“No thanks, I’ll stand.” Brandy Black had crossed the room and now stood in front of the desk, arms crossed over her chest, her dark eyes smoldering. She was a stunningly attractive woman; five foot five with a trim, athletic body. Her features were beautifully sculptured; high cheekbones, full lips, perfect nose, stunning eyes, and luscious black hair that fell to her shoulders. She and Frank must have made a beautiful couple.
“Fine,” Vince said. He caught Barbara’s eye and nodded. Barbara got the hint and exited the room, closing the door behind her. Frank smiled at Brandy and sank back into his chair. “Well then,” he said, leaning back. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Black?”
“Don’t you know?” Like Barbara, Brandy looked pissed. Only she looked like she had a mission.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Vince said. “Why don’t we start from the beginning?”
Brandy relaxed a little bit; her shoulders slumped slightly, her features softened. “I… um, listen, I’m sorry if I was nasty to your secretary back there, but she really pissed me off.”
Vince smiled. “Barbara’s been known to do that to even International Investors. That’s why I’ve retained her services.”
“Yeah, well, she wouldn’t even listen to me as I tried to tell her why I needed to see you,” Brandy said, and now she was slipping into another persona, one that was probably more normal for her. “If she hadn’t been so difficult, I wouldn’t have gotten so mad at her and I wouldn’t have stormed in here like some Nazi Storm-Trooper.”
Vince chuckled. “Nazi Storm-Trooper. I like that. Has a nice ring to it.”
Brandy turned to Vince, all traces of anger gone. Now she looked serious. “I’m sorry I’ve intruded on you, Mr. Walters, but you’re my only hope. I’ve been… trying to find out what happened to my husband for almost… well, for over two years now, and I’m getting nowhere.”
“So what do you want me to do?” This was the first time Vince had spoken to Brandy, much less met her. He’d kept tabs, though. The Mike Peterson murder-suicide case had been big news for a while until it was replaced by something else. The police had never questioned Vince in the death of Frank Black. As for Mike’s friend William Grecko, he’d proved to be no problem. Shortly after the Mike Peterson murder-suicide case broke, William Grecko checked himself in to a rehabilitation facility for his chronic alcoholism. He’d remained there for a month, then took a nearly one-year leave of absence from his law firm. The group monitored Grecko closely, but the lawyer seemed to have no interest in the Peterson case. When he did return to work, he took less stressful cases, mostly involving family matters. Shortly after Grecko went into rehab, the law firm’s offices were broken into and the entire suite searched; several computers were taken. The resulting data taken from the pilfered documents and computers stolen from the office suggested that none of William Grecko’s employees had any knowledge of his relationship with Mike Peterson. If Billy had any evidence saved on any electronic media, he’d taken it with him and put it in a safe place. A subsequent search of his home during his stint in rehab had come up with nothing as well.
That was fine, though. William Grecko couldn’t do anything even if he did reach out to his FBI contact. The group had friends in every government agency. At the first whiff of investigation, certain powers-that-be would make the appropriate moves and the investigation would be stopped.
In the years that had passed, Vince had resumed his life and position at Corporate Financial. He ascended to a higher role in the organization, began directing certain activities. Outside of the corporate structure, he began directing certain magical activities, including the monitoring of an older ritual the Yazidis developed, one they had practiced fifteen hundred years ago but was said to have elements that went back even further, to Sumerian times. In fact, he’d just received word from a high-ranking member of the group, Julie Montenelli, that the latest in a series of these rituals had just concluded successfully. These rituals, combined with others being practiced by the group, would create the right atmosphere for his own soul-cracking. And then, when the stars were right…
Brandy Black was an extremely beautiful woman. She was also extremely bold, especially to have hopped on a plane to California to confront him face to face. She was trying hard to control herself; her eyes were smoldering pits and her lips were pressed into a thin line of anger. Vince could detect her anger just simmering beneath the surface. “You’ve been ignoring me for years,” she said, a low whisper, guttural with anger and menace. “He seeks you out because he thinks he can help you… he risks his life because he thinks you’re in danger…” Brandy was lurching closer towards him, looking like she wanted to leap over his desk and throttle him. “…he does all this and you ignore me!”
Vince looked impassive. “I had no reason to speak to you.”
“No reason to speak to me?” Brandy looked taken aback by Vince’s stoic demeanor. “My husband wanted to help you! He kept me in the dark about what it was he was working on and all he would tell me was that something happened to you and him when the two of you were kids. Whatever it was, he was paranoid enough to set up these fake IDs for me and the kids, then move us out to the middle of goddamn nowhere—”
Vince held up his hand. “What is it you want to know?”
Brandy stopped. For a moment, she looked surprised, as if the years of stonewalling her and ignoring her inquiries had finally resulted in breaking his barrier. “I just want to know the truth,” she said. “What was he so scared of? What happened to him, what happened to you to… to make him do this?”
Vince shrugged. “I have no idea. I had a perfectly happy childhood. Frank, on the other hand… well, Frank was a troubled child. Seeing him again really brought those memories back and I’m sorry to say, whatever trouble he had only worsened in his adulthood.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was incoherent. He didn’t make any sense. He rambled on about his parents, how they were horrible to him and abused him and all that, then he claimed I had witnessed some of it and been abused myself. I was skeptical. He told me about his past, how he ran away, got hooked on dope, the whole nine yards. At first glance, I thought his story bore serious consideration, so I indulged him.”
Brandy was looking at him warily. Vince continued. He stood up from behind his desk and approached her. “We spent a few days together, driving around Orange County and he kept bringing things up about when we were kids. Try as I might, much of what he told me didn’t add up in my memory. Plus, he was using drugs again.”
“No he wasn’t,” Brandy said.
“Yes, he was,” Vince said. He nodded, then placed a friendly hand on her shoulder. “Granted, he was smoking pot. Claimed it relaxed him. He offered me some but I abstained. However, I’m afraid he was smoking more than pot. It had a strange scent to it. He wouldn’t tell me what else it was, and it wasn’t until later… after his accident happened, that I began asking around and doing some research when I found out what else he was smoking. It was opium.”
“Bullshit,” Brandy said. “Frank wouldn’t do that. He hadn’t touched dope in almost ten years—”
“Maybe he was relapsing then,” Vince said. “Regardless, he was using in front of me, and the longer I spent with him, the more I… well, the more I was beginning to see Frank for who he was.”
“And what’s that?”
“What did Frank tell you?” Vince asked. “About his childhood? About him and I? About him contacting me?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. Just that… what he was working on had to do with when the two of you both were kids. And how he thought that… well, how he thought he’d been abused in some way.”