Bats in the Belfry Read online

  Her head went toward the Mary Jane's on her feet when she heard the glass door open, and a pair of shoes clicked toward them. “Mr. Taylor this is Lane Bennett. She’ll be assisting you on the duration of your stay with us.” The hair on Lane’s arms suddenly stood at attention as her eyes moved toward Mr. Taylor, not the one she was anticipating though.

  He extended his hand in front of her while his mouth spread into a dimpled smile. “Garrett Taylor. It’s nice to meet you Miss Bennett.” She could tell he was the senior to Castell, because he looked like him, but older. His hair was fully gray, eyes the same brown with crows’ feet on the ends when he smiled. There was something about him that scared her enough to cause all the hair on her body to stand on end. Even though he was smiling his eyes told a cold and sardonic story. For a minute she swore he licked his lips, and smirked at her chest.

  She pushed her hand forward shaking his firmly, while trying to get past the awkwardness she was feeling all over her body. “Nice to meet you too Mr. Taylor.”

  “Well, this is where I depart. Are we still on for the meeting at ten?” Kate asked walking toward the elevator. Lane wanted to yell at her to stay and not to leave her alone with him, but this was her job now. She was stuck with him until, well, until she screwed up. Which may be soon with the way she was losing it.

  Garrett released Lane’s hand and nodded in Kate’s direction while still holding Lane’s stare. “Yes, were still on, I’ll see you at ten Miss Higgins.”

  When Kate was gone Garrett started walking to his office. “Get settled, then meet me in my office in twenty minutes. We have some things to talk about.” As the door closed behind him Lane watched as the glass in his office cleared, and he strolled to the dominating mahogany desk near the windows, slumping into his chair. He looked down at something before glancing at her, and only then did she realize that she was still standing staring at him. Tripping over her feet, she hurried to get around her desk.

  Exactly twenty minutes later Lane knocked on Garrett’s door, and with a flick of his finger she entered. “Come in Lane, have a seat.” She decided twenty minutes before to put on a brave face. That this man wasn’t scary at all, that it was all in her head. This was her job now, the one she wanted and had worked hard for. She was picked out of a dozen others to be here, and now she was and she was going to suck it up and do the job. He was her boss, and she could handle this.

  Walking in head held high with notepad in hand, she took a seat in the chair he was pointing to in front of his desk. His office was huge, and like the outside all glass with floor to ceiling windows that over looked the Felicity skyline. Instead of white furniture his was black, and the portraits on the walls were more bleeding soul, fallen angels, heaven verses hell type paintings. They were weird, and probably represented the man she was currently facing.

  Garrett looked up from his laptop at the woman in front of him. The one thing he prided himself for was his memory. Even though he was sixty-three his memory was like a steel trap, it never let anything out. And even though she had grown he remembered her face, and more importantly her hair. He had lost a lot of money because of her and his idiot son, who he still couldn’t believe let her go. Garrett knew he did, even when he stood lying to his face, he saw the change in him when she was around. Why he had done it he still didn’t know, but maybe the opportunity would come again, and so far, this was the perfect start.

  Standing, he moved around his desk coming to lean against it next to her. Lane swallowed, and looked up at his dark soul sucking eyes praying her fear didn’t show. “Miss Bennett, as this is your first day, I need to inform you of how things work. My son Castell, has asked me to oversee his business while he’s away in Hong Kong handling… other important matters.” So that was why he was here, she thought. She was beginning to wonder what was really going on with the whole switch. Last she knew Garrett Taylor owned a few businesses outside Felicity, none of which were buying and selling of cars. “For the time being you’re my assistant since his had to be with him in Hong Kong. I expect you here at eight o’clock sharp every morning. I don’t tolerate tardiness and don’t like excuses, so don’t be late. I take my coffee black every morning at eight thirty and I eat lunch promptly at one.” Her hand skimmed across the lines of her notepad, as she quickly jotted down every word from his mouth. “All my contacts are in the red book on your desk, memorize them because I may ask you for one and the book may not be with you. The company files are in your desk drawers and the cabinet up against that wall. They are strictly confidential and you cannot speak about them to anyone or else you’ll be fired. Is all of that clear?” he asked with an inscrutable look.

