Runaway 1
- 4 years ago
- 23
- 0
The line was silent except for Stephanie’s breathing on the other end. I was content to let her filter my statement in her own way.
“And what exactly are you talking about?” she asked in a brittle voice.
“A couple things off the top of my head,” I replied. “You didn’t attend the University of Alabama and you don’t have a college degree.”
More silence greeted me but I heard a door open and close.
“You went to college in Pennsylvania for a year and a half before dropping out and going to work at a strip club,” I continued.
“I did not strip!” Stephanie hissed. Her voice was low because I was positive her husband was at the house on a Saturday afternoon.
“I didn’t say you did,” I said. “I said you worked there. Your maiden name is Grossman. You went to Slippery Rock University for a year and a half. You were studying public administration. I’ll give you that one. You had a good GPA, far better than mine. Then you left. Your name changed from Grossman to Whitmer but there is no marriage certificate or legal name change. It wasn’t identity theft because you kept the same Social Security number. You worked at a place called ‘Ricky’s Cabaret’ near Pittsburgh for a couple of years and came to Nashville when you were 23. After that, your story is pretty much like you’ve told it.”
“I was a waitress,” Stephanie protested in a whisper.
“I have no idea what you did and it doesn’t matter to me,” I said. “I decided that you were unlikely to be the source of leaked information so I kept it to myself. But this time, I’m not going to let you lie.”
“I’m not lying about anything,” Stephanie said angrily.
“You’ve made up your mind,” I said. “You’ve decided to wait and see which way the wind is blowing before you commit. Well, that ain’t happening. If we get out of this relatively unscathed, you’ll show up next week like nothing ever happened. If it all goes bad you’ll tell all and sundry that you left as soon as you found out. You’re playing both sides of the street and I’m not going to put up with it.
“The rest of us ... every last one of us ... have put our chips on the table. We’re in. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you straddle the fence. So, here’s the deal. Choose! You’re with us or you’re against us.”
I heard Stephanie’s ragged breathing on the other line.
“How did you find out about me?” Stephanie asked. She was stalling for time and I knew it. I decided to fill her in on my activities of the past month.
“Come on,” I said. “Do you honestly think I would let something happen to Liz without finding every last morsel of information I could about those that have the ability to harm her? You said it yourself: A lot of information is out there if you know where to look. I have access to some people that can get under every rock and into every dark corner that something might be hidden. I spread a little cash around – my own money, not Liz’s – and compiled the information on everybody. I know how much money you have in the bank. I know where that money came from and where it goes. Neither you nor Scott is a risk to Liz so I kept your embellished resume to myself.
“Nobody is absolutely truthful, Stephanie; not me, not you, not Liz. We all have little lies that have somehow engrained themselves into our brains as truths. I’m not going to use the information no matter which way you go. But Liz has dealt with a manager that put his interests ahead of hers for far too long. If she had any sort of management when this went down, we wouldn’t be where we are right now. I’m not going to sit back and let her walk into the same situation with you. So ... if you haven’t contacted her by seven o’clock to tell her yes or no, I’m going to urge her to replace you.”
“Maybe I’ll urge her to replace you,” Stephanie said. “Your spot is just as tenuous as mine.”
“If you want to give that a shot, I’ll not stop you,” I answered. “I’m secure in the knowledge that Liz and I are going to be OK – professionally and personally. I think if you were to make that attempt it would go badly for you. We both know who’s going to wind up on the floor looking for work when push comes to shove. I don’t care if you like me. Honestly, I don’t care if you like Liz. But if you’re going to take a paycheck from her, you’re going to give it your all. I will not permit it to be any other way.”
“Don’t forget that you’re going to be working for me in a few weeks,” Stephanie declared.
I chuckled.
“No,” I said. “I’m not. You obviously haven’t seen Liz’s organization chart in a couple of weeks. Her manager is not going to oversee much of anything. You, her business adviser, her property head, Ryan, Jill, Susan and I are all going to be on the same level. We will answer directly to Liz. I will work with you. I will never work for you. So, our role at the beginning won’t be determined by a job title.”
