NOVEL: The Panic Pure, by Harper Kingsley [mm suspense] – Chapter One

Title: The Panic Pure
Author: Harper Kingsley
Genre: mm suspense thriller
Rating: mature

Summary: Daniel Worth, billionaire and CEO of Worth Enterprises is questioned by FBI agent Marshal Newman about the disappearance of one of his employees. They strike up a conversation and soon are regularly meeting and begin dating. However neither realizes just how close danger is lurking.

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CHAPTER ONE

Danny woke up every morning to an alarm that sounded like birds singing. His therapist had said the sound would be soothing to him; mostly he found it annoying. He just didn’t want to cause a fuss and throw it away.

He figured he would wait until it was so annoying that he couldn’t handle it any longer. Then he’d fling it with much delight into the trash can.

After lying in bed for five minutes, gathering himself together, he padded into the bathroom where he carefully shaved, swallowed his meds, then urinated.

He spread toothpaste on his toothbrush and climbed into the shower to clean his teeth, wash his hair, and scrub his body under the hottest water he could stand with antibacterial soap. By the time he stepped out, his skin was flushed pink and he could be fairly assured that he was germ free.

Thoroughly drying himself with a fluffy white towel, he headed naked into his bedroom and straight into his walk-in closet and the dresser drawer marked with the appropriate day of the week. There he dressed in white briefs, a white tee shirt, black pants, black socks, a white dress shirt, and a tie.

Then he went to one of the racks to choose a black suit jacket that he carefully removed from its plastic cover. Just pulling on his jacket, he felt as though he was anchoring himself to reality. And when he sat down to put on the black dress shoes he had removed from the shoe rack marked for that day, he felt as though he could face the world without losing himself completely.

From Monday through Friday he allowed himself to be chauffeured to work where he hurried through the building to his office, which is where his secretary would bring him his breakfast and later his lunch. He would leave the office at quarter to five to return to his house where he would tinker with his Legos until seven when his dinner would be served.

On Saturday and Sunday he would go to the library in his house and read until mid-afternoon, pausing only long enough to eat the breakfast and lunch his maid would bring him. Then he would build villages, towns and cities with his Legos until dinner.

He went to bed at ten o’clock every night after taking his nightly sleeping pill.

He figured there were some people out there that would find the regimented routine of his life boring, but he found it soothing. There was rarely a time when he didn’t know where he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to do.

Sometimes he worried that he was selfish about the way he lived. Everyone around him had to adjust their schedules to fit his issues. Even his therapist had to come to his office every Thursday for their sessions, and even though he paid for three appointments — one before and one after his own — he still felt guilty about how difficult he was being.

He simply could not help himself.

 

He had finished his morning routine and was heading down the stairs when the doorbell rang, surprising him.

No one ever visited him in his home. Those that knew him understood that the only people he allowed in his house regularly were the three maids, his cook, and Arthur.

Danny paused on the stair landing while Beatrice hurried toward the door. He gripped the rail with white-knuckled fingers.

“I have it, sir,” she called, her heels clacking on the floor like little hammers.

He froze where he was, unable to go any further. It felt as though someone was holding his body in place, keeping him from either going down or going back up the stairs.

Beatrice opened the left side of the double doors. “Can I help you?” she asked. There was the soft murmur of voices, but it was too far away for him to make out what was being said. “Oh! Oh dear, let me see if Mr. Worth will speak with you.”

She closed the door, then turned to face him. Even twenty feet away he could read the worry on her face. “There are some FBI agents here, sir. They want to ask you some questions about one of the women from the company. Do you think… Would you like to speak with them?”

He hated the way she was being so careful with him, but it was the same with the rest of his staff. It just sometimes made him feel as though they thought he was going to completely fall apart at any moment.

