Lost Soul (14 page)

He knew Colby was safe and happy now in heaven, so he didn’t worry about him anymore, but he still frequently thought of him and reminisced about the few short years they had spent together.
 
For the first several years after Colby’s death, whenever Michael saw a child with a Cabbage Patch doll he just about lost himself in uncontrolled sobs.
 
He was grateful when the toys fell out of popularity.

Jessica, on the other hand, was a whole other agony.
 
He assumed she was still alive, still healthy and hopefully happy, but with no way to assure himself he spent hours thinking about her, wondering where she was and how she was doing.
 
He tortured himself with his own imagination, conjuring up new horrors every day.
 
What if Falla had been distracted for one moment and Jessica had been injured?
 
What if she was paralyzed and unconscious, living out her days lying in a hospital bed somewhere?

Michael’s thoughts always took the same torturous route.
 
First, something would spark his recollection and he would be pulled back into his memories, reliving a precious moment from his past.
 
His heart would warm as he would watch her in his mind’s eye, dancing or playing or even just sleeping, her angelic little face puckered up in dreams, and he would smile as he remembered how wonderful she was.
 
But memories always led to questions and Michael soon found himself trying to imagine what Jessica’s life was like at each turn of the calendar.
 
With no information to guide him, Michael’s fantasies always turned to nightmares where Jessica’s future became a gaping hole of desolation and despair.

Perhaps Emit was right that knowing where Jessica was at would just tempt Michael to go to her, but at least if he could see her once and know she was okay, he could spare himself a lot of heartache, he thought.
 
Instead he repeated the same fatalistic scenarios every night in his head while he watched Maxwell sleeping off another hangover.

She would be 15 now, he realized, a lovely young lady for sure.
 
There was no doubt in his mind that her dramatic features, her lustrous dark hair and rosy red lips and cheeks, so adorable in childhood, had developed into nothing short of beautiful as she matured.
 
He wondered if she had had her first kiss, if some awkward teenage boy had caught her eye.
 
With no way of knowing for sure, all he could do was wonder and hope that everything was okay.

Michael was almost positive there was a lot of heartache in Maxwell’s future.
 
Max always seemed to do the most irresponsible thing with no thought to the consequences.
 
So far there had been no major catastrophes, but only by the grace of God and the quick response of Maxwell’s ever-vigilant guardian angel.
 
Michael hoped that Maxwell might settle down a little bit now that he was an adult, no longer a rowdy college student but instead a professional businessman with a budding career.
 
For obvious reasons, though, Michael had his doubts.

Maxwell hustled out the door with his father right behind him, bypassing the kitchen with the assumption that coffee would be available at the office and his secretary could be charged with fetching him breakfast.

When they arrived at the company, Alexander led his son to his office for a chat.
 
“All right, son,” Alexander began, leaning against the front of his massive mahogany desk with his arms crossed against his chest.
 
Maxwell plopped down on one of the upholstered armchairs and fiddled with the heavy brass paperweight on the end table beside him.
 
“You’ve managed to finish college, albeit by the skin of your teeth, so I will make good on my promise to employ you here at the company for as long as you can provide value to the operation.
 
But I want you to understand that being my son will in no way excuse you from the irresponsible behavior you have previously exhibited in all your undertakings.
 
As a member of this operation, I will expect you to put forth the same level of effort and commitment as any other employee.
 
In fact, as my son your actions are a direct reflection of my reputation and authority, and I will not have them sullied by your insouciance, so I expect exemplary performance and behavior befitting the son of the president of this corporation.
 
Do you understand, Maxwell?”

“Sure, Dad, whatever.
 
No worries.
 
I know what I’m doing,” Max replied, picking his teeth with his nails.

Alexander rolled his eyes.
 
“Come with me, I want to give you a tour of the company.”

Maxwell looked confused.
 
He’d been to this office a thousand times over the years.
 
Why would he need a tour?

“You’ve seen the offices and the board room and whatnot,” Alexander answered in response to Maxwell’s bewildered look, “but the most important aspects of this business go on behind the gilded offices of the executives.
 
The employees are the real guts of this operation, and you need to understand how this company functions before you can be a beneficial part of it.”

Alexander led him through the rows of cubicles filling the large space behind the front offices where he schmoozed with the bigwigs.
 
In the noisy room, office workers typed diligently on computer keyboards while talking on telephone headsets and slurping coffee in-between calls.
 
Maxwell cringed at the chaos and noise, likening the environment to the human equivalent of ants in hive.

Next came the research and development wing where men in short-sleeve dress shirts and large, wire-rimmed glasses bent over circuit boards and muttered nonsense words like motherboard and bitstream and turboencabulator while glancing repeatedly at computer monitors flashing randoms streams of information.
 
Maxwell shook his head in confusion, wondering if they were actually speaking English at all.
 
He only recognized every third or fourth word.
 
Alexander explained how the cutting edge research their team was doing had paved the way for their company to rise to the top of the computer industry, a field they expected to explode over the next few years.

Exiting the well-appointed building at the front of the property, Alexander commandeered a golf cart and the two men made their way to the large warehouse that occupied the back half of the Covington Electronics acreage.
 
As soon as they entered, the heat and stench overwhelmed them.
 
Here, tired-looking blue collar workers dressed in jeans and supportive footwear assembled high dollar electronics amidst the rumble of machinery and the din of a hundred different conversations.

“This, son, is where your fancy clothes and expensive car came from — from the sweat on their brows.
 
Each employee in this factory assembles hundreds of thousands of dollars of electronics every day and it’s because of them that you have had the great fortune to grow up with so many advantages.
 
