When I turn to leave Teddy's room, I see Ana in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, with a sweet smile on her face.
"I love when you sing to our son," she murmurs as I walk towards her, "And it's so sweet that you're singing the same thing your mother sang to you."
My visitation or dream or whatever the fuck it was the other night comes back to me in a flash. And then I also realize that I just called my son "baby boy" which is what it kept calling me. Shaking my head, I think to myself that shit, this is really getting under my skin. I'm surprised to find, though, that it doesn't upset me as much as it would have when all this started.
I turn off the light and close the door. With my arm around Ana's shoulder and her arm around my waist we walk to our room. After taking off our clothes and crawling into bed I start fondling her, seeing if maybe we can do a slower version of our evening quickie. Alas, it's not meant to be. Disappointed but still horny, I rub one out and fall asleep immediately after.
Much to my surprise, there are no overnight visitors; I wake up at my normal time feeling well rested. That's a good thing because I expect it to be a long day. The summaries that Taylor and Welch are supposed to deliver today will be my top priority.
When I arrive at my office there are already a stack of them on my desk. After telling Andrea to cancel all my appointments, I take off my jacket, roll up my sleeves, and grab the first folder. As I review them I make two piles: ones that don't warrant further scrutiny and ones on which I want to see the full report. Fortunately, the latter pile is miniscule right now, although I'm sure it'll grow as Welch delivers more summaries throughout the day.
I eat lunch at my desk as I continue to go through the folders. I've developed a rhythm so that each summary only takes a few seconds of scanning before I make my decision. As usual, Barney's done an outstanding job of laying out the information for each employee. The consistency enables me to focus on several key details and that greatly expedites the process.
After several hours of this I take a ten minute break. Since I arrived, the only times I've stopped reviewing were when I've gone to my private bathroom to take a leak. My eyes need a longer rest than that right now so I stare out at the Seattle skyline while I muse over the people who make up my empire. They come from all walks of life, different ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations. I'm proud of the diversity of my company and I've always endeavored to treat my employees well but now I'm wondering who among them might intend harm for me or my family. Nothing I've read so far, even the dossiers that I've flagged for further follow-up, points toward the sort of planned malevolence indicated by whoever sent me that usb drive but my hunch is that he (I think it's most likely a he) is out there somewhere.
A couple hours later I take another break to call Ana and let her know that I'll still be at the office for a while. She'll be home way before me and I tell her to go ahead and have supper without me. Andrea's ordered some Chinese takeout and I mindlessly eat it while I continue with the folders.
Finally, about eight o'clock, I've finished going through everything for the Seattle area workers. The follow-up pile is still rather small, only about fifty or so, but I'm not looking forward to going through all those full reports on Monday. I've decided that I'll delegate the initial review for the workers in the other offices to Taylor and Welch. In spite of the picture taken in Johannesburg, I have a feeling the perpetrator is close to town, so going through the list of workers in other cities can probably be handed off to them. Besides, I'm tired of this tedious work and don't want to spend another day doing it.
Ana's reading in our bedroom when I get home. After undressing I go say good night to Teddy in his room and then come back and flop into our bed. Before falling asleep we talk a little about the architect's visit tomorrow evening. When she asks, I give her a rundown of my investigation, such as it is. There's been no further contact with the perp and I really didn't expect there to be. Whoever it is, he's toying with us.
The next morning Taylor hands me his report on Welch as I get into the car and I go over it on the ride to Grey House. It's extremely detailed, going back to his childhood and his parents' childhoods. Much of the information I already knew but there's a lot that I didn't. He's from a solidly middle class background in suburban Seattle, one older sister, one younger brother. He was a computer geek at a very early age and stayed with it through graduate school. One surprise for me is that his maternal grandmother was born in Bombay, India. Not that it's germane to the investigation but I'll make it a point to ask him about it, just out of curiosity. That's the only thing that really catches my eye; his personal history is almost boringly normal and doesn't seem to contain anything that shakes my trust and confidence in him.
When I get to the office Welch is waiting with his report on Taylor, handing it to me as soon as I walk into my office. He's also got full reports for a few of the summaries that I marked for further investigation yesterday.
