Saturday morning, 7:45 a.m. I stood at the back door to the Workshop, waiting. Ten minutes, fifteen—then I heard footsteps behind me. “Sorry I’m late.”
It was Victor—my guide from the other day. He looked hung over and nervous as he unlocked the door. “Hi. You okay?”
“I think so.” I wasn’t hung over, but I hadn’t slept well, thinking about the plan we’d come up with two nights ago. Victor being late this morning didn’t make me feel any better.
Could I trust him? He’d seemed happy enough when he was showing me around the other day, but when we’d met at the bar last night he was spewing hatred at his boss, Joe Hannish. “Asshole doesn’t think I’m doing my job . . . screwed me out of my last raise . . . once I get my résumé updated I am gone, gone, gone.”
Victor, it turned out, was also a friend of Calvin Riley, and wasn’t happy about what happened to him. “They screwed Calvin over.” Victor shook his head back and forth. “After a heart attack and everything. Screwed him over. Bastards.” He gulped some whiskey.
Rachel had been with me. She’s not exactly a human lie detector, but she can pick up feelings and emotions, and in the car she told me Victor was telling the truth. “The whiskey helped.”
Now he was leading me upstairs. He opened door at the end of the hall. “This is the main conference room, where they’ll hold the meeting.”
The table was a long rectangle of oak, with modern office chairs on rollers arranged around it. Behind the head of the table a window looked out on the parking lot. The walls were paneled in wood, with posters of Hallinan products hanging in frames around the room. Empty pitchers waiting to be filled with water stood on a table to one side. “That’s why I’m here,” Victor said. “I’m in charge of filling the water, and making the coffee, and bringing in their goddamned pastries.”
A door connected to another office, but it was locked. “They moved something into there yesterday,” Victor said. “There’s a freight elevator for big stuff.”
He led me back out into the hall and opened the room next door—not the connecting room, but the office on the other side. It was filled with file cabinets, with a desk and chair in one corner. No windows, just a desk lamp. Victor switched it on and pointed to the ceiling. “Up there.”
An air vent, about 12 inches square. “Take the cover off, and you can see straight into the conference room.”
I had to climb up onto the desk. Fortunately, the Swiss Army knife on my keyring had a screwdriver head, so I was able to get the cover off with only a little cursing. I pulled myself up into my head and shoulders were jammed into the ventilation duct. I couldn’t crawl through it like John McLane in Die Hard, but I could see into the conference room through the slanted metal of the cover on the other side.
I pushed out, reached into my jacket, and took out my voice-activated recorder. I’d bought it two years ago and hadn’t used until today, but I’d tested it last night to be sure it worked. I set it inside the duct and switched it to start recording whenever it picked up sound. Then I replaced the cover loosely. I clambered down from the desk and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Okay, let’s—”
Victor held up a hand. “Wait,” he whispered.
I froze. He stepped out of the room, then stuck his head back inside. “Someone’s early,” he hissed.
Oh hell. I gritted my teeth as he closed the door, then glided across the room to press my ear against the crack.
“Victor? What are you doing here?” A male voice, raspy and surprised.
“Hi, Joe. I just thought I’d make sure the room was ready and be here when the delivery comes. Sometimes they show up early.”
“Okay. Sean’s right behind me, I saw him in the parking lot. I’ll be in my office. Oh, hi, Sean. You can go in and sit down, Victor’s just here to make sure everything gets set up.”
Joe. Joe Hannish. And Sean Plunkett, chief financial officer. Damn it. My plan had been to leave the building and come back later to pick up the recorder. Now what? Could I sneak away without anyone seeing me?
The door opened. Victor looked inside, his eyes wide. “Sorry. I didn’t think anyone would get here this early.”
I stifled the urge to swear. “All right.” I waved him off. “Come and get me when the meeting’s over.”
“I don’t usually—” He stopped when he saw my eyes. “All right. I have to start the goddamn coffee. Text me. Keep your phone on silent.”
“Right.” Like I hadn’t thought of that.
