Scarlet Angel (3 page)

Scarlett stared at the woman, her eyes squinted in
confusion. “Um, do you know me?”

“
I worked in Data Processing when
the accident happened. My God, you look exactly the same, just…”
Her eyes squinted and she looked Scarlett up and down. “Much
sexier.”

Scarlett was about to ask the woman about Jill
McAdams when an image of the overhead camera flashed in her mind.
Her heart began to race, but she had no idea why. She had the
sudden urge to get out of the building.

“
I think you have me mistaken with
someone else.”

The woman’s surprised expression vanished. Her brow
wrinkled in confusion. “Oh. I’m, sorry.”

As if on cue, the security camera whirred again. The
more Scarlett thought about it, the more her pulse raced. She knew
something was off.

She forced her face to relax and smiled. “Oh, that’s
okay. I guess I just have one of those faces.”

Scarlett picked up her purse as the woman backed
away.

“
I guess so.”

Scarlett made her voice as cheery as she could to
hide her anxiety. She bid the woman a good day and strolled out of
the building. Only when she was outside could she breathe easily
again.
Something about that definitely felt wrong.

After a deep breath, she fought the crowds on her
way back to her car. Ahead, she saw the sign for the garage where
she had parked her vehicle.

When she reached the garage, she turned to head up
the stairs. Her left foot stepped into the shadow of the building
when she felt someone’s gaze on her. She scanned the area for
anything unusual. From the direction she’d just come, her eyes
stopped on a man in a dark suit. He fought his own way through the
lunchtime crowds until he looked up at her and stopped.

Everything but the man’s face faded away as their
eyes locked like hunter and prey. Panic flooded her mind. She
snapped back to reality and bounded up the stairwell.

Scarlett’s intense workout earlier had left her more
drained than she expected. By the time she reached the fifth floor,
she could barely breathe. She burst through the metal door and
stumbled down the parking ramp. Behind her, she heard feet pounding
up the metal stairs.

Her chest heaved and she fell against the side of
her small, blue sedan. In her pocket, her fingers found the right
button on the vehicle’s key. A single chirp echoed through the
garage. She flung the door open, plopped down into the seat and
slammed the door shut.

The car turned over on the first try. She threw it
into reverse and pulled out of the narrow space. Shifting again,
her tires squealed and her car lurched forward. She didn’t even
care about the dent her door left on the car that had been next to
her.

In the rear-view mirror, Scarlett saw the dark
suited man, bent over trying to breathe. He reached for the side of
his head and spoke into an earpiece. She had no idea what the man
wanted.

She also had no intention of finding out.

When her heart finally calmed down and she could
breathe normally, she parked at the back of the nearest Mackey
Burger parking lot. Outside of her car, she paced around with her
commpad in hand. She knew she needed to call someone, but had no
idea who. She couldn’t very well call the police, as technically
there was no crime.
Cash? No, he’d just tell me to come home.
I’ve got to deal with this myself.

She leaned against the vehicle and looked at her
device. Her mind flashed back to the blonde woman.
What did she
call me? Jill. Jill McAdams.

Scarlett opened the browser on her commpad and did a
people-search for ‘Jill McAdams.’ The listing for Center City came
up with no Jills. But it did find one Jillian.

So, I seem to have a name...

She tapped a few more keys and a map to Jillian’s
address popped up.

And now I have an address.

Chapter 4
The Super

I imagine that I was a stubborn child. My parents
probably struggled with getting me to follow rules and let things
go. I imagine these things, but really have no idea. I only know
what I’m like today. And today...I’m like a bloodhound with a
scent.

* * *

Scarlett sat in the seat of her little blue sedan
staring at the apartment building across the street. The brick
facade was five stories tall and had a red door. Bright yellow, red
and blue flowers grew in small windowsill boxes beneath each
window.

Scarlett knew the longer she waited, the harder it
would be to walk through that door. She could not wait forever.