  She nodded eagerly. “Yes… yes I understand.”

  Clapping his hands together which caused her to jump, he pushed himself forward. “Good. Now that that’s out of the way,” he said moving back to his chair. “I have a meeting with Miss Higgins at ten, then I have a meeting over at McKinley’s at eleven. I’ll be back in time for lunch, call Gilda’s down on main she knows my order and would have it ready in time for pick up. I need you to call Ken Bradford from purchasing and have him bring the May 2019 and 2020 catalogs from Lexus and Mercedes. Have it on my desk before I return. If there’s anything else I’ll let you know, you may go now.” She was dismissed.

  Lane hurried out the door, quickly landing in her chair with a thud while swallowing the nervous energy she had been holding in. Day one, and she was already a freaking mess, and he hadn't done anything to indicate that something was wrong. She just needed to focus, get all this stuff done, and get her mind off things.

  What a way to start.

  Six

  Sitting in the tub while trying to relax after one of the worst first days in history, Lane thought back to her first day at The Bar. After dropping nine plates, and delivering the wrong order to five different tables three times, she had felt like she wasn’t cut out to be a waitress. But after a few days and a lot of pep talks, she got the hang of it, and she figured working at Luxury Corp was just another version of that. She’d get the hang of it, and a hang of mister weird.

  After she’d left his office, the phone rang a couple million times, all of who were people she wasn’t familiar with yet. Trying to find that Ken guy was impossible, because somehow, she kept missing him by a minute or two. She left to get his lunch at that place he wanted, and of course her car chose that very moment to not start, causing her to take a taxi. After she bought the house special, which was a salad, and some special piece of meat she started walking back when she realized she didn’t get him anything to drink. She of course didn’t know what to get him since he didn’t specify, so she got a water, which he didn’t want because he liked his water sparkling and she had gotten still.

  Blowing out a puff of air, she sank letting the warm water cover her entire body. Closing her eyes, she allowed the stress of the day to slowly drift into the box where she kept all the other stressful things in her life, and as she slowly started to relax something banged against the wall near her head. Opening her eyes, she listened again and not two minutes later did it happen again, then again, a second after that. That time she knew they had hit the wall directly because the sound was different.

  Dillon had left last week, without so much as a goodbye or see you around note, so she knew it wasn't him. She didn’t think anyone had rented his apartment yet, but then again, she hadn’t been around to notice.

  Getting out of the tub, she grabbed her robe from behind the door and quickly headed out into the living room and out the front door. Outside, she knocked on Dillon’s former apartment door and waited, listening to the shuffling coming from behind it. A woman emerged two seconds later with a pair of construction goggles over her eyes, and a hammer in her hand. She pulled the goggles off and smiled sheepishly at Lane. “Hi, was it the pounding that got you? I’m sorry, I’ve just been trying to get this nail in the wall so I could hang a picture, but it kept falling out. I'm not very good at construction ty
pe things.”

  “Actually, it's fine, I didn’t know that someone was living here already.”

  “Yeah, I moved in Saturday. I’m K.C Alexander.”

  “Lane Bennett. I live right next door." She pointed.” “Actually, I think I can help you with the nail hammer thing.”

  Her eyes perked up. “Really, thank God because I wasn’t having any progress doing it myself. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell by the obvious dent in the wall.” She stepped aside, and gestured for Lane to come in.

  Lane walked into the apartment she’d been in a thousand times before, marveling at how different it looked. Dillon was never a cleaner or a decorator, so this place always looked like a tornado hit, throwing all his stuff including the furniture all over the room. Even though it wasn’t completely put together yet, the place still looked a thousand times better than it did before.

