On Tenterhooks (21 page)

She turned on a heel and walked back toward the elevators. Steve and Martin followed.

“Wait,
Veronica
,” said Martin, “j
ust give us 10 minutes to explain. You’ll understand. Did you send the letter? Didn’t your mother respond?”

Veronica
continued walking
until s
he reached the elevators. Steve
followed her and
made it to the security desk
,
before Officer Roth put his arm out in front of them.

“End of the line
gentlemen
.
Please leave,
now
.”
His
tone left little room for debate.

Veronica
stared at the gauge above the elevators, trying to guess which would arrive first.

“
Veronica
!
” Steve yelled. “Have you seen
a
preacher yet?”

Veronica
gave no response
. But Officer Roth
replied. “I said now, gentleman!
”

Martin saw that Roth’s
free hand was unbuckling the Tas
er on his belt.

“Steve,” said Martin urgen
tly, “d
rop it
.
We’ll figure out something else.”

Veronica
’s elevator arri
ved and
she walked
toward
it. As she entered,
Steve tried one last gamble.

“
Your mother
was SCUBA diving
,
not at some resort like you told your family and everybody else
!
”

The words came fast.

“
You lied to Louise
.
She
was
SCUBA diving when
she died
, not at the hotel!
”

“That’s it!” roared Roth. “Out now
,
before I zap your ass to the Jersey Shore!” Roth grabbed Steve’s shoulder
roughly
.

Veronica
came back out of
the elevator and looked at Steve.

“Wait!” she yelled. A surprised Roth turned and looked at her.

“How did you know that?” asked
Veronica
.

Martin
thought s
he looked
more than a little
scared.
“Because
Veronica
, t
he same kind of thing has happened to both of us. We’re trying to figure out why
and we need your help.”

Hands on hips, she looked them both up and down once more
.
In h
er fierce gaze
,
they were
bug
s
under a microscope.

“Come with me
.
” It wasn’t a request. She walked back to the elevators.

“Ma’am,” said Officer Roth. “With all due respect, I don’t think it’d be wise.”

“Thank you
,
Officer
.
I appreciate your concern, but this is no longer a security matter.”

“But ma’am
. . .
”

“Officer Roth, is it?” she asked
,
as Steve and Martin joined her.

“Yes ma’am.”

“I appreciate your assista
nce, but I’ll take it from here
.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Veronica
entered the elevator. Mar
tin and Steve followed her.

Roth returned to the security desk.

“That’s bullshit
.”

Chapter
2
6

The elevator ri
de up was silent. The three of them
were alone, but
Veronica
refused to turn and engage them in conversation
.
For the duration of the ride,
she
stared straight ahead at the closed gold
en
doors. Steve and Martin
shared a mutual shrug
,
bu
t otherwise kept to themselves.
When the doors opened up
on the 22
nd
floor
,
they saw a sign on the wall announcing that they were in the bustling lobby of
Lippman Advertising.

“This way
,
please,” said
Veronica
,
deftly
crossing the lobby with purposeful strides and turning left into a hallway behind the receptionist’s desk. She
did not
turn to see if they followed.

Steve and Martin hurried to keep up with her
quick
strides.
Deep purple carpet accentuated t
he cranberry
-
colored walls
. B
right
,
white
-
trim
med
open doorways led to large
,
airy workspaces. They passed workstations of bright
polished-
steel and glass furniture. Steve noted the stark contrast to the throwback art deco of the lobby and elevator
.
The building itself was stable, but old and tired
.
This office was vibrant, colorful and practically humming with radiant energy.

Veronica
continued to lead them through the office and turned
left again at a row of glass-front offices that bordered the outside wall of the building.
They passed several until they came
to hers
.
Veronica
Ryd
er, Manager, New Media Division
was etched on the glass next to her door.
She opened
that
door and waited for them to pass through
,
gesturing
to a small glass and
wrought-
iron conference table. As they sat, she closed
and locked
the door.
Moving with deliberation
to her desk
, she
set her phone to Do Not Disturb
, then
took her purse out of her bottom drawer. It held her
HK45 compact semi-automatic
, not
her favorite
gun
, but it
was
accurate enough at close range and
easy to
fit in a handbag.
She reached in and removed
the gun
,
turning
the safety
off
.
Rather than
join
ing
them at the table
,
she
leaned up against the front of the
desk
,
crossed her arms
and held
the gun in an easy grip
.

“Now,” she said, “f
orgive my abruptness, but I’ll have
to
ask you again
.
Who the hell are you two, how do you know me and how do y
ou know about my mother? Do not move
toward
me in any
manner
that might cause me to act in self-defense.”

She wiggled the gun in her hand. “Are we clear?”

Steve and Martin
nodded
. “Do you want us to put our hands up on the table or something?” Martin asked.

