False Security (6 page)

The conference
room door shut, followed by two sets of footsteps, one heading toward the front
door, the other coming toward Paul Pettis. The deliberate slamming of the front
door confirmed Paul’s suspicions, and he moved into position by the top of the
stairwell.

He listened to the footfalls,
and held his breath until he caught a glimpse of Sean rounding the corner. Paul
grabbed a fistful of Sean’s shirt, whirled him around, and threw him against
the wall with all the force he could muster.

Sean’s breath came out with a
grunt. “What the hell?”

“You found her, didn’t you?”
Paul asked. He pulled Sean away from the wall and slammed him into it again.
Sean’s small stature made him easy to toss around when Paul deemed necessary.
“Where is she?”

“Take it easy!” Sean said.
“She’s in Wichita, Kansas.”

Paul frowned. Kansas? What the
hell was she doing in Kansas? He thought she should have left the country a
long time ago, but she did not have the same idea. “Give me the envelope,” Paul
said.

Sean held up a manila envelope
and waved it in Paul’s face like a white flag. “All you had to do was ask.”

Paul released Sean and took the
envelope. He reached inside and pulled out a thin handful of photographs. “You
didn’t take many pictures this time,” he said.

Sean smoothed down his shirt to
eliminate the wrinkles left behind by Paul’s grip. “I took as many as I always
do. He kept most of them.”

Of course he did, Paul thought.
He tucked the envelope under his arm and flipped through the photos. His
disgust with Sean grew with each picture. When he got to the fourth picture, he
almost dropped the whole stack. “Who’s the guy with her?”

Sean ran his hands over an oil
slick of gel on the top of his head. Paul never understood the dark wave of
plastered hair. “His name is Mark Jacobson,” Sean said. “He’s twenty-nine and
he owns a bookstore with his brother, Greg. The bookstore is right by where
she’s staying. She’s been spending a lot of time with him outside of the
bookstore.”

The details didn’t interest
Paul. “You gave all of these pictures to him? Even the ones with her and this
guy?”

“I had to show him—”

“Why the hell did you show these
pictures to him? You could have left the ones with the guy out.”

“Get off my back. It’s my job to
take the pictures and show him all of them. He’d kill me if he found out I
didn’t give him all the photos. I’m not going to put myself in jeopardy over
this girl to make you happy.”

Paul lowered the pictures and
glared at Sean. “It’s your job to find her, not get her or this guy killed.”

“It’s my job to find her, but
what happens to her or the guy in the pictures after I do my job is none of my
business.”

Paul narrowed his eyes and backed
Sean up against the wall, resisting the urge to choke him to death right there
in the hallway. Pushing a finger into Sean’s shoulder, he said, “You’re nothing
but a slimy, sick, worthless bastard. You know what happened to the last guy
like you who lived here? I put a bullet through his head. Slime oozed out with
all that blood. Now, get the hell out of my sight before I do the same thing to
you.”

Sean eased his way along the
wall and scrambled out of Paul’s reach.

“And I want a copy of the
written report,” Paul said before Sean could start down the stairs. “Go
downstairs and bring it back to me right now.”

“I can’t do it this time. I’d
have to get the report back from him to make a copy, and you know I’m not
supposed to show anyone the reports. Nobody’s even supposed to know where she
is, especially not you.”

Paul restrained his temper.
Sean’s hands were as tied as Paul’s, and it did no good to take everything out
on him. “I don’t care if you have to rewrite the damn thing from memory, just
get it to me.” He softened his voice and locked eyes with Sean. “Please. I need
to see it.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sean
said, “but like I said, she’s not worth me losing my life.” He hesitated by the
stairwell. “Give me back the envelope.”

“I’ll give it to you when I’m
done with it,” Paul said, his tone dismissive. He waited for Sean to head down
the steps before taking a closer look at the pictures.

The first one was standard, like
so many he had seen in the past. Rachel was opening her car door, oblivious to
Sean’s camera capturing her face. Paul wondered why she made no attempt to
change her appearance this time. She always changed the color or style of her
hair, always wore colored contacts, yet there she stood with her natural hair
and eye color for the whole world to see.

The next two pictures also
caught her engaged in daily activities. Getting mail, walking from her house to
her car. The fourth picture strayed from the norm. She stood beside her car
again, but not alone. A man, Mark Jacobson, was turned toward her, his face
dangerously close to hers. She held her head down and a smile played on her
lips. Farther down the picture, Mark’s hand touched her hip.

The fifth picture also showed
Mark in front of her, but this time they were frozen in a kiss, his fingers raised
to her cheek in a loving gesture. They looked like any other normal couple
enjoying each other’s company on a date.

