Chapter Seven - Molly
Blue Corp is in a very modern thirtysomething-story building on the far west side of Cathedral City, right up next to the foothills. It’s not called a headquarters, it’s called a campus, that’s how many acres this place needs to house all the employees working here.
There are a few entrance gates since it’s so sprawling, but the main one, the one where visitors enter, is on the south side of the campus and it’s heavily manned with armed guards.
I stop at the guard house and roll my window down to talk to a very hard-looking man dressed in a black uniform with the Blue Corp logo on it.
“State your business,” he demands.
I flash him my badge. “Detective Molly Masters. I have an appointment to talk with Mr. Montgomery.”
The guard looks me up and down, then studies my badge for a moment. “Hold it steady,” he says as he waves a piece of tech blazing a blue light over it. “Let me scan the image in and I’ll be right back after your identity is authenticated.”
I sigh as he walks away, then roll my window up to keep the light drizzle from blowing in.
Thoughts of the weekend run through my head. I threw a party. Which is very unlike me. Especially since the only people I know are from the department. Not to mention I got drunk enough to pass out and there might’ve been a man involved since I woke up in lingerie.
Lingerie you don’t own, Molly, my inner voice reminds me.
Well, I own it now. Did I meet someone fabulous who likes to spend money on stupid things like pretty underwear that’s supposed to be ripped off—or ripped apart, I snicker—during sex? I wonder what he looks like. I wonder if I had sex with him. I wonder if I liked it.
I consider my love life for a moment and what bad luck that I might’ve had sex for the first time in over a year and I drank too much to remember the best parts. I sure hope we used protection.
Jesus.
The full consequences of what I did over the weekend come crashing down on me. I’m gonna need to go to the doctor if I don’t start remembering who my date was.
The guard appears again, so I roll the window down and let the drizzle accost me as it blows in my face.
“You’re set, Miss Masters. Mr. Montgomery’s assistant will meet you in the lobby and take you to his office.”
He walks off before I can finish saying, “Thanks!”
Whatever. I buzz the control for the window and pull away as the gate lifts up to allow me entrance to the campus. The road is long, deserted, and flanked on either side with towering Ponderosa pines. After a mile or so, I finally come to the main building parking lot. There’s a number at the head of each space, so I find one near the entrance marked, Visitors, and park my unmarked police car.
I look in the mirror, wish I had put on more concealer under my eyes this morning, then thank my lucky stars that I wore my best professional suit. I got it for Will’s funeral.
God, I’m so sad. I have a moment where I feel nothing but defeat and surrender. The depression I suffered after Will died was so debilitating, I had to leave the military with a medical discharge. It was honorable, so there’s that. But I loved the military. I loved the order and the way things needed to be done just so. I don’t think I have OCD, like as a diagnosis. But orderly things make me feel good. They make me feel in control.
Stop, Molly. Stop going backwards.
The whole point of taking this job was to move forward. Every day I tell myself that I won’t think about it, but I always find a way.
So I steel myself for another day, grab my raincoat, get out, tug it on, and then make a dash for the lobby doors. Inside there is soothing classical music being piped through the hidden sound system and a row of half a dozen immaculate blonde women quietly talking on phones behind the main reception desk.
There is no one else here but me and them. But at least a dozen security cameras pan as I walk across the black marble floors. I can spot them anywhere. No matter how well hidden, I can tell. It’s like I have some sixth sense when it comes to surveillance.
The building, while new and shiny, mimics the old-world architecture that Cathedral City is famous for. On the outside the building looks like a collection of massive blue crystals, something you might find growing up from the floor of a cave.
I pause for a moment as the word cave rolls around in my brain like it’s been there recently, but then shake myself out of my subconscious and concentrate on what I’m doing.
The lobby feels like a church, if a church was made of polished black stone and glass. It even has a pitched ceiling, like the interior of a spire, and mimicking the outside architecture. The walls are made of bluish glass. Probably bulletproof.
“Miss Masters,” a soothing voice says from behind me.
I turn to find a woman about my age and my height, dressed in a cream-colored skirt suit with a tan piping outline down the front. Her legs are long and end at a pair of matching stilettos. I wonder how she walks in those things all day long.
