Chapter Eleven
Sam startled awake, utterly disoriented. Blinking into the darkened stillness of the bedroom yielded no clues as to what had awakened him. He blearily focused on his alarm clock, barely registering the large red 1:27 a.m. which flashed on the display when the jarring trill of the telephone split the silence, startling him anew.
Fumbling fingers grabbed at the receiver, dropping it once before he got it to his ear. Beth was normally a heavy sleeper, but he didn't want to take the chance of waking her. Middle of the night calls were rarely good news. The call that Sandra had been arrested for armed robbery had come in the middle of night.
"Yes?" He spoke roughly, his anxieties working overtime while his mind and body struggled with sudden wakefulness. There was a brief pause on the opposite end of the connection, filled only with a short click and the background sounds of conversation. Then a calm, official sounding male voice spoke, identifying himself and asking if he was speaking to Mr. Samuel Wright.
"Yes, this is Samuel Wright. What's happened?" He wanted to attribute his breathlessness to the fact that he'd awakened suddenly, but knew that the suffocating sensation of dread was the likely culprit. A dozen scenarios of things gone wrong flew through his mind. Was it Mark? Could something have happened to him? What about Sandra? Oh God, had something happened to her? Had she gone back to drinking?
The quiet, reasonable voice on the other end of the line cut into his worries and asked if he was the owner of Renaissance Restorations, Inc on Old South Rd. A coldness of another kind invaded him.
"Yes, I am. I'm the owner."
The voice informed him that there had been an incident, that he might like to make some sort of arrangements for a representative to visit the property as soon as possible.
Sam's mind seemed to freeze for a second, and then he was moving, an entirely different set of possible scenarios shooting through his brain. One leg was half into a pair of jeans as he demanded that the voice give him more details. He needed to know what had happened. How bad was it? Had anyone been hurt? Was something taken? The voice was apparently trained to give as little information as possible. The uncertainty only heightened his sense of dread.
Three minutes after the initial ringing of the phone, he'd hung up on the voice and gone into his daughter's bedroom. Grabbing her up, still wrapped in a blanket and a fluffy comforter, he carried her down the stairs and out of the front door.
"Daddy?" She woke when the cool late night air hit her face. But Sam just cuddled her closer, reassuring her that everything was going to be fine. That she was just going to Uncle Mark's for a little while. She didn't seem completely convinced, but snuggled down and went back to sleep anyway.
Mark was waiting for him at the door of his apartment, dressed in robe and sweats. He shot some of the same questions in Sam's direction as Sam himself had asked the voice fifteen minutes earlier. Mark argued that perhaps he should be the one to go, after all, that way Sam could stay with Beth. But Sam couldn't allow it. He had to know what happened. Promising to fill his friend in as soon as he himself knew anything, he handed over his still sleeping daughter into his best friend's care.
The drive from Mark's apartment to RR, Inc. was a surreal blur. The lack of traffic and usual signs of life only added to the effect. Neon lights and traffics signals streaked by in a miasmic combination of reds, yellows, greens. Sam was removed from it all, his only focus was reaching his workshop, to discover what had happened there that night.
Dancing blue lights, flashing eerily about the parking area, did not bode well. Two police cruisers were parked in Claire and Millicent's spaces. One of the driver's side doors were open and a pair of uniform clad legs could be seen outside. Three other officers occupied various spots in front of the building. One of them turned and waited while Sam pulled into his usual parking slot. Just like any other day.
Not at all like any other day.
The cold wind almost knocked him back when he got out of the truck. The temperature had taken a dip since he'd left home. Sweat shirt, jeans, loafers and little else weren't quite adequate to the task of keeping a body warm. Attempting to shake off the cold he moved toward the waiting policeman.
He came to a dead stop halfway to the building.
His heart sank as he noticed large ragged opening in what had been his office window. He shook his head, not wanting to believe it. It just couldn't be. Haltingly at first, he put one foot in front of the other and closed the distance between himself and the officer.
"Mr. Wright?" The policeman's voice drew his attention. He held a notepad in one hand, obviously consulting it for the details of the case. The officer's eyes scanned him intently for a moment as if mentally categorizing him.
"Yes?" Sam responded, his gaze immediately drawn back to the gaping hole in his window. He gestured numbly. "Do you know how this happened?"
"It may have been the work of vandals." The officer threw out the suggestion. "Things are usually pretty still in this section of town at this time of night, but kids out looking for a good time are very picky."
Sam nodded, distantly recalling that 2nd shift at the warehouse next door would have been long gone. "Was anything taken?" Just the thought filled him with apprehension. His work involved working with treasures belonging to others. He only hoped the internal security system had done what it was designed to do.
"You'll have to tell us." The officer informed him, gesturing toward the building.
"Right. You're right." Sam moved toward the door in response to the request. He found it strange to bother with a lock when there was a hole in the window big enough for a man to climb through.
The reception area looked untouched. Everything was where he remembered before he'd left. Not even a magazine was out of place. Clicking on a light switch, he blinked against the sudden brilliance. Everything looked so normal -- except for the fact that two uniformed officers followed on his heels.
He moved along the corridor to the closet which housed the terminal interface for the internal security system. The all clear signal flashed on the screen, and both doors leading to the back of the building were securely locked. He breathed a little easier.
Next on the list was the rest of the upper offices. He made his way through all of them, the break room, the supply closet, even the bathrooms before he entered the large office at the front of the building. His office. The cold draft of wind hit as soon as he opened the door. He flipped the light switch and the rest of it hit him.
Papers from his in-baskets were scattered across his desk. His chair was tipped over, office supplies dragged from his drawers and strewn across the desk. In the corner, two cardboard filing boxes of old records, waiting to be moved to archive storage had been dumped into a single heap. Even the pictures on the wall hadn't gone untouched. Both frames hung crookedly against the painted surface. But his computer and other office electronics sat sedately in their places.
Sam could only stare in shocked awe at the sight.
"Mr. Wright, do you know of any reason why anyone would want to do this type of damage?"
Sam turned and looked at the officer who had spoken, not really seeing him. One name did come to mind. One woman who always managed to make his life hell. One woman whose name he could not turn over to the police.
"No," he said softly. "I don't know any reason."
A look passed between the officers. They offered a few words of advice, and then they were gone. Sam was left standing in the middle of chaos.
He began to slowly go about the task of cleaning up. Where anger should have been, he only felt exhaustion. He simply couldn't work up the energy for that emotion. As he worked, a number of things came together in his mind. The mugging, in front of his office door. Had it only been five days ago? So many things had happened since that it seemed much longer. Since that night, his life had begun being slowly, progressively turned upside down.
His daughter could not longer go to afterschool without the fear of her estranged mother arriving to frighten her. She was being driven home by a bodyguard for heaven's sake. He didn't even want to think about the bodyguard, herself. That was an attraction that he simply couldn't deal with at the moment.
And then there was this. His office in ruins. It was all just too much. He had to do something. Change something. Life couldn't go on this way. It was out of control. And dammit, he hadn't had a good night's sleep in five days.
Having gathered up the bulk of the papers into appropriate stacks he settled on the floor against the wall alongside one of the cardboard filing boxes. His goal was to replace the files into first one box and then the other. He made the mistake of resting his head against his knees, just for a moment. Just to rest his eyes for a bit. That was where Claire found him the next morning.