  One of the things Lane noticed was the amount of clothes this K.C had. They weren’t scattered like Dillon’s used to be, but neatly packed in boxes, bags, and on racks lined against the walls. “Don’t worry, they are not all mine,” K.C said when Lane walked past her toward the bathroom.

  “Ahh…I wasn’t going too—”

  “Oh, your face said it all. I’m not a shopaholic, just a personal shopper.”

  “A what?

  “A personal shopper, you know, I go out and shop for other people. Dress them in what I want like my own personal dolls, or children if you thought about it.”

  “That’s a job?” she asked as K.C pointed her to the hole in the wall she made earlier. Her bathroom was the opposite of Lane’s, so whereas Lane’s door was on the left, hers was on the right, making their tubs up against the same wall. Lane took the hammer and nail from her hands, and positioned the nail over the large hole over her bathtub.

  “Oh, honey it’s a career. I make big bucks by picking out a necklace for some socialite to wear.”

  Getting the nail in, Lane took the picture that was leaning against the toilet, and placed it on the wall, making a few adjustments to get it straight. “Sounds interesting, but I’ve never heard of it. Must be fun though.”

  “Oh, I love it, best job I’ve ever had. Hey, can you do that again just in the living room. This place is so damp it just needs some life, and color to make me feel like I’m living somewhere better until I could actually paint it.” Lane laughed at her comment, since her apartment really was colorless and cold. Dillon never painted the place so all the walls were gray, and some of them had smudge marks and hand prints on them. Probably from all the late night visitors who weren’t sober enough to make it to the bedroom.

  They walked into the living room stepping over a few boxes along the way as K.C pointed to the spot on the wall where she wanted the other picture to go. “You know in his defense he was a single college guy.”

  “I guess that explains the butt print on the bedroom wall.” They laughed while K.C kicked a few boxes into the other corner of the room. As Lane got the other nail in, K.C told her about some of the people she’d dressed, some of the places she’d been, and how she landed in Felicity.

  K.C was the kind of funny outgoing person Lane wished she could be. She was tall with a model figure, hazel brown eyes, raven black straight hair, and a beautiful golden complexion. She was from New York, and was only here for three months. “So anyway, I’m here to take care of my mother while she’s in and out of heart surgery for the next few months. Plus, my apartment back in New York is having some renovations done, so here I am.”

  “Sorry about your mother. It’s quite noble of you to drop everything to take care of her.”

  “Well she did take care of me for half my life. Only fair I return the favor when she needs it.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Lane mumbled to herself feeling a pang of sadness wash over her. “Well I better be going. You seem like you have a lot of unpacking to do and I have a boss who hates tardiness.” She smiled sadly handing K.C the hammer.

  “I understand. That’s why I started working for myself, bosses suck. Come over tomorrow if you’re not too busy, I’ll have wine.”

  ***

  Three weeks later….

  Lane was on K.C’s living room floor typing up the minutes from today’s meeting, when K.C fell on the couch behind her. “So, this Mr. Taylor, is he hot. I know when I worked in the corporate world my boss was extremely hot and I always wanted to jump his bones and have an office fling, but he was married, so I had to let that dream die a slow and really painful death.”

  Lane snorted a laugh glancing at her over her shoulder. “Well, he’s old, but his son’s hot. I work for the father and so far, he just gives me the creeps.” She turned back to the computer.

  “What do you mean? Has he done something to you?” she asked in a concerned voice.

  Her head whipped in her direction with bulging eyes. “NO!...no nothing like that. It’s just…since the first day I’ve met him I just got the sense that he wasn’t a good person. You ever get near someone and felt afraid, like you got the chills or the hairs on your body just stood up from the sight of them?”

  She nodded in understanding. “Mmm hmm, mmm hmm I know exactly what you mean. This guy I worked for a few months ago, wanted me to bring the clothes he ordered over to his house." She sat up Indian style with a throw pillow between her fingers. "What I usually do is I go in with my bags and boxes and organize them since I’m kind of compulsive like that. So, this guy powerful, beautifully handsome, and he asked me out twice before. Now I was reluctant to say yes at first because there was just something about him, not fear per say, but something that crawled up my ass and planted a seed, but I said yes anyway pushing it aside. So, when I get to his house, I start putting his stuff away in his closet, but come across this box tucked in the way back under a bunch of stuff.”

