Terminated (5 page)

“What?”

“A murder.”

L
uke Morgan had strangled his coworker,
Laura Porter, in her Baltimore apartment. Laura’s roommate found Morgan hunched over Laura’s body. Morgan bolted but the police picked him up at home packing a bag before he skipped town.

Ingram outlined the tragic events to Gwen. He didn’t put a gloss them, but he didn’t do anything to play them down either. Laura and Morgan had worked together at Pace’s research facility in Maryland. Morgan had been attracted to Laura, but already engaged, she spurned him. Morgan wouldn’t take no for an answer and began harassing her at work and in her private life. She reported him to Pace and Pace warned him off, but took the matter no further, even after Morgan continued to follow her. Morgan’s fascination escalated until he was following her home at nights and watching her at work. Her relationship with her fiancé broke off. Morgan took that as a sign of love, but when Laura spurned him again, he killed her. The story left Gwen cold. She liked to believe Tarbell couldn’t cross the line Luke Morgan had crossed, but the knife and the hate he so clearly communicated didn’t seem like good signs.

“I won’t let the same happen to you,” Ingram said. “No one has even come close to being hurt since my association with Pace.”

“People are our assets,” Deborah said. “Pace will do everything it can to protect them. Handling incidents
like these is cheaper in the long run.”

“Cheaper?” Gwen asked.

Deborah’s expression changed as she realized she’d said the wrong thing, but also realized she couldn’t duck the issue. “Laura Porter’s family sued Pace for negligence and won five million in damages. That provoked a study to be conducted as to what workplace conflicts cost Pace each year in lost man hours, loss of industry knowledge, legal costs, resignations, firings, and hirings. It added up to millions every year across its US and Canadian facilities.”

Deborah wasn’t wrong when she called Gwen an asset. She was a dollar figure to Pace. She tried not to take it personally. She traded her knowledge for a monetary sum. It stood to reason a corporation would see her in financial terms, but it failed to make her feel any better about her position.

“I know how this sounds,” Deborah continued, “but I want you to know the human value is more important to me. There’s no way I’m going to allow the tragedy in Baltimore to happen here.”

That note ended the meeting. Ingram and Deborah both gave their reassurances she was in safe hands before Deborah left her in Ingram’s care.

“Not much fun discovering you’re a dollar figure,” he said, after Deborah stepped out.

“No, not really.”

He smiled. “Look at it this way, you’re not as easy to replace as a computer or a centrifuge.”

Gwen smiled back and followed him into his office. The sun was going down over the city. The falling sun struck the city’s buildings in all the right places, casting elegant shadows over the streets. She wanted to drink the moment in. It felt good to be alive, which was a stark contrast from the night before.

“Just a couple of things before you
go, Mrs. Farris.”

“Call me Gwen.”

He nodded and handed her a card with a number on it where he could be reached twenty-four hours a day. “Don’t hesitate calling me. Day or night.”

“What do I do if Stephen asks about his evaluation?”

“Play along. Tell him you did as he asked.”

“That’s a diplomatic answer considering he held a knife against my throat.”

Ingram smiled politely. “Call me as soon as he makes contact. I want it on record.”

He escorted Gwen to the door. His people had all departed, leaving just the two of them.

“Be smart. Don’t put yourself in any compromising positions and don’t antagonize Mr. Tarbell if possible. Break up your routine.” He handed her a fact sheet. “That will give you some pointers on how to stay safe.”

“What if he’s waiting outside to follow me home?”

Ingram pulled out his cell, dialed a number and spoke to someone briefly before hanging up. “He’s still at the office. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Idiots
, Tarbell thought. “They think they’re so smart, so clever,” he said, unable to keep from verbalizing his disgust. “They don’t know shit. I’m sick and tired of these morons. It’s always me who has to clean up their mess.”

He stopped suddenly, realizing he’d spoken out loud. Luckily, it didn’t matter. He was the only one in the building working at this time of night—as usual. The management at this place was a joke. They didn’t recognize his superior skills. No, they had put Gwen Farris in charge. It was all politics. Managers. What the hell were they, after all? Finger pointers. Big picture people. They directed traffic while people like him did
the work and earned the money that put the bonuses in their pockets. He guessed he should view his lack of advancement as a compliment. If corporations couldn’t fire you, they promoted you. They were keeping him down because he was more valuable to them where he was.

