The Journal: Fault Line (The Journal Book 5) (7 page)

The entire office had gone quiet at
Christine’s announcement. One of the dentists leaned out of an exam
room. “What’s going on out here?” he growled.

“I’ll take care of it,” Mary Jane was quick
to answer. She grabbed Christine’s arm and led her to the break
room. After she closed the door, she turned to Christine.

“What do you mean Lois is dead? Are you sure?
Where is she?” Her voice was quiet yet laced with panic as she
handed Christine a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

Christine took a deep breath. “The quake hit
while we were on the lunch break. I was in the conference room on
the second floor with a few others, while Lois stayed downstairs
with the rest of the class. During one of the aftershocks I fell
and hit my head. I was out for about an hour I’m guessing. I don’t
know why Lois was on the stairs, she was safe on the main floor. I
had to climb over chunks of broken walls to get out. That’s when I
found her buried under a ton of rock in the stairway.” She paused
for a sip of water. “She’s still there.”

“Are you one hundred percent sure it was
Lois?”

“No doubts, Mary Jane. She was the only one
wearing hot pink sequined leggings, which was all I could see of
her,” Christine sobbed.

“What are
your
injuries? You look
fine.”

Christine brushed aside her bangs with the
tips of her fingers, revealing the now deep purple bruise and the
stitches on her forehead. Mary Jane flinched.

“I’m going to take a few days off,” Christine
announced. “Paid days. And here’s the packet from the session. It
explains everything the speaker told us about filling in the
forms.” She dropped the neatly stapled papers on the table and
stood.

“You can’t just leave. We need you here,”
Mary Jane said grabbing Christine’s arm in anger.

Christine looked down at the woman’s hand
restraining her. “I have a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health, a
year of pre-med, and I’m a state licensed dental hygienist with
several years of experience and you
need me
to fill out
insurance forms? Get your hands off of me before I add assault to
the lawsuit
I
intend to file.”

The office manager backed away.

***

Christine stepped out of the low office
building into the crisp fall day. A light breeze ruffled her short
blonde hair. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the
fragrant air. When she opened her eyes again, she caught sight of
yet another T’N’M convenience store. Heading across the street, she
wondered if Trevor would really call her. His collar length long
brown hair added to his boyish good looks, and his dark brown eyes
are what really caught her. He was a handsome man.

She pushed on the glass door of T’N’M’s to
find it locked. No lights were on inside the store, and the
security gates were down.
Odd
, she thought.

Her next stop was to the shop that took care
of her car. After leaving it there for repairs and to let them
fight with the insurance company over the damage, she took a cab
home, knowing her father’s dark blue SUV was parked in the garage
and she could use that for as long as she needed.

It was now noon. Those few hours of sleep
weren’t enough to wash away the aches and pains of the last few
days. Christine stripped off her clothes and crawled back into
bed.

At 5:15pm, the ringtone of her smartphone
broke through her sleep fogged brain. She slipped on her fluffy
pale green bathrobe and stumbled to the kitchen, looking for the
phone which had already stopped ringing. The caller ID gave a local
number that was only vaguely familiar so she let it go, not
noticing there had been another call earlier from the same number.
She yawned and headed to the bathroom for another shower to help
wake her up, her stomach grumbling with hunger. The phone rang
again a few minutes later, although she couldn’t hear it with the
water running.

***

Trevor hung up the phone, concerned that
Christine wasn’t picking up her calls. What if that bump on the
head gave her a concussion and she was unconscious? His worried
mind assailed his common sense. He decided that a visit was in
order, but he had a couple of stops to make first.

***

Trevor let himself in through the back door
of the Exit 31 store early in the morning. With the heavy traffic
of the last two days, he felt it prudent to close the doors for a
while and cancelled the day shift.

