Cornered (7 page)

Michelle knocked loudly on the back door of the book dealership, waiting under another threatening sky for Marjorie to unlock the door and buzz her in. She went through the first door and pulled it locked behind her before pressing the buzzer on the second door, waiting again now that Marjorie knew that Michelle was safely inside the alcove and was alone.

On her first day at work, she had wondered if the lady was possibly just a little bit crazy. Michelle lived in a decrepit walk-up over a bar, for pete’s sake, and she didn’t have nearly the security system in place that Marjorie had. But then, once Michelle started taking home some of the catalogs to proofread the descriptions, she got a firsthand look at the prices of the books that her quiet little company dealt in. It made Michelle nervous to even be in the room with the books, and made Marjorie’s strict policies of no food in the building and no pocketbooks allowed make more sense. Who knew, right?

Marjorie had made it clear that her rules weren’t in any way a reflection of her opinion of Michelle, which was good because the first few rules were a little bit offensive. No purses in the main room? What, did she look like a thief? Once Marjorie explained that purses could easily knock a book off the counter top, or that something as tiny as a tube of lip gloss that got overheated and oozed could destroy a book’s value, the strict guidelines almost looked too lenient. After Michelle saw the market value of some of the titles, she invested in her own pair of white cotton gloves to wear while handling any of the books.

“Good morning, Marjorie,” Michelle called to the white-haired woman in the office. “I finished proofreading these catalogs last night, I’ll just put them on the counter over here.” She placed the paperbound books on the counter then went to put her coat and purse in the closet before returning to the office.

“You’re an absolute angel, Michelle! Now I can call the printer and the digital distributor and tell them to send those out. They wouldn’t have been ready for two more weeks if I was doing it myself, and there are three estate auctions in that time that we would have missed. What would I do without you?” The older woman looked up from her computer and beamed at the girl.

“I’ve only been here a week, Marjorie, I hardly think that’s enough time to make me indispensable,” she said, smiling at the woman’s appreciation.

“You’re a godsend. But let’s get to work, we have to package up a few titles today, and that has to be done with utmost care. Do you think you’re ready for your first airport run? I think you’ll find it’s actually quite thrilling.”

Michelle bit her lip to keep from laughing. As much as she adored Marjorie and had even been impressed by the world of the rare book and antiquities trade, “thrilling” might have been a really strong word. Interesting? Sure. Curious? Maybe. But not so much with “thrilling.” She nodded her head in agreement and followed the older woman into the book room.

“So...” Marjorie began, pausing to look at Michelle over the tops of her rectangular reading glasses.

“Yes?” Michelle finally asked, waiting for the rest of the woman’s question.

“I’m curious. If you were able to proofread the catalog this weekend, does that mean you didn’t make any interesting plans?”

“What kind of plans?” she asked, crinkling her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, whatever people your age do. No outings, no parties? A date maybe?” Marjorie continued in a knowing voice, her voice echoing for a second while she retrieved a large crate of packaging supplies from a storage closet. Michelle shook her head before remembering her dinner the night before.

“Not really, I just hung around my apartment. I usually go to my parents’ house in Vernon for lunch on Sundays, but I didn’t go this weekend. I did have lunch with someone yesterday, now that you mention it. Tell me something,” Michelle said, her tone showing a pinch of annoyance. “Is there any reason in particular you asked?”

“I saw you!” Marjorie announced, clapping her hands once and laughing. “I love Greek food, and I called in an order to take home with me after finishing up some things here. Your date was a very handsome gentleman.” Her expression darkened for a moment and she spoke with a quiet authority. “I do hope he was not responsible for your...injuries?”

“Oh no!” Michelle said, quick to correct Marjorie’s impression of Lars. “In fact, he was my rescuer! He even took me home later, and that’s how we actually ended up having dinner. When he returned the purse I’d left in his truck, my roommates decided to play a little
Fiddler on the Roof
with the whole situation. They practically forced me to give him my phone number, and when he called last night to ask if I wanted to go to lunch, I couldn’t think of a good excuse to tell him no. I even tried using your catalog as an excuse!”

“My dear, why would you need an excuse? First of all, you’re perfectly entitled to inform a gentleman that you’re not interested in seeing him socially without having to make excuses. A firm but polite ‘No, thank you,’ is really all you’re required to give him in return. But more importantly, is there a reason you’re not interested?” Marjorie continued laying out the packaging supplies in a meticulous fashion, each item in turn on the counter in the order that they would be used.

