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

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 TWO

Sophia brought him his lunch at exactly 11:45. Beef barley soup, half of a turkey sandwich, and a fresh fruit salad. Everything had been carefully prepared by Olivia and delivered by Arthur with the assurance that no one else had touched it.

Sometimes Danny wondered who ate the other half of his sandwich. It was one of those questions that only years of therapy kept him from stressing about. It was almost nice to wonder, but let himself not care about it.

He knew that he was strange to the people around him. He knew that he had worries and ideas that other people just didn’t concern themselves with. But he also knew that he was a lot better than he used to be.

There was a time in his not-too-distant past when his fears had crippled him to the point that he wouldn’t have even dreamed of being able to leave his house. He never would have been able to speak to anyone that wasn’t already a part of his comfort zone.

Now he went to work every weekday, interacting with different people all the time. He had found people that he trusted, which was something he had never had before, except for Arthur.

Arthur was the one constant in his life, the single person that he would trust completely and without question. Arthur was the only person that he could always be sure would never do anything to hurt him.

He ate the last of his sandwich and started in on the fruit salad. He knew he should have probably eaten his soup next, since the fruit seemed like more of a dessert-type food, but the soup was his favorite and he wanted to save it for last. To savor the hearty warmth.

There was a knock at the door, then Sophia stepped in the room without waiting. She was dressed in her usual semi-severe style that was so at odds with her young face–elegant charcoal pantsuit with a dark blue blouse underneath, her makeup flawless and her strawberry blond curls carefully pinned up and away from her face. “There are two FBI agents here. They say that you told them I would give them some information?” She quirked an elegant brow at him.

He quickly finished chewing and swallowed. “I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you. They want to know about Janeane Brooks from Marketing. I guess she didn’t just start slacking off. They say that she’s really disappeared.”

“Oh no,” Sophia said, her brow furrowing a little.

Danny nodded jerkily. “Yeah. Can you give them anything they ask for? I would really like it if they’re able to find her.”

“It would be sad if something happened to her. She’s such a nice girl,” Sophia said.

“I thought so too,” he said, even though he had never had a face-to-face conversation with the woman. He could only assume from what he had seen of her that she was a nice woman.

Sometimes he thought that someone might be nice, then they turned out not to be. There were plenty of people in the world that wore their faces like masks all the time, lying with their every look and expression. He knew he wasn’t the best at judging the good from the bad. But he really thought Janeane might have been a good person, not someone that would have wanted to hurt him just because they could.

He had seen her plenty of times in passing, and not just from the video feed he got on his computer that let him update his files every day. She had always dressed neatly, though he had seldom liked her shoes. They made him think of witch’s shoes–like the shoes Aunt Lauren wore, all pointy and sharp, more lethal weapon than footwear.

Just the thought of Aunt Lauren made his stomach want to curl in on itself. Not enough to be sick, just enough to make him think fondly of his Legos and the safety of his study where his books were always waiting for him.

“I’ll let you get back to your lunch,” Sophia said gently, bringing him back to the now.

He glanced at his soup, a slight frown twitching at the corners of his lips when he realized it was getting cold. He would have to hurry up and finish the fruit so he could enjoy his soup.

He heard the office door click shut, but didn’t look up. He focused on his fruit, his mouth already watering for the hearty taste of soup even as he chewed on juicy chunks of pineapple and pear tossed with a delicate layer of yogurt and crumbled granola.

* * *

It was surprising how helpful the employees of Worth Enterprises could be. It would have seemed suspicious if they hadn’t already decided that Janeane had been taken after she left work. The only question was why she would have left her car in the employee parking area.

“From these notes, she clocked out of work seven minutes early. She was in a hurry to get out of here,” Marshal said. He flicked one last time through his work phone, then tucked it away in his pocket.

“So where was she going?” Joanna asked.

“Don’t know, but hopefully the building surveillance records will be able to give us an idea of where she went.” He knocked on the security room door.

A rather roly poly looking gray haired man opened the door. He looked a bit like Santa Claus with rosy cheeks, little pink lips and a round dimpled face; all he was missing was the beard. “Can I help you?” he asked, his voice deep and sure. There was a cheerful light in his eyes along with a look of competence. This was a man that knew his job and didn’t miss much.

“Hello, yes.” Joanna smiled, putting on the charm. “I am Agent Starkweather and this is Agent Newman and we were told that you would allow us to see surveillance tapes from last Thursday.”

