Blood Brothers (12 page)

Michael killed the engine and stepped out.
Using the keyless entry fob, he secured the doors and the car gave
its responding double-chirp, signifying that it was now locked and
the alarm was online.

The entrance of his building was equipped
with state-of-the-art electronic locks as well as monitored by
sophisticated anti-intrusion equipment. Michael keyed in a
seven-digit code that not only unlocked the door, but also
generated an electronic entry in the mainframe’s memory recording
who and exactly when the door had been opened and the alarm
system’s operation suspended. If such extremes bespoke of Michael’s
distrust of his small staff, then so be it.

Michael employed a total of eight people on a
full time basis to serve as support personnel for his management
company. Andrew Crowe, a fatherly older man who’d once run his own
real-estate agency successfully for many years, was his right-hand
man who ran the day-to-day operations, leaving his boss free to
decide on how best to deepen the coffers. Jim Strite was the
venture’s anal accountant who kept Michael and his subordinates out
of hot water with the IRS and also took care of payroll and bonus
disbursement, of which Michael thought himself very generous in
comparison to others in his field. Vaughn Meyers, a good-looking
outgoing gentleman close to Michael’s own age, was the scout, as it
were. Vaughn was gone more than he was in the office, not only
keeping an eye on Michael’s holdings, but checking out new
prospects as well. The rest of the staff complement, Mya Feldon,
Trisha Gold, Sally Jade, and Kimberly Cull, were all women and
shared the bulk of the secretarial duties for the men, all save for
Sally Jade. Sally reported to only one man and could, if she so
pleased, tell everyone else to kiss her ass and not worry a bit
about it. Sally was Michael’s personal assistant, but in no way at
all did that make her a secretary. In fact, she probably generated
more work for the secretarial pool of Mya, Trisha, and Kim than all
the men together.

A very intelligent former journalism student
who had studied at Columbia until returning home to care for an
ailing mother, Michael considered Sally the find of a lifetime.
While she was a knock-out to look at, Michael had never had any
luck at taking her to bed. She was a strong-willed
ultra-independent young woman who did not believe that sleeping
with the boss was on life’s list of acceptable behaviors. He’d even
offered to fire her and hire her back after a nice weekend away. No
dice.

She performed her job far and away better
than anyone Michael had ever known. She kept his secrets secret and
didn’t seem to have an opinion on the darker side of Michael Cole,
which worked well for him and probably was responsible for the
higher than average salary young Sally was given.

Privy to things that Michael had his hand in
that no one in the office had any inkling of, she was a valuable
asset to him and he treated her as such. He showered her with
expensive gifts; perfume, huge bonus checks, an expense account,
even her vehicle was leased in his name. Sooner or later he would
break down her defenses and they would meet each other in the
bedroom. But for now, he found himself satisfied with her serving
as his assistant.

Letting himself in, Michael turned no lights
on. He strode through the reception area and mounted the stairs
leading to the second and then third floor. The third floor was
Michael’s domain. A large conference room, complete with a long
obsidian meeting table and leather-bound chairs, video conferencing
equipment and small kitchenette, housing coffee and soda stores as
well as a cappuccino machine, was only used at his personal
discretion. Sally kept an office that was relatively large and
well-furnished, and adjoined his own.

Michael’s office, however, was a study in
extravagance. Walnut-paneled walls, polished hardwood floors
covered with rich oriental area rugs, brushed steel furnishings
with deep-set bookshelves crammed with rare tomes, original oils
and watercolors in exquisite frames, accentuated by small lamps
above each, the office was as much a tool for intimidation as it
was a work space. Beyond the main room was a modest den with full
bathroom for when Michael needed a bit of rest or simply needed to
refresh himself.

He let himself him in, again accessing his
office by way of electronic lock, and breathed a sigh of relief
upon entering. If home is where your heart is, then this was his
home. The house that he shared with his family was his residence
but this office was his sanctuary. He had schemed and connived and
built his name in this very room, the place in which he found
himself the most relaxed, and yet the most driven.

