Terminated (2 page)

G
wen sat behind the wheel of her car, just
staring at the world through the rain-splashed windshield, taking none of it in. Her mind kept snagging on Tarbell and the knife. She couldn’t move forward. She couldn’t move back. The incident continually replayed in her mind.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Tarbell disappeared into the night. It could have been hours; it could have been minutes. She eyed the dashboard clock. Thirty minutes had passed.

Her cell had rung a couple of times, maybe three. A little red light pulsed to let her know there were messages. No doubt it was Paul wondering where she’d gotten to. She should call him to let him know what happened. Yes, she should, but she wasn’t ready to tell anyone, even Paul.

A muffled voice called out. Panic jerked her from her thoughts. It was Tarbell. He’d come back to finish the job. She couldn’t file an evaluation if she was already dead. Her heart beating rabbit-fast, she searched the blurred world outside her car. It wasn’t Tarbell but the security guard approaching in her rearview mirror.

She jammed the key in the ignition and fired up the engine. The guard, a man whose name she could never remember, waved and called out again. She played dumb, as if she
hadn’t heard or seen a soul. She jerked the selector into drive and accelerated away. The guard gave up on his pursuit before she reached the parking lot’s exit.

She joined Harbor Bay Parkway and headed home to the north side of Alameda. To the other motorists, she must have seemed like a slow driver, but she didn’t care. She knew that she was in a state of shock. Her hands and feet were half a beat out of time with her reactions, as if she was operating the car under water.

The car’s interior misted up within moments of hitting the road, thanks to her drenched condition. The defroster failed to dispel the humidity inside the car, so she powered down the window. Rain poured through the open window along with the roar of jets flying into Oakland International Airport as she drove past a runway enclosed by a cyclone fence.

The traffic signal ahead turned red. A dilemma approached. Left took her off Bay Farm Island toward home. Straight ahead didn’t. Paul would be putting Kirsten to bed in a few minutes. She’d go home when Kirsten was asleep and she had calmed down. She jerked the car out of the left turn lane and went straight, following the road that cut alongside the airport.

Questions revolved inside her head. Would Tarbell make good on his threat? He was obviously capable of sticking a knife under her chin, but was he capable of using it? She touched the place where the tip had pricked her flesh. She thought about him lying in wait for her inside the trash enclosure. Had he been waiting in the rain the entire time? What kind of person sat huddled in the rain? Her answer caused a shiver. A crazy person.

She had a simple decision to make. Comply with Tarbell’s decision or go to the cops. It was a decision that wasn’t coming easily.

Gwen drove around in circles—aimlessly taking one street, then another, with little in mind other than putting off the inevitable—going home. It was after eight. If she stayed out much longer, Paul would begin calling around
and when he got no success there, he’d call the police. No police. Not yet. Not until she’d come to a decision. But time had run out. She turned the car around and drove home.

She pulled into her garage and took a moment to compose herself. She half expected Paul to open the connecting door to the house with Kirsten in his arms. She dreaded the scenario. One sight of her angelic three-year-old’s face and she would come apart at the seams.

She climbed from the car and crossed the garage. On the ground next to the recycling can sat a wadded ball of paper—one of Paul’s free throws that hadn’t made the grade. She uncurled the paper and groaned when she read the letter. It was an I’m-sorry-to-inform-you letter from a prospective employer. Paul had been out of work for the last year since the downturn in the housing market. Builders didn’t need construction supervisors when no one was buying houses. She winced. Paul had been convinced he’d get this job. He had to be devastated. He missed working, and they both missed the money. They’d economized where possible. The main saving came from not having to pay daycare fees with Paul home all day. Surviving on one income had been the reason she’d gone for the promotion. The salary bump kept them afloat.

She thought about cause and effect. If the housing boom hadn’t fallen flat, Paul would still be working. If Paul was employed, she wouldn’t have gone for the promotion. If she wasn’t the boss, Tarbell wouldn’t have put a knife to her throat.

What a day to bring this mess home
, she thought and let herself in.

Paul was removing her dinner from the oven, twice warmed by the look of it. He set the casserole dish down on the stovetop.

