Panic

The side door of the van banged shut with the ominous finality of a coffin lid closing. 

The hand-written note had lured her to the remote rear exit of the building- black van at the kerb. His familiar scrawl - casual, elegant – had seduced her into thinking that he was providing her a last-minute reprieve, a contrived errand that would get her out of the building quietly before the others discovered she was missing. 

But she had been badly mistaken. She should have known better. What had she learned long ago? Trust no one; rely on no one.

The bull-necked man with a two-day stubble on his chin bundled her into the back of the SUV with the tinted windows. Then it swung away from the kerb and jammed itself into the evening rush. The man ignored the resultant cacophony of horns save for a growled obscenity.

The thick black blindfold he had pressed on her seemed to intensify her other senses, tightening her already brittle nerves. She had been taken by surprise almost before she knew what was happening. 

She leaned forward with apprehension. ‘Where are you taking me?’ She tried to keep her voice calm despite her growing anxiety, dreading what she knew lay ahead.

‘You’ll see, lady. Just sit back and relax and keep that blindfold on.’ his gruff reply, as abrasive as his recent expletive, stifled any hope of assistance. She sat back and tried to calm herself by working out how to get out of what she feared was inevitable. 

The van was extensively sound-proofed, muffling all except the occasional muted car horn and the growling of the driver as he bullied his way through traffic. Mary Therese braced herself with her shoulders to counter the sudden swaying. The child locks were engaged; she was trapped.

I have only myself to blame, she reasoned. I brought this on. I could have stopped it.

Last week in her cubicle adjacent to his office she overheard Mr. Marconi on the phone speaking quietly. ‘I hope not,’ she heard him say, ‘for her sake. But I’m just not sure.’ There was a pause and then he responded in a sharp, hushed tone, ‘No, I want to wait and see. That’s too drastic. We might be over-reacting. Tell everyone not to do or say anything, you understand? Act normal. Leave her alone.’ More silence, then with reluctance in his voice, ‘Only as a last resort. And yes, if it has to be done I’ll do it myself. I messed up. But only if we know for certain she’s seen it.’ He hung up the receiver heavily. 

She knew it was about her and about the file. A new shipment had arrived and she was looking for the purchase order. When he came in and saw what she was holding, a strange look crossed his face.

‘What are you doing with that, Mary Therese?’ He strode across the room and took it from her grasp. 

Taken aback by his uncharacteristic behaviour, she felt herself blush as she stammered,’ Just le-le-looking for a purchase order, Mr. Marconi. I think there is a discrepancy in the shipment.’

He stared at her face for a long moment then his expression softened. He could be frightening to the other employees, but she had never before felt threatened. She thought him kind.

He glanced at his desk, went over and picked up another file. It was blue, like the one she had mistakenly taken. He looked at both. ‘I can see why you took the wrong file. No harm done then, here’s the one you want, Mary Therese.’   

Marconi tapped the other file against his other hand. ‘This one is a confidential personnel file. You know, performance reviews salary history that sort of thing. Sally from HR must have left it there. Sorry if I was rude. It was careless of her to leave it lying there. I’ll have a word later.’ Then as an afterthought, he smiled, ‘Sorry I snapped at you.’ Anything else?’

She shook her head. ‘No, sir. Thank you.’ She took the invoice folder and left, feeling his eyes on her back. 

But she had seen it. Not what he pretended it was. A list of names; names of people she knew – all of them; everyone from the office and even the guys on the loading dock. All of them in on it. She couldn’t believe the amounts.  

Mary Therese spent the next few days worrying about the list and what she should do about it. Some of them she considered friends, well maybe just nice to her but still that was something. If she told them she knew about it, what then?

She could run away from the problem; don’t address it; do nothing. Just drop everything and go. It wouldn’t be the first time. This was the third job in as many years. Pity! She was just starting to feel good about things too. More fool her. Say nothing, just disappear; start over someplace else. Mexico! Why not? It had always been her dream. But before she could escape, it was out of her hands, whisked away practically in broad daylight.

The driver made a sharp left, pushing Mary Therese against the window, cold against her cheek. The draft rising from the bottom of the glass wafted in a familiar fragrance, the sweet aroma of pine. We must be in the woods north of town, she reasoned, and she could tell that they were moving uphill. It seemed familiar. Then they rumbled over what felt like a wooden bridge and it came to her. She had made a similar trip once before; to drop some papers off to Mr. Marconi at his cabin secluded on the mountain top. 

He had offered her a cocktail. She refused clumsily with a bogus excuse about a family function. But there was no family, not anymore. Not for a long time. And later when she thought about it, she was sure Mr. Marconi had known but he had just said, ‘Perhaps another time.’ She thought him a nice man then – secretive but nice.

The van made another sharp turn and, although she couldn’t see it, she pictured the lake she had caught sight of on that earlier visit. The vision made her shiver as it had then. Memories! Another lake long ago. Late afternoon. Beautiful sunset. A careless step, a teenage know-it-all step, that put a hole in the canoe and made her an orphan. 

Twenty-five years later she still had nightmares, struggling up from a deep, dark place, arms flailing, short of breath, the dark, clutching water of the lake, her sodden clothes sucking her down. She shivered and her nightmare dread carried over to a constant fear of just about everything. Especially people. 

The scenery outside went dark. If not for the blindfold, she would have seen her reflection in the glass, vivid green eyes, even features, red hair cut just below the chin. She would have said, an okay face; not beautiful but not ugly either. She had had boyfriends. Not many but enough to know she preferred her own company. And she had her books, her mountain bike and Misty her Siamese. She was content she told herself. 

They drove for another ten minutes through the heavily wooded forest, remote and forbidding. She sensed they were close.

The SUV turned onto a long circular drive that took it to the front of the cabin, its tires crunching the gravel beneath. Mary Therese’s body went rigid. The van stopped abruptly, thrusting her forward then back against the seat belt. Its door slid open and a pair of hands grasped her arms.

Two months later

They found Mary Therese lying face down at the water’s edge, naked to the waist, her head resting on one arm as if asleep. A piece of seaweed had draped itself across one ankle, vivid green against her ivory skin.

The waiter twisted the ice bucket into the sand, the bottle rattling against the ice in the water. The man tipped the waiter and when the boy had departed, he stood silently for a moment, his shadow shielding her body from the fierce sun. She stirred then eventually rolled over and sat up on the blanket, shading her eyes with one hand, slipping the bandeau top up with the other. He smiled to himself at the transformation in just a few weeks.

Bob Marconi bent low and kissed Mary Therese lightly on the cheek. He noticed again that she had stopped flinching when he touched her.

‘Oh, Bob, don’t you just love Cancun. I mean, the sun, the sea. Everything.’  She swept an arm across her body encompassing the view. ‘To think, I was dreading the surprise party. I thought I couldn’t bear being the centre of attention. All those people pretending to like me. I just wanted to run away.

 'But you made me feel different. Right from the moment you took off my blindfold. People did like me; you liked me. I owe this all to you.’

He smiled then sat down on the blanket beside her. ‘Well, only partly, M-T. Your friends – all of them - actually paid for your trip. I didn’t plan my role exactly this way, but I’m glad the way it turned out. So are they, I think.’ 

‘But you were the one who organised it all. It was your idea. Mmm,’ Mary Therese murmured then wrapped her arms around him. 

He kissed her again.  

'Happy Fortieth, my darling!'