As she walked across the street and squeezed between
the parked cars, her knees felt weak. It was more than just the
sprint up five flights of stairs. If she was nervous at entering
Universal Dynamics, Scarlet was positively a wreck at the thought
of walking into what may have been her home before the
accident.

Little more than an hour ago, she had strolled into
the corporate offices of the defense contractor, hoping to find
some hint as to her connection with the company.

She got more than she expected.

A woman Scarlett had never seen before walked right
up to her and called her Jill, confirming her suspicions and giving
her a name. But what really frightened, and intrigued her, was the
strange man who chased her to her car.
Who was he, and who was
he on the phone with?

Scarlett’s hand grasped the brass door handle to
find it locked. To her left, an intercom buzzer poked out from the
wall. She glanced at the button when the door flew open. She jumped
back and her heart leaped in her chest. A middle-aged brunette with
someone who must have been her husband, from the ring on his
finger, exited the building. The woman offered Scarlett an apology
for startling her as the couple bounced down the short stone stairs
hand in hand.

With her hand on her chest, Scarlett tried to catch
her breath. The door swung mostly closed then slowed. Scarlett
thrust her hand into the shrinking gap.

Inside, the building was warm but smelled fresh.
Dark hardwood clacked under her shoes. She put her foot on the
first step and looked up. Her gaze followed the stairway up in a
squared spiral.
Here we go.

She climbed to the third floor and stood before the
door with the brass letter E on it, she knew that even if she had
lived there, there would be little to no evidence of her here now.
It’s been five years. Somebody’s had to have rented it by
now.

She imagined the cute couple leaving the building a
few minutes ago living here. Their lives, happy and uneventful,
knowing just as little about her past life here as she did. This
was their home now.

A sound behind her made her jump again. She spun
around to find only the empty hallway. She looked up and down the
stairwell, but there was no one to be seen.
Maybe just a
cat.

Scarlett was about to turn back to the door when she
heard the sound again. The thump came from behind the other
apartment’s door.

Scarlett took a cautious step toward apartment F.
“Hello?”

No one responded.

She crept over and listened. At first there was no
sound, but when she placed her ear to the door she heard a faint
whisper.

“
It’s not real. Listen to Mr.
Crow. It’s not real.”

Scarlett leaned back and stared at the door. “Hello?
Are you there?”

Still no response, but the whisper became a murmur
loud enough to hear several inches from the wood surface.

The young man’s voice quivered with fear. “Listen to
Mr. Crow! It’s not real! She’s not real! It’s not real! She’s not
real!”

Scarlett twisted her mouth to the side, trying to
make sense of the situation. “Um... Sir? I am real. Can I talk to
you? Hello?”

As she spoke, the man’s voice grew even louder, as
if he was trying to drown her out. The voice yelled a final “You’re
not real!” before Scarlett heard feet thumping away, deeper into
the apartment.

Damn.

Another voice called from the stairwell, catching
her off guard. “Can I...help you?”

Scarlett turned to see a man of East Indian descent
in his mid-fifties standing on the landing between the second and
third floors. His face was familiar, yet still foreign to her. She
was not sure how, but she knew this man.

He gawked at her with his mouth open. His words were
barely a whisper. “Ms. McAdams.”

* * *

Scarlett carefully watched Rishabh lean over and
pour the steaming brown liquid into her cup. Logic told her to flee
while she could; it told her not to trust anyone. But her
ghost-like memories, those flashes of insight and remembrance that
came and went over and over in her mind’s eye, told her he was not
a threat. After pouring his own cup, Rishabh sat down. The two sat
in his kitchen at an old table covered with an avocado-green
laminate and wrapped with a dented aluminum edging. The table
reminded her of something from the 1970’s. To her right was an old
stove and an even older refrigerator.

She looked from her cup out the window to her left.
A leaf fell from a tree on the far side of the street and landed on
her car.