“I was getting worried, babe,” he said without looking at her. “You said were going to be late, but I didn’t think you meant this late. Did you get my messages?” He turned to face her. “Jesus, what the hell happened to you? You’re soaked.”

“I had an accident.”

“Are you OK?” He threw down the potholders and
rushed over to her. “Was it the car?”

“No, it wasn’t that kind of accident.” She brushed him aside. “I want to get out of these things. I’ll tell you once I’ve changed.”

She closed the bedroom door and peeled off her clothes. Reaching for her robe, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, including the scar. Cold and wet, her skin tone looked especially pale, making the disfigurement stand out even more. It wasn’t much to look at now. It was no more than an inch across, an angled line low on the left side of her belly. It was a nasty memento from another man who’d attacked her a lifetime ago. The sight of it filled her head with the violence of the past and the present. She pulled on her robe and swiftly covered the ugliness.

She’d just grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around her wet hair when Paul opened the door. There was no avoiding him. She’d hoped for a little more time to compose herself, but his desperate expression told her that he needed to hear what happened. “I was attacked.”

This simple fact slammed into Paul as hard as Tarbell had slammed into her. He looked disoriented for a moment before closing the door and engulfing her in an embrace. His contact brought no comfort. Instead, she felt smothered. It reminded her too much of Tarbell pressing her against the car, but she didn’t push Paul away. She didn’t want to scare him.

“Were you mugged?”

“No.”

Paul’s body stiffened. If she’d been attacked and not mugged, it left only one other possibility. He pulled away from her and fixed her with a stare.

“No, I wasn’t raped.”

He didn’t say anything.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like?”

“I was threatened with a knife.”

“Christ.”

He sat her down on the edge of the bed, kneeling
before her. He handled her with so much care. She was lucky to have him. She loved him so much. Tears welled up, but she willed them not to flow. She needed to keep it together while she told him everything.

“Did you call the police?”

She shook her head.

He grabbed the cordless phone on the nightstand. “The bastard won’t get away with it.”

She clamped her hand over the phone’s keypad. “No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’? Someone assaulted you with a knife. People like that need to be taken off the streets. We’re going to the cops.”

“No,” she repeated.

He lowered the phone. “What’s going on, Gwen?”

“I know the attacker. It’s someone from work.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s someone from work or a complete stranger. We have to report it.”

“No.”

He put the phone on the bed. “I need a reason not to call the police, Gwen, so you’d better give me one.”

She told him what had happened, the performance evaluation blowup, then the rain-soaked threat in the parking lot. She watched as her account revealed Paul’s layers of emotion, one replaced by the next in quick succession. Shock gave way to horror then finally to rage. His hands tightened into white-knuckled balls, and he worked his jaw back and forth, the muscles and tendons flexing with the movement. By the time she finished telling him what had happened, he seemed to vibrate with restrained hate. Tall and angular, he looked so much like Tarbell it scared her.

“I’ll get him.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

He jumped to his feet, and Gwen leaped up after
him. She snagged his wrist and put herself between him and the door. He stopped in front of her.

“Get out of my way,” he said as calmly as he could manage.

“What do you think you’re doing, Paul?”

“I’m going to find the piece of shit and dish out some payback.”

“Don’t be stupid. If you touch him, the cops will arrest you and you’ll go to jail, leaving me and Kirsten alone. Is that what you want?”

“Goddamn it, Gwen,” he said and backed away from her.

Gwen breathed a little easier. There were other reasons she didn’t want Paul confronting her attacker. Tarbell had proved he was more than just a hothead. He’d shown a malicious side of himself that Paul didn’t possess. He was more likely to harm Paul than Paul was to harm him.

Paul grabbed the phone off the bed. “Call the cops before I go and do something stupid.”

“Mom. Dad,” Kirsten called from outside the door.

There was a tentative and nervous note to their daughter’s voice. They’d made it a point never to argue in front of her. Paul had grown up between warring parents and didn’t want to pass the experience on to his children.

“Shit,” he murmured.