“Jesus, no!”
Veronica
snapped. “I am not arresting you.
Just answer my questions or be on your way!”

Martin looked at Steve. “May I?” he asked.

“Be my guest
.
”

“
Veronica
,
m
y name is Martin Abingdon
.
I am a 54
-
year
-
old
pharmacist
from Suffolk, VA
.
My daughter
,
Maggie
,
died a little over two months ago
.
She was a college student
.
She overdosed, accidentally
,
and passed away. About six weeks ago, Steve’s wife died
.
She
was killed in a car accident.
And in January, your mother died while she was
SCUBA diving in Mexico, right?”

Veronica
nodded.

“Was
the SCUBA diving
a secret?” Steve interrupted.

“I knew it, the
police
a
nd
coroner
in Cozumel knew it.
But that wasn’t public knowledge here or at home. So
,
how did you know it?”

Martin deflected the question.

“Did you recently get
a letter, or a message, from a place called
Say Goodbye to Me
?’

“Yes
,
” she replied. “I got an email. It looked like
spam, so
I deleted it.”

“Yeah,” Steve
said, “w
e thought the same thing.”

“Only it wasn’t,” said Martin. “We both responded to it.”

“Why?” asked
Veronica
. “If you thought it was trash, why would you respond?”

Steve said nothing
,
but
Martin replied for them both.

“Because we were
lonely,” said Martin. “L
ike that letter said, we were robbed of a chance to even say goodbye
.
Didn’t you feel the same way?”

Veronica
stared into his eyes, trying to gauge his honesty.

“Continue
,” she said.

“Well
,
w
e both got a response.
And not some generic response
,
either. This was heavy stuff. My daughter talked to me through my HAM radio
.
I swear to God it was her voice
,
and she spoke to me about the letter I sent,
including
things that no one else would know.”

He then
recounted his story of the Snugglebug nickname. As
he spoke
, Steve studied
Veronica
.
It was impossible for him to tell what she was thinking. Her body language
and the easy grip she had on her gun told him that she
was skeptical and agitated
. Yet, she
had brought them up to her office, so they were at least making progress.

Finished
,
Martin
turned to Steve.
“And
Steve here has solid evidence.
Show her Steve.”

“I don’t know about ‘solid
,
’ b
ut this is a letter I got.
It looks like
Julie’s
—
my wife’s
—
handwriting.”
He slowly slid the letter out of his pocket.

“Careful,” said
Veronica
.

Steve leaned
smoothly
across the table to hand
her
the letter.
She
leaned forward to take it and then moved back
, popping it open
. As she read, Steve explained.

“It’s s
imilar to Martin’s experience
;
i
t’s like that letter is responding directly to the one I sent. And
do
you see that part near the end about
walking ‘hand in hand’?”

Veronica
nodded
. “Yeah, that’s from a song, isn’t it?”

“
You got it
. It’s
a line from a
Sex ‘N Cigs
song
, one
that had a lot of meaning between my wife and
me
. Nobody
else
kn
ew that, except Julie.”

Veronica
nodded. She folded the letter, put it in the envelope and handed it back to Steve.

“So wh
at does
this
have to do with me?”

“Well,
a
fter I got this letter, I did some investigating. It sounds to me like some kind of crazy
,
advanced identity theft job or something like that, although Martin here doesn’t think so
.
Regardless, I did some snooping at the
Say Goodbye
website
.
I looked around and found this list, h
idden in the files
on
the site.”

He rifled through his file folder and
,
once
again, he slowly leaned across the table and
handed her the list of names he had found.

“
You’ll see I am on there and Martin and you. And there’s one other person, a teenage
d
girl in Texas. We’re pretty sure that list has all the details of each incident: how you were related, how they died, how you were contacted, all that.”

“So what?
You guys had that in common and decided that was enough to justify harassing me?”

“No,” said Martin, “i
t’s not like that
.
It’s more than this list and the letter
.
There is something else at work
.
This isn’t something we can easily explain
.
That was my daughter I heard!”

“You mean like a ghost?” asked
Veronica
.

“No, not a ghost.
It’s something much more
. . .
spiritual.”

“To Martin, it is,” interrupted Steve. “I am not sure what I think it is
yet
.
But he is right at least on one part
—
it isn’t something we can easily explain. Did you send a message?”

“No,” she shook her head. “
I told you
.
I delete
d
the
message right after I read it. W
hat about this girl?”
Veronica
looked down at Steve’s list. “Abigail? Have you talked to her yet?”

Steve shook his head.

“No, we thought it would be difficult trying to talk to her. She’s just a kid
,
and I found this article about her brother
who
died.” Steve passed the clipping to
Veronica
.

“We thought it’d be easier to talk to you first,” admitted Steve.

“Although, in hindsight
, that might’ve been a mistake,” said Martin
with complete sincerity
.