Paul smiled at the sixth
picture. It showed more of Mark than it did of her, and Paul recognized the
expression on his face. His eyes radiated an innocent yearning and appreciation
for Rachel. It reminded Paul of how he felt looking at his wife when he first
saw her, back when the world still rotated to the east. Mark loved her, and
from Mark’s expression, Rachel returned that love. With Mark looking at her
like that, Paul understood why Rachel had stayed long enough in Kansas for Sean
to catch up to her again.

Paul continued studying Mark’s
face, glad for the first time in three years she found someone to make her
happy. Then something else occurred to Paul. Mark didn’t know the truth about
her. She hadn’t told him yet, if she ever planned on telling him. His eyes
lacked the torment often reflected in Paul’s eyes, in Rachel’s eyes.

If she stayed in Kansas much
longer, Mark would find out about Rachel soon enough. Once he did find out, he
would wish he’d never met her.

Paul turned to the last picture.
Rachel stood next to Mark, holding his hand, her head tilted toward his, her
face paused in mid-laugh. Paul touched her through the photograph and whispered
a warning she would never hear. “Run, Rachel.”

“It’s a boy!”
Greg said. He walked toward the cash register with a photograph in his hand.

The grin on Greg’s face revealed
him as a proud father in the making, and Mark laughed. “Just what the Jacobson
clan needs,” Mark said. “Another boy.” He took the picture Greg held out.
“What’s this?” he asked.

“It’s a sonogram picture. They
even made a videotape during the sonogram. It’s amazing what they can do.”

James McCormick rose from the
stool behind the register and stood over Mark’s shoulder. “A sono-what?”

“Sonogram,” Mark said. “You
know, where they—”

“I know what a sonogram is,”
James said. He grabbed the picture from Mark’s hand. “I didn’t hear what he
said.”

“Please be careful,” Greg said.
“It’s the first picture of my son.”

James ignored him. He held the
picture in front of his face, and then moved it away. “I can’t tell what’s what
on here.”

Greg walked around the counter
and stood behind them. Pointing at the middle of the picture, he said, “There’s
his head, and over here are his legs and feet.”

James handed the picture back to
Mark, who stared at it for a moment before turning it upside down. He cocked
his head to the side. The picture looked like a jumbled mess of white and grey
dots. “You mean this white spot is his head?” Mark asked.

Greg took the picture back from
Mark and frowned. “Yeah, I think so. That’s what Anna said anyway.”

Mark laughed. “You can’t see it
either?”

“Don’t ever tell Anna I don’t
know where he is in the picture.” As an afterthought, Greg said, “Oh, and when
you see her next, tell her you loved it.”

“Of course,” Mark said. “I’m not
about to get in trouble. I never know what her mood will be when I see her.”

James sat back down on the
stool. He took the picture from Greg and moved it back and forth from his face
again. “I don’t see it.”

“You have to hold it still,”
Greg said.

“Nah,” James said. “It’s like
one of those scrambled up pictures where you can’t see it unless you stare at
one spot for a long time, and then start backing away from it.” He demonstrated
with the sonogram picture.

“Let me know if that helps,”
Greg said. To Mark, he said, “By the way, Anna wants you and Rachel to come
over for dinner Sunday night. She’s offended you haven’t introduced her to
Rachel. She thinks it’s because she’s fat and ugly and you’re embarrassed to
have her as a sister-in-law.”

“How can she be fat? She’s four
months pregnant and just started showing. Besides, Anna wouldn’t be ugly no
matter how much weight she gains with the baby.”

Greg thrust his hands out, palms
up. “That’s what I’ve been saying, but she doesn’t listen to me. Anyway, she
wants to make sure she approves of ‘the new girl’, as she puts it. She doesn’t
want you getting married before she can check Rachel out.”

“Like one overprotective sibling
wasn’t enough. You can tell Anna there isn’t going to be a wedding anytime
soon.” Mark grinned. “At least not for the next few months. I’ll see what Rach
is up to Sunday, but I’m not guaranteeing anything.”

“Just convince her to come.
Also, can you bring dinner?”

“Excuse me?”

“Anna’s such a perfectionist and
she wants Rachel to think she can cook.”

Mark chuckled. “We both know
Anna can’t even make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, same as you.”

“Don’t tell Anna that. She wants
to impress Rachel, so can you cook dinner and bring it by earlier in the day?
Then Anna can heat it up and look like she was hard at work in the kitchen all
day. She wants you to bring your stuffed chicken with those spices in the red
sauce you make,” he said.

“That narrows it down,” Mark
said.

“And she’ll make her fruit
salad.”

“Oh no,” Mark said. “Last time
she made fruit salad we were all sick. I still don’t know what was in the sauce
she added to it. Tell her not to worry about anything, except maybe some bread
or rolls. I’ll make the side dishes and I’ll even bring a bottle of wine to
keep up appearances.”

“Don’t forget some sparking
non-alcoholic wine for Anna.” Greg stared at Mark’s outstretched hand.