That morning Trevor had asked Riley, his most
trusted employee, to open the Spring Hill store instead of the Exit
31 store, and to stay there until Trevor relieved him, promising to
arrive no later than noon. Trevor had a very uneasy feeling about
what was going on and decided to make a few more phone calls. The
first one, to his main supplier, confirmed his worst fears: the
earthquake two days before had interrupted not only
his
shipments, but everyone’s. Food was going to run out, and fast.
What food was left in his three stores would last him personally
quite a while if he stopped selling it. It was a difficult decision
to make since most of his life had been focused on making money. It
was also an easy decision to make; Trevor was a survivor.

After securing all the security gates and
lowering the shades, Trevor shut the lights out and headed over to
the Main Street store.

“Adele, this is your lucky day. I’m going to
take over for a few hours,” Trevor said to the middle aged woman at
the counter. “Do you have your timecard up to date? Payday is also
early.”

“Gee, boss man, what’s up?”

“I need to do a private inventory of all the
stores. I will give you a call when I’ve got the new schedule set,”
he said, taking her work sheet into his back office. He quickly ran
her hours and figured what she was due, and then he doubled it to
make up for the coming lost hours. He counted out the cash from the
pouch from the other store and slipped it into a plain
envelope.

“Is something wrong, Trevor?” Adele asked
quietly.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Pay is in cash
today, and I added enough for next week too. Now go home and enjoy
the nice weather.” He escorted her out the front door, promptly
locking up with the frown she couldn’t see. He lowered the blinds
and the security gates like he did the other store, then emptied
the register and turned out the lights.

***

“What’s going on, Trev?” Riley asked when
Trevor arrived at the Spring Hill store. This was his first and
therefore favorite store. Besides, he lived in the apartment above
it.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about what’s going on
because of the earthquake, so I’m shutting down for a week or two
until things quiet down.”

“Seriously? Wow, man, you’ve never done that
before. You must be really worried.”

“Not
real
worried, although enough to
take some precautions,” Trevor admitted. He flipped the open sign
to closed and started locking the security gates. “Lower the blinds
for me, will ya? I’ll get your pay.” He disappeared into his office
with the register receipts. He already had an idea of Riley’s pay,
so he didn’t bother with the time sheet. Stuffing an ample amount
of cash into an envelope, he found his employee putting on his
jacket by the back door.

“Here you go, Riley. There’s extra to make up
for the lost wages,” Trevor handed him the hefty envelope. “Before
you go, take a couple cases of beer with you as a bonus.”

Christine towel dried her
hair, combed out the tangles, and then fluffed it with her fingers
to help it dry. Tightening the belt on her robe, she headed to the
kitchen to find something to eat. The front doorbell rang, followed
by a loud knock. She looked through the peephole and even though
the view was distorted, she could see it was Trevor and opened the
door cautiously.

“Oh, there you are,” he said sheepishly.
“When you didn’t answer three calls I got worried.” He looked into
her blue eyes and couldn’t help but drop his gaze to the open V of
her robe and then all the way down to her bare feet. He looked
away, embarrassed. “I… I… I brought some dinner.” He met her eyes
again and she smiled, opening the door for him to come in.

Trevor set two pizza boxes down on the
kitchen table, along with a bag from the sub shop, a six pack of
beer, and another bag with two wine bottles.

“That’s a lot of food, Trevor. Are we
expecting company?” Christine laughed nervously, and swallowed
hard, knowing she was naked under the robe, and knowing that he
knew that too. “Why don’t you set the beer in the fridge? I’ll be
right back.”

She hurried out of the room.

Once in her bedroom she ripped off the robe
and put on the first t-shirt her hand came in contact with, along
with a thin pair of sweat pants, and rushed back to the
kitchen.

“I’m sorry to have surprised you, Christine,”
Trevor apologized. “I don’t normally just show up at someone’s
door.”

“Then why did you?” she asked curiously.

“Like I said, you didn’t answer your phone
and I got worried.” He busied himself opening the pizza boxes and
setting out the sandwiches. “Would you like a beer or some wine?”
He was obviously nervous.

