Absolute Zero (52 page)

“What did you do with the vials, Ian?” She asked instead of answering, her own anger beginning to boil up.

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re gone. You were in the office yesterday. What did you do with them? Did you know this last night? Did you…did you sleep with me knowing this?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. So you’re telling me that you
lost
them?”

“I didn’t lose them. You took them.”

“You know Anne, there’re two things I can’t abide professionally. Deception and incompetence. You’re excelling at both right now.”

“You want to talk about deception? Why didn’t you tell me you were selling this place? You could sleep with me but you couldn’t confide that piece of information?”

“It’s not your business…”

“It
is
my fucking business. It’s
my
fucking livelihood! You were going to put me out of a job and you couldn’t think to at least give me a head’s up? Talk about deception! You already fired Rand so I don’t really give a shit that you know. I’ve known for a month, by the way,” she stated through gritted teeth.

“I had plans for you…” he answered smoothly.

“Did you have plans for Em, and Ryan, and Carol, and Rand, Don, Harry, Andrea, Paul? Any of them? Or didn’t they
fuck
you good enough to warrant a job?” she sneered.

“That’s enough!” he fired back.

“I’m sick of being stuck between you and Rand and your stupid pissing contest! You want to know why I went against you? To try and save these people’s jobs. It wasn’t about the money. It was about proving to a certain pig-headed, obstinate jackass that this facility could be successful! That’s why, but let’s be honest here, go ahead and say it.”

“Say what?”

“You called me for a reason. Go ahead and let me have it,” she snarled into the phone.

Her chest heaved and her eyes were watering which she could marvel at later. She was actually on the verge of tears.

“You’re fired,” he stated forcefully.

“Fuck you. I quit.”

“I’ll be at the house in twenty minutes. Stay there.”

“For what? You want to say it to my face? No thank you. I won’t be there.”

“Anne, so help me god. You
will
be at that house. Don’t even
think
about running. You have no money. Ya can’t go anywhere that I won’t find you.”

A bitter laugh bubbled up from the back of her throat and she let it loose.

“There is
nothing
left to say. Trust me,” she laughed out.

“Trust you? That’s funny. I would be willing to make certain concessions, though,” he stated in a somewhat calmer voice.

“Why? Why Ian? I think it’s safe to say that severing our professional relationship pretty much puts an end to the personal one as well. Don’t delude yourself into thinking we have
anything
to talk about now.”

“There’s plenty left to talk about…”

“Right. You want to make concessions for poor Anne? Poor fucked-up-in-the-head, Anne? I don’t want your concessions. You can
shove
your concessions.” She quickly pulled the phone away from her ear and practically smashed the end call button with her finger before tossing the phone on the seat next to her. She backed up the Porsche without looking behind her and took off like a shot through the parking lot.

*****

“Are you Ok?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You look pissed off.”

“I just got fired, Rand. How am I supposed to look?” she shot back without looking at him. She concentrated on the road before them instead.

“Hey! Me too, right? Just…could you just be pleasant, to get through this meeting? Please?” his calm voice was so damned soothing. He was so
good
at that…

“Yes,” she stated on a blown out breath.

“Good.”

“You didn’t tell Ian about this, did you?” he asked after a few moments.

“Are you asking if I sold you out?” she asked as she turned to face him.

“I guess so,” he answered meekly.

“No,” she answered.

He blew out a relieved breath.

A few minutes passed in silence as he slowed the car and drove through the EZ Pass lane on the Turnpike.

“So, tell me about this company. What’s the name?” she asked.

“It’s small. Really small. They’re pretty innovative though. You’ll like the facility. Very state of the art.”

“Great. What’s the company name?” she asked without looking at him.

“Bryer Med-Tech.”

“Never heard of them,” she commented.

“Like I said, they’re small…”

“If they’re that small how are they funding this? Dunmed is probably huge compared to them,” she stated without really caring what the answer was. She was making small talk to overcompensate for the huge thoughts swirling around in her brain. None of them concerned work. All of them centered on Ian.

“Investors. They have strong backing,” he stated.

“I’m not staying.”

“What?” he looked over at her profile. Her jaw was clenched so tight, she could probably crack a tooth.

“I said…I’m not staying. Pharmaceuticals are nothing but trouble for me. I’m going back to neurosurgery,” she stated resolutely.

“Come again? Wait? What?”

