Taking Stock (20 page)

“It’s going to take a lot more than that.”

“Let me worry about the details. Get going. There was a good swing today.”

“What about Fletcher
?
She’s there day and night. If she digs in the right place, we’re going to jail.”

“C’mon, Foster. Stop making excuses. You’ve been bashing her for two years. Don’t tell me you can’t keep her busy for a week.”

“I assigned her support duty for the new system, nothing else.”

“Are you that stupid
?
”

“I thought she’d quit.”

“She didn’t, did she
?
”

This guy thought he had everything figured. If he dealt with her for two weeks he’d know better. “What was I supposed to do
?
”

“Give her a new toy to play with. Keep her happy. In a few weeks Sarah will put it together. You two go to Marty together, wham
Eric
a’s gone. You make a quick exit and I hang around until the dust settles then retire.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could have been if you weren’t so stupid.” The line went quiet for a moment. “This is going to work out well for you, Foster, even as stupid as you are. Make this run and make sure it looks like Fletcher was there. Help Sarah find what she’s looking for. She’ll do the rest.”

“Are you nuts
?
”

“She’s going to blame
Eric
a. Don’t you get it
?
”

“She’ll start with
Eric
a, but that’s only going to hold water so long. The two of them are going to talk and she’ll figure out
Eric
a’s innocent. There’ll be a full-blown investigation and that sucker will be pointed right at us.”

“The investigation will be brief. Now get my money.”

Brad imagined leading
Eric
a into another dusty warehouse. She’d be smarter than Stu. She wouldn’t come easily and bruises wouldn’t support the story very well, if they found her body, that is.

“How are we going to do it
?
” Brad asked.

“Worry about that when the time comes. For now, just get to work.”

“She’s a lot smarter than the last guy. Two of my team dying in three years is going to look suspicious.”

“Listen, Chicken Shit. I can put you away a lot easier. You’ve seen the file. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Try to disappear, try to rat me out, you know what’ll happen.”

Brad gave a longing look toward his bag.

“Get in there and get this done.”

The line went dead.

The next week was going to be the most difficult of the ordeal. He didn’t want to think about where
Eric
a’s body would end up or what part he’d have to play. He picked up the CD. One or two more runs. A few lies to the girl from internal audit and one last trip to
France
.

Brad imagined himself on a beach buying fru-fru drinks for a young woman in a dangerously small bikini. He did his best to hold onto that image as he headed back to work.

A few minutes before eight,
Eric
a walked into her office, clicked her computer on and sat. The routine collapsed when she touched down. Gone were the all-important missions that kept her running full-speed to meet impossible deadlines. Gone were the project plans with pages of excuses to defer social entanglements. The frenzy had vanished. She was left gazing at the awakening computer, wondering what was next.

Unaccustomed to such moments of introspection, her psyche seized the moment to ask why she pushed herself the way she did. Completely out of sync, she felt out of place and time in her own life. It was as if her consciousness had arrived long after her body, plopped down now into the middle of her life, suddenly self-aware for the first time. Could she have run this long, this hard in the wrong direction
?
She searched back through her past for the time she’d begun the chase. Her professional career was a marathon of overachievement with a supreme focus on learning more and producing more than anyone. She overwhelmed her competition with fanatical commitment. Back further still, high school was more of the same. She recalled grade school, a time when she spent most days transported into stories.

The feelings came flooding back, too. The torment from the other students felt fresh. The other first graders called her mother a killer. They said
Eric
a would grow up to be a killer, too, and any boy dumb enough to be her boyfriend deserved what he got. Some kids were truly afraid of her, the others pretended to be.

Ashamed,
Eric
a vowed never to become a victim like her mother. Surviving her father and the hazing after his death set
Eric
a on a path to unequivocal self-sufficiency. That’s when it all began. She pushed herself to the edge of physical endurance and mental toughness. Governance by an unrelenting will intensely sculpted mind and body, but left the whole of her emotional life untouched. Abandoned at an early age, her romantic desires lay unexamined, an unopened gift adorned with bright paper and ribbon, waiting. It wasn’t clear what she was trying to achieve all these years or who she was trying to convince of her worth; the first graders, her mother, or herself.

