The woman from the media relations department tittered like a schoolgirl.
Lock stared at Stafford. ‘My tux was at the cleaners.’
Nicholas Van Straten closed a thin manila folder with an expensively manicured hand and looked down the table, meeting Lock’s gaze for a second. ‘Thanks for being here, Ryan. I certainly appreciate it. How are you feeling?’
Lock directed his answer to Brand. ‘Ready for duty.’
Brand smirked.
Lock took a breath, and did his best to centre himself. ‘I apologize for my appearance. It’s been a hectic day or two.’
Lock could see Ty studying the table, trying hard not to laugh.
‘Quite,’ said Nicholas. ‘Now, shall we discuss where we go from here?’
The woman from public relations, who it transpired was the Missy of ‘outside press conference’ legend, launched into an enthusiastic pitch as to how best to handle the Josh Hulme kidnapping situation from a public relations perspective. Like the true professional she was, she started out with a little light ass-kissing. ‘Well, Mr Van Straten, with your brilliant intervention we’ve made a great start at wresting back control of this very delicate situation. Clearly our initial lack of involvement did some damage, but that shouldn’t last too long now that we’re being seen to help.’
The ‘being seen to’ jarred with Lock but he remained silent. The terrain had clearly changed a lot in a very short space of time and he needed to get an overview of it before he said anything.
As Missy continued, using words of three syllables or more when two would have been sufficient, Lock studied Brand. A square head on an equally square torso, he was sitting ramrod straight, staring directly at the woman speaking. His hands were folded on the conference table, his fingers interlocked. He gave the appearance of someone listening intently when, in fact, Lock knew from his experiences with him that he had pretty much no idea what was being said. Still, he looked impressive. Calm and in control.
‘So, in summary,’ Missy was saying, ‘I think this is, in fact, an excellent opportunity to not only build brand awareness but reposition our company as one which truly cares about the wider community.’
Holy shit. Only in corporate America could a child abduction which had already yielded one dead body be seen as a way to make a business appear warm and cuddly.
‘I’ve an idea,’ Lock said.
All eyes swivelled round to him.
‘Maybe if we get the kid back in one piece we could do a tie-in with one of our drugs. You know, like Ritalin, or something.’
No one laughed. Or looked pissed. Missy jotted something down. ‘Or perhaps set up some kind of foundation?’
‘I think you’ll find Mr Lock was being facetious,’ Nicholas Van Straten said, drily.
‘Oh,’ she said, looking at Lock like he’d just taken a leak in the corner of the room.
‘If I may?’ Stafford interjected.
‘If you must,’ said his father.
Stafford pressed the palms of his hands together in apparent supplication and paused for a moment. ‘I don’t think we have a problem here. This is a public relations snafu, nothing that’ll affect us. And certainly nothing that’ll worry our shareholders. The animal rights protestors, now that was a problem for us. But seeing as they’re out of the equation we can get back to concentrating on our bottom line.’ Stafford stood up. ‘Now, this is what I propose. .’
Lock shifted uncomfortably, his recurring headache beginning to gnaw away again at the front of his skull. As he watched Stafford drone on, his mind drifted back three months, to the first time he’d run into the man.
Lock had been supervising a sweep of the upper floors of the building, taking the newly recruited Hizzard through proper civilian search procedure of a location while the place was quiet. Even those employees desperate to avoid returning to an empty apartment, or clocking up unpaid extra hours to impress their line manager, had long gone.
Lock had left Hizzard to check one half of the floor while he did the other. Lock had one office to try. Stafford’s office. A floor down from his father’s, Stafford’s was close enough that he could feel important, but not close enough that his father had to see him all that much. The door was slightly ajar, and as Lock pushed it open he saw a woman bent double over the desk. In Stafford’s right hand was a hank of her hair; his left hand was working its way up between her thighs. The woman was doing her best to fight him off, clawing at Stafford’s face with a free hand.
‘Shut the hell up, bitch,’ Stafford growled, sharply yanking her head back.
‘You’re hurting me,’ she pleaded.
Stafford’s face moved closer to hers. ‘Bet you like it rough, don’t you?’ he whispered.
Lock had seen enough. He stepped through the door.
‘This office doesn’t need cleaning, go somewhere else,’ barked Stafford, not bothering to look behind him.
When no answer came, Stafford let go of the woman’s hair and reached down to unzip his trousers.
Covering the distance between them with six large strides, Lock stopped as Stafford glanced round. The look on Stafford’s face wasn’t shame, or guilt, or anything approximating either of those. He just looked irritated that someone would have the audacity to disobey him. Never before had Lock felt such a strong urge to wipe a look from someone’s face.
He did it with a single strike to Stafford’s face, the ridge of his elbow meeting his nose with a soft crunch. If there was one thing guaranteed to make a rapist lose wood it was a severe jolt of pain. It usually worked a hell of a lot faster than a cold shower.
The woman disentangled herself and turned round. She was breathing heavily from the struggle. She put both hands up to her face and rubbed at it, as if wishing away a nightmare. She looked to Lock to be in her early twenties, either an intern or fresh out of college.
‘Are you OK?’ Lock asked.
She nodded, struggling to pull back up her torn pantyhose. Hizzard, the new recruit, blustered into the room and froze as he took in the scene.
‘There’s a bathroom just down the hall,’ Lock said to the woman. ‘Hizzard here will take you.’
She hesitated.
‘Don’t worry, you’re safe now,’ Lock said.
‘OK.’ Her voice wavered slightly. Pulling down her skirt, she walked out, head down, avoiding eye contact with Stafford. Hizzard padded after her, careful to keep his distance.
Lock reached past Stafford for the phone. He was pleased to see a flicker of panic in Stafford’s eyes.
‘Hey, wait a minute.’
Lock pressed nine to get an outside line. He could see that Stafford was desperate to make a lunge for the handset, but too much of a coward to go for it. He cradled the phone between his shoulder and chin. ‘What you gonna tell me? Rough was how she liked it? She’d been coming on to you for weeks now? Why else would she have stayed late on a Friday night with just you and her left in the building?’ He pressed down on another nine.
‘Lock? That’s your name, right?’ Stafford said, his voice suddenly falsetto with panic.
Lock hit a one. Only one digit to go.
‘Look, man, I’m not going to make any bullshit excuses. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve got a problem.’
‘You do now,’ Lock said, pressing down on the final one. ‘Police department, please.’
A second passed as he was put through, Lock perched casually on the edge of the desk, enjoying Stafford’s obvious discomfort. In his gut he knew one thing for sure: this might have been the first time Stafford had been interrupted, but it sure as hell wasn’t the first time it had happened.
‘The hell with you, man,’ Stafford blurted. ‘What you saw adds up to nothing in court. It won’t even go to trial. It’s her word against mine.’