Chapter One
The predawn skies spewed a chilling Wisconsin mixture of sleet, snow and rain. Caitlin’s silver luxury car looked lonely as the only car in the small lot. But not for long. Headlights flashed across her pathway to the door. Another car, not one she recognized, pulled into the visitor’s slot closest to the building, right under the light. She glimpsed the driver as he sat in the car. Never looking her way, he stared out the front windshield.
A memory slammed into her mind like a fist into her stomach.
She knew that face...one she tried to forget but couldn’t shake even after all these years.
Mike. That couldn’t be possible.
Her imagination was playing tricks on her. Shaking her head, she reached the building, but before she entered she turned and looked again. She’d bet her next paycheck that man was Mike. What was he doing here, in Northland’s parking lot?
Her palmed key opened the executive entrance door. It creaked. She shivered. The damp penetrated her trench coat.
She entered, registered the video tape clicking to record her, and heard the heavy door schlump shut. Safe from memories and the person in the car. No visitors would get in this door, and no other entrances would open until six when the day security team started. Night-dimmed ceiling lights greeted her as she strode down the short, tiled corridor, leading to the factory entrance and her office.
She exchanged friendly greetings with the night guard and inhaled a whiff of the ever-present, oily-smelling factory air. Her heels clicked on the cement walkway skirting the factory edge. A quick left into an institutional gray-painted, cement-walled corridor found her in front of an office door.
Her door. Her name, C. R. DONNELLY—VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES etched in scrolled letters on a polished brass nameplate. The nameplate and the title still delighted her. She’d worked damn hard for both, shoving aside any personal life for it. Jeopardized her health.
Inside, she flipped on the lights. Her mail leaned in three piles—beige interoffice mailers, magazines, newspapers, bound reports, and correspondence from three weeks absence. With luck, most of the stuff would slide into the “circular file.”
If this was her snail mail, she dreaded opening email.
She spotted her baby—a weeping fig. The plant stood in a hand-crafted Japanese motif ceramic pot her artist sister-in-law had created. When she purchased the plant three months ago, she’d been determined to carve her persona upon this newly-achieved office. The space needed life and some serious fluffing.
The fig was in extremis. Not just dropping a few leaves, but dead—tinder dry. Two ashy colored leaves hung limply from a desiccated limb.
“Only gone three weeks,” she muttered. “Didn’t Rachel water you?” That wasn’t like her assistant.
Caitlin touched the brittle trunk and tested the soil—damp. A large window faced south and provided good filtered light. Even now the cumbersome old Venetian blinds were open. The damp soil meant the tree had been watered. Too much? No, the soil wasn’t that damp. Only one logical possibility remained. Rachel and the industrial nurses were up to their pranks again.
A black ribbon was tied around the slender tree trunk. She’d missed it at first glance. The ribbon made her uneasy because police officers wore such ribbons as armbands at funerals for their own. She’d seen that on the news a month ago when the shooting deaths of two officers made headlines in Milwaukee. She ignored her spinal shivers and shucked tension from her shoulders.
Quickly, she scanned the rest of her office filled with soon-to-be-replaced standard issue office furniture with vinyl leatherette covers pulling away from their corded edges. Nondescript prints of boats hung on beige cement block walls. Minus the pictures and furniture, the office resembled a jail cell. Highly polished, a vinyl tile floor gleamed, devoid of its usual scuff marks—testimony to the emotion-driven factory boots of most of her visitors.
She despised the “decor,” her contemptuous term, but she loved the office. It was hers and hard-won. She sighed and glanced upward above the windowed, heavy steel door she’d just entered. A computer generated banner proclaimed:
WELCOME BACK C.R. YOUR MAIL AWAITS
Rachel’s fine hand—and humor, especially with the smiley face attached to the banner. Rachel loved smiley faces. Most likely, she had switched the tree as a joke. She knew the fig’s symbolism for her boss. Touched at Rachel’s attempt at humor, Caitlin tamped down her irritation and forced a smile. She left her office, closing the door on its stale trapped air, and walked down the quiet hall to the secretary’s office—dark, hushed, and minus her healthy plant.
“Hrrumph,” she grumbled, “She’s hiding it. Okay, I’ll play along.” She turned on the tip of her low-heeled leather pump and returned to her office. The door stood ajar. Strange, she didn’t remember leaving it that way. She shrugged her shoulders, re-entered her office, removed her coat, hung it on a hook drilled into the wall, and settled into her chair of gray leather, high backed, with sleek chromed arms, padded throughout with finest down. Expensive, comfortable, beautiful, and totally misplaced in this office. Many said just like her.
