to dash back to his office.
Hank Douglas was a man of speed. Not only was he quick-witted, but it seemed like he even talked on the run. If he was speaking to an employee, he was walking past the person or rushing to a meeting, or the elevator door was closing between them as he added a few final remarks.
Hank was also the CEO of Synergy Engineering and Design (SED), one of the top five engineering firms in the country. The company designed multi-million-dollar homes for celebrities, including quaint vacation homes in Sun Valley, Idaho, commissioned by major movie stars. For some, twenty-eight million was a small price to pay for a good room when on vacation.
In addition, the company had a commercial division responsible for buildings like Trump Towers Asia and the beautiful, yet urban, Parchment casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Everything operated out of the Douglas Building in downtown Manhattan, which was located on Broadway across the street from the Marine Midland building. It was twenty-five stories of glass and stone jutting from the earth in what one would say was an impossible construction. Twisting metal mixed with stone made the building look like something from a science-fiction movie.
The top of the skyscraper was crowned by thirty-foot pine trees, which cast long shadows over the pond that sat in the west corner. The garden-like park was open to the public, and the employees enjoyed walking during their lunch and coffee breaks on the winding path that looped throughout the park. In the summer months, a family of mallards returned each year to grow fat from all the free food tossed to them.
Mark, who rarely had a chance to enjoy the rooftop park, was in charge of the residential department. His staff designed houses from basic design-build to landscaping and interior design. He was the chief engineer with twenty-one other designers under him. Altogether, SED employed almost a thousand people and was on its way to becoming one of the most sought-after firms in the nation.
Mark had grown up in the small town of Cañon City, Colorado, an old mining town that had morphed into a tourist town after the gold ran out. Tourists enjoyed a railroad ride that offered scenic tours of impressive gorges, long bridges and views of people whitewater rafting. The population of the town was only fifteen thousand. Moving to New York after growing up in a small town had been a bit of a shock to his system. Nevertheless, he managed and now loved the city and had learned to overlook its ugly spots.
When he finished high school, he went to Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Science to study civil engineering. After getting his degree, he worked as an intern with SED, thanks to Professor Greenheart, who not only took a liking to Mark, but also knew Hank Douglas’ family. Ten years later, Mark found himself in upper management.
After a year with SED, Mark met his wife, K. She was an art teacher in a local high school and loved kids more than anything in the world. Until she met Mark, that is. They met at City Baptist, where Mark faithfully attended every Sunday to get his mind and heart right. The Sunday she walked in and stood surveying the room, the light from the morning sun illuminating her in the doorway, his mouth had hung open like a schoolboy’s. Suddenly, he believed in love at first sight. She was everything he had ever dreamed and more.
K was beautiful. She had long, blonde hair that was naturally curly and hazel eyes that changed to a fire green when she was angry. He liked to get her good and mad every now and again just so he could see the fire in her eyes. Her skin was fair and smooth as fresh milk. She’d glanced at him as she took a seat in the pew in front of him. Needless to say, he didn’t hear a thing that was said that morning. Afterward, in the parking lot, he had stumbled over himself and asked her out. She had agreed, because sometimes miracles do happen.
After dating for a year, with a few maddening fights that ended with those fiery green eyes flashing warning signs at him, they were married beneath the shadow of the Rocky Mountains back in his hometown. They’d had a beautiful wedding surrounded by aspens blazing with color. Red and orange leaves covered the ground where they stood, gazing into each other’s eyes. The lake behind his parent’s house looked like glass and seemed to smile with approval as he and his bride kissed for the first time as husband and wife. After a ten-day honeymoon, they’d settled in a little house he’d purchased in upstate New York. It was the all-American house with a small yard, a big old oak tree in the back, and a porch swing painted white on the front porch.
“It’s perfect,” she’d exclaimed when he pulled his hands from her eyes. He loved to surprise her, and this one took some doing. He had signed the papers before leaving for Colorado, hoping and praying it would be what she wanted. It was not exactly a purchase that could be returned to the store for a refund. He had breathed in a silent sigh of relief when he saw her favorable reaction.
Their daughter, Samantha, was born a year and a half later. She was everything they had hoped for in a daughter, with her mom’s smile and her daddy’s dark blue eyes. By the time she was two, she thought she was sixteen and capable of doing things for herself. “I do it,” was a common phrase in the Appleton household.