Screw being held down
, he thought. He was sick of it. Someone always had their boot on his neck. First, it was in school. When it wasn’t in school, it was his friends. When it wasn’t his friends, it was his dad. That son of a bitch had practically waved a white flag of surrender over his childhood house, giving the go-ahead to bullies everywhere to kick the crap out of Stephen David Tarbell. Well, no more.

“It ends right now,” he snarled and slammed his pen down. It bounced off his desk and landed on the floor. He picked it up and tried to get back into his work but gave up. He’d done enough for today.

He pushed himself away from his desk and got to his feet. He was buzzing. This always happened when his blood was up. His body vibrated with the current coursing through him. He couldn’t drive home like this. He’d get into it with someone, and he didn’t want to deal with road rage at the moment. Gwen was his focus. Not anyone else.

He wandered through the offices, checking the work on people’s desks. He did this routinely. He liked to see what his coworkers were up to.
Coworkers
, he thought,
is a quaint term for fuckups
. He couldn’t count the number of errors in judgment and outright mistakes he saw in his coworkers’ poorly-written memos and badly-researched reports. Pace Pharmaceuticals prided itself on its superior knowledge. The board was deluding itself. They should count themselves lucky they hadn’t been sued for gross negligence. They were just a hairbreadth from a thalidomide-type scandal. He’d save their butts and their bonuses. They could think what they liked about him, but he was their savior. Ungrateful sons of bitches.

He picked over Nguyen’s desk to find further validation
of his coworkers’ ineptitude. He was a nice enough guy, Tarbell supposed, but he was getting a little sick of the foreign element within the company. The place was turning into a branch of the United Nations. He accepted that the US was built on the backs of immigrants, but Pace had too many foreigners on its books.

He found donuts in Mitch Balsam’s desk. It wasn’t the first time he’d found food tucked away there. He’d once found a pizza slice on a file folder. The loser weighed close to three hundred pounds and was eating himself toward a coronary.

He worked his way around the building back to his own department. The door to Gwen’s office stood ajar, and he went inside. Gwen’s office. It should be his office. Instead of the bitterness he usually felt here, a warm feeling filled him and a smile spread across his face. Gwen had been so scared when he’d leaped out at her last night. She’d trembled as he’d pressed the knife point under her chin. He’d put the fear of God into her. How dare she tell him his performance wasn’t up to standard? She knew the consequences of that kind of talk now.

The crazy thing was the whole episode had been so spur-of-the-moment. Well, at first. He’d tried leaving work, but he was furious and he turned the car around to have it out with her, off the record. As he’d come up on the sign for Pace Pharmaceuticals, he’d changed his mind. Talk was talk. It meant nothing. Gwen had the power of Pace behind her. She needed to be taught a lesson and a harsh lesson at that. He’d driven by the building and noticed that only a couple of vehicles lingered in the parking lot. Gwen’s car had been parked next to the trash enclosure. That had given him an idea.

He’d parked in the lot across the street from Pace and grabbed the utility knife from the glove compartment he carried in case of problems. He’d crossed the street but stopped when he remembered the security cameras. The landscaping had provided good cover to watch the
cameras. They weren’t hard to figure out and soon he’d taken up his hiding spot. He’d watched and waited. One by one the stragglers had left the office, leaving just him and Gwen. It was so poetic. So just. He felt the hand of fate in it.

As he’d waited, the never-ending rain had drenched him. This woman was ruining his career and now she was making him stand out in the rain. Yet the wait and the rain had meant nothing once he started thinking about the justice he’d receive.

It had all culminated in the perfect takedown.

And now here he was, sitting in her dark, empty office. He liked how the seat felt. He felt like the boss and although he might not have a big title at Pace, he’d just become the boss in every other way. Gwen would fold from now on. It didn’t matter what he said and did, she’d comply. She had already. He’d seen her take the evaluations to Human Resources. He was pretty sure she’d folded to his demands.

He went through her desk to make sure and didn’t find anything incriminating there, so he booted up her computer and logged on as Gwen. He knew several of his colleagues’ passwords. They weren’t hard to discover. People usually left them in desk drawers they never locked. He’d gotten Gwen’s that way. He went through her e-mail and found nothing there either.

No, Gwen had done the right thing. He was sure of it. Tomorrow was Friday. He’d ask her outright, but it would only be a confirmation.

He picked up the picture frame on her desk. It pictured Gwen and her husband and daughter. It looked to be one of those crappy mall photo studio deals judging by the faux cloud background. The Farris family was snuggled together with sickening grins plastered across their faces. They looked happy, trapped in their slice of time. He guessed there weren’t many smiles at home this very minute.

