Transcendence - A New Beginning

Chapter Six

THE CORPORATE OWNERS

Arnold was tired, scared, anxious and completely out of his depth. He just got the call that he had been expecting for several months but had always hoped never to receive.

She was dead.

An automobile accident they said.

The man on the other end of the line said, "We have our men on it. They will conclude that she was speeding, and the toxicology screen will be positive for opioids. We have already placed valid prescription bottles from another state in her home for verification."

He swallowed bitterly against the dryness of his throat. "Will be?" he whispered.

The chuckle. "Yes, so everything goes back to normal. Our partnership proceeds unhindered with no pesky distractions. Right?"

The call had concluded shortly after that slightly veiled threat.

The proposition had been so good when he first heard it, like a cool draught to a parched throat. Yet, he knew it was the wrong choice. He knew it. His conscience had screamed for him to walk, no run away from the guy the minute he started the 'sales pitch.' But there was nowhere to turn. He and his business partner wife had made a series of bad investments and judgment errors, and they were going to lose everything. When the deal was proposed, he had spent months attempting to figure out how to salvage the company, but they had exhausted all financial life preservers, so there was nothing left to him.

The thought of his wife, Kim, left him numb. She seemed to have no comprehension of the direness of their situation. For the past five years, every financial cliff they faced was averted by her insistence that they take on another loan or buy another business, which temporarily bailed them out but eventually only increased their debt. He shouldn't blame her for her optimism but did nonetheless. His mind stubbornly refused to acknowledge his part.

As he saw it, he had been forced to become an active but unwilling participant in a seedy, underground crime world previously known only to him vicariously through movies or the news. He saw now that they had succeeded in making an incompetent fool out of him, publicly and privately. His own vanity and greed compelled him to create a façade of the cartel as legitimate financial partners, knowing full well they were nothing more than thieves and murderers. Period.

No. When they first approached him, he did not run. He should have.

Now she was dead.

Amidst these personal revelations lay something deeper and much more complex. He knew they would kill her. During conversations about her 'meddling,' Arnold described her as an overeager pharmacist who couldn't possibly pose a threat. They themselves controlled the source of any evidence she might uncover, which would, in time lead her to abandon the chase. Attributing her obsession to a self-limiting virus, he said, "You don't kill the patient because they caught a cold, you shore up their immune system and wait it out." He tried to convince them that they needed to be more careful instead. "Don't start down that road," he pleaded. "How do you turn back from that? If you start eliminating threats, before there is one, it is almost impossible to draw a line against doing it next time."

On the other end, there was silence. Palpable silence.

Then an audible sigh. He waited.

The inhuman voice came forth as if explaining the very simple to the very naive.

"Do you really think this is our first time?"

For Arnold, the world stopped spinning for just an instant. His senses were sharpened, his respiration short and rapid, his field of vision narrowed, his muscles tensed, and he heard his heartbeat in his ears as his hand clenched tightly around the telephone receiver. His mind scanned every interaction and communication he had with these men over the years in chronological sequence as if spun by a sadistic movie producer.