Chapter 7: Warehouse

"How I really feel about the baby?" I shrugged. Alex wasn't buying it, just leveling me off with that glare of his he used when I acted up in class. "All right! I feel like I failed, OK? Like my body had one little task to do-create a life that would be sufficient to live outside of me and it couldn't even do that! Alex, my body let me down!"

"There's no need to be so hard on yourself, Ruby. You can't control what your body does sometimes. These things happen."

"Then why do these things happen to me?!" I cried. "Why can't Jim and I just be with each other, have children, grow old and die together like it should be?"

"This is just nature. You can't know God's plan."

He was right. There was no point in torturing myself needlessly. What happened happened and there was no going back, only forward.

"You know what, Alex? I know what I need to do now."

He suddenly looked wary. "What is that?"

"A vacation so I can heal properly. I need to alert HR at the clinic and let them know I'm taking a week off."

"Where will you go?"

"My holiday home," Aster Hall. It would be needing some upkeep about now anyway. I would put in some new plants, etc. "I'll be doing some fun stuff!"

Alex laughed as he stood up. "I'm glad to be of help to you, Ruby. Maybe I'll see you again sometime."

"In this life I hardly ever say no!" I laughed and saw him out, receiving another one of his bear hugs. "Can't thank you enough for helping me."

"You're welcome. We all have to help each other in this life." Alex gave me that same fond smile I saw just before I graduated, then he left.

ASTER HALL

I'm back here at the beloved hall. Two years ago Jim and I bonded here, we had sex for the first time, he nursed me through that miscarriage, I nursed him, etc.

The landscaping had to be done so I put on my garden gear plus hedge trimmers and went to work. All the stalks from the plants had to be trimmed down, the cypress hedges and trees needed pruning, that sort of thing.

I planted tulip and daffodil bulbs, put in some white and blue asters, pink geraniums, etc. The flowerbeds now had a suitable splash of color dotting the landscape. Rosebushes and forsythia bushes were already budding with their leaves and roses about to burst forth.

So I'm here in the bedroom Jim allocated to me previously and I'm here enjoying the cool summer evening. My primary objective while I'm here is to clean and try to clear my mind.

I'm going to relax and there won't be any more entries in my diary until I return to the townhouse.

Jim turned the page to see it was blank. Had he come to the end of the diary? There was an entry in early July, stating that she was back at the townhouse and covering another doctor's shift while they were on vacation.

Several small entries from July to September only contain a few sentences which describe some memorable patient encounters. Uninteresting to Jim, he passes over September and October to where he comes to a one line diary entry:

Happy Anniversary, Jim. I love you.

Turning another page, Jim's eyes are directed to his name in all capital letters:

JIM-I think I'm being watched. I keep seeing the same guy over and over again. It was the first guy that I gave a lap dance to though I can't remember his name. He keeps showing up to wherever I am and I think he means to kidnap me. I told Seb and he's working on identifying the guy.

If anything happens to me just know that I love you to the ends of the earth and back. You are my other half, my heart and soul.

"So she suspected it too," Jim shut the diary as the laptop beeped. He picked it up, putting it on his lap, then paged through the information it presented. "Finally the search is done!" it had taken all night and most of the day to populate the search list.

Ruby's name appeared directly in an email precisely two weeks ago. In it, Masters had directed someone named Tony to take Ruby down to a warehouse he owned near Downing Street.

The warehouse didn't have a name to it, but Jim knew of it because he'd had people in there before to scout out the place. It was just a warehouse for storing copies of his security software on CD-ROM, stowing old computers, laptops, etc. The place looked more like a junkyard than anything. Masters was too cheap to throw anything away so it was all starting to accumulate.

It was very likely Ruby was down there somewhere, Jim imagined. He texted Seb his suspicions and sent him ahead to check out the warehouse and make sure that Ruby was there before he raided it.

Saving the material to his hard drive so he wouldn't have to waste time searching again, Jim packed up his pistol, his cell phone, dressing all in black to evade any curious pedestrians.

Within half an hour, his phone buzzed. Seb had sent him a picture of Ruby. She was lying on a cold concrete floor in torn clothes with open bloody cuts and bruises. There were two guards outside her door and that was it.

Rushing out to the car Seb had ready for him, they made a beeline for the warehouse.

Getting into the building was very easy as nobody seemed to care about security at the warehouse. Knowing Masters he was probably elated every time someone had broken in and carried something off. All the old computer programs and computers were not valuable to anyone anymore and even museums wouldn't take them off their hands.

At Jim's nod, Seb scampered off to look for another entranceway into the warehouse. Jim put on his black gloves and discovered the door was stuck shut. He had to throw his weight into his shoulder to ram it open. The criminal almost fell in but caught himself.

With his pistol in his hands, he skirted the vast room, noting with distaste the dust that sat thickly on the old hardware and computers. The reason why Masters didn't throw anything away was that he had to pay to get rid of the old computers. No recycling center would take them away without charging him for it so the old computers came downstairs to die, so to speak.

Assured that nobody was in the room, Jim re-inserted the earpiece he used with Seb and began to check the side rooms one by one.

Down the hall Jim heard two shots echoing through the complex. He began to run, hearing a pained scream which only made him run faster.

"Jim, I found her." Seb reported.

The criminal found one room with the light spilling out into the corridor with a shadow of his hit man in it. The room was dank, dark except for one bare lightbulb hanging down. There were no comforts in it, not even a cot or chair. A very small window was set high up in the wall so she could get a little light and hear people walking by, but she would not be able to attract attention.

As soon as he got to the doorway, he saw both guards shot down, and in the room Seb was speaking in a low voice, trying to reassure Ruby. Jim could see she was barely hanging onto her modesty with her tattered clothes.

"Want.. Jim.." her voice was far too weak for his liking as he stood in the shadow, afraid the shock of her seeing him would be too great for her.

"He's here, Ruby," Seb told her gently. "Jim wants you."

"I want him.." her breathing was rattled, Jim guessed a collapsed lung. Just seeing her lying like a broken rag doll was infuriating to him, making him see red. He knew now exactly what he wanted to do to Masters after they got Ruby taken care of.

Seb glanced up at his boss who entered into Ruby's field of vision. Ruby took a minute to recognize him; it had been a long two years. Jim took out a tissue and mopped the blood off of her forehead. "Hello, darling." he said simply as Seb picked her up. Ruby let out a cry of pain that broke his heart to hear.

Her lips moved but there was no sound to come out. Jim put his hand on her arm but she flinched. He gave her reassuring words as they went out to the car. Jim spread out a blanket in the backseat to try to give her warmth. Seb left her in the backseat with Jim who propped her up gingerly, trying not to hurt her further.

On the ride to the hospital, Jim inspected his wife's wounds. Collapsed lung definitely from the sound of her breathing. Possible broken ribs, cuts, bruises, concussion, maybe a broken arm.

Ruby did not take her eyes off of Jim the entire time they were in the car. A tiny little smile was around the corners of her mouth.

"What is it, hon?"

"You've come to take me to heaven," she rasped. "so this is the end for me."

"Nope, I'm quite real." he put a hand to the side of her face to try to reassure her but she took no notice.

"Love you, Jim..."

"I'm not saying goodbye and you shouldn't either." he scolded. Ruby did not respond to him, her eyes rolled up in her head and closed.