My hand extends automatically. “Yes, I’m Detective Masters. And you are?”
“Miss Veti,” she says in a low, calm voice. It borders on seductive. “Valentine Veti. But everyone calls me Val.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Veti. I’m here to talk to Mr. Montgomery about the issue he had over the weekend.”
“Yes,” Val Veti says, leaning into my ear. “Thank you for coming. He’s very unhappy about this, Detective. And I’m afraid you will bear the brunt of his anger today. So please don’t judge him too harshly.”
“Great,” I say sarcastically as she turns and beckons me to follow her with a flick of her finger. This is going to be fun.
The elevator ride is long and silent, with only Miss Veti’s fake smile to keep me company. I massage my temples and if I had one wish, it would be to go home and go back to bed. The doors finally open when we get to the thirty-third floor, and Miss Veti leads me out into a posh receiving area with the same polished black marble floors and glass everywhere I look. It’s clear glass up here and I suppose no one needs bulletproof glass this high up in the sky.
“This is Mr. Montgomery’s office. Please wait here while I see if he’s available.”
“He better be available,” I mutter under my breath. But she either doesn’t hear me or chooses to ignore my remark, because she walks off down a long hallway off to my right.
Mr. Montgomery’s office is one entire floor of a multi-million-dollar building. Pretentious much? Well, what did I expect? His first name is Atticus. I do believe he’s the first Atticus I’ve ever encountered outside of fiction.
There are no chairs and no desk. Just a wide-open room with floor-to-ceiling windows and an expansive view of Cathedral City draped with an eerie mist.
I walk over and gaze out. The day is gray and cloudy, as per usual in this part of the country in the late winter. And the drizzle has turned into rain in the past few minutes since I left my car. I can count all thirteen cathedrals that the city is named for from this view. I wonder if this building counts as one? Probably not, I decide. The cathedrals down there are old. A hundred years at least. Most of them are ruins. Only the largest one, used for public events and religious holidays, and the second largest, both of which flank the town square, are in good repair. And the second tallest was just refurbished by some out-of-town corporate billionaire, I hear. I guess he plans on giving Blue Corp a run for their money.
“Detective Masters?” A deep voice from behind makes me turn.
“Yes,” I say, putting on my public servant smile. “The chief wanted me to come and look into the… issue you had over the weekend.” I look around, unsure if anyone else is listening and trying to be discreet since Miss Veti was low-talking when she mentioned it downstairs.
“Please,” Mr. Montgomery says with a wave of his hand and a furrow of his brow. “Speak freely here. My offices are completely private. Come, let’s talk in my inner chambers.”
I smile again after realizing I’m squinting at him, and move ahead as he waits for me to go first. I try not to gawk as I walk down the long hallway. Pictures of him on the walls capture my attention. In one he is skydiving, another he’s climbing a mountain that requires an oxygen mask. A few more flash by as I proceed and I am unable to get a good look at them, but the last one makes me stop.
“Ah,” Mr. Montgomery says with a small chuckle. “Do you like it?”
I study the photo for a moment. He’s very handsome now and I’d peg him to be in his early thirties. But he was young in this picture. Early twenties, maybe. The hair was blonder, the eyes brighter, and the smile wider. There are no worry lines on his forehead on that day, just pure joy. It’s actually a series of pictures, four of them lined up horizontally along the wall, but contained within one expansive frame.
He’s surfing a giant wave in the second of the series and the caption says Monsoon Beach—wave height, forty feet. I’m no expert in surfing but that’s a big fucking wave.
“It wasn’t even close to the biggest wave ever surfed, but it was a record for me. And I can tell you this, Detective, my heart was pounding so fast, I thought I might pass out before it was over.”
I look up at him and he’s smiling. He almost looks like the young man holding a trophy in the third image. “I bet,” I say, knowing what it’s like to put your life on the line for sport, “your mother was pissed.”
He laughs heartily. “Oh, you have no idea.” He puts a hand on my back and guides me forward into his private office. When we get inside there are more pictures of him. Snowboarding competitions, skiing down pristine, virgin mountains. Rock-climbing sheer cliff faces. Sailing. I pause on that one, trying to find the connection.
