Working Stiff

“Easy,” he said. “You’re going to break something, but it won’t be that window. Bullet-resistant glass, all the way around. This is our VIP car.”



“I’m honored,” she said in utter disgust, tugged her skirt down to a ladylike angle, and sat in silence until they’d passed the gates of Pharmadene.



Until all hope was gone.



Damn you, McCallister, what is going on? Where are you? She was starting to think that Joe Fideli wasn’t the only casualty of the last twenty-four hours—or the last.



Irene Harte had an office approximately eight times the size of Bryn’s; it was so large that there were two conference tables at different points, a sofa-and-chair grouping, a full bar…. It was bigger than most apartments, kitchen included, and as Bryn was frog-marched across the expensive Persian carpet toward the desk, there was no sign of the woman herself. Just an extremely impressive desk—clutter-free, save for two thin folders in a letter tray and a Montblanc pen lying at an angle. The empty leather chair behind the desk could easily have doubled for a throne in a movie about Queen Elizabeth the First. The view from the gigantic panorama windows behind it was breathtaking, and mostly green and unspoiled.



“Sit,” Bryn’s guard said, and pushed her down in one of the two angled visitor chairs. He stood behind and a little off to the side, ready to counter if she did anything stupid.



Which she was considering, but it would probably be fairly difficult to stab someone fatally with a Montblanc. The pen’s shape was a little too rounded.



A concealed door opened to the side, and Irene Harte emerged, trailed by another movie-star-beautiful woman who carried a steaming cup in one hand and a notepad in the other. The cup went on the desk, on a crystal coaster. The pad, and the woman, left the room without even a glance at Bryn or her escort.



Harte nodded to the guard and said, “You may wait outside.”



“Ma’am, I don’t think it’s advisable. She’s—”



“I know exactly what Ms. Davis is capable of doing,” Harte interrupted, her gaze fixed on Bryn’s face. “Go. If I need you, I’ll ring Mareen’s desk. You may wait there.”



“Ma’am.” He touched an invisible hat and left. It seemed to take forever for him to cross the office, even at a brisk walk, but Harte didn’t move or speak until the door had clicked its latch behind him.



Then she sat back, smiled, and said, “How are you, Bryn? Doing well?”



That was not what Bryn had expected. She didn’t answer. Harte glanced at the steaming cup on her desk, and her fine eyebrows twitched, then pulled down. She pressed a button on her phone. “Mareen, bring Ms. Davis a cup of coffee….” She paused, looking at Bryn. “Milk? Sugar?”



“Yes,” Bryn said. If she was going to die, she might as well have coffee. The whole thing—already surreal—was turning into a French farce. “Are you going to offer me a blindfold and a cigarette, too, or just a last meal?”



“Don’t be so dramatic,” Harte said. “Mareen, milk and sugar in that, please. Thank you.” She let go of the intercom button and sat back. She tapped her index finger on the desk’s surface, slowly. It was the only sound in the hushed room.



Bryn said, “You abducted me for coffee and to ask how I was. You know, most people just phone.”



“I’m not most people.”



Obviously. “What do you want?”



“I want you to tell me everything you know about Patrick McCallister.”



That was a very odd request, coming from a woman who had access, surely, to every scrap of information on record about the man. “I don’t know anything, really. He likes to be mysterious. Don’t you know him better? You’re his boss.”



“Boss,” Harte repeated softly, with an odd smile. “Yes, I am. But as you say, he’s mysterious. You’ve been working with him quite closely.”



Bryn shrugged. “If by closely you mean he tells me what to do, yes.” Calm, she told herself. Be calm.



“It’s come to my attention that Mr. McCallister may be involved in … questionable activities. Do you have any knowledge of these things?”



“No.” That was still the truth. She had no idea what Harte would consider questionable, considering what was being sanctioned by her at Pharmadene.



Harte’s eyes went flat and cold, like a shark’s. “I want you to listen to me very closely,” she said. “Condition Sapphire, Bryn. Do you hear me?”



“Yes,” Bryn said. She felt nothing. The inhibitor was working, she hoped; if it wasn’t, it was going to be a panic-stricken interview on her side, and a very informative one on Harte’s.



“You and McCallister have become close, haven’t you? Tell me the truth.”



“Yes,” Bryn said. Nice to know I can still lie. Patrick McCallister definitely wasn’t close to her; they had an emotional barrier between them the size of the Great Wall of China. She was honest enough to admit that it was partly her own issue.