Taylor's report is mostly familiar to me but it, too, contains a few surprises. Seems my main man was a bit of a hellraiser as a kid. He got hauled in to the police station as a young teenager for egging a neighbor's house on Halloween. His parents were also summoned by his grade school principal after he threw spitballs around the classroom while his teacher was out of the room; this was after multiple offenses. I have to find a way to rib him about that.
Switching to the other reports, I mainly check on the points that I questioned in the summaries. I only spend a couple hours on these, then I stop and lock them in my office safe. I'll go through the rest on Monday when I'll have them all. Right now I have a business to run; I've already spent enough time on this.
I also have a child to sire so before I continue with any other work I text my wife to see if she's available and she is! We meet at Escala for a quickie and lunch, then it's back to our respective offices. The architect's coming over tonight so we both want to make sure we're home early.
The rest of the day goes buy in a blur. The things I neglected yesterday need tending and of course, new issues keep coming up. By the time five o'clock rolls around I'm beat. On the ride home I tell Taylor to put some Tchaikovsky on the stereo so I can clear my mind. By the time we arrive home I feel somewhat rejuvenated and ready to face the evening.
When the architect arrives, Ana and I are both in a relaxed frame of mind while at the same time eager to discuss Project Eden with him. He's an affable guy in spite of having the rather pretentious name of Harrington Diamond IV ("but call me Harry"). He listens carefully to our ideas and makes appropriate suggestions. By the time he leaves we all have a good idea of what our little garden getaway will look like.
About halfway through our meeting Ana developed a rather curious expression on her face and when he left I asked her if she's okay. She burst out laughing and said she found it funny that he seemed to be coming on to me the same way Gia Matteo did. I told her she's full of shit but that only made her laugh more.
The weekend passes quickly. We have dinner on Saturday evening with Kate and Elliot. The conversation centers around their baby and our garden. By the time we leave, Elliot's confirmed that he'll have a crew at the house a week from Monday. He knows the drill from our previous renovation so he's not surprised when I tell him to give the roster of workers to Taylor as soon as possible.
On the way home Ana and I discuss the project and what it might mean in terms of whoever might be targeting us. She's started fixating on the words my hallucination said about things not being what they seem. I contribute what I can to her thoughts but my personal feeling is that it's all just a bunch of bullshit. Nevertheless, I listen to her, mainly because she's my wife and that's what I'm supposed to do but also because she does have some interesting insights even if she does get all Mulder-y every once in a while.
Sunday is quiet; we spend the day together doing family stuff like taking the boat out and hiking on our path. I saw no ghostly specters during either of these events. Dinner is on the terrace with the patio heater keeping us warm, followed by Teddy's bedtime, then an hour of work before our own bedtime.
Monday starts out like any other work week. I spend the first part of the day going over the reports for the employees I'd flagged last week. I learn some things I never knew (one employee's a transgender; another has a gambling problem but seems to have it under control since she attends GA meetings regularly, things like that) but nothing that would indicate a reason to threaten me or my family. No one seems to have any connections to South Africa either, except for the work-related ones.
Everything hums along just fine until Wednesday afternoon. Taylor and Welch come into my office the same as last week, with the same look of concern on their faces. Barney's holding a laptop and I point to my conference table.
He explains that like the usb drive last week, this one came in the mail this morning, no return address on the package. It was routed directly to him since the mail room's been alerted to the possibility of this happening.
He inserts the drive and again like last time, a slide show starts playing. From what I can see it looks like the same show as last week and when I ask the guys, they confirm that it mostly is. The difference is that a narration has been added. Welch turns up the volume so we can all hear it. The first words send a chill down my spine.
Hello, baby boy.
I suddenly feel weak in the knees and sit down immediately as the voice continues.
What a lovely family you have, so sweet and happy. That wife of yours, she's a real beauty.
The pictures of Ana are flashing by.
I'm sure your son is the apple of your eye. It must have been a very proud moment for you when he was born.
And now the pictures of both Teddy and Ana are on the screen.
Ah, yes, such a lovely family. I think we should all become better acquainted, don't you?
The last picture is of Ana and Teddy together, on the terrace of our house, smiling into the camera; I have no idea when it was taken. It lingers as he says his final words.
Stay tuned, baby boy. We'll be in touch.