“Solo trip around the world,” Montgomery says, like he’s reading my mind. “I was seventeen and that boat was nothing but a twenty-four-foot sloop.”
“So it bit you early, huh?” I turn to look at him as he smiles at his younger self.
“What?” he asks, dragging his eyes away from the memory of that day.
“The X-bug.” He gives me a confused look. “That’s what I call it. My father was a stunt rider. I grew up in the circus. My brother and I followed in his footsteps until the unthinkable happened.”
Montgomery’s smile falters. He understands better than most, I bet. “I’m sorry.”
He probably is. He’s probably one of the few who know what it’s like to lose people in the game of daring. “The X-gene. The X-factor. The life of an extreme addict. It must’ve been difficult to settle down in this…” I look around at his office. “Prison.”
His laugh is uneasy, like I hit the nail on the head. “Well, you’re certainly perceptive, Detective Masters. Which is why I’m glad you’re here. I’m hoping you’ll be able to figure out if the last two suicides are related. And whether it’s something internal we need to deal with, or just a coincidence.”
“Well, I’m here to find the truth and nothing more, so take that any way you want.” It’s unnecessary to make an enemy out of him, but there’s this chip on my shoulder. It’s not easy being a woman in a world filled with men. It was difficult in the military, but they had discipline. And I’m starting to get the impression that the CCPD doesn’t give one fuck about discipline. But at least Montgomery isn’t the pretentious asshole I imagined him being on the way over.
“Good,” he says, back to business. “Have a seat, Miss Masters.”
Ah, they always do that eventually. It was all Detective this and Detective that until I didn’t play along with the illusion that I’m at his beck and call. “Thank you, Atticus.”
His eyebrow shoots up but he keeps his mouth shut. Perhaps realizing he needs my services just as much as I need his cooperation.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning so we can get started?” I sit down and get my tablet out to take notes. “Who found the body?”
This is how it starts. This is why I do this job. I’ve always had this keen interest in figuring things out. Puzzles, the best way to do a trick on the bikes, and then later, security details to keep people safe. I was good at it. Very good. So good I was promoted after noticing something strange about a man during a highbrow politician’s inaugural speech a few years back. I saved the politician’s life and found a new passion at the same time. And this one simple question is the first step down the path of truth.
I live for it. I’d die for it, that’s how much I love getting to the bottom of things. I have never been tolerant of mysteries. I need answers and I need them immediately. But I force myself to be patient when I’m working. Force myself to be calm, and still, and quiet as I listen for lies, or missing truths, or wasted opportunities.
And Atticus Montgomery gives me all that and more. Because the first thing out of his mouth is, “We might have a problem.”
“How so?” I ask, leaning in.
“These two men started working for the company at the same time. Fifteen years ago, to be precise. And they were working on the same project.”
“What project is that?”
“I can’t tell you specifics, as it’s highly secret. But it’s enough of a coincidence that I’m worried.”
“Well, tell me everything you can and I’ll try to figure it out.”
He tells me some, but it’s mostly corporate double-talk. I might as well be a member of the press. So I leave there with no idea what’s going on and with no possibilities rambling around in my brain.
But I did get a name, and after a visit to the wife of the last suicide victim, an inkling. Top-secret project was all she knew. No specifics, so that was a dead end. But she did say the job was weighing on him and he had been feeling out of sorts. Irritability and loss of interest in her and their children. Hopelessness and insomnia. All typical signs of severe depression. This is something I have firsthand knowledge of.
But she also said he was talking about moving away. Getting out of science and retiring early. And when I pressed her, asking if he was doing this in secret or if she felt he was trying to set her up to go on after he killed himself, she said no. They were making plans to buy a small bed-and-breakfast business in the tropics.
It’s possible she misread him and he was setting her up for after he was gone. Giving her a headstart on a new life that didn’t include him. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like… she was describing an escape.
It’s not much. Hardly anything at all. But it’s always the small things that solve a mystery. So I tuck it away and head back to the department.