Victor closed the door. I locked it and sank down into the chair. Good thing I hadn’t drunk too much coffee yet this morning. And gone to the bathroom before coming out here. Twice.
I texted Rachel about my predicament. She texted back three laughing emojis, then, Be careful, jerk.
A few moments later she added, You still have to clean the bathroom when you get back.
Now I had nothing to do but sit and wait.
I knew that nothing I’d get on my recorder would be worth anything. Even if I could turn up any kind of evidence that the board was up to something murderous, evidence that the cops and a D.A. would listen to, I could get arrested. Rachel would have to bail me out of jail.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about Cathy Linden. And her husband. I had to find out.
So I waited. I played games on my phone, dozed, listened at the door, paced, and played more games. Finally, at 10 a.m., I heard noise in the other room through the vent.
At first it was typical chitchat: Hello, how are you, why are we doing this so early, how are the kids, etc. After 10 minutes I heard a voice say, “Okay, let’s get started.”
I decided to check that the recorder was working. And, yeah, spy on the meeting if I could. So I climbed on top of the desk and stuck my head into the duct.
Through the slanted vent cover I could see a man standing at the head of the table. Tall, in a formal dark business suit. The other people I could see were all casual, in sweaters and loose-collar shirts. The man—Brad Hallinan, I figured—took a sip of water and gestured to someone I couldn’t see. “Bring her in.”
Plunkett opened the other door open, and two more men walked through. One of them was Hannish. A moment later, Plunkett was backing through the doorway, lugging something big with his hands. It was long and narrow, polished bright, with shiny silver around the edges—
A coffin.
Plunkett and the others maneuvered to set the coffin in the middle of the conference table.
“What on Earth?” Celia Mueller sounded like she was having trouble breathing. The others looked at each other, confused, whispering questions.
“Just give us a minute,” Hallinan said. “Everyone stand up and hold hands, please. Close your eyes.”
They stood, and after a moment they joined hands, looking uncomfortable.
Hallinan bowed his head, and the others followed. A moment of silence. Then he started chanting words in a language I didn’t recognize. Plunkett and Hannish started chanting along with him, but the other just listened, their eyes closed..
The chant went on for three minutes or so, then abruptly stopped. The executives sank down into their chairs, in a silent, motionless trance. Plunkett leaned over, grabbed the edge of the coffin lid, and heaved it up. Hannish, on the other side of the table, stepped back quickly as the lid fell over.
Hallinan crossed his arms, staring inside the casket.
Slowly, someone sat up from inside the coffin. An old woman, in a pale lavender dress with a high collar, wearing a silver necklace with a glistening crystal dangling over her chest. Her arms hung at her sides for a moment, and then she lifted them to touch her face and run her fingers over the crystal. She turned, looking around the room, until she found Hallinan.
“How long?” Her voice was thin, a raspy whisper.
“Almost a year.” Hallinan lowered his arms and smiled. “Business has been good. Hello, Eleanor. It’s 2023.”
I’d seen pictures of her, mostly in faded black and white, most of them toward the end of her life. Her face was long and narrow. Right now she looked pale, her fingers on the sides of the coffin curled like a bird’s claws as she peered at the executives gathered around her. The employees of her company, the people who had resurrected her today.
Eleanor Hallinan. Back from the dead.
“I hope the latest sacrifices were sufficient,” Brad said. “We did an extra one. It became necessary.”
Eleanor sighed like a mother disappointed in her eldest child as Plunkett and Hannish helped her into a chair. “They were—adequate. I feel reasonably awake for the moment, but how long that will last . . .” She rubbed her eyes. “What do we have to talk about?”
They moved the coffin onto a corner of the floor, and Eleanor sat at the head of the table, with Brad to her right. The executives were still in their trance, their eyes closed, their breathing shallow. Eleanor looked at them one by one, then sipped from a glass of water in her hand.
“We’re doing a rebranding,” Brad said. “I can show you the designs, the marketing content, the—”
“No, no, no, you know I don’t understand all that.” She shook her head vigorously. “Are you changing the company? My company? My husband’s and my company? What are you doing?”