She had to pause to think about Marjorie’s question. She did have a reason, right? But now that she remembered the meal and the pleasant conversation, actual talk about actual important things and not just some stupid action movie followed by Neanderthal attempts at groping her like the few real dates she’d had with Daniel, Michelle was slowly forgetting why she wasn’t interested in seeing Lars again. And the warm kiss he’d timidly left lingering on her lips after she’d finally agreed to let him walk her home—even though she won out when it came to paying her share of the dinner tab—wasn’t doing anything to help her forget all about him.

“I guess I just wasn’t thinking about getting involved with someone else,” she replied.

“Well, in my experience, I’ve learned that the men worth getting involved with don’t usually require intense decision making. You simply realize you like being around them more than you like not being around them.” Marjorie smiled, before setting Michelle to the task of retrieving the books that were shipping out that day.

After more than an hour of packaging four books in water-tight cushioned sleeves before repackaging them in wooden boxes which then had to go inside the required cardboard box, Marjorie declared that they were ready to leave.

“Us?” Michelle asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought I just had to drop these off.”

“Oh no, dear, there is a lengthy process. You’ll see why I was eager to bring you on board and put this responsibility on your shoulders. I’m afraid it takes several hours altogether, and is possibly the least interesting part of what we do. I’m going to go with you this time and show you how it’s done. I might even go next time and the time after that, but that’s only because I’m a control freak. Would you call the car service while I make sure everything is secured?” Marjorie left to begin checking the glass cases of the rare books, setting their alarms individually, while Michelle dialed the number for a car. Marjorie then retrieved a large suitcase from the closet where the packaging materials were kept, a metal-sided hard-shelled rolling case with a large luggage lock on the zipper. The packages went in the suitcase, surrounded on every side by small white pillows, before being locked inside.

While Michelle gave the directions to the car dispatcher, Marjorie printed out the instructions for the terminal and gate where the plane would be waiting. She tucked those in the pocket of her coat and the two of them waited just inside the first door at the back of the shop, still locked in but able to step out directly into the car.

This is a good bit of overkill for some books
, Michelle thought to herself while they waited. Marjorie glanced out through the small window in the exterior door, watching for anything suspicious.

“You seem pretty tense,” Michelle said, not wanting to offend her new boss but also wondering what was making the older woman so on edge.

“Well, of course I’m tense. This suitcase is now worth more than every major organ in your body. And mine. Combined, even. There have been problems in the past, so I keep a very low profile when I’m sending books out.” She laughed to herself for a moment, still looking out the window. “You know, there was a time when I thought nothing of dropping these packages in the mail with nothing more than a tracking number and some insurance. As if these books could even be insured.”

“They can’t be insured? Why, because they’re too expensive?” Michelle asked.

“Oh, no. Anything can be bought for the right amount of money. I was referring to the fact that they cannot be replaced. Just think of it. John Milton sat in a dark attic room for hours penning
Paradise Lost
. Did you know he ruined his eyesight from spending too much time reading and writing by only candlelight? One of the books in this glass case is from the original printing of that work. Milton undoubtedly held it in his hands. If I let something happen to it due to my own carelessness, I have stolen it from the whole world.” Michelle was struck by the reverence in the older woman’s voice as she spoke, sharing a truth about not just books, but about the entirety of life.

“I never thought of it that way. Now you’ve kind of got me scared!” Michelle said lightly. “The fate of the world—well, at least, this really awesome book—rests in our clumsy, germy mortal hands!”

“I knew from the moment I met you that you’d understand,” Marjorie said, patting Michelle’s shoulder briefly before looking her square in the face. “The car’s here. I’ll go first and open the back door, then you get in and go straight through to the other side, bringing the bag with you and placing it on the seat between us. Then I’ll get in, and we’ll be off!”

Michelle waited in the entryway as Marjorie stepped outside, looking from left to right and waving the driver off when he left the car to get her bags. The handle of the suitcase was a burning, dead weight in Michelle’s hand, given the importance her boss had placed on all of this. When Marjorie gestured to her to come outside, the younger woman practically ran to the car and dove in head first, bringing the light suitcase with her in one quick movement. As she promised, Marjorie climbed in the car and shut the door, barking to the driver, “Lock the doors, please.”

CHAPTER THIRT
EEN

Mr. Vane climbed down from the front of the delivery truck and reached under the seat for the clipboard to log the miles off the odometer, taking special note of any mechanical problems and checking off the boxes on his form. He pulled it from the clipboard and folded it in half, limping over to the drop box on the wall and turning in his keys before heading toward the office to turn in his report.

