Murder Inc.: A Sci-fi Thriller: Book 1 (41 page)

The doors slid open, revealing nothing but eight square feet of space. Tabby stuck her head through the opening just to be sure.

It would be easy to slip in and take the elevator safely up to twenty-eight, but she couldn’t suppress the notion that her father was descending in the other one. She backed out and stood waiting again.

It landed soon after with a ding. This time when the doors opened, there was a person inside, though it was not her father or Samantha. A dapper, middle-aged businessman wearing a grey suit and neat hair eyed her off. He stood there a moment, then realized it was his floor, and scurried out past her. Tabby hurried into the waiting carriage.

She pressed her thumb against the plate and selected level twenty-eight.

The trip was quick. The elevator didn’t stop once. When the carriage indicated it had reached level twenty-eight, Tabitha stood poised in the doorway ready for a savage greeting.
Don’t hesitate. She will kill you this time.

But the foyer was empty. There was nobody to greet her. Just a small alcove opposite with several sofas for visitors waiting to be collected for employee visits.

Tabby extended her head out through the doors and peered in both directions. The wide corridor with its wall painting and three verdant pot plants was clear. She released a jagged breath and stepped out.

Perhaps her father was in her office. Treasonous thoughts surfaced that Samantha had woken and come down looking for her only to find him.
Hello, sir, can I help you? Oh, you’re Tabitha’s father, here, let me—

Tabitha reached the solid paneled doors to her office. The window panes either side had been turned smoky for privacy, blocking her view of the inside. Her heart was thudding against her chest. If he wasn’t in the office, there was every chance something bad had happened to him. If that was the—

She reached out and pushed on the plate. The doors floated open, Tabitha holding her breath.

And then she saw him, a frail, old man, sitting in one of the over-sized guest chairs.

“Dad?”

He stood, one hand on the top of the seat, and twisted to greet her. “Tabby?”

She rushed over and wrapped her arms around him. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” he said, as though she should understand this immediately. “After your phone call last night I was worried about you.”

“But I told you not to come down here.”

“I also wanted to come clean… about something.”

“What?” Her hands released him. A shard of terror struck her, a thought forming in her mind—

“I have to get it out. I’ve been seeing someone.”

“You what?”

“A lady. She’s a bit younger than me. I met her while—”

“You’re seeing a woman?” He nodded. “That’s it?”

“Yes. I lied about being at Ginger’s Restaurant. I was there, with her. I just wasn’t ready to tell you yet.”

“Oh Jesus, Dad.”

His expression folded. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She pulled him to her and hugged tight, overcome partly with relief, but more by the emotion of the situation—he was safe, for now. “It’s okay, Dad. But you can’t be here. We have to leave. It’s not safe.”

“But I just got—” He read the fear in her eyes and his comment drifted. “Okay, hun. Lead the way.”

They left the office and Tabitha took him by the elbow, moving as fast as he could manage along the hallway with his cancerous, dilapidated legs. She could smell freedom, sensing that if they could just reach the elevator, they’d find safety.

Tabby turned the corner into the wide elevator foyer, and spotted the three doors. They had made—

One of them was open—the one with the sign on it that said out of order, although, the sign was now lying discarded on the ground.

Tabby slowed, and now it was her father pulling her along. “Wait!”

“Come on,” he grumbled. “Almost there.”

As they reached the open elevator doors, she saw with mortal terror there was no carriage, just an empty shaft. It dawned on her then. They had walked into a trap.

Her father reached for the button of elevator number two. Tabby swung around to face the empty waiting area opposite the elevators doors and found Samantha coming at her from the shadows like a wild cat. She let out a scream and was brandishing something long and dangerous looking. Tabby threw up an arm and took the first blow, her forearm shuddering as a lance of pain spread. It knocked her off balance and she didn’t see the second coming. A blow struck her on the side of her head. The world spun, and then darkness overcame her. The last word she heard was her father calling out her name.

∞

Giddiness washed over Fox as he crawled on his knees, fighting the effects of the serum Jennings had injected into him. The general antidote he’d obtained from Dr. Smith at the Doubleday facility would delay the poison, maybe even prevent it causing a heart attack, but he couldn’t be sure. He’d find out soon, and although it was best for him to sit motionless, he didn’t think that would be possible in his immediate future. Either way, Fox surprised himself by accepting his fate—even though he would not be done yet; there was still unfinished business.

He had played the dead card with a conviction he hoped would provide him the chance to redeem himself for Charlie and the others. The ploy had been a risk, but now was the time for risk. Pushing aside the effects of the serum, he climbed to his feet, swept back his messy grey hair from his forehead, and faced Jennings, whose expression still reflected surprise.

“Antidote,” Jennings said through gritted teeth.

“You’re too predictable, Robert. I knew at you’d come after me sooner or later. And with a little help from my friends in IT, I was alerted ahead of time.”

Jennings glanced around looking for a weapon, scouring the desk and the buffet against the rear wall, before finishing on the closed door.

“Go on,” Fox said. “Running would be a fitting end to your handling of this situation. My biggest disappointment was endorsing you as a potential candidate to run this organization.”

Jennings charged, a bull attacking the red cape. They met head on with a thump, both men grunting. Fox outsized and outweighed Jennings considerably, but the latter had an age advantage and was faster on his feet.

They wrestled, grabbing fistfuls of clothing, each scratching to get an arm around the other’s neck. Fox took the lead, securing Jennings head under the soft flesh of his long arm, and squeezed with all his might. Jennings cried out, spurred into a fit of energy. He jerked about, swinging a looping fist towards Fox’s face. It connected in front of his ear, sending pulses of pain through his skull. He released Jennings and staggered back, shaking his head as if to clear it as pain swept over him in waves.