“Nothing’s changing,” Brad said quickly. “Just the, uh, the frills. It’s like new wallpaper in the store. Everything on the floor is the same, but the store feels brand new.”
Eleanor seemed unconvinced.
Hunched inside the duct, I brought my phone up for some video, hoping the pictures would make sense through the slanted vent cover. My shoulders ached, and I was fighting the urge to cough from the dust as I tried to wrap my mind around what seemed to be going on. They’d brought back a woman from the dead—by killing employees as a sacrifice—to talk about a business rebranding?
Finally Eleanor nodded. “Very well. I’ll do it. Give me a moment to prepare . . .”
Her head dropped back, and she stared up at the ceiling for a moment until her eyes started rolling. Brad took Eleanor’s right hand.
Eleanor’s body started to shake. The crystal on her necklace began to glow, a bright white light. Spit drooled from her lips on her chin and collar as she moaned and twitched, her head rocking back and forth. The executives around the table trembled along with her, as if she was sending some kind of electric spark through the circle. Joe Hannish closed his eyes, his head shaking, and a woman I didn’t know bit her lower lip until a trickle of blood ran across her cheek.
Brad clenched his teeth, staring at Eleanor, breathing hard and sweating as his shoulders shook. I watched, feeling like I was seeing some sort of mass hypnotic spell. Everyone lay motionless in their chairs, some breathing softly, other gasping for breath. For a moment I considered getting out while they were all half-conscious, but before I could make up my mind Eleanor’s head drifted up. She swallowed, coughed, then pulled her hand away from Brad to take another gulp of water.
Hannish rubbed his hands over his face, then looked down the table. “Is she . . .”
Brad nodded. “It’s over. This time.”
Before the others could wake up, Plunkett, Hannish and Hallinan gently walked Eleanor Hallinan back to her coffin, where she lay down. Then they carried it into the adjoining room.
I stopped my video. Would everyone just wake up and leave now? No. Everyone slowly came out of their trance without any obvious memory of what had just happened, as if they’d only just arrived.
“Okay,” Hallinan said again. “Let’s get started.”
They refilled their coffee and launched into a completely routine, thoroughly boring board meeting.
Again I contemplated trying to sneak out as they discussed supply chains and market segments, but it felt too risky. Or maybe I was just a coward. So I sat at the desk, sent the video to myself, and played games on my phone until the meeting was over.
It went on for another two hours.
Finally I heard chairs sliding back and people saying good-bye, and then the conference room was silent. I climbed up to slide into the duct and retrieve my recorder. The conference room was empty.
Back down on the floor, I checked the recorder and transmitted the data back to my computer. Then I replaced the vent cover, screwing everything back in tight. I texted Rachel and walked silently to the door.
The hallway was empty. I turned for the stairs, but before I took two steps the conference room door behind me opened.
“Hey!” Sean Plunkett’s voice.
Damn it. I could run, but chances were he’d catch me even if I didn’t fall down the stairs and kill myself. And besides, running would make me look guilty. Which I was, but I’d also seen things they wouldn’t want exposed. I hoped.
So I turned, trying to look cool and unconcerned while my heart pumped nervously inside my chest. “Yeah. Hi.”
Brad Hallinan stood at the door with Plunkett. “Who the hell is this?”
“It’s that guy Cathy brought in. Tom Jurgen. Private detective. I’ve got his card.”
“What are you doing here?” Brad snapped.
“Spying.” I shrugged. “You’ve got me. You could call the cops, but then I’d tell them about the corpse you’ve got in the next room. And play the recording I made of your entire board meeting, especially the opening with you talking to a dead woman. I’ll be in trouble, but you’ll have lots of questions you probably don’t want to answer.”
Brad stared at me. Plunkett watched him, waiting for an order.
“Don’t want to talk? That’s fine. We’ve all got better things to do.” I turned to the stairs.
“Wait.” Brad frowned, worried. “Let us—let me explain.”
