House of Steel (6 page)

“What’s back there?” She spoke to fill the
hum, attempting to calm her nerves. Yet, the voice she had directed
at the cat fell flat in the stale air. She turned around to an
empty spot on the dingy linoleum; the cat was gone. The slight buzz
of the lights and vending machine filled the otherwise silent
space.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she
stepped back to Joe’s office and the only window in the cramped
warehouse space. The flurry of white outside had cast a bright
reflection into the room, making it the least offensive place for
Delaney to wait. The dismal view outside settled into her stomach.
It would be awhile. Her eyes scanned the rest of the walls.
Crowning achievements of certificates, licenses and accolades
filled them. She peered closer at three particular certificates
grouped together, scrutinizing the stamped signature that inscribed
all of them.
Holston Parker.

As she moved on to other framed pieces, the
office walls of Leighton University flashed through her mind; the
departments filled with pretentious faculty and their achievements.
She had always thought framing achievements was a bit ostentatious.
Even as a child, she wondered why doctors or dentists framed their
walls with their schooling and praises. Her mother had once told
her that it was a “diversion from their inadequacies in life.”
Delaney had agreed.

Next to the framed accomplishments hung
smaller, colored frames with pictures of a young girl. She looked
closer at a picture of the girl in her teens sporting a polka dot
two-piece, standing on a white, sandy beach with an expansive lake
behind her.
Lake Michigan?
Her hair was slicked back, wet
from the water as she stood, posing at the camera with a wave and
smile. She had the same gentle eyes as Joe. His daughter,
Elizabeth. A boy, slightly older, stood with his arms crossed
behind her.
Brother? Boyfriend?

Another girl, about the same age, except
with long, dark hair, sat on a bench a few feet away. Her legs were
tucked into her chest, her arms hugging them with ferocity. Unlike
the girl posing, she stared straight into her knees as if she was
purposely avoiding the picture. Her dark hair hung dry, half-hiding
the rest of her face. Delaney placed her hand on the wall as she
moved closer to look at the girl with the dark hair, the wood
paneling flexed with the pressure of her hand.

Delaney caught another picture that showed
the same girls sitting on a swing that hung from a large oak tree
in front of a sweeping cabin. This time, the dark-haired girl’s
eyes penetrated the camera, staring at Delaney with translucent
blueness. She shifted her eyes to the forty-something man dressed
in khakis and a poplin shirt. He stood leaning against the oak tree
with a hat half-tipped on his head, not looking at the girls, but
gazing off to the side; his pronounced jawline stood outlined in
the picture. The angles protruded sharp in his hard face as if he
objected to the girls’ happiness. The picture was, most likely, an
unknown capture of time to the man.

She shifted over a foot to glance at the
other pictures surrounding the young girls. Pictures of Joe and
Elizabeth at various ages filled the frames, some hand-decorated
by, Delaney presumed, the daughter herself. Her blonde curls, a
contrast to her father’s dark hair, decorated his daughter’s
vibrant face. She was beautiful, yet feisty as Joe called her; a
picture of her standing on top of a shed roof, blonde curls falling
effortlessly around her devilish grin, exemplified this. Delaney
smiled back at her standing tall on the roof with the blue sky
surrounding her.
I wish I could have met you.

Listless, Delaney began examining the items
on Joe’s desk. An old desk clock. A greased gear – something she
only knew thanks to her mechanically inclined father. She had spent
hours of her childhood watching him tinker with an old Chevy that
he never was able to run, at least not for a consistent period of
time. Also on the desk was a fist-sized stone used as a paperweight
to hold down a stack of invoices. She lifted the stone last,
running her fingers along the cracked grooves, turning it over in
her hands to feel the roughness against her skin. Feeling a poke
against her skin, she turned it over to see a small key adhered
with transparent tape to the bottom.