“Br… bring them to the sitting room,” he said. “Just give me five minutes.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, drawing in a deep breath, before reopening them and purposely walking down the stairs, placing one foot in front of the other. Right, left, right, all the way down to the black marble floor. He focused on the sounds of his feet, trying to drone out the little voice in the back of his mind that whispered ‘One, two, one, two’ with every step and sent uneasiness through him at the idea of falling through the cracks in the marble, which he knew weren’t really cracks, just flecks of color, but his feelings weren’t as logical as his mind wanted them to be.

He kept his eyes focused forward as he hurried out of the antechamber and to the sitting room door.

He felt annoyance flare through him when he saw that the door wasn’t completely closed, but cracked open. He wanted to yell at someone about it, but knew that he was feeling a ridiculous anger. His therapist had drilled it into him that sometimes people made mistakes and there were times when everything wouldn’t be completely perfect and he shouldn’t let himself give into his anger.

He pushed through the door and made his way to his favorite leather chair. No one else was allowed to even touch his chair, not even the maids. If it ever got dirty he handled the cleaning of it himself. It gave him a sense of calmness to know that his were the only hands that ever touched it.

Settling into the plush leather embrace of his personal spot, he felt serenity flow through him. The airflow and light were perfect and he knew that everything was going to be all right.

Then there was a soft knock at the door before it slowly swung open so Beatrice could poke her head in, and he felt his uneasiness spike.

“The FBI agents are here, sir,” she said, pausing a moment to see if he was going to change his mind about talking to them.

“Let them in, please,” he said, clenching his hands in his lap.

She pushed the door the rest of the way open, then stepped aside to gesture in a man and a woman in dark gray dress clothes. “You may sit on the couch there,” she said, gesturing to the couch across from him.

Danny watched them come closer to him, his eyes taking in her blond hair upswept in an elegant bun, and his dark hair that was slicked back. She was wearing subtly pinstriped dark gray trouser pants and there was a hint of lace on her white suit blouse. His dark blue tie was a little loose, there was a string hanging from the pocket of his suit jacket, and there was a smudge on one side of his chin, possibly from pen ink. She was possibly mid-thirties while he was in his late twenties.

“We’re very sorry to bother you,” the woman said, “but we have some questions to ask you. I’m agent Joanna Starkweather, and this is my partner Agent Marshal Newman.”

Danny just looked at the hand she held out to him for a long moment. He could see that she wore some kind of clear polish and she had neatly trimmed cuticles.

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Worth doesn’t shake hands,” Beatrice said.

“Thank you Beatrice, but you can go,” he said, giving her a strained half-smile, half-grimace. “I’m sure that I can handle it on my own for now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Would you like me to bring any refreshments?”

He knew that she was just looking for an excuse to be able to come back in and check on him; make sure that he hadn’t completely lost it. “No, I don’t think we need anything like that. I only have a little bit of time to give you,” he told the agents. “I… I still need to go to work today.” He had fifteen minutes before his schedule would be so out of whack that he would be facing a serious panic attack.

The agents glanced at each other, then sat down on the couch across from him. They were probably wondering what was wrong with him.

“We just wanted to ask you some questions about one of the employees at your company,” Newman said. “A Ms. Janeane Brooks. She disappeared last Thursday after work, though her car was still in the parking garage at your company.”

Danny folded his hands in his lap, staring at his fingers so he could avoid the uncomfortable look of their eyes. “Wh-what department was she in?” he asked.

Newman glanced at a little notepad he pulled out of his jacket pocket. “She was in the marketing department.”

Danny leaned over to pick his briefcase up off the floor next to his chair. It was waiting for him to take it to work, which made opening it early fairly uncomfortable, but he had always been a firm believer in helping the authorities.

He clicked open the briefcase and pulled out his phone, his fingers flying over the keys with a natural skill.

“All right, Janeane Brooks. On Thursday she was wearing a black pencil skirt and a dark purple blouse. She arrived at work nearly ten minutes late and left seven minutes early. She was very good at her job,” he said, glancing up at them quickly before looking back at his screen, “but she had been leaving early and arriving late to work for nearly two weeks. She was about to receive a reprimand in her permanent file about it.”