Freed from her reputation by time and circumstance,
Eric
a led people naturally. She learned at an inhuman pace and put forth incredible effort to reach her goals. This was how she came to work for Brad, to pour out two years of her life and propel him to a promotion he didn’t deserve. She would have accepted her role with grace if he hadn’t betrayed her so purposefully; more so if he’d been the first.

Wasn’t she the model employee
?

Few worked as hard as she did, but here she sat with an assignment that signaled it was time to move on again. She’d known Brad wanted her out from the beginning. Still, her resume lay half-drafted at home.

She fumed through the walls at Brad.

Her mother would say she’d misplaced her anger for her father. She refused to take orders from any man and that doomed her to a succession of disappointments. She needed to learn to go along, to talk through issues instead of bottling them up. Then she would succeed.
Eric
a agreed that she managed-down well and managed-up poorly. She needed control.

Melanie saw a great opportunity to heat things up with Farm Boy. “Take a vacation. Get naked,” she said. After all she’d put into this company, a shift into the slow lane was in order, but
Eric
a wasn’t looking to slow down. It was time to get even with Brad.

Gregg appeared in the doorway carrying two dozen bursting red roses and
Eric
a knew precisely what had to be done. The answer had been sitting on her desk for weeks.

“Hello, stranger,” he said as he strode around the desk, all smiles. He set the etched glass vase on the desk and kissed her cheek.

“Great way to keep the office romance low key.”

“You get flowers all the time. I just deliver.”

“Marking your territory
?
”

“No need. I did an email blast last night, handed out flyers in front of the building this morning, and I’m running a full page ad in the Globe on Sunday. The flowers are an excuse to visit.”

“You picked a bad day.”
Eric
a caught him up on her conversation with Brad and her suspicion that he’d taken credit for her work and ruined her reputation with the board. He had turned her promotion into a demotion, giving her the choice to support client services or quit. Brad would prefer the latter.

Gregg’s expression sagged as the details rolled out. His empathy for her situation shouldn’t have been a surprise, but this wasn’t what
Eric
a had come to expect from relationships. Gregg had been intent on her for over four years. He listened and he knew innately what she thought and felt. She couldn’t stop babbling, burdening him as she was and yet he couldn’t have been more tuned in. He was interested. Not just in her looks or her financial success, all of her. She had the urge to get up and throw her arms around him, but resisted.

Gregg brightened after a lull in the conversation. “Why don’t we get away from here
?
We could spend a few days on the farm. It’s quiet this time of year and my folks would love to meet you.”

“Really
?
Why me
?
”

“What’s not to like
?
Brains, beauty, and I hear their son has totally flipped for you.”

“What happened to taking it slow
?
”

“This is taking it slow. My first thought was the
Caribbean
. You in a bikini and me in surfer shorts for two weeks or so. It would be a lot more fun than the farm, but I didn’t imagine you’d go for it.”

“You imagined right.”

“Think about the farm. Getting away from all this concrete will do you good. I could show you a few trees and some animals that don’t live on crumbs in the park, you know, nature.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

Gregg ventured a step toward
Eric
a’s side of the desk. She looked down her nose toward the open door. He faltered a step, but came around and kissed her anyway.

She watched the hall long after he’d gone.

The rest of the day offered few distractions.
Eric
a dug into an old problem that promised to show how unfit a leader Brad was. He’d angrily rejected Gregg’s request for help and soon everyone would know just how wrong he had been.  

Hours passed quickly. She set up some new equipment and reloaded the December data. She had the system working by six-thirty. It felt odd, but she packed up and left the problem unsolved for the next morning.

She didn’t notice the thick man in the dark suit on the corner. He appeared heavyset under the straight-cut suit, though closer inspection would have revealed bulging muscles. He watched as
Eric
a weaved out among the concrete planters that guarded the building. He talked into his phone, shifting his feet as her sneakers bounced across the street and headed off through the park.

He followed from a full block’s distance, limiting himself to a hurried walk even though he couldn’t match her pace. He’d try to keep her in sight, but he knew where she was going.

Eric
a shoved the door closed.

Melanie curiously poked her head around the corner. She held three tank tops, none warm enough for the late spring weather.