I want you to appreciate that, son, so that’s why starting today you will be working right next to them here in the factory.”

Maxwell’s jaw dropped as he stared at his father in complete shock and incomprehension.
 
A thousand arguments tumbled around in his mind and he worked his jaw, struggling to offer one of them, but Alexander raised a hand to silence him.

“I know that’s not what you were expecting, son, but I’ve given this a lot of thought and I can’t think of any better way to teach you the value of hard work than to make you do some.
 
Prove yourself here in the factory and I will give you the opportunity to move up.
 
But if you can’t handle it here, you’ll never be an asset to me in the boardroom.”

Maxwell shrunk as his father’s words sunk in.
 
Was it worth it to have to start at the bottom?
 
Maybe he should just forget about Covington Electronics and find a job somewhere else.
 
With a degree in business administration surely some other company would recognize his value and offer him an executive position.
 
Then maybe after a few years his father would see what he could do and ask him to come back.

“I know what you’re thinking, son, and it’s not going to happen.
 
This is the only chance I’ll give you to be part of Covington Electronics.
 
If you want to find a job somewhere else go right ahead, but the only way you’ll ever see the inside of Covington again is to start at the bottom.”

Maxwell knew his father had him.
 
There was no way he was going to forfeit the chance of a high-ranking position at his family’s company.
 
Even the best position he could attain at another company would pale in comparison to the eminence of working for the world’s leading electronics corporation, and Maxwell’s father was the king of that empire.
 
He was also stubborn and used to getting his own way.
 
Maxwell knew he would never cave once his mind was made up.

Michael smirked in appreciation of Alexander’s brilliant move.
 
Alexander knew his son was a screw up and he didn’t want to reward that, but he had promised his wife and son years ago that Maxwell would someday inherit the Covington legacy.
 
Michael thought this was a perfect way to fulfill that promise and hopefully straighten up Maxwell in the process.

With a sigh, Maxwell removed his suit jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves.
 
“All right Dad, I’ll do what you say, but if anybody asks, I’m telling them I’m the new VP!”

chapter fourteen

Maxwell lounged at a table in the back of a dark, smoky night club in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and tossed back another whiskey, hoping to drown his sorrows in alcohol.
 
After five years of working his way up through the ranks of his father’s company, Maxwell still hadn’t been promoted to the position he thought he deserved.
 
With his father being the owner and president of the now billion-dollar enterprise, Maxwell had always expected a prestigious title and a hefty paycheck to go with it, but instead he spent his days traveling around the country like a door to door salesman, trying to sell software systems to large corporations.
 
He was bored with his job and frustrated and embarrassed by how low on the totem pole he was despite his father’s influential position.

What Maxwell didn’t recognize was that his attitude was the reason his father still hadn’t promoted him to an executive position.
 
Alexander Covington had hoped that a few years doing scut work would help his son gain an appreciation for hard work and ambition, but these attributes seemed completely out of his son’s reach and Maxwell’s personality still exhibited an insufferable lack of character.
 
Alexander was nearing retirement age and longed for an heir he could trust to run the company in his golden years, but unfortunately his only son was completely unfit for the job.
 
Alexander blamed himself for how he had raised Maxwell, but in truth, Maxwell had eschewed every piece of advice his father had ever given him and instead crashed through life in an adolescent stupor.

Maxwell ruminated as he watched the barely clothed waitresses sashay around the bar, wooing the patrons into buying another drink by lingering at the tables and flaunting their figures as they laughed exaggeratedly at their patrons’ pathetic alcohol-scrambled attempts at humor.
 
One waitress especially caught his eye, with shiny, coffee-colored hair that swung to her hips and unusual topaz eyes that sparkled behind long, thick lashes.
 
Her figure gave new meaning to the word hourglass and Maxwell imagined circling her tiny waist with his hands and burying his face in her voluptuous chest.

Michael was also enraptured by the petite waitress who seemed out of place in the seedy cavern, but it wasn’t her beauty that held him captive.
 
It was his own astonishment that kept his gaze centered on her every move like the laser beam sight on a long range gun.
 
It had been 15 years since he had last laid eyes on her, but he would recognize her face if it had been a hundred years instead.
 
The lovely waitress who garnered the attention of every patron including Maxwell was none other than Michael’s one true love, Jessica Reynolds.

Maxwell ceased to exist in Michael’s mind the moment he laid eyes on her.
 
Her body was no longer that of a child, but curved and rounded in all the right places.
 
The wispy dark hair that once framed her face like a halo now fell in a mahogany curtain around her shoulders and he wondered if it still smelled as sweet as perfume.

Her face was longer, more defined, the childhood softness replaced by feminine lines that begged to be traced and he imagined himself cupping her head in his hands as he pulled her in for a kiss.
 
Her wide caramel eyes were still the highlight of her features, but her dramatic eye makeup accentuated their prominence and he found himself getting lost in their depths.

All thoughts of duty vanished as he drank her in and Michael had never wanted to be human as much as he did at that moment.
 
He glanced at Maxwell and decided his charge had no intention of moving any time soon, so with barely a thought Michael impulsively left his side and rushed to the men’s room.
 
He locked himself in a stall and struggled to catch his breath as visions of Jessica clouded his mind.
 
He had to talk to her at least for a moment; he had to know that she was all right.
 
He barked out a laugh at that thought.
 
Working here, her body on display like a centerfold model, was an obvious indication she was not okay.
 
He didn’t need to make eye contact to see the sadness behind her smile.
 
But he wanted her to see him, to acknowledge his presence, even if she would never have any idea who he was.
 
It devastated him to realize that as important as she was to him, she had no idea he even existed.