“It’s going to cost money to do
this. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but who ever heard of asking your guest to cook
dinner?”

Greg groaned and pulled his
wallet out his back pocket. He placed a twenty-dollar bill in Mark’s hand.

Mark left his hand out. “This
will get you plain baked chicken, no sauce, no sides, and no wine.” He smiled
as Greg placed another twenty in his hand. “Thank you.”

“I have a feeling you screwed me
out of some money.”

“Of course I did,” Mark said,
putting the money in his own wallet. “I never said we could make it to dinner.”

“I see him!” James said. He held
the picture out so they could get a better look. “Here’s his head, and here’s
his arms,” he said, pointing to different areas on the picture.

“No, I think that might be a leg
there.” Greg took the picture and a smile formed on his lips. “You know, it
doesn’t matter what’s what. That’s my son.”

Mark beamed with admiration. He
had looked up to Greg since his youth. He learned Greg was his only true parent
very early on, when he realized his mother loved alcohol more than her
children, and when he saw his missing-in-action father kiss a younger woman.
Both times his sense of being betrayed caused him to run to Greg for guidance.

Greg never hesitated to help him
through whatever life brought. He was never condescending, but loving and
reassuring. Greg had been there to help with homework, fights with friends, and
the discovery that girls were more important than sewer snakes.

When Mark was ten, he came home
from school to find his mother asleep on a recliner, a glass of vodka spilled
on the floor by her feet. He picked up the glass and kissed her cold cheek. He
found a blanket to cover her up, and ignored the empty prescription bottle in
the chair beside her.

Responsible beyond his ten
years, he retreated to his room to study his spelling words for a test the next
day. When Greg returned home from his job at the bookstore, their mother had
been dead for almost seven hours.

Their father continued his
trucking job, keeping him away for days and even weeks at a time, their
mother’s suicide a momentary distraction in his hectic, adulterous lifestyle.
One year later, as Greg wrestled between taking classes at Wichita State
University or working at the bookstore to help support Mark, their father suffered
a heart attack on the road. His truck crashed into an overpass right after he
took his last breath.

His future decided for him, Greg
continued working at the bookstore as an assistant manager, while Mark finished
middle school and high school. As Mark lived Greg’s dream of college, Greg
became the manager at the bookstore.

When Mark emerged four years
later with a business degree and no plans for his own life, Greg broached the
subject of buying out the retiring couple he had worked under since high school.
Mark agreed, and the brothers were soon partners in a venture of which neither
could be sure. Seven years later, Mark knew he had made the right decision.

“Why are you looking at me like
that?” Greg asked, snapping Mark out of his reverie.

“I’m happy for you,” Mark said.
“If anyone deserves this, it’s you.”

Greg smiled. “Thank you. That
means a lot to me. And I’m happy for you, too.”

“What for?”

“You know, this whole Rachel
thing. It’s good to see you so...attached to someone like her. She’s done wonders
for you.”

“What are you talking about?”
Mark asked.

“You have this healthy glow
about you,” Greg said. His staccato laugh bounced off the bad acoustics in the
store.

Mark rolled his eyes.

“You’ll never guess what he did
today,” James said. “He bought her flowers.”

Greg clutched his chest. “You
bought a woman flowers?”

“Yes,” Mark said. “What’s wrong
with giving her flowers?”

“When’s the last time you bought
someone flowers?”

Mark squinted and crossed his
arms, as he tried to remember if he had ever done that before. “There was one
girl—”

“What girl?” Greg asked. “You
know you’ve never bought flowers for a girl before. Between ‘hello’ and
‘goodbye’ you’ve never had time for romantic gestures. Did Rachel like them?”

“I don’t know. She was working
at the shelter when I stopped by, so I left them with Danielle.”

“Can you hook me up with
Danielle?” James asked. “She’s hot.”

“Danielle hot?” Mark said. The
idea of Danielle being anything other than Rachel’s hyperactive, yet loyal best
friend was foreign to him.

“Yeah,” James said. A
mischievous grin took over his mouth. “I’d like to—”

Mark didn’t let him finish. “No
way. Anything you’d like to do would end up causing problems with me and
Rachel.”

“You two work this out
yourselves,” Greg said. “I have to get home. James, aren’t you working
anymore?”

“Yeah, I’m over at the liquor
store now,” he said, pointing out the window toward the strip mall across the
street. “But I don’t work tonight. I’m keeping Mark company ‘cause Sarah went
home sick.”

“I thought we were missing an
employee,” Greg said. “You couldn’t call anyone else in?”

“We can handle it,” Mark said.
“It won’t get busy for another hour or so, and Jason will be here for his shift
by then.”

“Call me if you need me,” Greg
said. “And Mark, don’t forget to ask Rachel about Sunday.”

“I won’t,” Mark promised. “I’ll
ask her when I see her tonight.”