The Consultant (17 page)

The shuffling sound was very clear.  

A person was outside their cabin, and Craig listened, assuming it was Robards doing some sort of nightly rounds. But the shuffling did not go away, did not move on. Instead, it circled around the cabin until it was back again, and against his will, he thought of that stupid story Robards had told last night about the abandoned boy who became a cannibal and broke into cabins searching for victims.  

The sound was close, seemingly right on the other side of the wall, and he sat up to see what he could through the dirty window.  

A horrible wrinkled face stared back at him from the other side of the filthy glass.  

Startled he sucked in his breath but, luckily, did not cry out. It was the old lady from the kitchen, he realized instantly, Robards’ wife—
Edna
— although what she was doing staring in at his room in the middle of the night he did not know. He glanced over at the other bed to make sure he had not awakened Elaine, and when he looked back, the face at the window was gone. He waited a moment to see if she would return, but the sound did not reappear and neither did that terrible visage.  

Craig lay back on the bed. Robards was a strapping young guy. Could that hideous crone really be his wife? It didn’t make sense, something about it didn’t add up, and Craig wondered if the scenario was part of some elaborate psychological test, if BFG had brought them up here to monitor them under artificial conditions in order to gauge their reactions to certain purposefully introduced stimuli.  

He was getting as paranoid as Phil.  

He closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep, but though there were no more sounds, sleep did not come easy, and when it did, it was marred by dreams of dark forests and old ladies and a fiendishly grinning Regus Patoff eating a dead dog at an indoor picnic table while wearing a blood-stained bib.  

THIRTEEN  

Even if the bus driver hadn’t given them a lecture about being on time when they first arrived, no one was about to miss the ride back. They were all packed and ready to go after a sad breakfast of cold burnt toast and runny scrambled eggs prepared by two of the division heads from Finance, and the remaining hours were taken up with subdued conversations, and filling out a survey form about the retreat that was so carefully and precisely worded that there was no way possible to criticize their experience here.  

Before leaving, they finally got their phones, tablets and iPods back. Craig tried to make a quick call to Angie, but there was still no service.  

The problem continued for the entire return trip, and Craig wondered aloud if the bus was equipped with some sort of transmission blocker or scrambler.  

“The guy reports to Patoff,” Phil noted, “so I wouldn’t be surprised.”  

Dash Robards had seen them off, standing in the parking lot and waving goodbye, a handgun in a shoulder holster conspicuously visible. Craig had turned away, glad to be leaving, and was gratified to see that no one else was returning the man’s wave either. The weekend had been a disaster. None of them had had a good time, none of them had learned anything, and they were returning disgusted and demoralized—which was exactly the opposite of the retreat’s intent.  

The bus driver was not the same one who had dropped them off on Friday, but he was equally hostile, and at a stoplight in San Bernardino he threatened to kick Phil off the bus for being disruptive and unruly. “You try it, and I’ll kick your ass,” Phil said to a chorus of cheers, and the bus driver, recognizing that he was outnumbered, seethed silently for the rest of the trip.  

It was great to be back in the city. They got stuck in traffic on the Pomona Freeway as a result of an overheated car on one of the middle lanes; the day was so smoggy that the buildings of downtown had lost all detail and were little more than gray shapes in the white air…and it was wonderful. Already, the events of the weekend seemed fantastical and far away, as though they’d happened in a dream.  

It was Sunday, but Regus Patoff was waiting for them when the bus pulled into the CompWare parking lot. He was standing in front of the building, wearing a bright blue bow tie, and his suspiciously colored flattop seemed even flatter than it had before. If his appearance was odd in the office, in the open air it looked positively clownish, and Craig wondered how anyone could take him seriously. They did, though. Not just at CompWare but at all of the other companies who’d hired BFG to streamline their operations.  

Craig grabbed his suitcase from beneath the seat and was caught for several moments in the slow-moving stream of people trudging toward the exit at the front of the bus. From outside, he heard Patoff announce to the departing employees, “No one is to leave. Remain in front of the bus until you are told what to do.”  