Mark clasped his hands above his head and stretched. It seemed like just yesterday he first saw K sitting in that little church pew, and now tonight was their five-year anniversary. He looked out the window of his office and noticed a throng of people filling the sidewalk down below.
He turned back to his computer. He had made reservations a month ago at an exclusive restaurant called The Leaf. It was going to be a great night. Samantha would be at her grandparents’ house overnight, and he would be showing K around the honeymoon suite at the Hilton Garden Inn in less than five hours.
He was glad for a project to keep his mind busy, so he wouldn’t be thinking about tonight. But the clock still mocked him. There was something about Fridays, how time seemed to go by slower than any other day of the week. He sighed. No matter how hard he tried, his mind was not on work today. All he could think about was the evening to follow, and K.
He clicked the mouse a few times, hit Print and hurried to the print room, grabbing the blueprints as they slowly rolled off the plotter. He drummed his fingers against the metal top, anxious for the printer to finish its job. Finally. He folded the last one, and after a few minutes of arranging the completed file, started down the hall to Hank’s big corner office at the far end of the building.
“Hi, Mark. Big night tonight, right?” the receptionist asked as she poked a pencil into her hair.
“Yeah. I’m going to get out of here after I get this file to Hank. Oh, did you—”
“Yes, I called the flower shop after lunch and made sure K got them. The delivery guy said she cried and cried because she wanted chocolate, not flowers.” He threw a paper clip at her.
She giggled and ducked out of the way just as the phone rang. Grinning, she picked it up. “Synergy Engineering. How may I help you?”
After he dropped off the file and prints in Hank’s office, he took a shortcut through the break room to his office. He quickly cleaned up his desk, making sure everything was in place—pencil holder on the left, picture of Sam and K next to his PC. Everything else had to be in its particular drawer or folder. Was he a little OCD? Maybe, but everything in his office, and in his life for that matter, had a place. Why not put it there?
On his way to the elevator, he passed Bert, one of his designers. He threw his keys into the air then caught them, and with a smirk, said, “I’m out of here.”
Bert looked up from the plans he was working on. “You be good tonight.” He winked. “Big brother is watching you.”
“I’ll try. You have a good weekend, Bert. I know I will.” He stepped into the cherry-wood-lined elevator and pushed the button to the parking garage.
The elevator door closed just as Bert started to respond. Mark laughed out loud. “I just pulled a Hank!”
He drove from the parking garage onto Broadway, just missing a bright yellow cab, whose driver acted as if his path was a racetrack, not a clogged city street. He flipped on the radio, even though he already knew the traffic report: bumper to bumper all the way home, tangled metal pileups, distracted cell phones users, and, in general, everyone paying attention to everything but their driving.
The radio crackled. A firm, commanding voice said, “Cindy Winters is reporting live from David’s Island Correctional Facility, where we have a breaking story unfolding. We go live now to reporter Cindy Winters. Cindy, can you tell us a little bit about what’s going on out there?”
“Well, Tom, the prison alarms are sounding, and I’m looking at about fifteen fire trucks. I’ve been told that every paramedic within the surrounding areas has been called to the prison.”
Mark was jammed up on the expressway, trying to decide if he wanted to change lanes or just wait it out. He turned up the radio and waved at an angry woman with a little white dog sitting on her lap. She waved back but with only one finger. New Yorkers were so good-natured. K liked to call them Yorkers but Mark had his own pet names for them.
The news story went on. He half listened. Was there a prison break, or maybe a riot? That sort of thing happened more than anyone wanted to think, but from the sounds of it, it didn’t sound like a riot. David’s Island used to be an internment facility for prisoners of war, and most recently was used as a Bible camp for kids. Planners even had hopes of putting a nuclear power plant on the island, but it never happened, for one reason or another.
Now it was a maximum-security prison for some of New York’s finest, and not the boys in blue. One long, two-lane road found its way from New Rochelle to the seventy-eight-acre island. The buildings were only one-story tall, and outside of the guard towers, old red maple trees hid most of the prison from view, so the people of New Rochelle couldn’t complain that an ugly prison was blocking their view of Long Island Sound.
“Cindy…” Tom’s voice broke into Mark’s thoughts. “Can you tell us what’s going on out there?” After a brief pause and the thump of a microphone, Cindy’s sweet, professional voice came back on.