“Ms. Hawthorne gave me the heads up,” he said, stepping aside. “I’m Norman Jones. Let me just set those videos up for you.”

The room was claustrophobic and filled with screens showing scenes from all over the building and outside. There was a small, thin-faced man sitting on one of the swivel chairs. He looked them over disinterestedly before going back to what he was doing.

Norman gestured them over to the console next to the other man’s. He sat down and quickly tapped out commands on the computer keyboard. “You want video from the main doors, right?”

“That’s a good place to start,” Joanna said. “Are your tapes all digital?”

The small man snorted. “Everything’s digital. If we were actually using old school video tape there wouldn’t be any room left in the building for people.”

“What do you mean?” Joanna asked.

The guy looked over at Norman, then faced her. “Mr. Worth is a firm believer in the power of visual records. He likes to have everything recorded and all the videos saved in the Archive. There are whole server farms waiting to be filled with records of what happens day to day in the company.”

“That seems pretty efficient,” Joanna said.

The man shook his head. “There’s no reason to save most of the information he wants tracked. A lot of it is just stupid crap that no one would care about, not even the people that are doing it.”

“Be quiet,” Norman snapped. He looked at the agents. “Mr. Worth might have his little quirks, but since he’s been in control of the company profits have gone up by nearly twenty percent, and we weren’t exactly in the red before he started. Everything he has done has caused improvements in the company. So if there happens to be some extraneous information saved… it doesn’t really hurt anything. In fact, I heard tell that he pays for the Archive out of his own pocket. He realizes that it’s not something that’s needed; he just needs to do it.”

“It’s true,” the small man said. “He’s a little… eccentric, but he knows how to take care of his employees. Since he’s been here we’ve received better benefits packages, he’s provided children’s programs for the people with kids, and he’s offered some really good educational packages. I’m learning Japanese right now and my wife, who’s in accounting, is working on her bachelor’s degree.”

“Seems like he’s a pretty good guy,” Marshal said.

“He is. He just has some trouble dealing with people, that’s all. You can see him struggle when he talks to you, but he always tries his best to make things better for the people working here,” Norman said. “My daughter Audrey finished high school with a 3.5 GPA, but we just didn’t have enough money to send her to the college she wanted to go to. Someone must have said something to Mr. Worth, because he hooked her up with a scholarship from the Worth Foundation, and with what we had in her college account she’s at Stanford right now. She’s so happy, and if she wants she will have a job here at the company when she graduates.”

“That’s a nice insurance plan for her,” Marshal said. “She either gets a job on her own, or she has one waiting for her if that doesn’t work out.”

The guy laughed. “We don’t really look at it like that. She can do anything she wants with her life, and if she ever decides to come work here, it won’t just be some fall-back job. There are great opportunities here at Worth Enterprises, and she knows that. If she comes to work here, it won’t be because it’s her second or third choice; it’ll be because it’s her first choice.”

“Audrey has a bit of a crush on Mr. Worth,” the small man said, laughing. “You should have seen her at the last company picnic. She was so disappointed when he didn’t come.”

“He didn’t go to the company picnic?” Marshal asked curiously. “Shouldn’t he have been there? He is the company president after all.”

Norman shrugged. “Everyone knows that he’s not really comfortable around large groups of people. He arranges the picnic, even plans out a lot of the events, but he never goes himself.”

“Audrey thought she was going to get to meet the man himself, but it was just Ms. Hawthorne and the rest of his personal staff,” the small man said. “She looked so disappointed that I had my girl take her on the Ferris wheel.”

“You had a Ferris wheel at your company picnic?” Marshal asked, surprised. It just seemed a little much.

“Oh yes. We had a full carnival setup with over twenty rides. Mr. Worth never spares any expense when it comes to the employees,” Norman said.

Marshal glanced at Joanna. She flicked her eyes back. “Well, it’s great that he cares so much for his employees.”

“He’s a good man,” Norman said. “It’s kind of a shame that he can’t really enjoy all the things he makes possible, but that doesn’t make him any less of a good man.”

“Well, how about we catch a look at what went on with Janeane Brooks on Thursday,” Joanna said, walking closer to the console.

“Oh yes, that’s a good idea,” Norman said, typing search parameters into his computer program.

Marshal and Joanna settled in for the show.