Caitlin stared at the forlorn-looking tree again, glancing at the mail, more unbalanced than ever. Rachel had sorted it. The most pressing items were on the top of each pile. Placed astride two piles was one piece of paper, no envelope or mailer. It caught her eye because she didn’t remember it having been there before.
She picked it up and choked. Forcing herself to calm her shaking hands, she reread the note. Definitely not Rachel’s work. The grimy, poor quality paper contained taped letters cut from newspapers.
TAKE ANOTHER VACATION!! OR END UP LIKE YOUR TREE.
Sick, that’s all, scare tactics. She stuffed it into a desk drawer. “I’ll deal with it later,” she muttered, chewed her lower lip, and attacked the mail.
****
Morning factory start-up noises fragmented the earlier quiet, but did not dispel her apprehension and uncertainty as her wastebasket filled. Her system was efficient, like everything she did—read and initial to file, read and pitch, read and respond on the original and then throw onto another pile for Rachel to handle. With her door closed, she ignored the sounds of muffled, heavy footsteps of day-shift workers coming into work.
Finishing her business mail, Caitlin handled the interoffice mailers; the bound reports and magazines could wait. Inside the top mailer, she found an unexpected memo—one sending another punch to her stomach.
“It was Mike,” she thundered at the memo, scrunching it up, and for the second time in less than two hours, her heart clutched.
Michael S. Rafferty, the new Plant Manager, started today.
Her eyes scanned the information, noting the handwritten note from the company president. See me regarding this new member of our management team. ASAP. Hope the vacation went well. Keith
“You bet I will,” she mumbled, drumming her manicured nails on the desktop. Michael S. Rafferty. Had she not spotted him in the parking lot, she might consider the name a coincidence. While his name wasn’t John Smith, it wasn’t that unique. Maybe her eyes deceived her. People did have doppelgangers, but not with the same name.
Heavy footsteps startled her. Her eyes widened; her heart fluttered. She glanced out the window to see the employee parking lot filling up. Rachel’s fuel-efficient, red car filled its assigned place. The footsteps, too heavy for Rachel, stopped, lingering adjacent to her door, but beyond her field of vision.
Caitlin inhaled, her senses tuned to the hall. In a few seconds—it seemed like an eternity—the steps moved away. Simultaneously, she heard lighter steps and recognized that cadence.
“Welcome back, Catie Rose,” Rachel’s throaty voice announced her entrance. Her eyes glanced at the mail. “You’ve been busy. Good.” She carefully balanced a tray holding two mugs of fragrant coffee. “Just how long have you been here?” With her foot, she pushed the door closed.
“Long enough to wish I hadn’t left, just from the mail,” Caitlin waved a hand over her desk area. “And I’ve not even fired up my computer to check email yet.” She shuddered, thinking about that task waiting for her.
“Keep your finger on the delete key. Works like a charm, boss.”
“Rach, did you see anyone loitering in the corridor just now?” Watching Rachel shake her head, Caitlin assessed her assistant’s appearance of prominent cheekbones in a striking dusky face and enormous, almond-shaped, dark chocolate eyes riding above those to-die-for cheekbones.
“No one. Why?” Rachel handed her a coffee mug, a shared ritual for several years.
“Don’t mind me. I’m a bit edgy today.” Caitlin took the coffee and inhaled its rich aroma. “I thought I heard someone stop outside but not come in.”
“What? Thought that mail might give you some serious doubts about long vacations, but I didn’t think it’d cause hallucinations.”
Caitlin sipped her coffee, but said nothing else for a few moments. “Great dress. That color’s perfect for you.” Her assistant’s use of vivid colors intrigued Caitlin, whose tastes and comfort with color centered on muted tones.
“Thanks. It’s new.”
“Looks like you’ve been holding your own on that diet.”
An appreciative smile spread across Rachel’s face. “Ten more pounds to go. Weight Watchers and Pilates, my diet gurus.” She crossed her long legs as she squirmed on one of those detested orange plastic chairs. “What’s up? You have that worried look instead of the relaxed vacation one I hoped to see.”
“Did you see Keith’s memo? About the new plant manager?”
Rachel nodded and sipped from a mug whose cartoon proclaimed feminist humor. “The memo came late Friday, long after first shift left. Maxine walked it down and ordered me to make sure you saw it first thing. That’s why I left it where I did.” Rachel’s tone indicated her dislike for the unpopular Maxine.
“Nothing else came through our office on this hiring? Any withholding forms, benefits requests, employment forms?” A head shake answered her.
“No general announcement?” Same response. “Anyone see this guy?”
