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He tried to recall. “I… don’t remember. I took two before sleeping but I woke with a wicked thumping headache, so I went to get more pills. Then I woke up on the couch when you called.”
“Have you eaten anything today?”
He thought about that and shook his head.
She nodded and looked into the bottle on the table. It was pretty full, so Henry couldn’t have taken a dangerous amount. She relaxed. “Go get dressed. Dinner’s at my place. We need to get some food into you. That will help.”
“Sorry.”
“Shoo!” she said with a grin, and she gestured to his bedroom.
He went to get dressed and closed the door.
When he’d received his glamor, Camila explained that he would be able to include clothing in his disguise, but it was a skill he would have to practice to ensure it was perfect. Today he was feeling far from perfect, so he stuck with real clothes and slipped on his jeans and a black t-shirt. He walked out of his bedroom to grab his wallet, phone, and keys. He slipped on some sandals and followed Sandy out. They took the elevator down and she let them into her condo. On the way to the living room she grabbed her cell and a take-out pizza menu.
They sat on the couch, and Henry’s stomach growled as Sandy opened the menu. They chuckled about that then got down to the business of ordering their dinner.
Sandy called it in then glanced at his destroyed phone. “I have my old cell you can use until you get a new one. It’s not anything fancy, but the battery lasts.”
“That would be great!” he said, and she popped up to her feet and dashed off to her bedroom to return a minute later with a small box. She handed it to him, and when he opened the box, he stifled a snort.
“Hey! Don’t dis my phone!” Sandy pouted.
Inside was a pink glittery monstrosity. The protective case was studded with fake gems, and on the back, there was an image of a unicorn? He looked at Sandy, suppressing his laughter. She finally giggled herself, so it was safe for him to chuckle as well. She still gave his bicep a little punch.
Henry smiled and set it down on the table and powered off his busted phone. Luckily, that button still worked. Then he fished the little sim card extraction tool from the box and extracted his card. He had to remove the protective case from Sandy’s phone and found it was just plain white. He put his sim inside and booted the phone. After a few moments it started but showed the battery was almost dead, so Sandy plugged the charger into the wall, and he connected it to the phone.
“You don’t mind if I skip the case, do you?” he asked.
“I should make you use it just because you don’t appreciate its art,” Sandy grumbled, but not seriously.
“Thank you for the loan. The art is a glimpse into the heart, mind, and soul of its owner.”
Sandy sat back against the cushions giving him an evaluating look as she tried to determine if she’d received a compliment or not. She chose to believe she had so she nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“And thank you again for being there for me this morning,” he said, holding her eyes with his and she blushed with a smile on her lips.
Then she gave him a stern look. “You shouldn’t have kept that bottled up. You could have come to me earlier.”
He squirmed a little on the couch. “We were only getting to know one another. I… felt awkward dumping all that on you!”
“You were ok talking with me this morning,” she suggested as she unconsciously played with her hair.
Henry did his best to ignore the fact that her hair seemed to be enjoying the playtime. “Uh, I think I’d just reached a breaking point.”
She just nodded as she looked at his mouth distractedly. Catching herself, she popped up to her feet again and walked over to the TV. “Would you like to watch a movie?”
“Sure, what do you have?”
She picked up the DVD Stanley had left with her. “Have you seen Casablanca?”
“Yes! I love that movie!” he sighed.
Her smile widened. “Would you care to see it again?”
“Sure!”
She got it started and rushed back to the sofa. She plunked herself down and realized she was tucked up against Henry’s side. She looked up at him with a small smile, and he just rested his arm along the back of the sofa so she could be more comfortable against his side. Soon they were enthralled by the movie.
They only had to pause it momentarily when the pizza arrived, and Henry paid for it. They gorged themselves on pizza and wings while they enjoyed the movie.
As the credits rolled, they grinned at each other as they rested back against the cushions.
“Great movie! Good food!” Sandy sighed.
“Hey! You forgot ‘Great Company’ too!” he exclaimed with mock disappointment.
Sandy giggled and rolled towards him to hug him. “Awww! Of course, I meant to say that!” She pulled back a little then looked in his eyes.
Henry picked up her happy grin and marveled at the twinkle in her lovely blue eyes. She seemed to personify pure joy. She leaned in, and he prepared to feel her soft lips.
Henry’s new phone began playing Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up!’ loudly from the coffee table, and they both jumped. Sandy pulled back with a sigh.
“Sorry, no one calls me on my cell. It must be important,” he said.