 

After viewing dozens of largely unproductive video records, they were leaving Worth Enterprises.

“Those employees sure were loyal to their boss,” Joanna said as they crossed the street.

“I can appreciate their loyalty to Worth,” Marshal said. “They realize that he has some mental issues, but they don’t mock him about it. Even with his handicap, he still manages to do many great things for the people that work under him.”

“At least we found out where Janeane went to after work,” Joanna said, pointing.

Marshal looked ahead at the dark red sign with the curling white lettering: KATERINA’S COFFEE. The little coffee shop located across the street from Worth Enterprises.

The video had shown Janeane hurrying down the elevator to the lobby, then hurrying across the carpet to the main doors, then disappearing across the street into the coffee shop there, just beyond the angle of the camera.

Now they were going to see what the shop’s employees remembered about Janeane. They were hoping they would have a lead on finding her. Though considering how long she’d been missing for there was a pretty good chance the trail was too cold for them to ever find her.

It was a sad fact, but sometimes young women went missing and were never seen again.

Marshal pushed open the door and held it open for Joanna. “After you, milady.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but strode confidently across the shop to the counter. There was a woman in front of them being served her drink, but other than that the place was pretty empty. The lunch rush was over and it would be a while yet before all the people getting off work stopped in for one last cup of coffee for the drive home.

The young man behind the counter was tall and lanky with dirty blond hair that fell across his forehead. He wasn’t really good looking, but he wasn’t ugly either. He was actually pretty nondescript, except there was something about him that came off as a little odd. He might have been a perfectly nice guy, but there was something about him that wouldn’t have made Marshal very surprised to find out he was single. There was just this vibe of something strange.

Marshal stood beside and a little behind Joanna, letting her take the lead in the questioning. They had decided at the beginning of this case that it was hers.

The woman ahead of them dropped her loose change in the tip jar, then hurried out with her drink. She had been dancing around a trifle impatiently, making it obvious that she had somewhere she needed to be.

“Excuse me, I am Agent Starkweather and this is Agent Newman of the FBI,” Joanna said. “Can you give me your name?”

The guy looked spooked and maybe a bit guilty, but that was the usual response when someone was being questioned by the FBI. Everyone always thought of all the petty little things they’d done wrong in their lives, which was part of what made it so hard to find the real criminals. Everyone looked guilty.

“Adam,” he said. “Adam York. Look, I didn’t do anything, I promise.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Joanna said. “We were just wondering if you had ever seen this woman,” she held out a 5×8 inch picture of Janeane Brooks.

York took the picture and stood looking at it for a moment, a frown pulling his eyebrows together. “Yeah, I’ve seen her before,” he finally said.

“Did you happen to serve her on Thursday the sixteenth?” Joanna asked, taking back the picture.

He thought a moment. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was the last time I saw her. She was here with her boyfriend.”

“She had a boyfriend?” Marshal asked. “Do you happen to know his name?”

York shrugged. “Look, they just started meeting up here a few weeks ago. I never bother to ask anyone’s name. I don’t really think it’s any of my business.”

“You don’t happen to have any credit card receipts or anything from either one of them, do you?” Joanna asked.

“Nah, they always paid cash. I like that better ’cause then I get a better tip.” York raked a hand through his hair. “I’m pretty sure they were here Thursday night and they left together too.”

“Do you know what time that was?” Joanna asked.

York shrugged. “I went on break, and when I came back they weren’t being all lovey-dovey at their table anymore.”

“Their table?”

“Yeah, they always sit at the same table,” he pointed at a table next to the window with two chairs. “They always pretty much ordered the same thing too–chocolate chip frappucino for her, white chocolate mocha for him. Sometimes they would split a banana nut muffin or one of those gooey chocolate things Marge on day-shift makes.”

“And you don’t know what the man’s name is?” Joanna asked again.

York shook his head. “Nah. He was just some black guy.”

“Was he wearing a suit or casual clothes?” Joanna asked.

“He usually came in in regular clothes. She would always be dressed pretty sharp–I guess she would come in after work or something–but he would just be wearing regular stuff. Not holey rags or anything, but not business clothes either. You know, jeans and a polo shirt kind of stuff.”

“And they left together on Thursday?” Joanna asked.

“Pretty sure,” York said. “They were being pretty lovey-dovey, you know, she would touch his arm, he would hold her hand, they would kiss across the table, that kind of stuff. They weren’t quite to the point of all-out making out, but I think that was why they left. You know, so they could do it.”