“Not that I know about. Our staff had left for the day. Kirby never said a word. Even for him, I can’t imagine he’d not have left word for you if he knew what was in the wind.”
Caitlin frowned at that news. Kirby was her assistant and angry he didn’t get her position. He charmed as needed to benefit himself.
“The guy’s worthless, but at least he’s that way with everyone. A real equal opportunity jerk.”
“Don’t hold back, Rach,” Caitlin teased, despite feeling the same way. “It’s strange nothing’s come through the office. Keith wants a meeting ASAP. What’s on my calendar? I see you brought a copy.” She picked up her mug and inhaled.
“When Maxine flounced in here Friday, she told me to clear this morning, so that’s free. Your design consultant will be here later this afternoon. I thought you’d appreciate that at the end of your day. Sort of a reward, right?”
Caitlin nodded and sipped her coffee as Rachel read off the rest of the schedule.
“This afternoon, I’ve scheduled an appointment with the union committee about a ’problem’. After that, sessions with all your staff to update you on what’s been going on.”
“What has?”
“Nothing major that I know of, though this union thing could get that way. Debbie has some concerns about possible drug use on the second shift. I expect she’ll tell you about that.”
The phone rang, and Caitlin reached for it. Keith Jantzen, president of Northland Marine, boomed from the speaker. “Glad you’re back. Horace said you’ve been here since before five. You read my memo?”
“Good morning to you, too, Keith. Yes, of course, I had a great time. Just what the doctor ordered. Thanks for asking,” Caitlin teased him.
“Okay, Cait. You keep me civil. I’m glad you’re back.” His voice softened. “Things run better when you’re around.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. Yes, I got the memo and intended to call at my usual time. You’re in early this morning; what’s up?”
“Lots of positive things, Cait. Bring some of Rachel’s wonderful brew with you and come up now. We’ll discuss the ramifications. Lots to do today and you get to handle it all. No one else knows about the Rafferty hire but you. And me, of course.”
“And Rafferty, I would imagine,” she bantered and added Maxine and Rachel to that group. Great leader, Keith, but clueless about how office grapevines really operated. “Lucky me, I get to placate management staff as well as the union.” She stuffed down a sigh.
“Right, but you’re so good at it. See you in a few minutes. And don’t forget that coffee.” He cut the connection as abruptly as he began it.
Caitlin cradled the phone and stared at it for a second. “You know, someday I’m going to beat him at hanging up.”
“Wow, what a goal,” Rachel teased and took another sip. “Think you’ll achieve it?”
“If I do, I’d have to move on, find another challenge,” Caitlin teased back and put her hands on the edge of her desk. “Well, I’ve been summoned. With the ’request’ to bring some of your coffee. Maxine’s must really be awful today.”
“Or Keith relies on past experience.” Rachel rose from her chair.
“Just a minute, Rach. I have some filing and typing piles here behind the desk, in the usual places. Also tell Debbie I want to see her before the general meeting. Squeeze her in somewhere, even if it’s over the lunch hour.”
“Consider it done.” Rachel neared the door.
“Did you read the odd note on top of my mail pile?”
“What odd note?” Rachel asked as Caitlin opened the third drawer, extracted the note, and held it up.
Rachel moved in closer to read the note. “Gross.” She shook her head, a worry groove bisecting the bridge of her nose. “That definitely wasn’t here when I left on Friday. Besides, I wouldn’t have put that with your mail. It’d scare the bejeebers out of you. Not what you need to welcome you back.”
“Well, it’s not going to scare me.” Caitlin dropped the paper scrap into the drawer. “I’m sure a pissed-off worker’s just venting. And speaking of surprises, what did you do to my fig tree? Put it on a diet, too?”
For the first time, Rachel glanced at the tree. “That’s not your tree, Catie Rose. When I left Friday, it looked happy, green and growing. No way can it—”
Caitlin interrupted her. “All right, someone’s playing nasty practical jokes. Check around and find my tree. Meanwhile, get this thing out of here. Please. And Rach, don’t frown. It’s a silly prank. We’ll laugh about it for weeks. Maybe Debbie and the nursing crew instigated this.”
“They wouldn’t do this and you know it. Maybe bandage it, but not destroy it,” Rachel grumbled and headed for the door. “See you in a few minutes...with the coffee. And if you want to keep me happy, call security about this.”
“When I know the nurses didn’t do it,” Caitlin shot back.
“They didn’t. File a report…or I will.”
“Don’t be such a mother hen.”
“Cluck, cluck, cluck…” Caitlin heard her echoing down the corridor.