The carpet in the terminal is still exactly the same.
There’s a taxi rank—more or less, if one taxi constitutes a rank—and Sam gets there, leans in, and gives directions I don’t hear. I pile in with him in the back of the car, and it takes off with a jerk of acceleration. The cab driver isn’t chatty. That’s a good thing.
Sam passes me the file that he’d taken from the manila folder on board. I hadn’t asked then what was in it, because I didn’t want to push him. I still don’t, but I have to ask.
“Home or office first?” I ask. It’s almost five o’clock; depending on work hours, Suffolk could be at either place, or en route.
“We’re trying the office first. I like surprising people there. They’re not as likely to try to kill you in front of the boss.” Sam’s dry sense of humor is forced. I feel like I’m in free fall. I try not to look out the windows as we drive, because everything we pass has a memory attached to it of my old life. The park where I used to take the kids. The store where I bought my favorite dress.
The restaurant where Melvin took me to dinner for our last anniversary.
My mouth feels dry, and my throat clicks when I try to swallow. I wish now I’d guzzled more water on the plane. Sam and I haven’t talked about it, but it isn’t too likely that this Suffolk will put up much of a fight; he doesn’t seem the type. I just want to do whatever Rivard wants and stop anyone else from ever seeing that video; I don’t know if I can trust Rivard to keep his promise to buy it and keep it from spreading, but it’s the only option I have. It doesn’t matter that it’s faked. What matters is that it feels real, even to me, as if I’ve repressed the memory. People like to say that cameras don’t lie, but they can.
And when they do, everyone believes.
It’s a short ride to the address that Sam gave the taxi driver, and we glide to a halt in an industrial area that looks thriving. There are multiple-story office buildings, but Imaging Solutions seems to be a small operation located in a multistore strip mall. I pay the taxi driver from my diminishing stash of money and follow Sam to the store.
Inside, the place smells sharply of chemicals and ozone. The carpet is a basic industrial, with no padding beneath; there’s a faux wood counter, a register, some colorful posters about various services for signage and printing. I can hear the grumble and chatter of machines from behind a wall; there’s an open doorway to the left that leads to the work area. The wall is fitted with a row of glass blocks, and through the watery distortion, I see people moving back there.
The door has sounded a bell, and now a young man emerges from the back, wiping his hands. He’s wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and black tie, and even his haircut looks conventional and straight out of the 1950s. “Hello, folks,” he says. “How can I help you today?”
Sam says, “We’re looking for Carl David Suffolk.”
The young man smiles. “Well, sure, but he’s at work right now, so we don’t allow any visitors in the work area—”
“I’m not a visitor,” I tell him. “I’m his sister. There’s been a family emergency.”
“Oh. Oh, sure. Okay. Let me go get him—”
“I’ll go with you,” Sam says. As the manager turns away, he whispers to me, “Go around back in case he runs.”
“I hope everything’s all right,” the manager says. “Mr.—?”
“Suffolk,” Sam lies easily. “I’m his brother. And you are . . . ?”
“David Roberts. I’m the assistant manager.”
“Great. Thanks, Mr. Roberts.”
Roberts flips up the counter where it’s hinged, and Sam walks around the corner with him. The second they’re out of sight, I exit at a run and race around to the end of the strip mall, down the alley, and around the drab back. It’s lined with dumpsters and loading docks, and as I run, I count off stores. Luckily, most are labeled at the back doors. When I find Imaging Solutions, I slow down. No trucks at the loading dock at the moment.
The rolling garage door is closed, and so is the solid metal door next to it, but as I reach the foot of the steps, the door bursts open with a bang, and a hefty white man in his midforties bursts out. Like Roberts, he’s wearing a short-sleeve white shirt and black tie; unlike his boss, he hasn’t been as careful with it, and there are smears of black toner around his waist. He looks pale and frantic, and his eyes widen when he sees me standing there blocking the steps. He spins, but it’s too late. Sam’s come out of the door behind him. He closes it and says, “Carl, let’s be smart about this—”
I don’t even have time to yell a warning, though I see it coming; Carl lunges at him. Sam dodges with the ease of a matador, and Carl barrels past. He stumbles. Sways.
And then he falls off the dock with a howl of panic.
He hits on his back, and the impact dazes him; he’s still lying there when we reach him. He seems okay, and when Sam offers him a hand up, he takes it. “Anything broken?” Sam asks. “How’s your head?”
“Okay,” Carl says. “I’m okay. I’m—” The shock snaps, and he realizes his situation. He stumbles back, but he’s limping, and Sam and I look at each other as Suffolk starts a lumbering, lurching run for slow-motion freedom.
I say, “Hey, Carl? Look, just give it up. Don’t make me shoot a kneecap off you.”
Suffolk turns. He seems ashen, and for the first time, he looks at each of us in turn, with real focus. When he gets to me, his face changes. It turns malignant, as if some demon has drifted to the surface and altered his skin. His forehead reddens. He lowers his chin, and his eyes have a cold delight in them that makes me want to step back. I don’t.
“You,” he says softly. “You’re his bitch.”
And then he lunges for me, and because I didn’t step back, I’m easily in his range. I think he intends to knock me down, and I’m ready for that.
I’m not ready for a full-on killing assault.
His hands close around my throat, and without any hesitation at all, he starts a crushing pressure. This isn’t a game, and it isn’t tentative. He intends to kill me. My rational mind breaks into a white storm of panic. I can feel myself being lifted right off the ground by his strength, and the pain, the suffocating panic of my lungs laboring for air, robs me of any kind of real thought at all.