“You heard me. I’ll get you through this meeting and I’ll dazzle the ever-living shit out of these people, but I’m not staying once this deal is done. St. Luke’s told me they would always have a spot for me, and you know what? I’m ready. Look at these hands,” she splayed them out in front of her.

“Steady as they ever were. I had to quit because…well, the hands were always good, the brain wasn’t. I had cancer. I didn’t tell you that. I don’t tell
anyone
that. It wasn’t the cancer that did me in, it was the chemo. It fogged me. I tried to go back but who the hell wants a brain surgeon that can’t think straight? I’m thinking straight
now
, though. It’s time to go back.” She placed her hands on her lap. “I think he did me a favor,” she added with narrowed eyes.

“Who?”

“Ian.” She stated in a venomous voice.

The rest of the ride was silent other than Rand flipping through the channels on the radio. He skipped past
Run Like Hell. Run Like Hell
,
for cryin’ out loud!
One of the best Pink Floyd songs
EVER
.

It was a good thing they wouldn’t be working together anymore. They obviously were
not
compatible.

*****

He drove down what seemed like a deserted road at least a half hour later after they exited the Turnpike. A country road.
What kind of company is located out in the middle of nowhere?

“Where are we? Where the hell
is
this place?” she muttered.

Rand’s response was a low chuckle.

“I gotta show you something. Don’t tell Shay though, it’s a surprise,” he added as he turned onto a back road swallowed up on both sides by trees.

“It’s at my Grandpa’s old place. I’m storing it here for now. We happen to be in the neighborhood, so…”

A small house came into view, nestled in among the woods. He parked the car and opened the door.

“Come on. It’s in here,” he stated as he slammed the door and walked toward a large pole barn located near the rear of the house.

She let out a sigh before opening her own door and stepping out, careful not to trip on the overgrown roots jutting out from the graveled driveway.

“She’s gonna freak out. Now, all I have to do is make sure I have a
JOB
so I can pay for this sucker,” he stated as he wandered toward the side door of the building.

She walked carefully toward him, shaking her head at her own awkwardness.

“This better be worth it,” she muttered as he opened the door and waited for her patiently.

“Oh, it is,” he commented with a broad smile as she stepped into the dark building. Her eyes tried to pick out a shape in the darkness that lay beyond. There was nothing there.

“Where’s the boat?” she asked right before something sharp and hot stung her neck causing her knees to buckle immediately. Something clamped around her waist as she sunk into darkness.

Breathing. She could hear breathing.

That’s me
.

My head hurts. Why does my head hurt?

Where’s the boat?

The what?

What the hell?
She opened her eyes, blinking them rapidly, trying to dislodge the sand from them, reaching up but not able to touch them because her hands…they were…constrained by something.

“She’s awake.”

She heard a woman’s voice. She could make out two sneaker clad feet stepping toward her. Her eyes blinked in rapid succession to try and focus. She was lying on the floor in a darkened room, bound to something. Her cheek was resting against something hard and sharp. She attempted to lift her head.

“Rand?” she whispered.

“Yes?” she could hear somewhere beyond her field of vision.

“Did they get you too?”

That caused a laugh to erupt. It was almost painful to her suddenly sensitive ears.

She groaned in response; maybe from the pain in her ears or maybe from the confusion surrounding her.

Something groaned in response. A low rasping moan, followed by a clank of metal sounding from somewhere in the room.

“Please tell me…” she started through parched lips. Her tongue felt as sandy as her eyes.

“Get her some water,” Rand’s voice ordered.

Moments later the shoes walked right up to her and a slight figure crouched before her.

“Get up,” the female voice ordered.

“I can’t,” Anne croaked out. Even lifting her head was difficult. Something clamped around both of her shoulders and squeezed painfully as her torso was hefted up and placed in a seated position. Her back was jammed against something solid and painfully jagged. She fought to keep her head from sagging to the side as she focused on Rand’s face in front of her.

“Why?” she whispered.

A cup was placed to her lips and tilted, the water trickling from both sides of her mouth as she tried desperately to get at least some on her tongue. Her eyes tried to focus on the woman’s face next to Rand in the dim light of the room. She was young, and yet her face was drawn, pale. Dark rings circled her dull eyes.

“That’s enough,” she heard Rand’s voice before her head started to loll to one side and her eyes lost the battle to stay open. A hand shot up and righted it and a slight tap to her cheek caused her scratchy eyes to open again.

“Why are you doing this?  Please tell me what the hell is going on,” she stated on a shaky breath.

“I need you,” he stated simply.

