Craig winced. “Always tough to see that happen. My dad got a little loopy towards the end. They thinking of medicating?”
That made Fantine feel worse. Lying about something Craig had to actually deal with. “Sounds like it, so they need me to come in and sign a bunch of garbage. I might be able to make it back after one or two hours, if that works. I’m hoping to hold onto as many PTO hours as I can, you know?”
Craig shook his head. “No, no, please—take the rest of the day. It’s fine. We’ll schedule time to talk with Gretchen about FMLA and all that good stuff next week.” He typed a moment. “There, just sent the invite. Besides, it’s better you take care of this now, before the storm this weekend.”
Again with that. “Is it supposed to be bad?” Fantine scratched at a callous on the palm of her left hand—built thick over the years to hide small pins and picks. Her mother told her Houdini started the practice. All Fantine knew was that it worked. Also, it hurt like hell.
“You know how it is; most of those storms lose their gusto once they get around the city.” He canted his head to the side. “Like the one last year. I think. Can’t really remember.”
“Sure.” She faltered by the door. “So, I’ll be on my way?”
“I’m sorry, sir, you’re not allowed…hey!” someone said from outside Craig’s office.
Fantine’s stomach sank. She turned to see the darker-haired Twin—and decided right there to call him Mr. Black—stomping towards her.
“It is past fifteen minutes.” Mr. Black reached out and took her arm. “Aleksei wants you now.”
She was genuinely shocked. No subtlety, no hiding the absolute shadiness of this entire picture. Was Aleksei flat out in late-stage dementia? How had he gone from being a professional—one of the best—when her mother worked for him to a bullying psychopath?
Fantine turned to Craig. “Um, Doctor Aleksei. He’s insistent that my father get the best care he can.” She smiled and leaned into Mr. Black’s grab. Drove an elbow into his side. If the blow accomplished a damn thing, he didn’t show it.
Mr. Black grunted. “We must leave.” He had a black attaché case in one hand. Shoved it at Fantine. “The papers you need to go over.”
Fantine’s eyes widened. These guys had to be snacking on lead chips. What the hell would compel him to do this in front of her employer?
Craig watched them. His look telling Fantine all she needed to know—she’d been caught in her lie. “All right…” he said and waved, “Hope your father feels better.”
Mr. Black pulled at Fantine as she nodded and waved. “Thanks.” They walked arm in arm down a row of cubicles, Fantine stopping short and holding her ground like a mule in front of her area. “Give me minute. I need to get my bag and jacket.” She injected sickly sweetness into her voice. Tried to smile through it, even if she had to fight every urge to stab Mr. Black in the eyes with pens. “You couldn’t wait five more minutes?” This time she took charge. She ducked into her cube and grabbed her jacket and bag. She flung open her drawers and blindly snatched up external hard drives and notebooks.
“Let’s go.” There was no time to double check her haul. This is what she’d have to make do with. She grabbed Mr. Black by the arm and guided him towards the stairs.
Of course, the office asshole, Matt popped out of his cubicle a foot before they could get past. “Abby, hey, quick question for you.” He nodded to Mr. Black. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Fantine sighed. “I’ve got a thing, Matt. You think you can email my private address and I can get back to you in a little bit?”
Matt wasn’t the type to take the brush off, and true to type, stood fast. “Well, I’ve got the meeting in a few minutes, and I really needed to get your buy in on a few of the bullets I had on this deck. I wasn’t sure if…”
Mr. Black interrupted Matt’s sentence with a head-butt. He then grabbed the poor schlub by the collar and drove his fist into Matt’s face multiple times. Each blow made the sound of a wet towel against a tile floor.
Matt finally collapsed and curled into a ball—a move that was probably more instinct than plan. He yelped incoherently, like a beat dog.
Fantine jumped back. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. Ohmigod.”
Things went from shit to storm as a conference room door opened across the way in time for six fellow employees to see Fantine, Mr. Black, and a bleeding Matt rolling around the dirty carpet and moaning.
“Uh, Abby?” Craig was behind her.
Commit, she thought to herself. Fantine swept up everything else she needed and turned around. She smoothed the front of her jacket with her hands—professional-like. “Sorry, Craig, all these issues coming up. I regret to say; I’m resigning without notice.”
Craig’s eyes widened.
Fantine stepped past him. “I know, completely unprofessional. I’m totally sorry. I won’t use you guys as a reference if that helps.”
Matt continued to moan. “What the fuck, man?” He found the will to get up onto his feet. It was slow-going—had the look of a drunken baby learning to walk.
Craig marched over to Matt. “Matt, let’s talk to HR first and we can sort this all out.” He eyed Fantine. “I’m going to call the police too.”
Matt fished his phone from his pocket. He fumbled with the buttons. ‘I’ll call them now. I’ll sue.”
“Ugh, whatever, I’ve wanted to do this from day one.” Fantine walked over to Matt and cold-cocked him across the jaw. There wasn’t a deep-seeded motive for hitting him. Matt annoyed her and she needed someone to take her anger out on. It was a piss-poor reason, but at that time, worked perfectly. Matt dropped to the ground again; his phone following and the screen displaying that a call to 9-1-1 was connected. She turned to find Mr. Black, but he was gone.
“Go fuck yourself, Matt.” Fantine called over her shoulder. Guilt sat in her stomach, heavy as a Smiths song. She ignored it, played the part of the aloof asshole.
Now there was a timetable and she was going to be wanted—great. She hurried to the stairwell and bolted downstairs. She could separate from the Twins for now. They would buy her time to run away and hide out back home. Luckily, she was not dumb enough to use Pete’s address on anything official for work. Any cops looking for her were going to be combing Queens for a 68th Avenue address that didn’t exist connected to the dummy bank account her salary was deposited into that then funneled money to two other checking accounts. Fantine set up a final, “safe” checking account under her mother’s maiden name with a Staten Island address as the place of residence. It was a smaller bank and she used a single ATM in Brooklyn to pull money out as needed. Never debit, always cash. She was fastidious and while it was annoying to trek into Brooklyn every Saturday to pick up her pay, it was worth it. Once the cops were smart enough to dig up other details about her, it was off to Staten Island for them. They’d slow down then. Nobody wanted to go to Staten Island if they didn’t need to be there. Her mother taught her well.
Fantine spotted a few parked cabs. She hurried to one that was on duty and got into the backseat. “Eighty-sixth and Lexington, please.” Out of the way, but this was another funky breadcrumb for people to follow. She had the time, so she decided to have fun with it.
7
Fantine stared at the floor plans from the attaché case Mr. Black provided. From childhood, she loved puzzles and little brainteasers, but this was beyond her reach. It made sense on a basic level—this room was here, this room was there—but the other bits, the random hallways, what appeared to be a duct. There were even rooms that didn’t look to have doors. This was all too much. What she could figure out, though, was they’d be breaking into an abnormally large area three floors below the waiting area. There also appeared to be only a single stairwell leading down there while the other two only went upstairs. There was a single elevator too. It was housed far away from the normal bank of elevators people would use on a daily basis. It bothered her not to have any floorplans for the upper floors, but maybe that was a little too much information. Not like she was an architect.