“How do you know that information?” Starkweather asked. “Did you know Janeane personally?”

Danny shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I just… I have notes on every employee that works on my floor of the building. I just… I have to keep track of some information on them or I can’t be there in the same area as them.”

“So you take notes on how many employees exactly?” Newman asked.

“Twenty-five employees,” he said. “I keep five days worth of notes, then Sophia backs them up on her computer and clears them off my phone.”

“Sophia?” Newman asked.

Danny nodded. “Sophia Hawthorne, my personal assistant.”

“So you have detailed notes about Janeane’s comings and goings from the company?” Starkweather asked.

“Her clock in and out times, what she was wearing, what projects she was handling, and whether she received visitors or not,” Danny said. “Its really not that much when you think about it.”

“Do you think we can get a copy of that information?” Newman asked.

“Of course,” Danny said. “If you come by Worth Enterprises today I’ll have Sophia give you a copy of Janeane’s information. I think I remember that she had a visitor last Monday, but that information’s already off my phone.”

“We’ll be happy to accept any assistance you can give us,” Newman said. “We’re really hoping that we’ll find Janeane alive.”

“Me too,” Danny said. He felt bad that he hadn’t even known she was “missing” missing. He had simply thought that she had taken her slacking ways too far and just begun skipping work.

The thought that she might be somewhere being hurt or killed made uneasiness roll through his belly. He comforted himself with the thought that if things got too bad he could always take one of his stronger anti-anxiety meds. Though he knew if he took one of those there was no way he was making it in to work today. Alprazolam always knocked him on his ass for a pretty long while.

Just thinking about taking the medicine calmed him down some. If it had been someone that he really knew and personally interacted with on a daily basis, he knew things would be much worse then this. For right now though, she was pretty much just an idea of a person: an outfit, a hairstyle, a face poking out of the crowd. Nothing that really had anything to do with him.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you more,” he said, flicking his eyes up just long enough to brush across Starkweather’s. “I don’t really know her though. So just come by and pick up the info. The sooner she’s found the better. We don’t want anything bad to happen to her. She seemed like a very nice girl.”

He twitched his fingers, trying to focus on the movements so that he didn’t have to think about the poor girl being hurt, killed. Unpleasant images flashed across his mind, and he really didn’t want to dwell on them. More than anything, he wanted to go to his game room and work on his new Lego project — a perfect recreation of Tokyo city. But he knew that if he did there was a possibility he would never come back.

He needed to stick to his schedule or anarchy would rule his life and everything would just slip right through his fingers. And he had worked too hard to ever willingly let that happen.

“Um, I need to go to work,” he said, glancing down at his watch. Arthur was probably already waiting in the car for him. He didn’t think he would be able to stand the stress of being late to work on top of everything else.

“Do you think we could talk for a few minutes more?” Starkweather asked.

He looked at his watch again, then quickly shook his head. “No, no, I have to go to work. I’m going to be late if I don’t leave right now and I can’t be late, I can’t.” He stuck the phone back in his briefcase and clicked it shut.

The agents stood when he did, which made him do an odd sideways shuffle away from their sudden close proximity. He could almost feel the oxygen being sucked out of the room.

“I need to go,” he said. “Just come by the office later and Sophia will give you whatever you need.”

“All right, Mr. Worth,” Starkweather said, her voice oddly gentle. “We’ll come by your office later. And if we have any more questions?”

“You can ask them of me in my office,” he said, where it was safe. “I’ll be happy to help you anyway that I can, but,” he glanced at his watch again, “I really need to go now. Really need to go.”

“Thank you for talking with us,” Newman said, his voice just as sharp as before.

Danny quickly glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, then focused again on his collarbone. “I have to go,” he said, sidling toward the door.

As he was leaving, he thought he heard the male agent say, “That was weird,” and it made him flush with embarrassment.

He tried so hard to be normal, but he knew that he was never going to be like everyone else. He was always going to be the weird guy, the one everyone had to be careful of because he could break at any minute.