Really, Joe?
She peeled the tape off
the stone with her fingertip, freeing the small brass key from the
hard surface. Letting it rest in her hand, she closed her fingers
to feel the ridges roughly stab her skin. She opened her hand back
up, watching as the white imprint of the key disappeared from her
skin, resolving to the flesh color of the rest of her hand.
I
shouldn’t
. Her eyes wandered to the drawer that had a small,
circular keyhole half-hidden behind the handle.

The soft rumble of an engine startled her as
she drew her eyes to the window. It had been twenty minutes, if
that, since she had called Mark. She slid the key back under the
stone before she squinted through the white haze to see the outline
of a vehicle pull right along the side of the shop. Her head cocked
as she stumbled to her feet. It wasn’t a tow truck.

8

DAY 2: Friday, December 19 – 12:30 p.m.

V swiped her employee badge along the
scanner, waiting for the red light to turn green before she pulled
the glass door engraved with Parker Enterprises open. The scanner
had obliged, just as it had almost every day for the past ten
years. As she slipped through the door, she wondered what it would
feel like to stop going through it. Would the pain vanish? After
last night, she had realized that today was the last day she would
go through that door as the Director of Security at Parker
Enterprises.

The sprawling corporate structure stood four
stories high with 150,000 square feet for just over four hundred
employees. It was dim, with no cars in the parking lot, no Kelly at
the front desk to greet everyone and no employees wandering the
campus. It was Saturday. All the employees were at home huddled in
the warmth of their houses as the snowstorm dumped blankets of
white onto the ground. She slipped down the hall with the empty
backpack slung over her shoulder. She knew the surveillance cameras
in the halls would pick her up, but it didn’t matter because her
team wouldn’t question it. It was rare that she missed a day in the
building. It was as if the walls expected her every day with the
exception of Sunday. Her white boots treaded light against the
carpet, the fibers of the nylon only absorbing a trace of
saturation. She pushed the elevator button, watching as the silver
doors opened slowly to bring her to the fourth floor.

The elevator dinged as it propelled her
upward, one step closer to cutting herself off from Parker
Enterprises. The doors opened to a brightly lit executive floor,
the outside elements reflecting into the floor to ceiling glass. It
was an intricate building, designed with Holston’s touch of modern
meets luxury. Although she had despised what the building stood
for, the empire that he had built, she had always marveled at the
beauty of it. She couldn’t deny him that. She turned to the right,
walking past Mark Jones’s office – the brother of Delaney Jones. He
had only been here a few weeks. She hadn’t realized who he was
during the interview process, but the five minute Google search she
did just a few days ago tagged him to Delaney. Holston Parker was
interested in their family. The intrigue grew.

V stopped at the heavy double doors to her
left. The doors, made of African Blackwood, glistened in their
rich, saturated oils, telling of the daily polishing. The silver
handles of the door called her, beckoning her to come in. She
punched the code into the keypad on the wall, waiting for the
familiar click before she pulled the door open into the vast office
surrounded in glass. He secured his office, or at least he thought.
V had put in a master key for all the Parker Enterprise’s
buildings, though; one that only she knew. Getting in and out of
Holston Parker’s buildings and offices was effortless.
Uncomplicated. Everything she wanted her life to be.

The office’s masculine space consumed her as
she crept toward the desk in the middle of the room. The large,
wooden desk spanned over ten feet. It’s high, black executive chair
hung still and empty in the air. She ran her fingers along the
desk, feeling the polished surface of the same rich wood that the
doors were made of. The desk had been handcrafted in South Africa
by a talented tribesman; it had taken him a year to make his
creation. Holston had always reveled in that fact. Her eyes fell to
the sheen of the empty surface. There were no pictures of the ones
he loved. No portraits of a happy family. In Holston Parker’s
heart, there was nothing other than blackness.

Although she knew there was nothing here for
her, V needed one last look at the office without him. She had
rifled through his office months ago, searching for clues that
would help her find the incriminating evidence she needed. V had
seen it with her own eyes, but it hadn’t been enough. She had
thirsted for more. One last thread that explained it all to her.
She wouldn’t find it here, though. He was carefully meticulous in
his methods.