“You’ve certainly found a way to push yourself into a prominent role,” Stephanie noted acidly.
“I have done nothing to pursue this at all,” I said. “I’ve done whatever I could to help Liz and to look out for her. I suggested that I be included as part of Susan’s domain. They decided, given that I am going to be her publicist and spokesman, I should answer directly to Liz. If you have a problem with the setup, take it up with her. I was not consulted any more than you were. I’m not sure I like it any better than you do. But it is what it is and I’ll learn to live with it.”
“Fine,” Stephanie said.
“So what if you won’t get to oversee every facet of her fiefdom from the outset?” I asked. “In the future, that might change. Right now, Liz is doing this to protect your feelings. She didn’t want to overload you with too much crap until you could get your feet under you. That’s the kind of friend she is. You might want to take notes.”
“I’m her friend,” Stephanie said loudly. I wondered how soon her husband would poke his head into wherever she’d hidden to see if she was OK.
“Friends don’t run, Stephanie,” I countered. “Friends don’t hide when the going gets tough so they can make sure they’re still standing when it’s over. They wade right in and do what they can to turn the tide. You’re standing on the sideline waiting for the contest to end so you can stand beside the winner. That’s not a friend. I’m through with this. You got the same set of facts as everybody else. You know everything anybody else knows. Pick your side or I’ll pick for you.”
I ended the call and angrily pushed the phone into my pocket. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them I saw Liz standing in a short robe on the balcony overlooking the pool area. I smiled and waved to her. She waved back and said something I couldn’t hear. I hoped that boded well for her being unable to have heard my conversation with Stephanie.
I signaled to her that the noise from the waterfall was too loud and made my way closer.
“That looked pretty intense,” she said when I got just below her. She leaned over the railing to look down at me (and, sadly, I had no view up the robe).
“It was OK,” I said.
“What did you learn?” she asked.
“Uh, nothing yet,” I admitted. “I had to make another call first.”
“Who?” Liz asked.
“Personal,” I said. She lifted an eyebrow at me. “I mean, not personal ... personal. But it was a call relating to something I’d rather not talk to you about right now. OK?”
“Does it involve me?” Liz asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, unwilling to lie to her. “I’ll explain everything to you sometime later. Can you just trust me?”
Liz smiled and nodded.
“I didn’t mean to ... spy on you,” she said. “I came out to show you my bikini so you wouldn’t try to molest me as soon as you saw me.”
“Do you really think I’m not going to try to molest you anyway?” I asked.
Liz’s smile widened.
“Well ... to be honest ... I always thought that getting felt up under the waterfall might be sort of hot,” she said. “So ... the thought of molestation by your hands did cross my mind. Wanna see?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “But I can’t from here. Unless you want to climb over the railing and see if I can catch you.”
“Bum shoulder,” Liz said. “Maybe you could take a step backward.”
It took four steps before I could see Liz’s entire body. She waited until I was in place before pushing the robe off one of her shoulders. It was bare and my eyes widened. She did the same with the opposite shoulder and kept the robe clutched to her chest.
She slid her hand downward and let the robe fall farther down her arms. It wasn’t until almost every centimeter of her creamy breast was visible that I saw any material at all. Her top consisted entirely of a three-inch band that covered her nipples (mostly).
“Whoa,” I muttered when the robe was wrapped entirely around her waist.
The bottoms of her breasts were as bare as the tops.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Sexy,” I said.
“You say that about everything I wear,” she said with a mock pout.
“It’s true about everything you wear,” I answered. Liz grinned again and I saw her little pink tongue slip between her teeth. I reached down to adjust something that had become uncomfortable in the past few seconds.
“Oh,” Liz said, “sporting wood and you ain’t even seen the bottom half yet. This definitely has promise.”
She dropped the robe and put her hands atop her head. Both of her nipples popped out of their elastic covering and I sat down hard in a chair. I quickly stood again because my new vantage point caused the railing to obscure the bottom of Liz’s body.
The lower portion of the suit was ... miniscule. It was cut so low in the front that Liz’s pubic hair above her slit had already ended before the bikini started. It had two strings that wrapped low around her hips and covered her lips, the area between her legs and nothing more.