“Tom, I just spoke to a guard, who said it seems that there has been a mass food poisoning. He said the inmates were in the cafeteria eating their lunch, when everyone suddenly became ill and passed out. They think it was the food, or maybe it was an outbreak of some kind. We don’t know all the details yet, but we do know experts from the Center for Disease Control are on their way.”
“Is this something confined to people who ate the tainted lunch, or have others gotten sick as well?” Tom asked.
“From what I’ve been told, it is only affecting the people who ate the food served here today.”
“Thank you, Cindy,” Tom droned. “That was Cindy Walters reporting live from David’s Island. We’ll keep you informed of this breaking story as…”
Mark turned down the radio and gazed out over the sea of metal as it slowly crawled away from the city. He had never heard of food poisoning happening so quickly. He had experienced food poisoning a few times, and at least for him, it always took an hour or so to kick in.
His mind turned to his date with his beautiful girl. He would be home soon. He could almost see K and her special smile. He knew he would see it tonight and might even get her to flash it at him more than once.
He reached to the passenger seat of his modest Honda Accord and felt the velvet box with the bright-red bow tied around it. He had bought it two week ago and now traced its delicate corners. Would she like it? The moment he thought he’d figured out what she might like or hate, the rules changed, and he had to try again. But, he didn’t mind. It added to the mystery that was woman.
After getting off the expressway, he turned down a side street, cut across to Carwall Avenue and turned right. Mt. Vernon was only thirty or so miles from the office, but it took over an hour to navigate the distance. Tall, old oak trees hung their branches over the road like great monsters of a day gone by. He smiled at a little redheaded boy shooting hoops into a makeshift basketball hoop he’d nailed to a tree. The boy looked his way with a half smile on his freckled face and went back to shooting.
At the third house from the end, he saw Sam’s tricycle in the front yard, lying on its side with one pedal up in the air as if surrendering. He pulled the silver Honda into the driveway and heard a crunch. When he got out, he saw the cracked body of what used to be little Suzy. He picked the doll up and tossed it in the back of the car to dispose of later. Sam had never been too fond of Suzy. She wouldn’t miss the doll.
He was about to reach for the front door knob when the front door of his home flew open and Samantha ran out to meet him. “Daddy, Daddy, Look—Look! I drawed a horsey!” She shoved a tattered piece of paper at him. It looked like she must have used an entire red crayon on her work of art. He smiled at his daughter and noticed how her blonde hair had started to curl up at the ends. He hoped it would be curly just like K’s one day.
“Wow, and what a beautiful horsey it is, Samantha!” Picking her up, he hugged her and kissed her cheek.
Sam’s three-year-old arms wrapped around his neck. She hugged him as tight as she could. “I want to fly.”
He laughed, threw her in the air and caught her as she giggled uncontrollably. He settled her on his shoulders.“Okay. Let’s go find Mommy.” He knew if he got his daughter going, she would want him to make her fly all night.
“Mommy!”
K came down the stairs wearing a knee-length black dress with a scooped neckline. She was five-foot eleven with blonde hair that looked like ripe summer wheat ready for harvest. Her long legs made the dress look even more stunning.
Mark’s heart jumped in his chest. It was going to be a good night, a very good night. He lifted Sam from his shoulders.
“Oooh, pretty, Mommy!” She wiggled out of Mark’s arms and ran to K’s side to stroke the dress.
Mark kissed K softly on the lips, fully aware of their watching daughter. “You look fantastic, honey.” Her perfume whisked through his senses. He vowed to make up for the abbreviated kiss later.
K’s eyes sparkled and her smile said she knew she looked good. And that she was going to use her charm for everything it was worth tonight. “Come tell me about your day while I get ready.” She turned and started back up the stairs.
Mark followed her and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her as she continued her preparations for the evening. Sam milled about his feet, trying to take his shoes off and giggling when he pushed her over. Each time, she popped up and tried again. He told K about the slow day and how he didn’t get much of anything done except think about their date tonight. He left out the part about the snarling traffic and the news report. It all seemed like a distant memory now.
K looked at their daughter. “Sam, where’s my other earring? The silver and black one?”
Samantha looked up at K, her eyes wide and innocent, her hand behind her back.
Mark could see the earring she clutched like a pirate who’d just found the key to a hidden treasure. He chuckled.