She pouted sweetly but nodded. He looked at the number and frowned. It was Mr. Duncan! “Hello?”
“Henry! We need your help. Are you in your condo?”
“No, I’m at Sandy’s,” he said, glancing at the woman in question who was watching him curiously.
“Sorry to disturb your evening but I need you to call me back from your place. Alone,” Roy said with tension in his voice.
“Oh, uh, ok. Give me a couple of minutes,” Henry said and hung up. He looked at Sandy apologetically. “Sorry, I’m going to have to cut our evening short. The head of security needs me for something urgent.”
Sandy pouted but nodded, and they got to their feet. He collected the AC adapter from the wall and stuffed it and his old phone in the box.
She walked him to her door, but before he could touch the doorknob, she gently turned him to face her and pulled his head down to hers. Henry felt tingles travel through his body when their lips touched, and the kiss might have continued, but he pulled back as he recalled the urgency in Roy’s tone.
“We’re going to do more of that,” Sandy said with a dreamy smile.
“Yes… definitely,” Henry sighed then stepped out and hustled to the elevator.
When he was back in his condo behind a locked door, he dialed Roy.
“Henry?”
“Ya, what’s up?”
“We have a situation. A special young man, much like yourself, was supposed to visit VRL today at 10:30 AM. He failed to show then and hasn’t shown up yet. This young man has a stalker. She’s some famous artist from the UK. She’s special like Camila and Marisa. She’s idle rich and has tried to pick up the young man several times before. He was warned off on the previous attempts as her fan base reports her movements. We believe she may have succeeded this time because she traveled by ship. I believe she’s managed to arrange transport for herself and a security team to get here, collect him, and travel back to the UK. She’ll be traveling as incognito as possible and won’t want to alert the authorities. I have a contact in the Port Authority. He got me a listing of all the cargo, commercial ships currently in port. It’s a single large ‘flat file’ whatever that is. The data I need is in there. We need you to filter the list down to the most likely candidates.”
Henry was still a little stunned by the statement that the young man was special like him. He grabbed his laptop and booted it up. “Why cargo ships?” he asked.
“She’s transporting human cargo. She’ll need a way to get him back to England, drugged and chained down, away from prying eyes. Container. Cargo ship. I need you to identify the ships returning to England. Quickly. We think she may have him. Can I send you the data,” Roy explained.
“Yes, send it to me.” Something about this plan seemed just a little too dark. “You say she’s rich? Very rich?” He did a quick Internet search for stories of people traveling by cargo ship and checked out some images of the living conditions. Functional but nowhere near what the truly rich would come to expect.
Roy was only paying half attention to what he was saying as he emailed the data file. “What? Oh yes, stinking rich. Old money.”
“Then why wouldn’t she take a yacht? Ride in luxury?” Henry suggested.
“Too much attention on celebrities! Weren’t you listening?” Roy chided him.
Henry thought about that as the file came in. “Ok, not her yacht but she’s rich. This woman would have rich friends with yachts. She could probably convince one of them to take her to New York City. If she’s like Camila, she wouldn’t have too much trouble convincing this friend.” He shook his head as he read the list of ship names. The cargo ship idea felt too much like something Roy would do. It would be inconceivable for someone used to luxuries.
He pulled up the header row on the file and thankfully it included column names. He fed the data into his parser routine and injected the resulting data into a spreadsheet’s columns and rows. The resulting output file was too large. He’d never be able to get it back to Roy. He saved the file then deleted a bunch of columns containing less useful information. Sorting the file by destination port showed some ships bound for England. Saving it once more to a new name produced a much smaller spreadsheet which he proceeded to email back to the security chief.
“Roy, I’m sending you the finished spreadsheet, but I still think she came in on someone else’s yacht. That’s my guess at least.”
“Noted. Thanks.” The line went dead as a loud knocking began on his door.
Henry answered it and blinked in surprise at the group waiting in the hall. Camila, Sigrid, Marisa, and Siobhan were all looking at him anxiously. He stepped back, and they moved inside.Exclusive content © by Nô(v)el/Dr/ama.Org.
“You have a lovely home!” Siobhan sighed as she looked around.
“Thank you! I like your new hair color!” Henry said with a smile for her. Then he looked to Camila, Sigrid, and Marisa who had their eyes fixed on him but wore three different mixed expressions. Camila’s was of lust/hunger, Sigrid’s was anxious/shy, and Marisa looked guilty/sad? He was worried by their emotional states. “What’s going on?”