“Who does he think he is?” Phil said angrily. “He’s not my boss.”  

Nevertheless, he stepped off the bus and moved to the side, waiting with everyone else. Craig did the same. The consultant was speaking in low tones to Matthews and the members of the Board, and a moment later, the visibly shaken CEO stepped back while Patoff called a meeting in the first floor conference room. “This will be quick,” he promised, “and afterward you may go home, but first there are some matters that need to be discussed.”  

“Jesus,” Phil sighed. “Will this weekend never end?”  

As they walked into the building, Craig tried to call Angie on both their home phone and on her cell, but the land line was busy, and he was forced to leave a message on the cell phone’s voicemail, telling her he would be there soon.  

Both Matthews and Patoff walked up onto the stage, standing next to the podium, and as soon as everyone was seated, the CEO cleared his throat. “You’re going to hear this on the news tonight and read about it in the paper, but we thought you should learn about it here first.” Matthews took a deep breath. “Our recently resigned CFO Hugh Anderson and Senior Vice President Russell Cibriano both committed suicide yesterday.”  

There were several gasps of surprise, as well as widespread whispering.  

“It is indeed tragic. As you know, both men recently resigned after the Automated Interface merger did not go through, but they were both extremely competent professionals with extremely bright futures. I have no idea why either of them would do something so…drastic. Their deaths are a loss to their friends and families, their coworkers here at CompWare and our entire industry.”  

“The upside,” Patoff offered, “is that, according to the terms of their resignations, the company is no longer on the financial hook for their retirement benefits. The golden parachutes given to these former employees—which, by the way, I would have advised against offering if BFG had been consulting for CompWare at that point—are cancelled. So, while I’m sure their loved ones and even some of you may be saddened by their departures, from a fiscal standpoint, their deaths are quite fortuitous for the company, particularly at this time.”  

His remarks were greeted with shocked silence. Even Matthews and the members of the Board seemed stunned by the extraordinary callousness of the consultant’s words.  

“As to how they died,” the consultant continued, “in case you all are wondering, Mr. Anderson hung himself, while Mr. Cibriano slit his wrists.”  

Craig could not believe anyone, even Patoff, could be so heartless and unfeeling.  

The consultant pressed a button on the podium, and a screen began lowering behind him. “A lot of you are probably wondering why you had to come into the building and into the conference room to hear this news. After all, we could have announced it to you either while you were on the bus or when you had just gotten off. The reason is that I put together a little PowerPoint presentation that I thought you might like.”  

The lights dimmed.  

“As you can see, I was able to obtain police photographs of both men.”  

On the white screen behind him flashed a full color photo of Hugh Anderson hanging from an open beam in a neatly ordered garage. He was wearing a suit, and there was a large stain on his pants where he had wet himself. His head hung at a disturbing angle, his neck obviously broken, and both his face and his hands, at the ends of his loosely dangling arms, looked unnaturally dark.  

“Here’s Mr. Anderson. He was found in his garage by a gardener, who had come to do the lawn. The gardener told Mr. Anderson’s wife, who called the police.”  

The photo onscreen shifted to a close-up of the ex-CFO’s face, his purplish skin bulging and swollen; his tongue lolling between slack blackened lips; his bloodshot eyes so wide open they were practically popping out of their sockets.  

“And here is Mr. Cibriano.”  

The screen changed again.  

“Mr. Cibriano, uncharacteristically unclichéd, from what I’ve learned of his personality, did not do the deed in the bathtub, but rather bled out in his marital bed, where he was discovered by his wife and daughter, who had just returned home from a shopping trip to Nordstrom’s.”  

It was the most gruesome sight Craig had ever seen, an image he did not think he would ever be able to get out of his mind. Russell Cibriano, face contorted in agony, body twisted in anguish, lay on a bed drenched with red, severed veins visible in the sliced sections of wrist that gaped open and still appeared to be bleeding.  

There were more pictures, but he could not bear to look and stared at the side wall instead of the screen, a tactic that more than one person in his sightline seemed to be following.  