“And what was the approximate time when they left?” Joanna asked.

York furrowed his brow. His eyes were just a little too widely spaced; it was one of those things that a person would only notice after talking to him for a while. “Um, my break is fifteen minutes and I usually take it around six thirty, so they had to have left sometime between six thirty and six forty-five.”

“Do you happen to know anything else?” Joanna asked.

“What’s there to know?” York asked, shrugging. “They come in, they get their drinks, they sit at their table talking, they leave. It’s not like I’m giving them a job interview or anything. They do their own thing, and as long as they pay for their drinks and maybe drop me a little tip, I really could care less what they’re about.”

“All right,” Joanna said. She held out two cards. “Here’s both of our cards, you can call either one of us if you have any more information. Thank you for your time.”

“Whatever,” the guy said, slipping the cards into the pocket of his apron without looking at them. “I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you.”

“Still, if anything comes up… you give us a call, all right?”

York shrugged, then turned around to grab a semi-clean towel to wipe the counter down with.

Marshal again held the door open for Joanna, then waited until it was firmly closed behind them. “That guy was a little…”

“Weird? Yeah. Why don’t we just add Adam York to the list of people we need to check up on.”

“Sure,” Marshal said, jotting his name down in his little notebook along with the title of “Coffee Shop Guy.”

“Let’s see if any traffic cameras got a look at Janeane leaving the coffee shop at around six thirty,” Joanna said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Marshal said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch a good view of the guy Janeane was with.”

“And we should ask her friends and family if any of them knew about her mystery boyfriend,” Joanna said. “Most women like to discuss that kind of thing with their girlfriends.”

“Girlfriends,” Marshal said, waggling his eyebrows. “That’s hot. How many girlfriends do you have?”

“Enough,” she said. “Though we mostly go to the gym together or shopping. I usually like to pick up some handsome but dumb guy for the fun stuff.”

“Yeah, and I heard you like to cougar it up,” Marshal teased.

“I like ’em young, dumb, and easily trainable,” Joanna snarked, laughing. “Let’s get back to the office before I have to file a sexual harassment suit against you.”

Marshal made a serious face. “That’s not the kind of thing you tease about,” he said. “Didn’t you read your employee handbook? Sexual harassment is a very serious thing in the workforce.”

“Super serious.”

He laughed, opening the passenger side door of their Bureau issued sedan.

 

There was a guilty feeling percolating through him, though he didn’t let that stop him from what he was doing. Which was definitely not finding Janeane Brooks.

“What are you doing?” Joanna asked from her desk facing his. She was going through a bunch of papers with a yellow highlighter.

“Nothing,” he said.

“The look on your face doesn’t look like it’s nothing.” She glanced around the office, making sure no one was watching them. “Seriously, what are you doing?”

“All right, I admit it, I dug up some info on Worth,” he said. “Do you realize that most of his personal staff is female? His assistants, his maids, his cook, anyone that personally deals with him is female, even his doctors. The only person he has on staff that is male is his chauffeur, Arthur Conway.”

“Why are you looking up info on him?” Joanna asked, not even pretending to highlight anything anymore. She put down her pen and came over next to him. “We know that he had nothing to do with Janeane’s disappearance.”

“I know, I was just interested,” Marshal excused. “And to find out that he’s only got one male staff member, it’s a little weird, don’t you think?”

She leaned over his shoulder to riffle through the file. “Well, it says right here that the chauffeur before Arthur Conway was Thomas Conway, Arthur’s father. Arthur spent his childhood living in the same house as Worth, and it says here that Arthur would spend summers from college with his father. So basically, Arthur is someone that Worth grew up with.”

“Someone that he trusts,” Marshal said musingly.

“Looks like.” Joanne stepped back around the desk to settle into her own chair. “Now, tell me honestly why you’re so interested in this guy.”

Marshal could feel her eyes trying to burn their way through his forehead, but he didn’t look up. “I told you, I was just interested. When you told me about what happened when he was a kid I got curious, so I’ve just been looking up the old case files. And he’s such a character right now that I just had to find out how he ticked. That’s all. Once my curiosity’s satisfied, I’ll forget all about him.”

“Uh huh,” she said doubtfully.