Sometimes he had dreams where everything was completely different — where he was completely different — but when the morning came it was always the same. And the only thing that really held him together was the routine he so carefully stuck to.

And right now, he really needed to go to work. Really.

* * *

“So that was Daniel Worth, huh?” Marshal said.

Joanna clicked her key fob to unlock the car doors. “Yep. I don’t think he was lying to us or anything, but that’s one guy with some serious issues.”

“Yeah. He seems just a few strings short when it comes to the mental department,” Marshal said.

“Well, it’s kind of a shame, you know,” she said, slipping into the driver’s seat.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I thought you knew about him before we came out here?” Joanna asked.

“It was kind of short notice,” he said. “And you were pretty late picking me up this morning.”

“Nag, nag, nag.” She backed the car up and spun it around to drive back down the half-mile long driveway. “Anyways, it was kind of a horror story what happened to him. Back about sixteen years ago – -when he was nine — a group of men broke into his house and his father, Kevin Worth, grabbed him up and locked them both in the panic room. They were in there for close to two days and the thieves managed to block any communications out so they couldn’t even call for help.”

“Well, that’s traumatic, but it doesn’t seem that bad,” Marshal said.

She snorted. “Yeah, except Leanne Worth was killed when the men broke in and then Kevin Worth was gut shot getting his son into the panic room. He bled to death over the course of a day, then the boy was trapped in there with his dead body until he was rescued. When they pulled him out of there he was covered with blood and they had to drag him away from his father’s body. And then on top of all that, they never caught the guys that did it. They just disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Holy shit, but that’s fucked up,” he said, grimacing.

“Yeah. It’s no wonder the guy has some serious mental issues. I feel bad for him.”

Marshal nibbled on his thumb nail, thinking of a poor kid trapped in a locked room with killers on the other side, his father slowly bleeding to death by his side. “Yeah. That sounds pretty bad.”

“Pretty bad? Is it any wonder that the guy is a complete nutcase?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, he’s not that bad,” Marshal said. “He seems to be holding himself together pretty good. Sure, he comes off as a little tightly wound, but how would you be if you lived through what he did? Still, he didn’t hesitate a second with the idea of helping us.”

“Wow, when did the guy become your boyfriend?” Joanna said, accelerating out of the driveway and onto the open road.

“Shut up,” he said, not able to explain why his cheeks burned. “I just sympathize with what the poor guy went through. That kind of traumatic experience as a child, and he’s not in a nut-house somewhere? That’s some kind of personal strength he’s got there.”

“Uh huh,” she said, not even glancing at him.

He fought the sensation that she was judging him and reached forward to open the glove box. He knew there were some cinnamon breath mints in there and he really needed something to distract him. “So, do you want to go straight to Worth Enterprises?”

“Let’s swing by Denny’s first. I’m starving,” she said. “I was running so late this morning that I didn’t eat anything before I came to pick you up.”

He sighed, though he gave her a smile. “I guess I can eat again. That bagel I had might like to have some delicious eggs, bacon and hash browns as companions.”

“You’re such a nerd,” she said.

“I try.”

* * *

There was something so soothing about the sound of the ocean. The sand was nice against his bare feet too, though he didn’t really like how it tried to go up the legs of his shorts.

He was alone on a secluded stretch of beach, the sun barely struggling through the clouds and the air just a little bit chilly. It was going to be one of those kinds of days, which actually made him pretty happy. There would be less risk of joggers or families out enjoying the ocean.

He liked the sense that he was the only man on Earth. He could do anything he wanted and there was no one to tell him no or judge him or make him feel small and stupid.

Reaching into the paper bag at his side, he pulled out the sandwich he had made that morning. Slices of boiled heart on whole wheat with lettuce, tomato, pepper jack cheese, a little mayo and a healthy glob of mustard.

He took a big bite of his sandwich, a smile pulling at his lips. He enjoyed the early morning solitude. Not even the thought of having to go to work later took away from this wondrous peace.

He was the only man on Earth.

The rest of the world was populated by animals.

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