Jennings came again, fists bunched and jabbing at Fox’s face. The older man deflected the first two, but the third struck him on the bridge of the nose. He stepped back, brushing it off while peering out through watery eyes. Then Jennings was on him again. Fox shoved him away and drove forward, throwing a punch with his shoulder and hips behind it, just as his father, an ex-serviceman who had fought in the Vietnam War, had taught him as a little boy. It struck Jennings on the brow above his left eye. He staggered back a step, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise. Fox chased, seeking the finishing punch, and caught Jennings on the point of the chin with a loose jab. Jennings tottered, tried to turn away, and fell onto one knee. Fox waited for Jennings to rise, eyeing the best spot to strike him to finish the fight, refusing to hit a man when down, even if he was trying to kill him.

Jennings scurried backwards, stumbling, before gathering his feet and circling to the other side of the desk. He went directly for the bottle of scotch on the buffet Fox had been saving for his retirement. He snatched it up and shanked the container on the edge of the cabinet. It gave off a heavy, dense thud, but did not break. Jennings repeated, but again, the thick glass refused to yield. Fox followed him around the desk. This time, Jennings threw his shoulder behind the attempt and the glass shattered. Liquor splashed over the buffet and floor. Fox halted.

Jennings took the broken bottle and held it out, tottering on his feet. A thin trail of blood ran down his face from a swelling right brow. He licked the crimson liquid from his lips. “You can’t win, old man. This is my time. My company now.”

Fox sneered. “You won’t kill me, and you won’t ever run this business.” He realized there was only one conclusion to this. He had to kill Robert Jennings.

But Jennings had other ideas yet. He shuffled backwards, poking and jabbing the broken neck of the bottle at Fox as he made his way around the back of the desk toward the wall of windows.

Fox followed at a distance, waiting to see what Jennings would do, but as he passed the edge of the desk, a sharp pain surfaced in his left bicep. He reached out and grabbed for the corner.
It’s happening.
The general antidote had not quite been strong enough to prevent some of the serum taking effect. Pain flared in his shoulder. How long before it reached his heart? His voice of truth said not long. But if he were to go out this way, if he really were never going to see Piper and the boys again, he would do the world a final favor… perhaps his most important.

Jennings reached the window and pressed the top of his head against the glass, angling so he could see directly below. The loosening of his expression told Fox it wasn’t good.

There was a stabbing pain near Fox’s heart now, followed by a tightening, as though someone was sitting on his chest.
Almost over,
he thought. As Jennings turned back, Fox sprang toward him, catching Jennings off guard. He lowered his shoulder and struck Jennings front-on, driving their bodies at the window. Jennings managed to get the broken glass around and stuck it directly into Fox’s stomach.

Fox groaned, but pushed on, hoping the window would give under their weight.

∞

Jennings felt the neck of the scotch bottle cut through Fox’s shirt and dig deep into the older man’s belly. He pushed his heel into the floor and tried to stop Fox’s momentum, but the force and weight of the larger man was too much. Jennings realized with uncontrollable terror that they were going to hit the window. The question of whether it was shatter-proof flashed through his mind, but he couldn’t locate the answer amongst his fear.

Their tangle of bodies hit the glass with a thump. Jennings felt it flex, and for a moment, he thought they might just rebound off and end up in a mass on the floor where he would surely overpower the old man and live to fight another day. But with more than four-hundred pounds of combined weight, it was too much and the window cracked like an egg shell.

They flew out into mid-air and tumbled earthward, arms and legs flailing. Jennings screamed. Fox was silent. And in those final moments as they plummeted to their deaths, Jennings remembered Fox’s promise.

∞

Gutterson watched the object spin and twist from the top level of the building. It only took him a moment to realize it was a person, and another to extend that thought to two. Shouts and cries sounded from the growing congregation of onlookers. They all followed the trajectory of the falling bodies. At the last moment before impact, Gutterson and Camilleri turned away. The sound was loud, like a bag of wet sand striking the ground from the back of a truck.

A group of them, including Gutterson and Camilleri, raced over, but they pulled up short of the gory scene. A sinking feeling overcame Gutterson when he identified one of the men as Bryan Fox, the CEO.

“Jesus,” Camilleri said. “It’s Fox. And Jennings, the VP of Operations.”

“I just spoke to him,” Gutterson said in disbelief. “He said he was going to take care of things himself.”

“Maybe he did,” Camilleri said, turning away. Gutterson stood looking at the bloody mess. Camilleri turned back to him. “Come on. We have to go.”

The police cars had parked and more than twenty officers assembled outside the doors. Further along, a black government vehicle idled, the two DHS women watching from behind dark windows.

Gutterson stood out in front of them with his back to Fox and Jennings and his hands raised. He knew the process for executing a search warrant and the captain had already tested him on it. But he wanted to give them a complete understanding of the situation.

“We’ll get to these two gentlemen in a moment. What I’m about to tell you is crucial to the integrity of this investigation. We go into the building doing everything by the book.”

By the book,
Gutterson thought. He’d never make that mistake again.

∞

Tabby’s eyes fluttered open. A dull throb filled the left side of her head and her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. It took her a moment to place herself; she was lying on the floor across from the elevators on level twenty-eight of the Janefield building. Her vision cleared and she saw Samantha dragging her lifeless father by the legs across the carpet towards the open lift shaft.