She slowly spun in a circle. The strings came at the top of the swell of her butt then dipped into the crack and disappeared.
“Holy shit,” I said.
“I thought about wearing this on the way back from Cabo until we decided to just go naked,” she told me as she slid bands back over her nipples. “Do you like it?”
I nodded dumbly.
“Good!” Liz said. “Now go change into your suit and don’t beat off until I get down there.”
There was a changing room right next to the pool where Liz and I kept suits. I pulled my shirt over my head and already had my shorts unbuttoned and the zipper down before I even got the door open. It took me a second to get my locker opened and pull the swim trunks out because my hands were shaking. I had just managed to pull them up to my thighs when the door opened.
Liz put an arm on the door jamb, again causing one of her now tanned nipples to free itself.
“Hey, Baby,” she said in a husky voice. “Is that for me?”
“Always,” I stammered. Liz smiled and entered, pulling the door closed behind her and locking it.
She crawled up on the table and pulled her suit to the side.
“Just a quickie before we hit the water,” she said as she ran a finger between her lower lips. My trunks weren’t even up to my waist so I didn’t see any problem with the idea. She grabbed me by the neck and pulled me in for a deep kiss, leaving me to line myself up.
“Umm,” Liz moaned as I ran the head of my erection through her furrow to spread the moisture around.
She put her heels on my butt and pulled me forward until I entered her.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said, nodding. “Don’t cum in me. It’s hell to get it out of the pool.”
I probably would have agreed to rob a bank for her at that point.
“Hard, Baby,” she groaned. “Give it to me hard. God, I got so hot just watching you staring at my body. When you had to fix your boner I could have cum if I’d had played with myself. But I want to be with you when I cum. I love it when you make me go off.”
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It was dark when I woke up and it took me a second to remember where I was. Curled up in the passenger seat of a Honda Civic. The engine was off and it was quiet. There was some light, more grey than any real color, coming from the windows and I blinked, looking around. I was in a parking garage it looked like, underground and not very full. A few cars scattered here and there, but most of them crowded against a distant wall. The light was coming from a couple ramps mostly, daylight. I...
"You move pretty fast for being so small," the woman said. "I almost caught up with you in Boise." I didn't say anything, even though I had a lot of questions. It was like I couldn't settle on just one to ask, so I didn't ask any. Or maybe I was afraid of the answers. I had been running fast, very fast and even if this woman hadn't been dead, which I was pretty sure she had been, she shouldn't ever have been able to find me. Not by herself, not without help. We got back to the...
The sunlight hurt my eyes, even the very little escaping from the drawn curtains. Just a slender fissure and I turned weakly away from it. I felt tired and empty inside, not so much hungry as just ... empty. My skin was cold and clammy and the light seemed to crawl across my flesh. I trembled and wondered if this wasn't DT, the withdrawl eating away at my brain. I hadn't fixed since I'd seen Vin and I had no idea how long ago that had been. I didn't think I was really addicted to the...
We actually drove through what there was of the town of Newrock, and pulled onto a dirt road that was even worse than the one we'd been traveling. After a mile or two there was a big silver, double wide trailer ahead of us, and Angela parked next to an old pickup truck. There were no lights and if anyone was there, apparently they hadn't been woken up by our arrival. I got out of the car, following Angela as she walked to the mobile home, which had a small wooden porch up a few short...
She was weak now, but still alive four days later. I mean Audrey, of course, who'd become something of a pet to me. We'd brought her home, to our house in Klamath Falls. It was really Angela's place, but she'd made it mine as well. We were mated now, there really was nothing of mine that wasn't Angela's as well, and so the opposite was also true. And I'd been changing. Every hour, every minute, I was becoming something else. There were obvious things, like the way I talked, the way I...
I dreamt. Everyday, sleeping in the cool dark with Angela to hold me, I was dead. And yet I dreamed. And that my dreams were bad I had little doubt, but I could never remember them. They were small snippets and fragments, all jumbled together in one confused memory. And even that much was quickly forgotten as well. But just knowing that I had them troubled me greatly. I thought there must be some meaning there, as Angela had divined me from her own dreams. She'd sought and found me, guided...