Michael took a seat behind his desk and
started up his computer. The Windows theme filled the office and
then quickly died away. Keying in his password, his desktop opened.
He didn’t plan on doing anything on the computer, just wanted to
take a look at the widgets displayed across the screen, showing him
everything from the present weather—not like he didn’t have a wide
plate glass window behind him—to the most up-to-date news the
international media had to offer.

He kicked back in his chair, crisscrossed his
fingers behind his head, and thought about calling Christal. He
could do whatever it was he was going to do here, finish that up
and go pick her up and take her out for a nice lunch. He would even
invite Stephanie, if she didn’t have anything else going on today.
They could go for pizza, Christal’s favorite. That would be
nice.

His phone rang. Not his cell, but his desk
phone.

Through the week, all calls were routed
through reception. His calls were then delivered to Sally and if
she thought the call worthy of her boss, she then sent it on to
him. On the weekends and after hours, all calls came through.
Michael lifted the phone from its cradle and spoke, “Hello.”

“Michael,” the voice was hoarse, but
feminine.

“Carrie? I’ve been trying to call you since
yesterday. Where the hell—”

“I was sick, Michael. Especially in the
morning.”

“Sick, what do you mean sick. You’ve got a
cold?”

“No, Michael, not a cold. I don’t have the
flu. I don’t have the chicken pox. I’m sick to my stomach, nausea.
Every morning this week.”

“Oh,” he said. The realization was just
kicking in.

“Have you taken a test?”

A pause—one too long to be merely comfortable
silence. Then, “Four, as a matter of fact.”

Michael swallowed hard. He sat up in his
chair, the leather squeaking as he did so. “Well…then…”

“Is that all you can say?”

“What do you want me to say—fucking
congratulations?”

“You bastard.”

“Now that’s kind.”

“Why do you think I haven’t told you before
now? I knew you’d act like this. Just like this.”

“Now Carrie, there’s no need to get
upset.”

“Yeah, Michael. I think there’s plenty
need.”

“Well, do you think I’m the father?”

Michael heard her take a sharp breath at the
question. He didn’t want to ask, but hell, Carrie Vaughn wasn’t a
woman who walked the straight and narrow.

“You son of a bitch! Of course it’s yours!
Who else’s would it be?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, darling, but
it could be anybody’s. You know that, I know that. Everyone in town
knows that you keeping your knees together is like Albert Einstein
having a good hair day; it just isn’t happening.”

“You motherfucker—”

“Look, I really don’t need this right now. I
just got in after a long night spent alone because you didn’t have
the common courtesy to call and tell me you weren’t coming, after I
shelled out good money for a room in your favorite hotel. Now not
only do you tell me you’re pregnant and I’m actually supposed to
believe that I’m the father, you also speak to me as if I’m a piece
of trash. I’m not having this, Carrie.”

“Michael—I, uh…”

“Stop it, Carrie, just stop it.” Michael was
starting to feel his anger now, like a black mass of stinging
wasps. “You and I both know you drop your drawers to every Tom,
Dick and Harry that shows you a good time.”

“Michael.” This time her voice was deflated,
weakened.

“I tell you what. You find yourself a doctor
that will fix this little problem of yours, and you go see him.
Hell, I’ll even pay the tab. But you listen to me, and you hear me
good, I don’t want anything else to do with you ever again. Have I
made myself clear?”

“Michael, honey, sweetheart, don’t do this.
Please, God, don’t do this to me. I need you. I really, really do.
Now more than ever. I didn’t call you to upset you. I-I thought
maybe we, me and you, we could have this baby. I knew you wouldn’t
leave her.” Apparently, the word Stephanie is just too much for
her, Michael thought. “But we could have done something. We could
have had something.”

And then came the sobbing. Didn’t it always?
There came the smug talk, the shouting, then, as always, came the
sobbing. It was at this stage when most men who had held out
through the first two stages, begin to crack.