He grabbed a paper clip out of the little cup and flung it at her. “That’s right. I’m just curious because he’s so weird, that’s all.”

She caught the paper clip and twisted it around in her fingers. “Just keep your curiosity in check. The guy’s already completely messed up. He doesn’t need to find out about you digging up info on him and completely freak out. He’s spent years putting himself back together as much as he is, and he’s still a wreck. He doesn’t deserve any major setbacks.”

“Don’t worry,” Marshal said. “I just thought he was a little odd, that’s all.”

“Well, there’s a very thin line between thinking someone’s odd and finding them completely fascinating,” she said.

“Come now, Clarice,” he said creepily, “the screaming of the lambs was a long time ago.”

“Oh Dr. Lecter, you are such a brilliant man,” she gushed.

“It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again,” he said.

She flung the paper clip back at him. “Shut up, that wasn’t even Lecter’s line. That was Buffalo Bill.”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

As they went on talking about different movies while they handled their case files, he hoped he had changed the conversation from Daniel Worth.

Because even though he didn’t really want to admit it, he thought that he might have been fascinated by the man. Just a little bit.

* * *

Tokyo was coming out really well. He was surprised by how quickly he had managed to put together such a massive project and he figured he probably only had a couple more months before it would be completely finished and ready for a couple of layers of spray adhesive to make it last forever.

He sat in the midst of his Lego metropolis and finally felt himself relaxing from the day’s stresses. It felt as though all of the worries and tensions he had been carrying around were being poured out of his fingertips and into the intricate buildings and roadways he was putting together.

Danny reached out for his cup of tea with milk and honey. Olivia had had it delivered to him by Andrea, one of the maids, along with a plate of ginger cookies. She always seemed to know without being told when he needed soothing.

He was sitting cross-legged amidst his trays of spare pieces and the unrolled blueprints he had carefully plotted out all those months ago. Tokyo in miniature detail captured from an Internet real-time view program. It had been like he was actually in the city itself.

Sometimes he thought about traveling the world, but he knew he wasn’t ready for that kind of thing yet. He could just barely manage to talk to the people at work. It would be years before he would be able to wander some strange street somewhere and not completely freak out.

He rolled a Lego man between his fingers while he sipped his sweet, milky tea. The man was wearing a knight’s armor and helmet and held a sword in his right glove.

He gazed at the Lego man with sleepy eyes. Sometimes he liked to imagine himself as a knight in armor, out there stopping evil and saving the day. He imagined slaying dragons and kissing maidens and making sure no other kid ever grew up like he had.

When he was a little boy he had believed that every day was going to be happy, that his parents were going to protect him, and no one would ever be able to touch him.

When he was a little boy he had been stupid. That was what reality had taught him and there was no going back to that time of naivety and hope. His parents were dead and he was all alone. There wasn’t a single person in the world that cared about him that he didn’t pay a wage too.

Sometimes he thought about blowing his brains out and just getting it all over with. Ending the misery once and for all.

Oddly enough, it was the thought that he could just end it all at any time that kept him going from one day to the next. He could force himself to keep going forward as long as he knew that if things ever got really bad, he had a way out. No one could back him into a corner that he wouldn’t be able to get himself out of.

He finished his tea and gently set his cup back down on the floor. He stared down at the little knight in his hand. He wondered what it would be like to be made out of plastic, to have no cares and concerns. To just do what he was made to do and never have to worry about making mistakes and hurting other people because he wouldn’t even be real.

He wondered if it was lonely.

There was a gentle knock at the door. It made him jump and he had to take a moment to get himself under control. He really wasn’t very good with surprises.

“Come in,” he called, dropping the Lego knight into the bin of Lego people. Plastic spacemen, Jedis, construction workers, every kind of Lego person out there. A cornucopia of Lego-kind.

The door opened and Arthur walked in. “Hey, Danny, how’s it going?”

He managed a brief smile. “It’s going,” he said.

“That good, is it?” Arthur quietly walked over to him, kicking the door closed behind him. “I wanted to see if you were all right. You were acting a little weird in the car on the way home.”

Danny looked up at him. “Weirder than usual?”

Arthur smiled down at him, then folded himself to sit cross-legged in front of him. “You know I can tell when you’re in one of your moods. I thought maybe you needed to talk.” He reached out and began to pick through a collection of corner pieces.

“I just feel a bit weirded out by the FBI showing up today,” Danny said.