The lights came up again, and Craig turned his attention back to the podium, where a visibly upset Matthews told everyone to go home. “See you in the morning,” he said.  

Phil was silent until they were back in the parking lot, walking toward their cars. Craig knew what his friend was going to say, and he wasn’t sure he disagreed. “Doesn’t it seem a little
too
coincidental that both Anderson and Cibriano happened to commit suicide on exactly the same weekend?” Phil asked. “And that all of our cell phones were confiscated so that we couldn’t find out this information for ourselves, leaving Patoff to control the message and determine exactly when and how we were told?”  

Craig nodded. It was paranoid thinking, but it was also plausible. More than plausible. “And what was with those pictures?” he wondered aloud. “What was the point of that?”  

Around them, others were talking in hushed tones about what they’d seen.  

“A warning?” Phil said quietly.  

Craig frowned.  

“How else are we to take it? We’re herded in there to look at
Faces of Death
photos of two men Patoff told us were a drain on CompWare’s resources. I think he wanted us to know that if we cross him or step out of line…” He didn’t finish the thought.  

“I don’t think so,” Craig demurred.  

Phil shrugged. “Think what you want.”  

The suggestion wasn’t as outlandish as it should have been, and Craig was still thinking about it as he and Phil waved goodbye to each other and split off, walking to their separate rides.  

He’d been slightly worried about leaving his car in the CompWare parking lot for three days. Even in the nicest parts of Los Angeles, an unmoving vehicle was an invitation to thieves. But despite the fact that the lot was open and had no guard, his car was unmolested, and, grateful that something had finally gone right, he tossed his small suitcase on the passenger seat, got in and drove home.  

Pulling into his driveway, he saw movement behind the front window, and by the time he’d gotten out of the car, the front door of the house was thrown open and Dylan was speeding in his direction, Angie striding right behind.  

“Daddy!” Dylan yelled, running up and throwing his arms around him. Craig picked the boy up and hugged him back, his eyes welling. He hadn’t realized until this moment how much he’d missed his son, and though he’d only been gone since Friday morning, it felt as though they’d been apart for a month. It was impossible for him to have grown in such a short amount of time, but Dylan looked bigger, and while it was probably unrealistic, Craig vowed that he would do everything in his power not to spend another night away from his family.  

He put Dylan down. Angie gave him a quick perfunctory hug and kiss. “Thank God you’re back!” she said.  

“What is it?”  

“I just got a call from work. They want me over at the Urgent Care. Now.”  

He looked at his watch. “They’re closed already.”  

“I know. But Pam called a mandatory meeting. I have to go. I was going to bring Dylan with me, but now that you’re here…”  

“Don’t worry about it. Go.”  

She kissed him again. “I hate this,” she said.  

“Wait until I tell you about our little hunting exercise.”  

“You went hunting?”  

“Did you kill animals, Daddy?” Dylan sounded worried.  

“No,” he reassured his son. “I’ll tell you when you come back,” he promised Angie.  

“Why didn’t you call?” she asked.  

“I couldn’t. No reception up there. Besides, they confiscated our phones for the weekend so we’d have to rough it.” He shook his head. “I’ll tell you all about it.”  

“Okay.”  

“Go,” he told her.  

Angie dashed back inside to get her purse while Craig unloaded his suitcase from the car. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she told him, coming out. Her Acura was parked on the street instead of the driveway, and she waved goodbye to both of them as she hurried over to it.  

They waved back, watching her leave, then went inside. He was hungry, Craig realized. He hadn’t had a decent meal since breakfast Friday morning. He carried his suitcase into the bedroom, dropped it on the bed, then returned to the living room, where Dylan hadn’t moved.  

“Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?”  

“I missed you,” Dylan said honestly.  

Craig was touched. “I missed you, too.”  

“I brushed my teeth with Mommy but it wasn’t the same and I cried.”  

Craig couldn’t help smiling. He put an arm around his son’s shoulder. “Well, I’m back now, and I’ll brush with you after dinner.”