<Dream of endless pain!>
<Dream of eternal torture!>
<Dream of being ripped apart forever!>
I tried to scream, but the icy rain filled my throat. I closed my eyes and wished for it all to be over.
***
I don’t usually read the obituaries. They remind me too much of my own mortality. But I was skimming through the Chicago Tribunewhile eating my cereal and recognized a name: Mandie Shannon, 27.
A month before I’d been hired by Fort Financial, an investment firm, to tail a woman named Mandie Shannon, an account representative they suspected of giving secrets to a competitor in violation of their strict nondisclosure agreement. There were emails, and their IT software had picked up a download of confidential data. I spent a few days following her to lunch, then after work. Sometimes I rode the bus with her until she got off a block from her building.
Mandie Shannon was in her late twenties, with short blond hair. She usually wore a messenger bag over one slender shoulder, presumably holding her laptop and papers from work. A water bottle dangled from the side.
One night she got off the bus halfway home and headed to a bar. She took a table, so I ordered a beer at the bar, as close to her as I could get without looking like I was stalking her.
After ten minutes, a man sat across from her. Not a boyfriend—no kiss or hug, just a friendly nod. He ordered a beer as Shannon sipped her gin and tonic.
I got a few photos of them, pretending to talk on my phone. After a few minutes Shannon dug into her pocket and dropped a slim black lozenge-shaped item on the table—probably a thumb drive.
The pictures I got were blurry, but they were enough for Brian Alderson at Fort Financial to recognize the guy when we met the next day. “That’s Ralph Pacetta. He works for CX Holdings.” He shook his head. “Okay, thanks.”
I stood up. “What will happen to her?”
Alderson shrugged. “She signed the NDA. Good work. Thanks.” That was it.
So I went home, emailed my invoice, and a few days later cashed the check.
Now Mandie Shannon was dead.
Was it my fault?
Rachel staggered into the kitchen, stretching and yawning in a long T-shirt and shorts. I tried not to stare at her legs. She’s my girlfriend—we live together—with short red hair, hazelnut eyes, and vaguely psychic powers. Which must have told her something about my state of mind. “What’s going on?”
I was on my laptop, looking for more details. “Take a look.”
I’d found a three-paragraph story in the Chicago Tribune from a month ago: WOMAN DIES IN BALCONY DIVE.
An account manager a financial services firm apparently leaped from her 17thfloor condo balcony in what authorities are describing as a suicide. The woman, 32, had exhibited signs of mental illness in recent days, according to family members, including hallucinations and inappropriate behavior, but no issues were reported before then. Streets around the condo building were closed off for several hours during the investigation . . .
The article had a picture. Definitely her.
Rachel peered over my shoulder at the screen. “Right. I remember this one. All you did was take a few pictures.”
“And she got fired. So now she’s dead.”
“Maybe she just broke up with her boyfriend.”
“After getting fired.” I pushed my cereal bowl away. “I have to check into this.”
“You’re not responsible for everyone in the world.” Rachel refilled my coffee and poured her own mug.
“Just my little corner of it.” I sipped my coffee. “Thanks.”
In the office I share with Rachel I called Alderson. “Have you heard about Mandie Shannon?”
“Yeah.” He groaned. “It’s not our fault. Things happen. It’s a high-pressure job.”
“Was she fired?”
“I can’t talk about that. Hell, they didn’t even tell us anything, except for an email that she was no longer with the company. It’s all handled through the lawyers and HR.”
“Has anything like this happened before?”
“I can’t talk about that, okay? Look, I’ve got another case coming up for you, if you’re interested.”
As long as it didn’t lead to any more suicides. “Sure. Call me.”
I’ve killed vampires and other supernatural creatures, including a dragon, and been indirectly responsible for some human deaths. Even if they had it coming, they gave me enough nightmares that I was on medication for a while.
This was different.
Rachel came in as I was doing a search on other Fort Financial employees who’d died recently. “Feeling better?”
“Not really.” I stared at my screen. “Three other Fort Financial employees have committed suicide over the last year.”
“Oh, hell.” She peered over my shoulder.
“There might be more.” I didn’t have a complete list of Fort employees, and the news media doesn’t always indicate that a death is a suicide. So I‘d listed all the suicides I could find—and that was a depressing exercise—and then cross-checked them with LinkedIn profiles, looking for Fort Financial. That’s how I found my three. Two men, one woman, not counting Mandie Shannon.
So what the hell was going on? Demonic possession? Ghosts? Bad coffee?
Maybe I was overthinking this. Bad things happen. Suicides come in waves, although this wasn’t high school. And dealing with clients’ money had to be stressful.
I’m not psychic, like Rachel. But I’ve picked up a certain spidey-sense about the supernatural over the years.
So I sent a few emails. I wasn’t sure they’d even get through. But it seemed worth a shot.
By midafternoon I’d finished all the current work I had—background checks, mostly, and I didn’t have any cheating spouses to tail today. Rachel was trying to fix a website she’d designed that wasn’t working properly, and she was swearing viciously with every click of her mouse.
So I went in the living room and slouched on the sofa, playing Minecraft on my laptop.
At around 3 p.m. my phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Mr. Jurgen? My name is Amy Birks. You emailed me about my husband’s suicide.”