She slipped her hand into her pocket near
her knee and flicked open her knife. Despite that she longed to
drag the knife along the surface of the desk, she knew she
couldn’t. She couldn’t risk being tracked. Instead, V tucked her
head underneath the desk and, with the blade sturdy in her hand,
she brought the pointed edge to the wood. Slow, she dragged the
knife down and back up again, carving a deep V. While she planned
that he would never see it, the pleasure of defiling his precious
commodity still coursed through her veins.

V stood up and took one last look at the
room before exiting out of the double doors. It would be the last
time she saw that office and the desk with the rich grains and
polished top. She moved down the hallway, taking the last right
into her office with nine foot windows spanning two walls. It was
nothing like Holston’s, but she didn’t want it to be. The office
was white, almost sterile in its appearance with its blank walls
and glass desk. The desk was clean and light.

As she slipped into the chair, she set the
backpack on top of the desk and pulled open the drawer nearest to
her. She dug to the bottom where a small, silver case lay buried
beneath a stack of papers. She slid open the case, looking at the
cameras the size of quarters set inside the foam. They would be
perfect. She reclosed the case, locking it shut before she slid it
into her bag, already packed with her white clothes and ski mask.
She would change in the car.

9

DAY 2: Friday, December 19 – 1:17 p.m.

Delaney shuffled through her bag, frantic to
find the pepper spray she never left home without. Layers of fabric
slipped through her fingers, but there was no long cylinder. She
was sure she had packed it. Delaney closed her eyes, feeling the
small groan erupt from her throat. Her open bag had flung onto the
mat below during the impact of the accident. The pepper spray was
in her car.

Delaney’s eyes followed the tall man as he
emerged from his sedan, letting the wind and snow pummel his body
as he strode toward the door. She looked down at the desk and
scanned the surface for anything to defend herself with – a letter
opener. Even a pen for Christ’s sake. Anything. She contemplated
grabbing the old clock, but exhaled instead before she moved
through the doorway and into the waiting room. A barrage of cold
air whipped her skin. The man ducked through the door, clinching
against the howling wind outside. His electric eyes traveled up her
body first and finally came to rest on her face.

“Hi,” she said.

“Humph,” he grunted in response as he
studied her standing before him. He hadn’t anticipated that anyone
would be at Joe’s shop, and definitely not Delaney Jones.

“Uh, Joe picked me up after my car went in
the ditch.” She paused, waiting for him to respond. To say anything
intelligible.

“Oh,” he replied, his eyes still inching up
and down her body. Her skin crawled with black spiders, their legs
dotting her entire body. Her face drained as her defense mechanisms
thrust into overdrive. She wrapped her arms around her body,
hugging it close as she examined the man’s face.

At 6’6”, he towered over her, his thick neck
producing a huge Adam’s apple that moved up and down with each
grunt. His bright eyes were set in a muscular and well-defined
face. A large scar snaked down on the right side of his temple, its
thickness protruding from his skin. Her eyes caught the movement of
his hands as he unclenched his rough fists, resting them on his
side. She noticed the start of a tattoo near the cusp of his
jacket, reaching far up onto his arm. Other than his black leather
jacket and boots, he had no other gear to protect him from the
cold. No hat. No gloves. His white hair matted down from the snow,
hidden in the platinum hue of his strands.

I–,” she started again, feeling her body
crumble beneath his presence.
Breathe, Delaney.

“I’m Gunnar,” he grunted before his lips
turned up into a coy smile. The wrinkles around his eyes and
forehead multiplied into a pit of snakes slithering through his
face. In his mid-forties, he had yet to learn the social standards
acceptable to Americans or really any human. He turned to sit down
in a chair next to the vending machine, his body overflowing in the
small, plastic seat. Delaney exhaled, feeling a slight release of
tension.

“I’m Delaney,” she responded. The hum of the
generator filled the stifling room as he continued to watch her
from his chair. Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson as his face
contorted; the satisfaction of her discomfort evident in his
reflection.