Terminated (4 page)

She was exhausted by the time five o’clock came around. After a day of pretending, she wanted to go home, but her day was far from over. She still had her clandestine meeting with Ingram. She left with the main glut of her coworkers. She didn’t want to leave alone. She’d learned that lesson.

It looked to be an unnecessary precaution. Tarbell had yet to return from his meeting, but that didn’t mean anything. He’d pretended to leave yesterday
and hadn’t. She wasn’t taking any chances this time.

She slipped behind the wheel of her Subaru without incident and joined the conga line of vehicles heading for the exit. She saw no sign of Tarbell. She picked up the freeway and headed toward San Francisco.
So far so good
, she thought, but she couldn’t shake the paranoia that Tarbell was monitoring her. She switched lanes, watching for any vehicle matching her moves, but saw nothing. She had no idea if her maneuvers helped any, but she was pretty sure Tarbell wasn’t following her and settled into her seat for the slow rush-hour drive into the city.

She crossed the Bay Bridge, found Ingram’s address easily enough, and parked in a nearby lot. The building was home to Wells Fargo headquarters and more than two dozen other businesses. She went to the reception desk and asked for Ingram.

A minute later, a blocky-looking man in his late forties stepped off the elevator. He waved and strode over to her. “Mrs. Farris?”

Gwen nodded.

“Robert Ingram. Let’s get you upstairs.”

They rode the elevator alone. “I’m worried Stephen followed me here.”

“He didn’t,” Ingram responded confidently.

“How do you know?”

“I had someone follow him. He attended the meeting and left a little after five, arriving back at Pace well after you left. You were never in any danger.”

The news lifted the crushing weight Gwen had been shouldering all day. This would be over soon. She could put it behind her. She let out a sigh, which Ingram noticed.

He smiled and said, “You have nothing to worry about.”

The elevator let them out, and she followed him to a business suite. She guessed he’d been in law enforcement or the military previously. He moved with a military bearing and spoke with the confidence of a person who operated with the
backing of the law. The likes of Tarbell posed no threat to him. It was another reason for Gwen to breathe easily.

Ingram’s offices were modest—two corner offices sandwiched a conference room overlooking the street below. A series of cubicles filled the remaining area. The place would have looked like a call center if it weren’t for the firm’s name etched into the glass doors entering the suite, Private Security International. It was all very understated. A plus for their clients, no doubt.

Less than half the cubicles were occupied. Everyone politely ignored Gwen, giving her anonymity. A woman dressed in a business suit that was a handful of years younger than Ingram left one of the corner offices. She smiled at Gwen but offered no greeting. Ingram showed Gwen into the conference room. Deborah was sitting at the end of the table.

Ingram closed the door, then went around the room and closed the blinds, giving them privacy from his colleagues. “In these situations, I like to keep everything private.”

Deborah stood and took Gwen’s hands in hers. “We’re going to sort this out.”

This was a surreal moment; Gwen took her seat, wishing Paul was with her.

“Before we start, can I offer anyone anything—coffee, tea, water?” Ingram asked.

Gwen shook her head.

“If you don’t mind me saying, you look drained. You’re probably dehydrated. Stress does that to people. You should drink some water.”

It irritated Gwen how Ingram saw through her, but his genuine concern tempered her mood and she agreed to his offer. As he disappeared from the office, she wondered if she’d been that transparent to everyone at the office. She hoped not, but guessed her facade had been a weak one. Ingram returned and placed a glass and an uncapped bottle of water in front of her.

“I suppose it’s time to give you the
details,” Deborah said.

Gwen poured the water into the glass and sipped.

“With violence in the workplace claims, it’s Pace Pharmaceuticals’ policy to bring in an outside consultant to investigate. Robert and his people make sure there is a rock-solid case against the accused, leaving no room for doubt or wrongful dismissal claims.”

“No offense to Mr. Ingram,” Gwen said, “but I don’t really see the need. Stephen attacked me and threatened my life. It’s pretty open and shut. He won’t have any claim for wrongful dismissal.”