“Pretty earring,” Samantha said, not willing to give up her precious loot.
“Sam, Mommy needs it.” K leaned over and tried to reason with Sam, her bright, hazel eyes opened wide.
Sam slowly put out her hand and opened it, revealing the missing earring.
“Thank you, Sam, for helping Mommy.”
Sam’s lip pooched out, but she forgot about the loss when she found a piece of string on the floor, and walked around the room announcing that it was a necklace like Mommy’s.
When the doorbell rang, Sam jumped up and ran down the stairs yelling, “Gramma, Grandpa!” K’s parents loved to babysit Samantha, which was especially nice when they needed someone to look after Sam overnight.
Scooping up the bag with Sam’s teddy bear and other overnight necessities, Mark made his way downstairs to say hello to his in-laws and to hug his daughter goodnight.
Sam was jumping up and down, giggling. She loved to go to her grandparent’s house. Her blue eyes were wide as she grabbed her sippy cup with one hand and Grandpa’s hand with the other and pulled him toward the car.
“Samantha, come give me a hug and a kiss,” Mark said. He laughed as she ran back, gave him and K quick hugs and kisses, then skipped back to the car, snagging her grandpa’s hand on the way.
He watched as his in-laws’ dark-blue, Chrysler Minivan backed out of the driveway and turned onto Carwell Avenue toward their home in the West Hamptons. Bill and Holly Bardwell had lived in the Hamptons since before people had to be wealthy to own a home there. K had grown up in the same house as her father had.
Now, the Bardwells ran an exclusive bed and breakfast in their home during the summer months. Bill was in real estate and had done very well for himself over the years. Holly was in love with art, and that is where K got her love for the arts, as well as her talent. She and her mother used to spend hours looking out at the sunsets from the back porch of their home, painting what they saw, and sometimes not only what they saw but what they felt.
When the minivan disappeared and they’d waved their last wave to Samantha, K returned to their bedroom to finish putting on her make-up, while Mark changed into a black pinstriped suit with a white shirt and a blood-red tie. He ran some water through his short, blond hair and made it spike up a little.
K laughed at him when he announced he was ready to go. “Hey, some people don’t just fall out of bed looking good. I have to try a little harder than you do.” She tied part of her hair back with a thin silk ribbon and let the rest fall on her shoulders, then glanced at him and smiled.
It was that smile, a smile worth waiting all day to see.
* * *
KIRK WESTON SAT IN the third row of the briefing room. He looked at the other occupants. There were twenty or so people in the room, and everyone was wearing a suit but him. The FBI had called the Detroit Police Department and requested he fly to New York to help them with an urgent case. Which didn’t make sense.
He was on the bottom of the food chain back home in Detroit and had a hard time believing anyone would request his presence on an out-of-state case, especially the feds. He also wondered why his captain hadn’t balked.
He rubbed his hand across the dome of his shaved head. He knew he was a good cop. A guy doesn’t make detective by hanging out at the donut shops and showing up late for work. But he also knew his outright disregard for authority cost him a lot of brownie points with the stripes.
And he was more than annoyed they’d pulled him off the case he was working. But it seemed, from the dark looks on the faces of the others in the room, that everyone else was in the same boat. Not that his other case was all that important. Just a rapist who had a bad habit of picking targets under the age of sixteen. No biggie. Let some other slob go after the guy. “Stupid feds,” he muttered just loud enough for the two gentlemen in front of him to hear.
They nodded their agreement.
He could see badges from New York, Boston, even Washington. He was the only one not in uniform. No matter. He felt more comfortable in jeans and a white T-shirt, and no one was going to tell him what to wear, anyway.
A well-built man with thick, black hair that spiked on top of his head like a tiny army of soldiers made his way to the front of the room. He adjusted his green tie that had no business next to his salmon shirt, unless he was appearing in a sad Christmas play. He looked up through thick glasses and cleared his throat.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Mathews, special agent in charge.” He pulled up a PowerPoint on a computer as he glanced around the room, a somber look on his face. “As most of you know, yesterday there was an incident at the David’s Island Correctional Facility. If you’ll look on the screen behind me, you can see that the inmates in this photo appear unconscious.”