  “Came across or dug for?” Lane asked putting her laptop down with a pointed gaze, knowing she didn’t just come across it.

  “It’s kinda in my job description to snoop okay, I’m entitled to it. So anyway, I find this box, regular old shoe box that didn’t quite match his fancy demeanor. So, I opened it and inside were these pictures of these women." Her face turned serious as she blinked down at her. "Now I know men have their dirty magazines, they watch porn, some even have a few naked pics on their phone, but this guy had over forty pictures of at least nine different naked women tied to his bed in different positions, looking rather uncomfortable if I might add.”

  Lane's brows curved. “What do you mean?”

  "It was weird. The women looked…scared." Her haunted gaze sent a chill down Lane's spine. "I put everything back just as I found it and then texted him that I couldn’t go out with him. I liked kink, but he was a bit too kinky for me and he kept souvenirs." She grinned trying to brush it off. "Plus, I found this little bullet looking thing in the box and when I googled it, turns out it was a butt plug.”

  “Eww.”

  “I know, so you see if I hadn’t snooped, I might have been another picture to add to his collection.”

  “So, what are you saying? I need to snoop on my boss?”

  “I’m saying you need to figure out why he gives you the creeps and if snooping can help you do that, why not.”

  Lane got up and started pacing in front of her, as a panic settled into her chest. “You want me to snoop on my boss. I… I can’t do that I’ll get fired if he finds out and he will find out. The man has means.”

  “I’m not saying you should do anything Lane. It was just a suggestion, so calm down. There’s probably a reason why he gives you the creeps and the only way to know what it is, is to keep an eye open. Maybe go through his computer when he’s not there. You’re in charge of his schedule, so you’ll know where he’ll be most of the day, right?”

  Lane stopped, looking at her while biting the inside of her cheek. It was true, she did know his schedule. She knew his comings and goings, and it would be easy since she had a key to his office as well. So maybe she
could— “No, no I can’t do that. Maybe I’m just imagining things. It's probably all in my head anyway."

  K.C got off the couch and strolled into the kitchen. “Maybe you’re right, but then again maybe you’re wrong too.” `

  Seven

  “And what do I owe this pleasure Miss Bennett?”

  “So, it’s Miss Bennett now. What happened to Lane?”

  He placed his hand over his eyes to shield out the sun, even though Lane was blocking most of it by standing directly in front of him. “Well, since Lane has been ditching me for the past two and a half weeks, I figured you must be Miss Bennett, an alien who has inhabited her skin.”

  “You watch too many Syfy movies.”

  “And I’m guessing you do too since you know about Skin Walkers.” His smile was contagious and brought on her own in no time. She shook her head claiming the seat next to him.

  Lane had missed her father, and since she hadn’t been by to see him in almost three weeks, she’d given up her fear of seeing— him again, and showed that Saturday. But after having the same argument with her father yet again, she wanted to talk to someone who didn’t completely frustrate her, and when walking out onto the balcony she spotted him in the garden.

  “I don’t watch Syfy. Their movies suck and are really unrealistic.”

  He pointed. “Hey, Sharknado was totally realistic.”

  “Yeah just like Frankenfish, Lake Placid and Bigfoot.”

  “Sounds to me like you did a lot of not watching Syfy to know a lot of bad ass titles.” He smirked with one brow raised.

  “I have, was a complete waste of time though,” Lane smiled, remembering all the time she’d spent as a teenager watching those stupid movies, and loving every minute of it. “By the way, my curiosity piqued when I had no idea what your name was. I realized after I left that day that I didn’t catch it, which was unlike me since I like to know the name of even the guy bagging my groceries.”