“It doesn’t matter if he has a case or not; he can cry foul and drag us and you through the courts. The whole thing will be nasty and expensive. The lawyers will tell us to settle and we will and Stephen will get away with what he’s done with a tidy profit for his time. Do you want that?”

No, she didn’t. She wanted Tarbell gone, expunged from her life with no evidence of his existence. The idea of Tarbell getting paid while she had to live under a constant cloud of doubt brought a sour taste to the back of her throat. She washed it away with another sip of water.

“The truth of the matter is,” Ingram said, “we don’t have a clear-cut case.”

“What?”

“From the brief explanation Deborah gave me, there are no witnesses to the assault. Correct?”

A sinking feeling pulled at Gwen’s insides. She saw where this was going. “No. No witnesses.”

“That leaves us with a case of he said/she said.”

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?” Gwen didn’t try to hide her contempt.

Deborah sat kitty-corner to Gwen and she pressed a hand on top of hers in an attempt at a comforting gesture. “No one is saying that. We believe you. I’ve seen what he’s done to you, but we can’t prove it.”

“Everyone knows he’s a hothead.”

“So we have a man with a short
fuse,” Ingram said. “That doesn’t mean he’s capable of premeditated violence.”

A short fuse? The words were an insult to Gwen after what Tarbell had done last night.

Ingram paused and exchanged an awkward glance with Deborah. This meeting was obviously not going as planned.

“I hoped to nip this situation in the bud.” Ingram picked up a remote and switched on the TV at the end of the room. “Most people don’t think their strategy through, and I hoped the security cameras would pick the assault up.” He pressed play.

The image on the screen was split into four simultaneous images. The top left image captured a static view from inside the foyer. The top right caught the main walk from the parking lot. The bottom left took up where the second camera left off with a view of the parking lot. Unlike the first two cameras, this one panned back and forth to take in a panoramic view, but it failed to capture the entire lot. The image on the bottom right corner of the screen took up the slack. This caught the blind spots the other cameras missed.

Gwen’s heart skipped when she appeared in the top left box on the screen silently saying good-bye to the security guard before disappearing from view. The second camera picked her up and recorded her progress until she passed out of view. The bottom left and right cameras caught her in their sweeps but then lost her. Gwen couldn’t believe it. But sure enough, it seemed that the trash enclosure provided the perfect blind spot. The two cameras failed to pick up anything happening beyond the trash enclosure.

Precious seconds ticked by on the time code on the screen. Gwen relived those seconds—the impact, the knife, Tarbell’s crushing weight, and the threat—and the cameras were blind to it all. She felt sick.

“Nothing happens now,” Ingram said and pressed fast forward.

He was wrong. Plenty had happened,
but all out of sight of the useless cameras.

Ingram fast-forwarded through the recording until Gwen’s Subaru pulled away with the security guard chasing behind her. At no time did Tarbell appear on camera, although he’d long since run off by the time she raced away from the scene. It looked to the world as if she left the office, sat in her car for thirty minutes, then left.

“I’ve watched every minute of coverage from five p.m. through to you leaving, and Stephen Tarbell never features except when he left the building at two minutes after five. At no point does he return.”

But he had. Gwen had bruises on her back and chest and a cut under her chin to prove it. She looked from Ingram to Deborah. They had to doubt her. Who wouldn’t? She hoped to God they didn’t think she was just another crazy broad in the workplace, ruining it for smart women everywhere. She couldn’t read their expressions to tell whether or not they believed her.

“It happened,” she said in a quiet, yet desperate voice.

“I didn’t say it didn’t,” Ingram said and rewound the tape back. “The camera never lies, but it can be deceived. The security camera system is poorly set up. The cameras are mounted too low to the ground. If they were installed three or four feet higher, they would capture everything blocked out by the trash enclosure. And matters are made worse.”

“The cameras covering the parking lot aren’t synchronized,” Gwen said.

It had taken her a moment to work out Tarbell’s Houdini act. As her mind whirled to explain it, she stared hard at the two bottom images and spotted the flaw.

Ingram examined her and nodded approvingly. “You’re correct, Mrs. Farris.”

“I don’t see it,” Deborah said.