“Yo, Frank, if you’re turning in some paperwork, can you take mine?” Jerry called from under the hood of his truck. “It’s on the driver’s seat.”

“Sure thing, Jerry,” Frank called back over the noise of the garage. He turned and limped back towards Jerry’s rig.

“Oh crap, Frank, I wasn’t thinking. Here, I’ll bring it over there.”

Frank sighed, then stopped in his tracks and waited. He hated having people do stuff for him, almost as much as he hated why they felt like they had to. If his accident two years ago hadn’t happened, he’d probably be in management by now. Instead, he was damn lucky they even still let him drive his route, and the only reason they’d kept him on was out of pity.

And that’s how everyone treated him, like a big fat charity case. He’d come in on rainy days to find that part of his route had already been done, or during the cold months like now he noticed that his delivery list wasn’t as long as everyone else’s. No one said anything, of course, but he’d get back to the garage a whole hour before the other guys, sometimes two hours, sitting around on his can while the other guys were out there freezing their asses off. The few times that Frank had had to miss work because he was laid up in bed again, he got his next pay stub only to discover that they’d “forgotten” to deduct a day of sick leave.

Of course, he wouldn’t need their charity if corporate hadn’t jerked him around. His disability was denied and his injury wasn’t considered “work related” because he’d already clocked out for the day when a new guy misjudged the distance in the parking space, pinning Frank between the cinder block wall and the grill of a delivery truck, breaking his hip in the process. He was still paying off some of the bills, limping the whole time.

“Here ya go, Frank, I appreciate it. Saves me a little bit of time taking it over there. How’s the family, huh?” Jerry handed frank a sheaf of papers before stopping to talk with his hands on his hips.

“Oh, they’re good, I guess. The wife is busy with all her things she goes to, and Michelle just got a new job in some bookstore.”

“A bookstore? That sure beats waitin’ tables for a little old Vietnamese guy, don’t it?”

“Well, it sure as hell don’t beat doing whatever she could have if she’d finished school.”

“Yeah, I hear ya. But these things, you know, they can really have an effect on people. Maybe she just needs some time to put it behind her.”

“What are flapping your mouth about Jerry?” Frank asked with a confused laugh. Jerry looked at Frank for a minute, cocking his head to the side.

“I’m talking about the whole mess she went through up at school, Frank. I mean, I’m not a girl, but I got two daughters. I can only imagine how hard something like this is.”

Frank watched Jerry carefully, his confusion written all over his face. “Jerry, I gotta say it. I don’t have any idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

It was Jerry’s turn to stare back in confusion for only a few seconds before the full realization hit him in the face. “Oh my god, Frank, you don’t know.”

“I don’t know what?” Frank demanded, his voice rising even as his face began to turn red.

“Shit, Frank, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I opened my fat mouth.” Jerry started to back away. “Here, I’ll take those. You go on home, I got this. And...I’m just...I’m so sorry.”

Frank stared after Jerry’s retreating back, watching as he practically ran to the front office with both sets of paperwork. Something wasn’t right, he could tell, and he was going to have answers, and those answers were probably waiting for him at home.

He forced himself to drive carefully from the shipping company all through the forty-minute drove to his neighborhood, the whole scene with Jerry replaying in his mind. Something was up, that was for sure, and Frank was going to get to the bottom of it.

Luckily, Annie’s car was in the driveway when he pulled up alongside it in the driveway of their aluminum sided townhouse. It was the house that they’d bought after they had gotten married and Frank had finished his time with the Army reserves, and he had always been damned proud of it, having paid it off in only twenty years instead of thirty. Now, though, a sick feeling in the middle of his stomach made it look puny and insignificant. This was a house that held a secret, one that it seemed everyone knew but him. The thought of even his co-workers knowing that something wasn’t right in his house when he himself had been left in the dark made him want to vomit.

In his mind, he wanted to race into the house and throw open the door so hard that it knocked a chunk of plaster out of the wall where the knob had hit it. But in reality, just getting out of his car took all his strength and climbing the front stairs left him winded. He barely had the energy to open the door, let alone slam it. By the time he stood in front of Annie, he wasn’t a powerful, angry man, he was simply sad.

“What is this that Jerry’s talking about at work today?” Frank demanded, surprising Annie so much that she almost dropped the dinner she was bringing to the dinette table. “He’s goin’ on, running his mouth about Michelle and what happened to her, and then he’s just apologizing because I didn’t know what he’s talkin’ about!” Frank’s blood pressure was so high that his red face worried Annie. She stared at him, open-mouthed, literally praying for the words to say.