The picture showed hundreds of men in orange jumpsuits lying face down on the floor and others still sitting in their seats with their faces buried in their food. Fifty or so paramedics and firefighters appeared to be working on the victims. The photo was of the main mess hall or cafeteria, taken from a high angle, maybe from a balcony
Kirk shifted in his seat. So they ate bad shrimp.
Metal tables that looked like elongated picnic tables sat in neat rows, and in the top part of the picture, a long counter with glass behind it was probably where the cooks prepared the food.
“As reported on the news stations, the poisoning affected every inmate in the building. Only the inmates showed signs of poisoning. The guards are fine.” He paused. “Now for the real story.” Mathews took off his glasses and switched to the next photo.
A slow muttering rippled through the room.
“These people are not unconscious.” He waited until the crowd quieted. “Every inmate you see here is dead.”
Whispers and gasps, especially from the women, sounded as the officers began to comprehend what had happened.
Kirk smirked. That particular prison housed some of the most vile criminals in the country, and now they were all dead. Justice had been served.
Mathews raised his hand. “People, please cut the chatter. I’ll turn it over to Captain Jacobson, who has been with the FBI for over twenty-five years and has been at the scene of the crime from almost the moment the attack was reported.”
A tall, lanky-looking man with bottle-cap glasses stood up. Kirk decided his strong, commanding voice didn’t match his appearance.
“Here’s what we know. First, every inmate died within seconds of exposure to the food. Not all of them actually ate the food. Next, not one guard has died or even become ill, even though some of them ate the same food. And last, but not least, so far, we’ve found no trace of poison or anything abnormal in the food or in any of the victims.” The captain showed several more slides, then asked for questions.
Kirk studied the slides with new interest, not because a bunch of slime bags died, but because he loved a good mystery. He wanted to know how it was done, to see if he could crack the case and look into the eyes of the mastermind. The prison yard had body bags littered from one side of the picture to the other. Individuals in hazmat suits with the letters CDC stamped on their backs like a bold black warning looked like they were testing something. Kirk guessed it would be the air and food. More photographs showed agents going through the cells looking for any clue that would lead to an answer to the cause of death.
A thin, redheaded agent wearing a pale-gray suit, who was sitting in the front row, raised her hand.
“Yes, Sally, go ahead,” Jacobson said.
“So you’re saying you’ve found no poison in the food, no toxic substance in the air, and nothing out of the ordinary?”
The captain arched an eyebrow as he pulled up the next picture. “That’s not completely true. We found this tag inside of every inmate’s pillow. They were sewn inside as if it they had been placed there by the factory.” The picture showed a cut-open pillow with a small piece of cloth containing the initials WJA. “We’re looking into every possibility. I need you all to be on top of this case, and unless we get anything that proves the contrary, we will be classifying this case as a mass homicide.”
Captain Jacobson looked around the room one last time, then turned the meeting back over to Special Agent Mathews and took a seat next to Sally in the front row.
Mathews split the room and gave each of them assignments. Each person was handed a cream-colored file folder stuffed with photos and case records. The file contained everything one did and did not want to know about the inmates housed at David’s Island.
They were to follow up with the families of the deceased individuals to see what, if anything, they could learn from them. It was a shot in the dark, and Kirk thought they were barking up the wrong tree. They should be looking into the WJA note, the pillow factory, and the food delivery service. Someone had to have seen or remembered something that could help.
Mathews dismissed everyone with the old “go out there and make us proud” speech, or something like that. Kirk was only half listening as he hurried out of the room and headed for the exit. He pushed open the door to the parking garage.
Lights lit on a rented, dark-blue Ford Crown Victoria as he beeped off the alarm. The car was a hard habit to break. He had driven a Crown Vic for as long as he could remember. He liked knowing what he had under the hood. Inside, he tossed the files in the back, where they scattered all over the seat, photos fluttering to the floor.
He turned the key and peeled out of the garage, driving in the direction of his hotel. He had to think, to really think. Did he want to do this? Did he even have a choice? His career was almost over, anyway. One more cluster mug, and his boss would have him patrolling a mall parking lot for the rest of his life. He hunched over as he drove, his back was aching again. The stress and the flight hadn’t helped.
“Ah, screw it!”
He flipped the car around and headed for the expressway in the direction of David’s Island, ignoring the honking horns and the angry gestures of the drivers he’d just cut off. He had to see the crime scene for himself.