“These two cameras,” Ingram pointed at the bottom
two images, “pan left and right, but they aren’t synchronized. They should be working together. As one pans left, the other should be capturing what its twin is missing. This means Stephen Tarbell knew this and secreted himself behind the trash enclosure when the cameras weren’t looking his way.”

“That’s amazing,” Deborah said.

“No,” Ingram corrected. “That’s devious.”

“How do you know that last night wasn’t a figment of my imagination?” Gwen said.

“This.” Ingram got up from his seat, crouched in front of the TV and forward wound and rewound until he found the moment he was searching for, then paused the action. “Come take a look.”

Gwen and Deborah crowded around the TV. Ingram pointed to the bottom right panel on the screen, tapped it, and told them to watch carefully. He hit play then stopped the action a second later.

“See it?” he asked.

Gwen shook her head.

Ingram set the recording up again and replayed it again, but in slow motion. He tapped the screen at the moment he wanted them to see. He pointed to the corner edge of the trash enclosure. Gwen spotted something appear then disappear before the camera panned out of view.

“I saw it,” Deborah said, “but what was it?”

“A hand. Four fingers to be precise, grabbing the corner of the wall. I don’t know whose for sure, but I will when I get the image enhanced.”

Gwen let out a long sigh.

Ingram smiled. “We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t believe you, Mrs. Farris.”

Ingram switched off the TV, and the three of them returned to their seats.

“Where do we go from here?” Gwen asked.

“We don’t have any clear evidence beyond
testimony, so two things: first, a complete background check that will unearth anything of this nature in his past and second, twenty-four-hour surveillance to either catch him in any move against you or other illegal activity.”

“Will you go to the police with what you find?”

Ingram took too long in responding. “Do you want to go to the police?”

Now it was Gwen’s turn to be slow to answer. “No.”

“Then Mr. Tarbell will be shown the evidence and given the opportunity to leave Pace with the suggestion he leave the state, too. I can make you every assurance he won’t make any attempt to harm you again.”

Ingram’s politely worded statement came with a steel-edged promise. Gwen didn’t fancy being in Tarbell’s shoes when Ingram and friends caught up to him. She wished she could be there when it happened, though. She tried to convince herself it was for reasons of justice and not revenge but came up short.
So what
, she thought. He’d put her through enough that he deserved to lose his job and more. She’d be content when Tarbell’s cubicle turned up empty one morning.

“Deborah has mentioned your injuries to me,” Ingram said. “I need to document them. For your comfort, I can have or one of my female colleagues come in and take the photos.”

Gwen waved away Ingram’s considerate gesture and let him photograph the cuts and bruises. He carried out the task with the sensitivity of someone who wasn’t a stranger to this kind of victimization.

As Gwen dressed, he said, “Now I need to get a statement from you.”

Gwen began with the confrontation during Tarbell’s performance evaluation, then moved on to the assault in the parking lot. Ingram recorded her statement on a digital recorder. Not distracted by having to make his own notes, he listened intently, stopping her to clarify points or ask questions. Gwen
found that talking about the event helped work out the poison left there by her own fear. It didn’t leave her feeling clean, but it helped her feel better about herself. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and she didn’t deserve to live in fear. She could go home and face Paul and tell him she’d done what she could to nail Tarbell.

Ingram played back Gwen’s statement while he took notes and made sure she’d remembered everything that happened. Deborah made her own notes, no doubt in preparation to give a report to Pace’s president. Pace was really pulling out the stops. It should have filled Gwen with a warm, fuzzy feeling of security, but it didn’t. It was too much. Corporations didn’t hire private security consultants to investigate violence in the workplace. For Bill Gates, yes, but for Gwen Farris, she didn’t think so. Ingram and Deborah were conferring with each other when Gwen stopped them.

“This is too much, too expensive, to be standard policy. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Neither Ingram nor Deborah rushed to dispel the accusation. Ingram exchanged a look with Deborah before going back to his note taking. His message was clear. It wasn’t his question to answer.

Deborah looked uncomfortable. “Yes, you’re right, Gwen. There is something we’re keeping from you. We’re trying to prevent something from occurring that happened six years ago.”