I was asleep, and I knew that because my parents were still alive. We were in the car with the darkness all around, as if we'd entered a long tunnel and we had to drive through it. I didn't want to, but in my dream I didn't seem to care as I sat in the backseat, buckled up tight and holding Edgar. I smiled in my sleep I think, because I'd forgotten him completely. Edgar the Bear, soft and stuffed and in my arms. What a nice dream, except for my shoulder. It hurt and when I looked down at...
"There's someone here," I said. "I know," Angela replied from her bath as I entered the small room. I'd been resting, just being lazy really, and talking with Natalie in her bed. "Who is it?" I asked, frowning a little. My power to sense other vampires was growing, but still weak. I had no real idea how near or far this other one was, or what the creature's purpose might be. I didn't believe in coincidence though; this other vampire, whoever it was, would have come to Sacramento...
David finished the first term of Year 10 before he left Australia but the US schools start in August not February. The different start dates and the time he missed has David unsure about what level to start at in the Window Rock High School, so he arranges to be tested by the local school board. In some subjects he tests well enough to be a Junior, what they call Year 11 in the US, and in others he tests out as a Sophomore, the Year 10 equivalent. So he registers as a Sophomore, but in the...
David waits until the Walkers leave the area before he starts to ask around about someone he can talk to in law enforcement in Texas. He’s very careful about who he asks and how he asks them because of his concerns about what he suspects from the records he’s read. On a Tuesday evening in mid December Jerry Fasthorse, the police officer who lives down the street, drops in to talk to David. He says, “I found a contact for you. To talk to them we have to attend a meeting near Albuquerque on...
In the November before his high school graduation David speaks with the trustee of his US based trust about attending university and emails him a copy of what courses he’s finished with a list of what he wishes to do for the next few years. Based on the course information from the university he can start studies in the summer after high school finishes to attend the uni for two years, plus summer classes before, between, and after those two years to have degrees in both business management...
All of David’s summer semester classes are over: the last exam is done, the last assignment is handed in, the major project is finished, he’s all packed up and ready to leave. The staff check his room and sign off on it being correct so he hands in this last piece of paperwork before heading to the car park to leave the university and Albuquerque. Four weeks ago he visited Window Rock to transfer his vehicle registration and driver’s license back to Jason’s address. While there he picked up...
The plane from Auckland, New Zealand, lands at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport in Mascot just before six in the evening local time after a three and a quarter hour flight in the Emirates A380 Airbus. This isn’t the first time David has flown in an A380 but this is his first time in the Business Class of an Emirates plane, and he found it to be the most comfortable flight he’s had in Business Class of any airline he’s used. He has an easy and quick trip through immigration due to being an...
I had to depart for my afternoon workout session with Kim as soon as the call ended. We were almost to the end when Liz appeared in the room. “Come back to the office when you’re finished here, please,” she said. I grunted my assent since I was in the middle of forcing my arm outward with a stick and it wasn’t the most pleasant feeling I’d ever experienced. Liz stood and watched for a moment before smiling sadly and heading back to work. “Is she mad?” Kim asked from the...
I had almost made it to my feet but I dropped back on the couch. The fact I was wearing the soft sling didn’t do my arm any favors. “Wait!” I said. “What?” “I’m not comfortable with her working out here any longer,” Liz said. “She’s been on vacation all week!” I said. “That’s part of the problem,” Liz said. “She’s missed a lot of work recently and I ... I’m not happy with how she’s come to view her job here.” “First off, she was sick for two days,” I cut in. “The vacation has been...
Skye and Jill scattered like cockroaches when the light comes on as soon as my face appeared in the doorway. Liz looked up from her desk while I stood sheepishly in front of her. “If you want Brea gone, she’s gone,” I said. “No,” Liz said almost at once. “I was being silly.” “It’s not worth arguing with you over,” I told her. “If she’s going to be a problem then you’re right. We should let her go. But I still think we do it in a way that it doesn’t come back on her at the hospital.” “She...