Rishabh Dwivedi was the owner and super for the
building. His salt-and-pepper hair and grey mustache contrasted
against his light brown skin. Scarlett couldn’t remember any
specifics about their relationship, friendly or otherwise. But her
heart trusted him.

The man stirred the milk and sugar in his cup,
turning the dark liquid into a soft mocha color. She watched him
slowly pick up the cup and take a sip.

Scarlett held her own cup in her hands, feeling the
warmth soak into her fingers. “This is probably going to sound like
a really crazy question, but... Who am I?”

Rishabh’s chair creaked as he leaned back and
regarded her. His eyes showed no sign of surprise. When he spoke,
his voice was deep with a barely distinguishable Hindi accent. “Not
such a strange question. At least, not based on your reaction to
seeing me.”

Scarlett had to keep her jaw from dropping. “Uh.
Were we, um...”

He leaned his head back and laughed loudly. “Oh my,
no. Nothing like that. Other than the monthly rent collection, we
would play an occasional game of Pachisi. But that is all.”

“
Parcheesi?” Scarlett’s brow
wrinkled.

Rishabh laughed again. “More or less. It is just a
simple board game. We would just sit and play while we sipped
chai.”

“
Oh.” Scarlett gazed down into her
own cup and the light brown liquid. She picked it up and took a
sip. The warm, creamy liquid flowed over her tongue. Her mouth
exploded in a spicy riot of flavors. She picked out the cinnamon
and hints of cardamom. The rest was just a blur.

“
Wow... that’s really
good.”

Rishabh smiled. “It always was your favorite.”

A long moment of awkward silence fell on the pair.
Scarlett wanted to ask a dozen questions but could not find the
words.

Finally, Rishabh broke the silence. “Are you
happy?”

She looked down into her cup. “Am I happy? I, um...
Yeah. I’m happy.”

His face widened into a smile. “Good. Do not take
this the wrong way, but... go home. Jillian was not a happy person.
There is nothing here for you.”

“
Yes, there is.”

“
What? What is so important that,
suddenly after five years of not having it, you cannot live
without?”

Scarlett looked up from her cup and into Rishabh’s
eyes. “My past. I’ve lived the last few years in complete ignorance
and bliss without it. But now it’s come back for me. I didn’t ask
for this.”

“
Then forget, Ji...it, Scarlett.
Forget what is past and live in the now.”

On the way from Universal Dynamics, she had
struggled with the idea of going home and leaving whatever troubled
past she’d had. Rishabh’s calm voice coupled with her own
frustrations grated on her nerves, making her words more forceful
than she intended. “I can’t.”

“
Ah.”

“
I can’t even explain why. This is
not just an argument I don’t want to let go. This is... who I
am.”

Rishabh sipped loudly from his cup. “It is not where
we have been, but rather where we are going that makes us who we
are.”

Scarlett’s irritation evaporated and she cracked a
smile. “Oh, please. If I remember anything, it’s that you are NOT a
guru.”

Rishabh laughed with her. “Very true. I am just as
much a consumerist and couch potato as anyone else in this
building. But my father was. That was something he told me when he
bought this place. Of course, at the time he was thinking he would
make it rich in real estate, but hey.”

Scarlett looked back out the window. “Rishabh...
what happened? To me? To the guy in F?”

“
I don’t know exactly what
happened.” The older man sighed and set his cup on the table. “You
survived an accident at your work, just barely. After a few weeks
in the hospital, you came home. I remember hearing you come
in.”

He took another sip of chai. “But I never saw you.
Never heard you leave. A few days later, the police came, asked a
bunch of questions. They told us you were missing.

‘
Later we heard they thought you
were dead. Something about a break-in... Maybe even an attempted
rape. That was the rumor anyway.”

Scarlett’s brow wrinkled. None of it made sense.
“What about...?”

“
Frank in F? I don’t know. He’s
always been a little off. But since you disappeared, he’s been much
worse. Every time someone mentions your name he flies off about
listening to the crow
, whatever that means.”

She set her own cup down. “Yeah, he said something
about that.”