“Beer and pizza sounds pretty good,
actually.” She smiled at him. “And thank you, I’m really hungry! I
haven’t eaten yet today. It was thoughtful of you to bring dinner
with you, though I wasn’t expecting our first date to be an in-home
pizza party.” She stopped, realizing she said this was their first
date
.

“Um... we can go out if you prefer,” he
offered.

“No, no, this is fine. This is great, in
fact.” She looked down, embarrassed. “Look, Trevor, I slipped up
calling this a date. I’m sorry. I know you were just concerned.”
She took a long swallow from the beer he handed her, not meeting
his eyes.

“Christine,” he stepped closer, “this
is
a date. A bit different than what I was planning,
although I’m not unhappy about it.” He touched his beer bottle to
hers and took a drink. “Not knowing your preferences yet, I brought
a cheese and pepperoni pizza and one with everything; one sub is
vegetarian and one is double meat; and the wine is a California red
blend.”

“Wait, how did you know where I lived?”

“Oh, yeah.” He dug into his jacket pocket and
handed her driver’s license to her. “Here, you left this behind
last night.”

They took the pizza boxes to the coffee table
in the living room. Trever sat on the floor to eat, and Christine
retrieved two more beers from the fridge, a bottle of wine, a cork
opener, two glasses, and set them on the table.

She sat on the floor with Trever. “There, now
we don’t have to get up again.”

“How was your day?” Trevor asked. “Are you
feeling better?”

“I spent most of the day sleeping. That was
after I went to the office and had a bit of an argument with my
boss.” She told him about the conversation with the office
manager.

“Your co-worker actually died there? Wow.
That must be really upsetting.” He put his hand over hers.

“Yes, it is. I didn’t really like Lois,
though I didn’t dislike her either. Fact is, I barely know… knew
her. All this has left me in a daze, to be honest.” She took a bite
of pizza and washed it down with some wine. “By the way, why is the
T’N’M’s on Main closed? I thought the stores were open 6:00am to
midnight.”

“To conserve the stock in the stores.”

“You must be a trusted employee to have that
information,” she commented.

“Christine, I
own
the stores,” he
confessed. “The T’N’M stands for Trevor Nicolas Monroe. That’s
me.”

“Oh.”

“Does that bother you?” he asked
cautiously.

“Not at all. It’s just a surprise because
you’re so young.”

“Thirty-five isn’t all that young. Besides,
you have a successful career at thirty, right?” he continued. “More
wine?”

“Thanks. Now, explain to me what you mean
about conserving the stores’ stock. Don’t you get regular
shipments?”

“Ah, now that’s the kicker. With this
earthquake happening—and my sales have jumped through the roof by
the way—I called my suppliers for an extra delivery. Apparently all
shipping has come to a halt. Nothing can get over the Mississippi
River right now. No shipping means no deliveries, and no deliveries
mean no food for
any
stores, big or small.”

He went silent while that sunk in.

“I hadn’t thought about it that way. What are
people going to do?” Christine asked in alarm.

“Let me ask you this, Christine. What are
you
going to do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should go into
Indianapolis and do some grocery shopping at one of the bigger
stores; stock up on a few things.”

“The bigger the city, the bigger the
problems. If you do decide to go in, please let me go with you. I
don’t think it’s going to be safe for anyone, especially not a
pretty girl.”

“You think I’m pretty?” she asked, the wine
making her bold.

“No, you’re not pretty; you’re beautiful.” He
leaned across the narrow wooden table and gently touched his lips
to hers. “There may be an alternative shopping trip. I’m going to
need help to discreetly move all my stock into one secure store. If
you help me, I’ll pay you in food.” He had withdrawn to his side of
the table, leaving Christine reeling from the brief kiss.

***

“May I ask you a personal question, Trevor?”
Christine said a few minutes later after she composed herself.

“Sure, ask away.”

“Well, it’s not really a question. You’re a
really good looking guy and obviously smart and successful, so I’m
surprise you’re not married or have a girlfriend. Or do you?” She
hesitated. “I’m sorry, maybe that’s
too
personal.”