Harte was moving on. “You’ve stayed at his family home.”



“Yes, while security was upgraded on my apartment.”



“And quite recently, you and McCallister took a trip out of town together—quite an elaborate little trip, apparently, one on which he took great pains to evade surveillance. Where did you go?”



Bryn didn’t dare hesitate, not for a second; she remembered how it had felt when she’d lost control in the bar. Hesitation would be fatal, and it would betray her completely. “To a motel,” she said. “The Hallmark Motor Court Inn. I don’t really know what town it was in.”



Harte opened a folder, took up the Montblanc, and marked something down without really looking at her. “And what did you do all that time at the motel, Bryn?”



Even with the inhibitors, Bryn felt a little stirring of impulse to blurt it out—the lab, Manny Glickman, the IV, Pansy, the mugging, McCallister’s gentle touch on her forehead. She gulped it down and squeezed the arms of the chair as she said, “We made love. Three times. Once on the bed—”



Harte glanced up, eyebrows arched, and then held up a hand. “I don’t need the details. Well … not yet. Not until I have Patrick McCallister’s story to match it against.” Her smile was cold, and thin enough to cut. “You went all that way, to a motel, to indulge your apparently ravenous sexual appetites for each other. You do know he has a house.”



“He said we were being watched. And there was something else he wanted there, at the motel.”



“Did he say what it was?”



“No,” Bryn said.



Harte waited a beat before she said, “Did you do anything else while you were on this little pleasure trip?”



“No.” Again, Bryn felt that stirring inside, like something hammering hard against a closed door, struggling to get free. Tell her. Tell her everything. She shuddered and held on. How long had Manny said the inhibitors would last? Was she getting close to the time they’d wear off? What if he’d been wrong about the effective dose?



“Did McCallister pay you?”



Bryn blinked. That was the last thing she’d expected. “Pay me?”



“Did McCallister give you money in return for sex? Or your silence about such activities?”



“No.”



“Well, you wouldn’t be the first, although you’re certainly his most … unusual choice.” Harte lifted her shoulders in a graceful shrug. “I suppose he has somewhat perverse taste, considering your … condition.” She paused and cocked her head, staring hard at Bryn for a moment. “Do you understand what’s happening to you, Bryn? Why you can’t stop yourself from telling me these very personal things?”



“No.” Bryn tried to remember the panic she’d felt before, the internal struggle. Harte needed to see those things. She expected to see them.



Mareen entered the room from that same side door she’d used before, set a second cup of coffee pale with milk on the side table beside Bryn, and departed without a word.



“Drink your coffee, Bryn; I wouldn’t want it to get cold.”



Bryn obediently reached for it and sipped. It was delicious, and the hot liquid made her feel sharper, but more jittery, too. The cup rattled lightly against the saucer as she put it down. Look at us, so civilized, sipping our coffee from expensive cups while she mind-rapes me. Or tries to.



“I knew from the moment I saw your revival profile that McCallister had some use for you beyond his stated objectives; he tried to opt you out of certain control features built into Returné for the safety of the company. I countermanded that, in the hopes you’d tell me something more about McCallister’s business. It’s not your fault, Bryn. You may feel you’re betraying him, but I assure you, you’re not. You’re simply a recording device I put next to him.” Harte tapped her fingernails again, thinking, then continued. “Have you seen him meet anyone not associated directly with Pharmadene?”



“Liam,” Bryn said.



“The estate administrator. No, not counting Liam. Anyone else?”



“No. Just Joe Fideli and his other security people. No one else.”



“Hmm.” Harte’s eyes lowered to half-mast, making her look deceptively relaxed. “And have you overheard him discuss anything that did not relate to Pharmadene business?”



“No.”



“That’s deeply unfortunate. I was really hoping you would be more … enlightening.” Harte sat back and drank her coffee in silence for a moment, and Bryn was just starting to relax a bit when she said, “Are you in love with Patrick McCallister?”



“No!” Bryn said. Too quickly. Too much force. It was an instinctive denial, not a reasoned answer, and Harte speared her with a cold, level gaze. Bryn swallowed and tried again. “I have no feelings for him.”



“That, Ms. Davis, means that when he took you to the motel, he did so without your consent. I assume that he coerced you by use of the same command I just engaged. Is that correct? You had no feelings for him, yet you participated in a full day of illicit sex with him, under duress?”