A loud moan and the distinct sound of metal rustling caused her eyes to try and focus on the other side of the room.

“What is that?” she breathed out.

“That’s why I need you.”

More moaning, a grunt, metal screeching…

“Turn on the lights,” he commanded in a loud voice. Brightness assaulted her vision almost immediately and her eyes squeezed shut from the onslaught.

Another grunt sounded causing her to force her eyes open, blinking rapidly, trying to focus on something beyond Rand’s shoulder. A metal…cage? Maybe a dog kennel? The chain link gleamed under the bright light. Fingers curled around the delicate metal. Movement caused the screeching sound to assault her ears once more.

Rand moved to the side revealing a sight that made her narrow her eyes in confusion before recognition set in. Blonde hair in complete disarray, wild eyes in an otherwise pretty face. Thinner than the pictures; older, but still somewhat attractive.

Shelby Collins stared back at her.

“Shh..Shelby?” Anne whispered as her heart stopped beating for a split second.

“Agghhhh!” The woman in the cage banged her open palms on the metal causing the screeching to intensify and the sound to echo off the stone walls.

“Shut up!” Rand threw over his shoulder. “Please,” he added in a softer tone before turning his dark eyes to Anne once more.

“She’s…you…I don’t know what…” Anne murmured.

“I know. Shocking, right? I’ll give you a second to absorb this. I need to change.” He stood up and walked toward the door, Anne watched as Shelby’s eyes followed him. A low growl rumbled from the other woman’s throat.

“Give her something to shut her up,” he told the small woman as he walked past and headed up the stairs.

The woman walked over to the cage and grabbed a syringe from a table, pulling back on the stopper after inserting the needle into a small glass jar.

Shelby fixed her gaze to Anne, huffing and blowing out air, her face contorting into a grimace before relaxing again.

“HA…” she breathed out, slapping at the chain link before her head was thrown back and her body followed suit. The other woman yanked a cord attached to a collar around Shelby’s neck. As soon as her body hit the other side of the cage, the needle was plunged into her neck causing her to reach her chained hands up and make a grab for it. Within seconds, her body slumped onto the cot and her head rolled to the side. Her eyes were still fixed on Anne, though. Anne shifted her gaze uncomfortably.

“Who are you?” Anne asked the younger woman.

She ignored her question. She was by no means an attractive woman, girl, really. She was probably in her early twenties but she was definitely a drug user judging by her skeletal frame and sallow skin.  She watched the girls’ movements as she threw out the syringe and recapped the bottle. Her hair was brown. Anne’s eyes widened. It would make perfect sense. Irene said her daughter disappeared the same night that Shelby died.

“Kelly?” she asked. The name made the girl stop and her attention fix on Anne.

“Who the fuck is Kelly?” she asked with a twist to her pale lips.

“You’re not Kelly,” Anne stated, her brows scrunching together in confusion.

“Kelly’s dead.” Rand’s voice rang out causing her attention to shift toward the stairs.

“That’s not true. She still texts Irene…” Anne mumbled.

That seemed extremely humorous to Rand for some reason. His perfect teeth were visible between his smiling lips. He was quite possibly the most hideous creature she had ever encountered, except for Sam…

“Yes. I know. Best part? Ian’s going to have some
serious
explaining to do about that one,” he said before a laugh erupted from his throat.

*****

Irene stacked the papers before dusting the huge desk, sweat collecting on her brow as she worked. A cell phone lay in the middle of the desk causing a look of confusion to sweep across her face before she set it off to the side. Ian was gone. He flew out in the morning. It seemed highly unlikely he would forget his phone, but there it was, lying on the desk. She quickly wandered over to her own purse and pulled her own phone from the confines.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked herself out loud as she sank into his office chair. If he didn’t have his phone, he certainly wouldn’t be able to get her message. She stared at the phone on the desk, the bright blue casing looked…familiar.

She began scrolling through her contacts.

Why not?
She tried every other day…She chose the most commonly selected contact in her small list.

She hit the call button and all but jumped from the chair when the phone on the desk began to ring. Her eyes darted to both sides before leaning over to see her own number displayed on the screen in front of her. Her slack hands dropped her phone onto the desk surface with a thud.

She just dialed Kelly’s number.

*****

Her car was in the driveway.

She wasn’t answering the door. He knocked and rang at least a dozen times. He pulled the key out and quickly unlocked the front door, steeling himself for the onslaught of rotten words that would surely explode between them. Their entire conversation came back to him as he stepped into the front foyer, almost expecting a frying pan over the head or something equally painful.