“Do the right thing, Gwen, and none
of these people will come to any harm,” he said to her image.

He put everything back in its place, even setting the door ajar in the same spot, and left the building. He walked over to his car. He’d taken the same parking spot that Gwen had taken yesterday. It was an inside joke he hoped he and Gwen could share. He gunned the engine and headed home.

He couldn’t believe how good he felt compared to yesterday. Who knew twenty-four hours would make such a difference? It was easy to understand. He was winning for once. Life was being good to him and he liked it.

His good mood showed itself on the speedometer. He raced along and switched lanes instead of taking his foot off the gas. It became apparent he wasn’t the only one enjoying the speed. A green Audi sedan bounced between lanes a few hundred yards behind him. He hadn’t noticed it at first, being too lost in his thoughts. He probably wouldn’t have noticed the car at all in the daylight, but its cockeyed headlight alerted him to his speed demon buddy. The headlight was knocked out of position and instead of pointing down, it pointed up and kept glinting in his rearview mirror, sporadically hitting him in the eyes with an intense blast of light.

He didn’t particularly like someone aping his moves. It spoiled his fun. He could try to lose the guy, but he risked a ticket. No, he decided to be gentlemanly.
I’ll let this clown overtake me and catch a ticket
.

“After you, Mr. Asshole,” he said into his rearview mirror and took his foot off the gas. He waited for the mimic to blow by, but the mimic slowed. It immediately made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Something was very wrong.

Tarbell lived in El Cerrito, but he pulled off two exits earlier and Mr. Headlight pulled off with him. He made a number of turns on surface streets, and Mr. Headlight took the same ones.

Tarbell cursed. It looked as if someone was following him.

G
wen entered the office on Friday braced for the
day’s events. She’d slept little that night despite Ingram’s assurances. He’d called her earlier in the morning to run through strategies for handling Tarbell. She was to let him come to her. Let him ask the questions. It made their case against him stronger. If he hadn’t spoken to her by four thirty, she was to initiate contact and tell him she’d complied with his demand. Ingram doubted he’d make another surprise attack on her, but he didn’t want Tarbell going home for the weekend thinking his intimidation tactics had failed. If at any time she felt in danger, she was to call him. His people were close by. When Ingram hung up, she was shaking.

“This is the day you nail him,” Paul had said to her on her way out. His support felt like it was keeping her in one piece.

She wanted to get this done the moment she stepped inside the building, but her phone was already ringing before she reached her office. A labeling noncompliance sucked her into her workday, shoving her worries aside. The issue kept her up to her elbows in problems for most of the morning. She went from the labeling emergency into her usual Friday meeting, which took her through lunch.

The respite from thoughts of Tarbell was brief. He eased from the back of her mind to the forefront with a predator’s stealth. The day’s workload had kept her in the
company of others, which was a good thing. Tarbell wouldn’t try anything with so many people around her, but per Ingram’s instructions, she had to make sure he believed he was free and clear. The time to talk to him was running out.

She wasn’t the only one getting anxious. Ingram had called her twice on her cell asking for an update.

The meeting let out around two thirty. She returned to her office and found Tarbell missing. Time was getting away from her. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask where he was, but she kept quiet. He didn’t need to know panic was setting in.

She went into the restroom and locked herself into a stall to calm down. She ran through what Ingram had told her to say. Focusing on her script extinguished her nervousness. She was ready for Tarbell.

She flushed the toilet for appearance’s sake and washed her hands as she checked out her reflection in the mirror. “Stay cool and this’ll work out.”

She left the restroom and jumped when Tarbell called her name. He was leaning against the wall within arm’s reach of the restroom door. The son of a bitch had followed her. He covered for his invasive presence by flipping through a file. To the casual observer, that was Stephen Tarbell, always too wrapped up in his job to observe social niceties. Gwen knew better.

This was it, and she was ready for him, despite her pounding heart. It was going to be a scary few minutes, but she could handle it.

Tarbell shoved himself off the wall. “I wonder if we could chat for a minute.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Not here,” he said. “It’s about the other day. Let’s go somewhere more private.”

“My office?”

Tarbell smiled. “I was thinking of somewhere more
neutral.”

He didn’t give Gwen an option and led her in the direction of the small conference rooms. These were on the opposite side of the building on a corridor that dead ended at a fire exit. The location was off the beaten track.