Gwen opened the door. Kirsten stood on the other side with a teddy bear in hand. Just getting out of her toddler stage, she still had a habit of throwing her arms out to her parents when she wanted comfort. Gwen scooped her daughter up.

“Too loud,” she said.

“I know. Something happened that upset us.”

Paul came over and stroked Kirsten’s tousled hair. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

“What’s wrong?”

Gwen carried Kirsten back to her
room. “Silly stuff. Nothing we can’t sort out.”

“Mommy, I missed you at bedtime.”

“I’m sorry. Blame the silly stuff. It got in the way.”

“I don’t like silly stuff.”

“No one does,” Paul said and followed Gwen and Kirsten into the girl’s bedroom.

Gwen noticed that the fight went out of Paul as he kissed Kirsten good night. It made sense. She was the perfect symbol of what he’d lose going after Tarbell. When Kirsten drifted back to sleep, Paul took Gwen’s hand and led her out of their daughter’s room.

“You have to call someone, Gwen.” He kept his voice to a whisper in the hallway. “Don’t let this son of a bitch get away with it.”

He was right. She couldn’t ignore this. She hadn’t been attacked by a stranger but by a coworker. She’d have to face Tarbell in the morning and every morning after that. She couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. The problem wouldn’t go away until she made it disappear.

“I’ll call Pace. They should handle this.”

Paul drew her to him. She felt protected in his embrace this time. “Good.”

She dug her work cell phone out of her purse and dialed Deborah Langan’s number.

“Hey, Gwen, I’m a little tied up at the moment. Can I call you back in the morning?”

She sat down on the sofa. Paul sat next to her. “This can’t wait.”

“What’s wrong?”

Pressure built in Gwen’s chest and kept building. It squeezed her heart and stifled her breathing. Relief was simple and she took it.

“Stephen Tarbell attacked me tonight. He held
a knife to my throat and told me to change his performance evaluation or he’d cut me.”

Gwen sagged after the words were out. Paul slipped an arm around her and she leaned into him.

“My God. When?”

“When I left tonight. He attacked me in the parking lot.”

“Did anyone see this happen?”

“No.”

“Have you spoken to the police?”

“No. I wanted to tell you first.”

“OK. I want you to hold tight for the next half hour. I need to call someone. He’ll get in touch. Can you do that?”

“Sure.”

“Good. I’m sorry, Gwen. We’ll get through this.”

Deborah hung up, and Gwen tossed the cell on the coffee table. She felt better for getting the story out but was drained to the core. She no longer felt hungry, tired, or upset, just empty.

“You did the right thing, babe,” Paul said.

Telling. Not telling. Neither option felt right. Either way, it was painful for Gwen, and she knew that feeling wasn’t going to go away for some time to come.

“What did they say?”

“They’re rallying the troops. Someone’s calling back.”

“I’ll get you some dinner.”

She poked at the meal Paul brought her until her phone rang.

“Hello, Mrs. Farris, my name is Robert Ingram from Private Security International. I’m a consultant for Pace Pharmaceuticals. I handle violence in the workplace claims, and I’ll be handling your problem. Deborah Langan contacted me about an incident with Stephen Tarbell.”

Ingram spoke with an officious cop-like cadence, but there was a calming quality to his voice Gwen liked and needed to hear. It soothed away the stress knots in her
neck that the evening’s events had triggered.

“I need to work fast, and I need your help. Are you up for answering some questions?”

“Yes.”

Ingram wanted to know the what, where, when, why and how. She gave him everything except the why. He’d have to get that from Tarbell.

Paul stayed with her, although listening to her recount the assault had to be torture for him. She took his hand and held it to her chest to help him through it.

“You haven’t spoken to the police?”

“No.”

“Can I ask you to hold off for the moment?”

“I’m not sure I want to involve them at all.”

“Avoiding the cops may not be an option,” said Ingram.

“I know,” Gwen said with a sigh.

“Can I ask why you don’t want police involvement?”

“I just want this over,” said Gwen. “I don’t want my family dragged into this. I have a young daughter. She doesn’t have to learn about these things.”