“Did they scare you?” Arthur asked.

“Not because of their questions, but by the fact that they were here at all,” Danny said. “They represent all the dark things that people do to each other.”

“Except they’re the good part of all the badness,” Arthur said. “They help people when they’re in bad situations. They make sure the bad guys go to prison and good people get the help that they need.”

“So what was wrong with me?” Danny asked. “Why didn’t anyone help me?”

Arthur sighed and laid down on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and the slowly revolving fan. “I tried to help you,” he said, “but I was too young. I just thought I was old enough.”

“You did the best you could,” Danny said. “You did more than anyone else. If you hadn’t been there… I don’t know where I would be right now.”

He didn’t like to think of when he was young, of that dark house where all the happy memories had been shattered by the bullets of a gun. He didn’t like to think of his mother screaming and falling, of his father’s hand gripping his shoulder so tight he would have bruises for weeks afterward. He didn’t like to think of the boy he used to be and all the times he had cried himself to sleep because that was the only relief he could get from his anguish.

“Sometimes I think that if you hadn’t been there for me, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he said. “You’re the only person that ever did anything to help me. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had.”

“I think more people would love to be your friend if you would just let them in,” Arthur said. “You’re a great person and I really think you need to get out there and get to know more people.”

Danny sighed. “You know how hard it is for me.”

“I know. But you’ve come so far in just a couple of years, so it’s not really that hard to imagine you out and about sometime in the future.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without you,” Danny said. “You were always there for me when I was a kid, even when I thought there was nothing left for me.”

“There was no way I was going to leave you alone with that bitch,” Arthur growled. “She’s lucky I don’t know where she’s at right now. We’re not kids anymore, and I think I would really like to see her ass behind bars.”

“I’m just glad to be free,” Danny said. He scooped up a handful of Lego pieces he’d left loose on the floor and began sorting them back into their respective bins. He didn’t think he was going to get much more work done on Tokyo tonight. He was feeling a little sleepy. “It’s nice just not to hurt all the time.”

“She was a monster,” Arthur said bleakly. “She should rot in hell for all the things she did to you. And the fact that you only ever told me some of the things… it makes what she did even worse.”

“I’m still alive,” Danny said.

“Barely. You should be out living your life. You’re smart, you’re rich, and the whole world should be spread out before you.”

“It is.” Danny waved his hand out at the Lego world he had created. “It’s all right here, and I’m content with this.”

“But are you happy?” Arthur asked.

Danny thought a moment, then shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Then I honestly don’t know what happy is.”

“That’s so sad.”

Danny shrugged again. “It is what it is. And I think it’s time for me to go to bed.”

“Can I stay here for a little longer? It’s nice in your Lego paradise.”

Danny laughed a little, his lips twitching. “You can stay here all night if you want. Sometimes it’s nice to be that close to Tokyo and Paris both at the same time.”

“It’s the world at your fingertips,” Arthur said, “literally.”

“You sound like a phone commercial. Shut off the lights when you leave.” Danny pulled himself to his feet, feeling just a little off balance, like he could fall over at any moment. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. A brand new day. Keep that in mind, please.”

“Always.”

* * *

There was no doubt in his mind that he was being utterly stupid. It was close to two in the morning and he was sitting in the middle of his rumpled bedsheets looking at files. And not even files pertaining to any case, at least, not one that he had been assigned.

He knew he probably should have been thinking of the missing woman he had been tasked with finding, but instead his thoughts had somehow become wrapped up in her boss, a man he had only met for a few moments.

Marshal knew that he had always had an attraction for people that he shouldn’t. He had decided when he was in college that he was pretty much bisexual with slightly more of a leaning toward women.

There was just something about Daniel Worth that he couldn’t get out of his mind and he knew it would probably lead him into trouble. And one meeting with the man had revealed that he had some serious issues he was barely dealing with.

It was just that there was something about Daniel Worth that couldn’t be ignored. It wasn’t just that he was attractive, because even though he was, there were also some personal quirks and twitches that were hard to get passed. He was a little strange, and that wasn’t something that could be ignored.

Daniel Worth was odd and nervous, and there was something about him that screamed out that he was constantly afraid. He looked as though he dressed himself with finicky care and as though dirt was something he would cringe from. He held himself tight, as though he always had to know the limits of his personal space and might freak out if anyone even thought about getting too close.