He closed the door and leaned against it, cutting off Gwen’s only escape route. She put as much distance between them as possible and stood by the window. Since the room was a ten by ten box, it didn’t give her much of a gap. She cast a glance outside. Though she was only one floor up, the ground looked a long way down.

She said nothing.
Let him do the talking
, she thought.

“Today’s the day,” he said brightly.

Still, she said nothing. Her heart continued to pound, but she was keeping it together and with every passing second, her confidence grew. She wasn’t the same woman she had been Wednesday night. She could handle him.

“I’m assuming you did right by me.” He paused for a beat. “Otherwise, someone would have hauled me off in chains.” He tossed in a grin for good measure. Gwen recoiled at the sight.

“I submitted your evaluation to Human Resources yesterday, first thing.”

His grin widened. “I saw you go that way. I hope you said good things about me.”

“I said your performance met company expectations.”

His grin faded away. “I was expecting for something a little more than that, Gwen. I thought I was quite explicit.”

His right hand slipped into his pants pocket. The move didn’t intimidate her. There was no knife in his pocket. Even if there was, he wouldn’t use it, not here. The rage he displayed slamming her up against her car had receded because he believed he’d gotten his way. He had no reason to do anything stupid.

“Pace doesn’t care if you’re a rock star or a C student. Evaluations have two grades—acceptable and not acceptable.”

“Still, a little embellishment on your part would
go a long way in my progression here.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves. You work hard, but you rub people the wrong way.”

Tarbell’s expression tightened into something ugly yet now familiar. “Watch your mouth, Gwen. Keep it respectful.”

She’d just stepped outside Ingram’s parameters without even meaning too. Her mind raced to find a way to appease Tarbell.

“I am being respectful, but I’m playing it smart too,” said Gwen. “You know how people treat you around here. If I said you’re a star pupil, someone would smell a rat and ask questions. Do you want people asking questions?”

Tarbell said nothing, but the tension left his face, and only irritation remained. Her tactic had worked, at least for the moment.

“As far as everyone is concerned, you’re a solid employee and will be getting your raise as a result of it. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He mulled her argument over for a minute. “When does it come into effect?”

“Next month.”

Tarbell nodded and reached for the door handle.

“What happens now?” she asked.

He opened the door and walked out. “Nothing,” he called over his shoulder, the condescension making his voice thick. “Nothing for now.”

The moment Tarbell was gone, Gwen released a breath that untied the knot in her chest. It was done. Tarbell had tripped the trap, and now it was time to lock it.

She wanted to call Ingram but held off and waited for Ingram to call her. An incoming call looked less suspicious than an outgoing one. He called at four thirty.

“Has he talked to you?”

“Yes.”

“How did it go?”

“Fine.”

“Well done, Gwen. I know
it couldn’t have been easy.”

“What happens now?”

“My people will follow Tarbell’s every move. He won’t harm you.”

“What do I do?”

“Forget all about this. You’ve done your part. My team will investigate and take action. Just document any further contact and call me if anything worries you. If I need anything else from you, I’ll call you. Effectively, you’re done.”

Done. She struggled with the idea of being done, especially when her problem sat fifty feet from her.

“Have a good weekend,” Ingram said and hung up.

Gwen couldn’t imagine having a good weekend under the circumstances. Nothing had changed. Tarbell sat at his desk gloating over his victory. Ingram had said she’d done her part, and she wanted that to be true, but a big part of her didn’t want to relinquish her grip on the investigation. She was an integral part of it. Tarbell had threatened her life. She wanted to be involved, needed to be involved, overseeing every detail until he was dealt with. She wanted to feel in control and that meant knowing what Tarbell was up to. Uncertainty came with being cut out of the loop. If the situation was handed off, she had to live in fear that he might attack her again at any time.

She blamed Desmond Parker for her attitude. All those years ago, after she’d called 911, the police took over. She’d sat back while they hunted Parker down. It hadn’t been easy. Time had moved slowly when she’d been forced to take a backseat. But it wasn’t like she had much of an option with a stomach wound threatening her life.

Sitting in her office, Gwen sighed at the reality that Ingram was cutting her out. In spite of her misgivings, she accepted the situation. She couldn’t be the one to take action
against Tarbell. She’d set him up, and Ingram would bring him down. The clock on her desk phone said it was close enough to five o’clock to call it a day. She’d take Ingram’s advice and enjoy the weekend. She and Paul would take Kirsten somewhere. Life was being hard on them, and they needed to take a break from their worries. It was September and still plenty warm enough for a road trip to the beach.