Nothing. Complete silence. Ian walked through the house, finding no trace of her whatsoever.

She was gone. Her car was in the driveway but Anne was gone.

Maybe she walked up to
his
house. Highly unlikely, but there was a chance.

*****

“Irene?” He yelled out as he stepped through the front door and slammed it behind him. He noticed the small compact when the town car drove up.

He walked past the huge staircase and practically jogged through the rest of the house until something caught his eye in his study. He immediately stopped and backtracked to the doorway. “Irene?” he asked almost breathless. She was standing in the middle of the room with the strangest expression on her face.

“Have you seen Anne?” he asked, taking a step in the room.

“Explain this,” she held up something in her hand. It was black with a bright blue case.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a phone. It’s Kelly’s phone,
Ian.
What the
hell
are you doing with Kelly’s phone?” she asked in an icy voice as she took a step toward him.

*****

“You’ve been texting her all this time?”

“Well, I had to do
something
. If she never contacted her mother, I’m sure all hell would break loose. I thought it was rather ingenious, myself.” Rand bit off a piece of the candy bar and reached his arm out to offer her a bite.

She shook her head and continued to stare at the sociopath seated before her.

“Your loss. It’s really good,” he stated with a full mouth before continuing. “I planted it on Ian’s desk. Maybe she’ll find it, maybe not, but if she
does
… That at least casts some suspicion his way, huh? Maybe buys me another day or two…”

He was far too casual, far too comfortable with this entire situation, at least in Anne’s mind. He sat before her chewing on a candy bar as if this was just a normal conversation. As if they weren’t sitting on a basement floor in the middle of nowhere. As if the woman in front of him wasn’t shackled and bound to a wall.

“To be honest with you, I thought we’d have more time, but…this whole situation just sucks. Why the fuck he decides to start coming back on a regular basis is beyond me. Everything was going fine and then wham! Here he is again, screwing everything up. I liked it sooo much better when he blew this facility off,” Rand huffed out before taking another large bite and chewing.

“What am I supposed to do? Why am I here?” Anne asked.

“Oh! Yeah. You’re gonna fix that,” he gave a jerk of his head toward the figure still slumped on the cot in the cage.

Anne looked at Shelby, her eyes appeared glassy even from a distance.

“I can’t fix that,” she whispered.

“No shit. But you can make her more…agreeable.”

“Why?” Anne asked.

“Because I love her. And she loves me. That’s why.” Rand answered simply as if it made all the sense in the world.

“She has a brain tumor, it’s inoperable. I can’t fix that,” she stated as she stared at the blonde beyond his shoulder.

“She doesn’t have a brain tumor. Not anymore. Ron took care of that.”

“Ron?” Anne asked absently. Her mind poured over the notes, the formulas; the confusion in her mind as she had tried to decipher the contents of his binder. “Ron did this?”

“He was supposed to destroy the tumor. He ended up scrambling her brain. That’s Ok, though. I gave him a taste of his own medicine,” he laughed out. “No pun intended,” he added after a moment.

“You…did that to him?”

“I did.” He actually seemed proud of himself.

“He was starting to get weird on me. Fit of conscience or something. We found you. Well no,
David
found you. I had Ron work on your formula, but I certainly couldn’t be drilling holes into people’s skulls. What the fuck are you, anyway? Are you crazy? That’s some fucked up shit. I can’t be injecting anything into her
frontal cortex.
I told him to find a point of admin that I could actually
access
. He came up with the Pons. And now
you’re
going to administer it to her.”

“Wait.” Her brain was trying desperately to catch up. “Did you say
David
?”

“We went to Stanford together. I was hoping you wouldn’t piece that together but apparently you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you might be.”

“I had no reason to think that was strange. It’s a big school…” she muttered.

“David pushed to get you hired. He suggested your project. Did you know that? You were so
perfect
for this. How often do you have a successful neurosurgeon switch to pharma? Ron did but he probably had more malpractice suits than he had patients. He was a total hack, by the way. He was crazy
before
he was crazy. Does that make sense? He was so easy to manipulate,” he stated as he stared at the bound hands on her lap.

“After Ron and his massive screw up, I needed something. David owed me big. I still had to compensate him very well, greedy fucker that he is. He’s a freak, by the way. Raped a chick in college and I was his alibi. He told me you’re a tiger in the sack,” he added with raised eyebrows.