Fiction
Two Before The Wedding Part 8
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson And Henry James Series
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson, and I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
After a brief conversation with Donnie Sullivan, the man left to locate the silver Chrysler, which we knew wouldn’t be hard to find. Ashton Wheaton had its own employee parking garage, which meant the dude following Angela would be nearby.
We made ourselves comfortable on a couple of padded benches near the elevators and settled in.
“I swear to God, Henry, my feet are killing me.”
“Well, if you weren’t carrying all that…”
“Don’t you even go there, or I will punch you in the throat, old man.”
“Look, Johnson, I know this is putting a lot of strain on you. I appreciate the fact you’re willing to do this story with me.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh how sweet Henry. I think I’m going to cry.”
“Shit Johnson, don’t get emotional on me now. Here comes Stringer.”
Angela saw us approaching and stopped before reaching the elevators. It was plain to see she wasn’t happy to see us.
Perhaps it was the expression of revulsion as if she’d just seen a horrible sight or experienced the scent of something putrid that gave us a clue.
We walked to within three feet of her, and the woman immediately took two paces backward.
“Hello Angela, we need to talk.”
“What in the hell are you two doing here, James? You both came to try and screw up another career for me?”
“Angela, it’s not like that. We’ve got some information about Brentwood you need to know about.”
A noticeable look of surprise twisted the woman’s face and she lurched toward the elevator furiously mashing the call button and staring at the counter as it began its countdown.
“Shaundrika, I have nothing to say to either of you. If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to call the police.”
“That’s probably a good idea since there’s a man out there who plans to kill you.”
Angela whipped around, her mouth opened in shock, her satchel briefcase flying around her body smacking into her opposite thigh.
“What did you just say, James?”
“Angela, we’ve been following you most of the day…”
“Wait. You’ve been stalking me?”
“Let me finish…”
When the elevator car reached floor level and opened Anglea, stomped in, twirled about, and slapped a button on the panel. At the same time, we pushed our arms into the rapidly closing doors, pulled them open, and stepped inside.
“Get out of this damned elevator.”
“No, you need to listen to what we have to say, Angela.”
“Give us ten minutes, please, Angela, it’s important. If you don’t believe us after we’re finished, we’ll go, and you’ll never see us again.”
“Well, that ain’t exactly right.”
“Shut up, Henry. Angela, please.”
“Ten minutes, and then we’re done?”
“That’s it. Ten minutes.”
“Fine, the timer starts the minute we step into my office, and the door’s closed got it?”
“Got it.”
We followed the woman as she stepped out, turned right down a hallway, and pushed through the same glass doors we’d gone through earlier. When she pulled up at Charlie Ruiz’s office, she leaned in and said, “Charlie? I’ve got a couple of visitors here, and we need to discuss something. Can we push back our review meeting for about fifteen minutes?”
“Oh, your friends finally found you did they?”
“They’re not my…”
“We sure did, Charlie. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Mr. James, right?
“Yeap.”
“No problem, Mr. James. Glad you three managed to hook up.”
Without a word, Angela pushed away from Charlie’s door and headed down the hallway again. This time breezing into an office about the size as Charlie’s. She tossed her satchel on the floor in the corner and stood beside the door, waiting impatiently for us to walk in and sit down. After closing the door, she stalked around her desk, sat down, and stared at her wristwatch.
“Your ten minutes starts now.”
We’ve always thought it interesting the reactions we get when we start spinning out facts we’ve discovered to someone who was never aware those facts existed.
At first, Anglea continued to check her watch almost minute by minute as if she could hardly stand being closed up in the same room with us.
After telling her about the phone call with the fixer and what we’d discovered, she stopped checking her watch. And when we told her about our meeting with Howard Bartley, she gasped and fell backward against her chair.
“You met with my father?”
“Yeah, at Dark Sides, we knew you as Stringer. Angela Stringer. Charlie tells us your name’s Bartley. As in Howard Bartley’s adopted daughter? What’s the deal here, Angela?”
“Okay, okay, okay! Stringer is my husband’s last name. He was killed in Afghanistan almost seven years ago. Wegmann’s convinced me to use my last name to get into Dark Sides. Look what happened at Dark Sides wasn’t my fault. Well, it was, but let me explain. I suck at the publishing business…”
“Yeah, we guessed as much.”
“Please, Henry. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“Fine.”
“My job at Wegmann’s was a sham. I didn’t know anything about publishing. I’ve been in the construction and manufacturing business all my life. It’s what I know. What I love.”
“Your father’s company. Bartley Manufacturing.”
“Exactly Shaundrika. One day the people at Wegmann’s told me they were about to kick me to the street, no insurance, no last check, nothing. I may have hated working there, but I really needed that job. I asked them what I could do to get them to change their minds, and the next day they promised me a pretty sweet severance package as long as I did them a few favors.”
“Which meant convincing my mother to hire you and then just being the general mess up you would be trying to make it in the publishing business.”
“Exactly Shaundrika. They dressed up my resume with a whole bunch of malarkey, and every one of the references was somebody on Wegmann’s payroll.”
“They must have wanted Dark Sides bad.”
“They did. But you know what? Cynthia firing me was the best thing that ever happened to me. While I’m still not working my dream job, the people of Ashton Wheaton Homes have been pretty good to me. At least I get to work with builders and things like that.”
“You always wanted to work with your dad, huh?”
“Yeah. A big dream of mine.”
“Angela?”
“Yes, Henry?”
“Ten minutes passed about five minutes ago.”
For the first time since we’d known Angela Stringer or Bartley we still weren’t sure yet, the woman gave us a warm, genuine smile.
“Really? Well, isn’t that something?”
“Do you want us to leave?”
“I’m certain we have more to talk about, right?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then fire away.”
“Well, Angela, this is going to come as a shock, but Henry and I believe your father is the one that hired a fixer who has contracted a hit on you.”
“Not possible. My father would never stoop to something like that. It goes completely against the grain of almost forty years of being a loving family man, dealing with the public and the community. Not possible.”
“We’re talking about a lot of money, Angela.”
“Which my father doesn’t give a shit about Henry. I know him, I’ve spent my entire life with him. You’ll never get me to believe my own father wants to have me killed over money.”
“Well, someone at Bartley’s wants you dead Angela, and if we don’t figure this out soon, we’re not sure we can stop it from happening.”
“Okay fine, you two keep digging. As far as I’m concerned it’s business as usual. The planning committee makes its decision this Friday. I’m meeting Daryl Thompson at our usual place the day before. I need one last conversation with him to seal the deal.
“Usual place?”
“Yes, Henry. There’s a coffee shop Daryl and I have been meeting at. It’s close to his offices and Brentwood. A perfect place for a rendezvous.”
We glanced at each other and rose to leave.
“Alright if we keep in touch?”
“I think I’d like that Henry.”
Read On — Two Before The Wedding Part 9
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© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.