Michael did feel a bit sorry for her. He
couldn’t help it. He wasn’t an animal. Was he? Just a few words
like, “Everything will be fine, Carrie,” “Everything will work
itself out,” “I’ll be here for you through this,” or even a weak,
“It’ll be okay. It will,” would have saved her a lot of sorrow
right now. It wouldn’t even have to be the truth. They could be
nothing more than hollow words with more sparkle and shine than
meaning. But, no. He couldn’t even bring himself to do that.

Instead, he simply listened as she cried,
moaned, and groaned. When, within minutes, he grew tired, he simply
said, “Enough, Carrie. Enough.” While his words were cruel, hers
were not, but he couldn’t find the will to offer the tiniest bit of
comfort or even concern.

“I’m sorry, Michael. I really am.”

“I’m sure you are, Carrie.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I know.”

“I-I…”

“Find that doctor and send me the bill.” He
placed the phone back on the cradle and before it could ring again,
he silenced the ringer.

He was just about to lean back in his
chair.

Someone rapped at his office door.

The sound startled him, but nothing like the
dread that rolled over him like a heavy blanket when he looked to
see who had entered.

Michael’s mouth dropped open and suddenly
everything in his life…changed.

After making sure that Carrie made it safely
home after their night together, Jerry had a few things he wanted
to take care of today.

Carrie Vaughn lived in a nice set of
brownstones on the east side of town. Obviously, the home was out
of her price range. Jerry found it very hard to believe that she
was anything more than a barely competent real estate agent, and
had no trouble imagining who footed the mortgage note every month.
Hell, he’d probably do the same if he were in the position to do
so. She had a body that rocked and knew exactly what to do with
it…or thought she had. Jerry, fortunately, had seen the need to
teach her a few more things. Things she would never forget.

A perky geriatric lady in a flashy pantsuit
was out walking the dog as Jerry came to a stop at Carrie’s
brownstone. Undoubtedly, Mother Time was one the local gossips
mongers, if the not chief scandal starter herself. Jerry figured
that she lived in one of the adjoining townhouses, and had noticed
that Carrie had not come home last night. As she recognized Carrie
in her vehicle, her eagle-eye gaze quickly shifted from her to
Jerry, pulled up at the curb.

He lifted a hand off the steering wheel and
gave her the finger. Might as well give her something to remember
him by, right? He took moderate delight in watching her mouth form
a large O.

Carrie keyed the front door, glanced back at
Jerry, giving him something like a half smile, half grimace, as if
she were contemplating quantum physics but suddenly had a bad gas
attack, then she disappeared inside. When the door shut, Jerry
eased the car back into the street and drove off.

Jerry didn’t play the radio. He found, as of
late, he didn’t care much for music. It was a distraction. The same
thing went for talk radio. He was single-minded and determined at
his task, and would let nothing sway him, even slightly, from the
path he had chosen.

It took Jerry about ten minutes to get from
Carrie’s residence to his destination. He pulled the rental into
the parking lot of a package store, with the nose headed away from
the establishment. From this vantage point he could take in the
front block of the Rolling Green Motor Court.

It took him all of ten seconds to realize
that the only thing changed in this little American shantytown, was
that things had gotten worse. It had never been the picture of
perfection, far from it, but now the rusted tin trailers looked as
if nothing more than a strong breeze would topple them into a pile
of rubbish. Old broken-down cars sat on concrete blocks, weeds
choked through faux stone and brick underpinnings, clothes hung
from clotheslines, and people sat on their front porches or in
their front yards, smoking and drinking from paper bags.

Jerry had spent a little time far back in the
rear of the trailer park, but he wasn’t ready to revisit that spot,
at least not yet. When the time came, perhaps, but until then, he’d
seen all he needed to. With only the vibrations from the rutted
street working through the steering column and other motorists to
dissuade him, he headed back to the heart of the town he had long
ago grown to hate, to visit the man he hated even more.

***

Carrie was quaking inside. Her entire body
felt like it had just done a freefall from a thousand feet and the
ground was coming closer by the second. As she pushed the door
shut, she fell against it, relieved to be home and relieved to be
shut off from the world, if only for just a moment.