She shut down her computer and said her good-byes on the way out. Tarbell made a crack about part-timers. She smiled, not at the joke, but at the surprises that Ingram was going to dish out to Tarbell down the line.

With the jump on the traffic, she made it home in minutes. The sound of the garage door closing behind her drew a line between the problems of the world and her family. She could enjoy the weekend now.

Gwen let herself in. Kirsten came charging across the kitchen, grinning and squealing. Gwen gathered her daughter up and kissed her. Kirsten wriggled in her arms and started telling her all that had happened that day.

Paul stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. He failed to show any of their daughter’s enthusiasm at Gwen’s arrival. She smiled at him to provoke a mood change, but to no avail.

“Something came for you,” Paul said.

Gwen’s stomach clenched. She didn’t want to think what Tarbell had done now. Ingram had promised she’d be safe.

“Honey, can you give Mommy and me a minute to discuss something?”

“Can I have a cookie?” Kirsten asked.

Gwen nodded, got her one, and Kirsten went agreeably to her room.

“What’s going on, Paul?”

He handed her a letter. The return address was from California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. A different kind of fear swept over her and she
dropped onto the sofa.

Paul sat next to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “I know the letter was for you, but I opened it. Was that OK?”

She nodded and removed the letter, knowing what it said without reading it. She knew this day would come eventually. Every New Year’s celebration was tinged with the eventuality that one year would bring this letter. It was a notification telling her of Desmond Parker’s parole hearing.

“Jerry Naylor called about it, and he wants you to call him back.”

“OK,” she said and tossed the letter on the coffee table.

“You all right?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s just shitty timing.”

Paul eased her back onto the sofa. He pulled her close in a protective embrace. It was warm and comforting, but its heat failed to penetrate. She felt cold and alone.

“Just because he’s up for parole doesn’t mean he’s going to get it.”

“I’ll call Jerry,” she said and slipped from Paul’s grasp.

“I was thinking we’d go out to dinner tonight.”

“Sure. Sounds good,” she said, less than enthusiastically. “Can you get Kirsten ready while I call?”

She closed the door on the spare bedroom that had become their home office. It was primarily Paul’s when he worked construction projects, but she kept a small filing cabinet with important documents. One drawer was dedicated to Desmond Parker. She dug out Jerry Naylor’s business card and called his cell number.

He’d been her knight in shining armor, always supportive and protective. Naylor had been the assistant DA in Yolo County who’d prosecuted Parker, but thanks to a strong record of successful prosecutions like Parker’s, he’d been promoted to DA.

“Hi, Gwen,” Naylor said, sounding like
he’d just informed her that she had a terminal disease. “How’s the family?”

She didn’t want to be coddled. Not after this week. She got to the point. If it was bad news, she wanted it straight. “What are his chances?”

“Good, I’m afraid to say. Parker’s been a model inmate. He’s kept his nose clean and entered into a number of programs to improve his education and give him professional skills on the outside.”

Gwen remembered Parker’s skills all too well, like his ability to inflict pain and torment. Could prison really change someone like him? She hoped so. The idea of him being able to pick up from where he had left off and hurt other women was too horrible to contemplate.

“I thought he’d serve longer.”

“So did I, but his sentence is fifteen to life and he’s served his fifteen, so he’s eligible. With all the overcrowding in prisons, the state is eager to release anyone who fits the model prisoner mold. Remember, it’s only parole. One missed step and he’s back inside.”

What constituted a missed step? Another abduction and attempted murder? Maybe he’d perfected his skills in prison. If given another chance, he might succeed where he’d failed with her.

“He can’t get to you.”

Can’t he?
Gwen thought. Tarbell got to her easily, and he was a novice at the game. Parker was a grand master by comparison. If Parker wanted to finish what he started, he could and would.

“It might seem like a done deal, but it’s not. The parole board gets to hear our side of the issue, too. You can make a written statement or even appear at the parole hearing. As the victim, your words will carry weight. Obviously, it’s your choice, but I would recommend speaking at the hearing.”

“I want to see him.”

“You will if you decide to address the
parole board.”

“No, I want to see him before the hearing.”

“Look, Gwen, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

She’d never faced Parker, not on an equal footing. The first time he’d had a knife. The second time was at the trial when she’d been on the witness stand. She wanted to face him now. If he’d changed, she wanted to see it for herself, raw, without the varnish of the parole board hearing where he’d be on his best behavior. If he’d really changed, she’d see it. If he had, should she stand in his way of a new life?

“I need to see him.”