Steve Birks. He’d killed himself three months ago. I saved my game and sat up. “Thanks for contacting me, Ms. Birks. Like I said in my email, I’m not looking for any money, and I’m, uh, terribly sorry for your loss. I’m just on my own here, but I’m looking into the, uh, scattering of suicides that seem to be happening over the last year at—”
“Fort Financial. Yeah, I saw the story in the paper today.” She paused, and I thought I heard her swallowing a drink. “Mandie Shannon? Steve was her—her mentor for a while. She was a nice kid. It sucks. What do you want?”
“Did your husband’s—death—have anything to do with Fort Financial?”
She groaned. “They said he stole $150,000 from his clients. Asshole. They said he was lucky he didn’t go to jail. Instead, the company made up the money to pay off his clients, and then they just—sent him home.”
“They fired him.”
“Suspended without pay.” A bitter laugh. “He spent the first few days getting drunk and watching porn on the computer. He wouldn’t come to bed. Then when he did come to bed, he had nightmares, and he couldn’t sleep. So he got up and drank more, and then he had hallucinations.”
Just like Mandie Shannon. “What kind of hallucinations?”
“He was being chased by angels. Women with wings and claws, shrieking at him. All night. He couldn’t sleep—I couldn’t sleep. All day, he was waving his arms around, like birds or hornets were buzzing around his head. I couldn’t think. He was screeching, and then he was just lying on the couch, moaning like he was too sick to move.”
She took a deep, hoarse breath. “It lasted two days. I almost called an ambulance—twice. I should have.” She sniffed, and then I heard her blow a nose. “I should have. The next morning he wasn’t in the house, and I went out to the garage, and he was . . . hanging from the garage door opener.”
I leaned forward, my guts churning as Amy Birks sobbed.
So two people had broken Fort Financial’s rules, suffered from hallucinations, and killed themselves. I remember Alderson’s words about Mandie Shannon—“She signed the NDA.”
What was in that NDA?
Amy Birks caught her breath. I swallowed and asked, “Again, I’m very sorry for your loss. And for bothering you. I don’t really have an angle here. I’ve done some work for Fort Financial, including something involving Mandie Shannon. Now I just—” I didn’t know what to say without sounding like I was just trying to justify myself. My own guilt. “There’s a nondisclosure agreement that apparently everyone signs, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” She snorted. “Steve stayed up one night looking it over and over again. For a loophole, maybe.”
Wait—I’d signed an NDA myself when I took the Mandie Shannon job. It was fairly standard when working for organizations. Mine was probably different than the one Birks had signed, since I was a contractor and not a fulltime employee.
I asked Amy Birks is she could send me a copy of her husband’s NDA. Then I went looking for my own.
The nondisclosure agreement read like the agreement you have to click to upgrade your software, as long as you sign over your firstborn child in a clause hidden in the seemingly legitimately legal mumbo-jumbo that no one ever looks at. This was only three pages, and basically prohibited me from discussing any of my work for Fort Financial with anyone outside the firm, with the exception of associates of my business, whom I had to name. I put down Rachel’s name because she helps me on my cases, although she didn’t play an active role on the Mandie Shannon surveillance. So talking to her probably didn’t put me in violation of the NDA. Probably.
The consequences of violating the NDA were possible refunding of fees and ending the relationship with regard to any future cases. But there was also a vaguely-worded arbitration clause:
Contractor agrees to arbitration (6) on issues relating to disclosure violations. Arbitration is binding and may not be rescinded, and contractor agrees to abide by its judgment without appeal.
Fine, except I couldn’t find footnote six anywhere. Just four footnotes on the last page, defining the contractee (Fort Financial), the contractor (me), acceptable associates (Rachel), and terms of payment. My actual fee was part of a separate agreement.
Rachel stood up and stretched. She wore a tank top and yoga pants, which distracted me for a moment. “You want a cup of coffee?”
“Do you speak lawyerese?” I held up the NDA.
“I took French in high school. But I get these in my work.” She hunched over. “I think it all basically means ‘You will be thrown into the pit of Hell to be consumed by dragons if you steal a co-worker’s lunch.’ Which will also happen if you don’t stop checking out my butt.”
Oops. I looked up. “What about the arbitration? And the missing footnote?”
“Arbitration is a bitch.” Rachel stood behind my chair. “I had to go through it twice. I got paid the one time because I could show I actually did the work, but the other time they ruled against me because the guy harassing me was the CEO’s nephew—”
“Wait, what?” My spine stiffened. “Someone tried to—”
She slugged my arm again. Hard. “Shut up. You don’t need to go full vigilante on me. It was a long time ago, and I got through it. End of story.”
“Sorry.” I was angry at the thought that someone had harassed Rachel, but I couldn’t do anything about it now.
“It’s sweet that you care.” She rubbed my arm. “Coffee?”
I grinned. “I’m going to check out your butt again.”
She stuck out her tongue, then swung her hips as she headed for the kitchen. “Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-dum . . .” She winked over her shoulder.
My phone buzzed again. “Tom? Brian Alderson? Are you up for another job?”
“Sure.” It was an automatic response. “Uh, I’d like to talk to you about this NDA.”
“We all sign them. There’s nothing to worry about. Look, I’ll send you the details and the contract. Are you in?”
This might be a way to figure out what was going on. “Yeah. Okay. Send it to me.”
Rachel set a fresh mug of coffee in front of my computer screen. “Good news?”
“Maybe. Another case.”
“Same place?”
I sipped. “Uh-huh.”
She groaned. “Just be careful.”
“Always.”
She didn’t slug my shoulder, but only because I had hot coffee in my hand.
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