The Things We Bury - Part 1: In Anticipation of the End of the World [Completed]

Chapter 11: Lovely Day (Parts 5 & 6 of 8)

Waiting for the door to close behind Emily, Barbara felt eyes turning toward her. The security guards at their stations were like busybody prairie dogs, poking their heads up wondering why she was standing there and checking out her ass. She had never bothered learning any of the names of this bland multitude. Delgado often spoke of them, but they weren't interesting enough to warrant a spot in her memory. To Barbara, they only represented a faceless multi-eyed obstacle, a creature that watched her and the Major and prevented them from acting openly as they passed one another each and every day.

When the redhead was gone, she went to Delgado's office. Her heels clacked across the floor and she put extra sway to her hips. Let them look, she thought. The purpose in her steps would be hidden from them as they leered. Men like that would look but would never see.

Barbara hadn't approached Delgado at work since they had started having sex. He had told her to be careful and she was. She didn't go around dropping clues to their relationship everywhere she went, like Emily. She was smarter than that. But the information she had couldn't wait until their planned meeting tomorrow night.

Early that morning before the alarm had rung, Barbara had gotten a call from Gil. The pathetic invertebrate of a man finally had something useful for her.

"I think I've found the guy you're looking for." He was speaking in a hush. He was probably locked in his office, terrified, torn between the fear of being found out at work and the fear of Barbara's displeasure.

If she had done a better job of training him, all those years ago, he would have known the only real thing he had to be afraid of was her.

"Is this anything like the last three guys you found?"

"I really think this is the one. He's gotten his Zolpidem prescription filled at a drug store in Mesa for the last three months. Before that, it was always from the same Manhattan pharmacist."

"So he got transferred to Arizona and he's having trouble sleeping. It's not much to go on."

"Not in itself. But I checked SBI's online directory. He's not listed as an employee at either the Phoenix sales office or at the distribution center. And there's no mention of him in New York either. All I could dig up was his enrollment form from four years ago. His title on it is Investigator, Special Projects."

"I'll look into it, but you better not be wasting my time. What's his name?"

Barbara wasn't convinced, but this was the best lead they'd gotten since they started looking for the person who suspicious terminated Whitney Cullen's clinical trial. There was also something tantalizing about the medication he was on. Didn't people with guilty consciousness have difficulty sleeping? That's what they said in the movies anyway. It was worth bringing it to the Major. Now that they had a name, he could use his resources to investigate this Darren Palmer.

Before Barbara tapped on the glass pane beside the door, she stood for a moment and watched him work. Even at the computer, his back was straight, at attention. His eyes stared into the screen with a fierce intensity, and his tender but deadly fingers slammed down the keys in fits and starts.

The knocking didn't startle him. Delgado was impressively hard to surprise. He just glanced over at her and said officiously, "Come in and close the door."

The office was not remarkably different from that first day she came in to get set up on the security system. The guest chairs stood in rank beside each other as though bolted to the floor. The desk was Spartan. Today, there was only one pen, a brushed steel ballpoint, resting on the sheaf of an open file. Two more files sat closed, squared to the corner of the desk. Without a doubt, when he was done for the day, they would all be locked up in the filing cabinet and the surface would be left barren.