Daniel Worth was strange and frightened and oddly beautiful.

Just looking at him, he was the complete opposite of Marshal’s type. He wasn’t athletic. He wasn’t outgoing. He wasn’t charming. He wasn’t overpowering in his presence.

And yet he was perfect. In some way that Marshal couldn’t even explain to himself, there was something utterly captivating about Daniel Worth.

The minute he had walked into that sitting room and that dark head had lifted to reveal those too-blue eyes, Marshal had felt as though the ground had disappeared beneath his feet. Everything in him had just suddenly screamed out “This is the one!” And it was such an utterly complete feeling that there was no ignoring it.

Those eyes had taken him first, then he had drunk in the sight of high cheekbones set in a pale face that was maybe a trifle too thin. He was very ascetic looking, broad brow, narrow bridged nose, and sculpted lips that seemed as though they had never tasted a smile. He had neatly clipped black hair parted along one side, not a single strand daring to be out of place. And those eyes, those deep blue eyes that had screamed vulnerability and loneliness, that had pleaded fear while they begged for mercy.

Even before Joanna had told him Worth’s story, Marshal had known that something bad had happened to him. He had been victimized and left broken by it, barely able to drag himself enough back together to go on from one day to the next. And yet his eyes still begged for someone to care enough not to hurt him.

In his mind, Marshal had begun to call him Daniel, and he knew that wasn’t a good sign for his own equilibrium.

He knew that he was one of those people that when he fell, he fell hard and long. He had had a few truly disastrous relationships in his lifetime, and since then he had vowed never to be that serious again. He would dally at the game of love and not let himself get so completely swept away.

So what was there about Daniel that fascinated him so? What had him staying up late looking over the man’s file–a file that he wasn’t even supposed to have?

He flicked through the pages of black print on white paper. There really wasn’t as much information as he thought there should have been, but it seemed that Daniel’s childhood traumas had been relegated to another file, leaving behind dozens of notations to “See: File #2397-S4W.” Which happened to be a file that Marshal definitely didn’t have the authority to get a hold of, not without a requisition from his boss anyway.

He burned to see what that mystery file had to say. He knew that the murders of Kevin and Leanne Worth remained unsolved, but he wanted to know what those long ago agents had and hadn’t found out, what plumbs they hadn’t bothered to depth, or whatever. He simply wanted to know what had happened to that little boy then to make him become such a man now.

What he could see from the information he did have, didn’t really paint a picture of perfect mental health. The boy then had needed some serious help that he had never received, and even more unnamed traumas had been piled upon him until his chauffeur-slash-attorney Arthur Conway had bought him his freedom from his maternal aunt Lauren Green. Doctor Lauren Green, psychotherapist and PhD in neural sciences. A woman that had decided to provide her nephew mental help and had denied all outside assistance.

The file didn’t really go into what had been done to young Daniel Worth, but having met the man, Marshal was pretty sure that poor kid hadn’t received what he had needed. Right now he was a bundle of neurosis and a pharmacy’s worth of medication, all of which just barely kept him from flying off the handle.

Marshal had actually been a little surprised at how much information the Bureau had about the adult Daniel Worth, but considering Worth Enterprises handled a couple of government contracts it probably shouldn’t have been that much of a shocker. Different agencies had blacked some information out, but there was enough there that he was getting a pretty screwed up picture.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. Schyzoaffective disorder, possibly schizoid personality. Panic attacks treated by anti-anxiety medication. Possible agoraphobia. And to treat his problems, at least three different drugs for each issue, some of which interacted together badly and caused side-effects that were treated by different drugs.

Daniel Worth was a giant mess. He was the kind of guy that any sane person would meet, find out a little about him, then promptly shelve any idea of even thinking about having a relationship with him.

So why was Marshal so enthralled?

He stroked his fingertip across the cheek of the photo-Daniel that had come with the file. That unsmiling mouth, those slightly too-sharp features, and those eyes that just seemed too sad for words.

He looked down into photo-Daniel’s eyes, and more than anything he wanted to make things better for him. He didn’t want him to look so sad in photographs. He wanted to see his smile and hear his laugh, if he ever even did that.

“I am so screwed,” he whispered, then chuckled softly to himself. Even knowing that he was heading toward disaster, he couldn’t help the part of his brain that started thinking up ideas on how he was going to see Daniel again.