I really wanted to get out of the building. If they could somehow cause heart attacks or strokes in other people for their “sacrifices” to Eleanor Hallinan, they could probably give me one just as easily. Of course, Rachel would wreak her own kind of vengeance on them, but I wouldn’t be around to enjoy it.
“All right.” I looked from Brad to Plunkett and back again. “Just so you know, I’ve already sent the recording back to my office. Taking my phone won’t do you any good.”
Plunkett looked ready to take a punch at me anyway, but Brad just gestured to the conference room door. “In here.”
The pastries had been put back in their boxes, and the coffee machines unplugged. Was Victor coming back to clean up? We sat, Brad at the head on the table, me to his left, with Plunkett glaring at me from the chair on his right.
Brad sighed. “This company is more than 100 years old. There’s a reason for that. That reason is Eleanor Hallinan.”
“She did—what? Made a deal with the devil?” I glanced at the door to the other room, where the coffin lay.
He nodded. “Something like that. I don’t know the details, but the family has passed down a ritual over the years to call on Eleanor when we need help. We’ve survived wars, turmoil, recessions, the oil crisis, COVID, Donald Trump—yes, we’ve had some lousy years, but all we ever had to do was ask Eleanor for help.”
“I listened in on your resurrection ceremony here.” I gestured around the table. “She wasn’t giving you business advice.”
Brad tapped the table. “That’s not how it works. She—pulls strings. From the other side.”
“And everyone on the upper levels of management knows about this?”
Plunkett shook his head. “They forget after Eleanor leaves. But they remember what we discuss, the business part of the meeting. And meanwhile everything happens like she arranges, behind the scenes.”
“The meeting itself is important,” Brad said quickly. “We have lots to get through. But it’s really Eleanor’s influence that we’re after. She always delivers.”
“At a price,” I said.
Brad nodded slowly. “There are certain sacrifices. From the top, not from the rank and file. We have a responsibility—”
“You kill people.” I planted my hands on the edge of the table, ready to kick my chair back and run. “Frank Towers, Cathy Linden, Ryan Foster, the CEO before you—that’s not a sacrifice, that’s murder.”
“When you share in the rewards, you have to expect to bear some of the burden,” Brad said defensively. “It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it goes. My family has given its life to this company, and it has to survive. And thrive.”
“The pay is top rate,” Plunkett put in. “And there’s million-dollar life insurance for the family—”
“Great,” I said. “I’m sure the families are just as happy with the money.”
“It’s not easy.” Brad sighed. “But it’s what we have to do. Eleanor Hallinan wanted the company to survive. At any cost.”
At any cost. “So what now? You hit me with a heart attack the minute I get in my car?”
I regretted the words the moment they came out of my mouth. Why give them any ideas? I wondered what it would feel like—a sharp, piercing pain in my chest? Or maybe a stroke? I backed cautiously away from them.
Brad shook his head. “The meeting is over. We can’t do the sacrifice for our own convenience. You wouldn’t be an acceptable sacrifice anyway.”
That gave me a little relief. “I’ll try not to be offended.”
Plunkett stood up. “That doesn’t mean you just walk away from here.”
I own a handgun, but I’d left it at home. I did have my pepper spray in my pocket. “Killing me won’t erase the recording I made. I have video, too. And you really don’t want to make my girlfriend mad at you.”
“We’re not going to kill you, idiot.” Plunkett came around the table fast, and Brad grabbed my arm before I could dodge him. They both had their hands clamped on my wrists. Then Plunkett shoved me to the floor.
I squirmed and twisted, but with Plunkett on top of me I couldn’t get up. He had both my arms, and then Brad crouched and pressed his hands on my shoulders.
He started chanting. It sounded like the same unearthly language he’d used to open the meeting—the words that had put the board into a trance.
Could he do it to me too? I kept struggling, but I started shouting too, trying to drown the words out. They made no sense to my ears, but I could feel them seeping into my brain. Plunkett slammed a hand over my mouth. His eyes looked glassy, as if Brad’s chant was affecting him too, but he kept up the pressure, holding me down on the floor as I fought to breathe, to cry out, to throw him off me, to keep my mind from slipping away . . .
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