“Oh my god,” Annie began, setting the hot glass pan on the table’s surface without caring about scorching it. Her hands went to her mouth as she stood silently watching Frank’s face, instantly worried about how this would affect him. “What did Jerry tell you?” she whispered.

“Nothing! He wouldn’t tell me nothing. He just kept saying that he was sorry, over and over, and he said something about how he couldn’t imagine something like this happening since he had two daughters of his own. What the hell’s he talking about, Annie? And I want the truth!”

“Oh, Frank...”

“Don’t you ‘Oh, Frank,’ me! I want to know what he’s talking about! Did something happen to Michelle?” Frank was already losing his voice from the effort of yelling, his shouts echoing off the paneled walls of the small dining room.

Annie’s face crumpled as tears poured down her cheeks. She nodded silently, gasping as she held back a sob.

“What is it? What happened to her?” Frank yelled, angry tears of his own forming in the corners of his eyes.

Slowly, Annie told him the details through her tears, the horrible situation from almost a year ago still as painful as the day she’d first heard the news from Michelle’s friends. She watched Frank carefully for any sign that he couldn’t absorb the truth they’d hidden from him.

“You see why we didn’t tell you?” she asked quietly. “It took Michelle weeks to even tell me, weeks when I could see her getting so thin because she wouldn’t eat and all that time, having her roommates call me for help every day. We were all so scared for her, and she wouldn’t even tell me what happened. When she finally did, she made me promise not to say anything about it to you because she was scared for you.”

“Scared? Why would she be scared for me?” Frank demanded.

“Michelle knew how you’d react, that you’d charge down there to that school and beat that professor until he couldn’t remember his own name. And in your condition...”

“Don’t bring my bad hip into this! This has nothing to do with my health!” Frank bellowed, pointing a worn finger directly at Annie. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“Me? What did I ever do? Besides try to protect you from this horrible thing?” Annie cried.

“You let me believe my kid was a loser! You sat there knowing the truth this whole time, while I looked my daughter in the face and called her a quitter! I rode her case for being a dropout and for wasting her life, all because you didn’t tell me. How many times did she sit there in that chair—not sayin’ a word to stand up for herself—and listen to me run my mouth about how she coulda been somebody, if only she’d finished what she started? Do you know how I must have sounded to her? And you’re both sitting there the whole time knowing what happened to her! You let me believe that she just dropped outta school, when the whole time you knew why she did it! How could you let me treat her like that?”

“I tried to warn you, Frank. I told you that you were being too hard on her, to give her a break!”

“Oh, don’t even start that! ‘Give her a break?’ Someone who has a hard time waking up for class in the morning needs a ‘break.’ Michelle practically had to run away, afraid for her life after that monster put his hands on her!” Frank wretched as he spoke those last words, physically ill when the full force of his wife’s explanation hit him. His little girl...

“Frank, please. At least sit down, this isn’t good for you,” Annie began, guiding him to the sofa. The fight had gone out of him as he realized what secret he had been kept out of and why. He let Annie take him by the arm and sit him down, leaning him back against the couch cushions while he cried in soft sobs.

“I just don’t understand, Annie. Where’s Michelle? I gotta talk to her. I gotta tell her that I’m sorry. Is she even okay? How did I not know if my own little girl is okay?” he cried.

“Shhh, Frank, it’s okay. The last thing she wants to do is talk about it some more, and certainly not with her dad. She’s fine,” Annie promised him. “She just needs some time.”

“Bullshit!” Frank yelled, becoming angry again as he sprang up from the sofa with an energy he hadn’t had in a long time. “She needs her father to go rip that guy’s face off his head and feed it to him through what’s left of his mouth! Who was this guy, anyway?”

Annie wrung her hands, horribly aware that this situation had blown itself into a full-fledged hurricane. “I already told you, Frank, it was one of her professors. But she just wants to let it go and put it behind her!”

“She’s not doin’ so hot at getting over it, Annie! Have you taken a good look at her lately? She goes from being an A student to being a waitress, and dates that loser guy in the meantime. What she needs is someone to pick her up and tell her she didn’t do anything wrong, and that I’ll kill the guy if that’s what it takes to bring her back to life. Now, are you comin’ or not?” Frank slung his work jacket around his shoulders and wrestled his arms into the sleeves. He was old and injured, but it was still easy to see where he had once been an impressive man.

Annie shook her head. “I can’t go through this again,” she whispered. “This time it’s your job. I already heard enough to keep me from sleeping for the next hundred years.”

Frank nodded before turning to leave. At the door, he turned back and kissed his wife quietly on the forehead, then walked out of the house.