Just five minutes with the man and Marshal was helpless to the desire burning through him to talk to him again.

* * *

Having the FBI in his house had knocked loose some of the old nightmares. For the first time in nearly a year, even with his medicine, he was woken in the middle of the night by bad dreams.

Danny jerked upright in bed, sweat and tears streaming down his face, still hearing the phantom sound of his mother’s scream in his ears, which was ridiculous because he hadn’t even been there when she died. His heart beat fast and he panted hard, looking around. Just waking up, he had the feeling that he had been screaming at the top of his lungs, but his throat didn’t ache and no servants had come running into his room.

“It’s all in my head, it’s all in my head,” he whispered, staring into the darkness.

It might have all been in his head, but the terror he had felt was real. It was the terror that always had him pushing people away. It was the terror that always left him trembling at the thought of breaking his routine. It was the terror that kept him locked in this house all the time.

He had lived most of his life locked up in fear. Some part of him wanted to push all that aside and go out in the world as a real person, but he just couldn’t do it.

He had been broken too early in his life. He was what he was and there was no changing that.

His therapist had tried to tell him that if he just worked at it he would be all right. She was always trying to get him to believe that if he just wanted it enough, someday he could get better.

But he knew that she was a liar. She didn’t mean to be a liar, but she was just so intent on looking at the brighter side of things that she just couldn’t face the truth.

Like his Aunt Lauren had always told him, he was a broken, messed up little boy and there was no coming back from that.

He should just be content with what he had and be glad that he had at least one friend that understood him in his life. He should just be grateful that Arthur had always been there, because otherwise he would have been completely alone and not brave enough to meet anyone else.

Danny waited until his heart rate had slowed enough that it wasn’t pounding in his ears, then slowly got out of bed. He was so sweaty that his pajamas were sticking to his skin and even in the warmth of the room he was shivering with the sudden cold.

It was–he glanced at the clock–four o’clock in the morning and he was going to have to break his usual routine and take a shower and change into fresh pajamas before he could go back to sleep.

In all honesty, he wanted to just forget about going back to bed and go into his game room and play with his Legos. But he knew that if he did that, if he allowed himself to deviate so far from his routine, then he would never sleep again.

He would find himself acting as crazy as he had those first few months when he’d been free of his Aunt Lauren’s controlling grip. He would end up not sleeping for days at a time, filled with a kind of manic energy that had eventually had him feeling more afraid than excited. Near the end, before Arthur had forced him to take his medicine and finally get some sleep, the thoughts that had been whirling around in his head had been so distorted and frightening that he hadn’t known what was real or not. Everything had just been this blur of terror and anxiety, where every little thing made his nerves scream and pull so tight that his physical muscles ached with it.

He didn’t want to go back to being like that. To stumbling through his days and nights, not sure if those ghostly men touching him had been real or if his parents’ bodies weren’t really following him around, his father’s ashen skin rotting away from the bone. It had been like being trapped in one of his nightmares, and since he was already awake there was no getting away from it all.

Danny shook his head. No, he was not going to play with his Legos now. He was going to shower and get back into bed and try to sleep until it was time for him to really wake up and go to work. He was going to make himself believe that everything was going to be normal and the dreams weren’t going to get him when he closed his eyes.

The only thing that saved him from complete insanity was his routine. It was his touchstone to reality, and without it he would be lost and afraid.

Following the routine was what gave him control over his life. It was the only safety he had, and without it there was only anarchy and the cold dead touch of his father’s breath on his neck, whispering always, “It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.” The same words that he had died saying, promising Danny that everything was going to be okay.

Only nothing had ever been okay since that day. And the only thing that gave him some semblance of being in control of the madness screaming in his mind were the rules he closely followed and the routine he made himself stick to no matter what.

Because without his rules he wasn’t someone that should be let out into public. Without his rules he was just as crazy and dangerous and out of control as his Aunt Lauren had always said he was. And there was no way he was ever going to prove her right, because in that case he never should have broken away from her in the first place. He should have stayed in his little room and let her have his money and his life just the way she had always wanted.

And no matter how frightening his dreams were, the realities of what had gone on in that house were more dreadful to him than any ghosts. Because without his medicine, and just after a nightmare had torn his mind all open, he remembered some of the things she had done to him–had let be done to him–and there was no way he would ever let himself be taken back to that place again.

He would kill himself first.

/ CHAPTER

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