outer walls. A painting of Shakespeare’s Ophelia, done entirely in spray paint, stretched horizontally across the tin slats, her graceful figure laid flat atop a moat of water-lilies and cat tails. Her eyes were closed in sublime surrender, her right hand floated by her side, open and empty, her white gown and long, red hair soaked and ethereal. She was a drowned angel in a world of damp metal structures. A failed mermaid in a sea of dead fish and garbage.
Annabelle found herself staring at the figure, focusing on Ophelia’s closed eyes and that open hand.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Reese, who had come to stand still behind her. “It was painted by a young man the Colonel found decorating an alley in Harlem. He was paid quite well, I must say. The Colonel fancies Shakespeare. The tragic figure of Hamlet’s unrequited love is his favorite, I believe.” He spoke as if in casual conversation and then, before either Jack or Annabelle could respond, he used his gun hand to gesture once more toward the door.
Jack grasped the handle of the door and pulled it open.
The vast cavity beyond was utterly dark, but unlike the musty, stuffy atmosphere Annabelle had been expecting, the air smelled fresh and conditioned and felt to be a comfortable room temperature.
Reese nudged her forward and she hesitantly put her hand up to touch Jack’s back, following him in as he cautiously stepped into the darkness.
The sound of their footsteps altered and Annabelle could tell that the surface they stood on was considerably smoother and more polished than the rough, trash-strewn concrete outside.
A clanking sound and a following
In a moment, she lowered her own hand and blinked, willing her eyes to adjust to the light.
“Please do come in,” said a voice from somewhere in the room. The words were heavy with a Southern accent, instantly bringing to mind peach trees and Spanish moss.
Annabelle looked around.
The interior of the warehouse was a veritable study in contrasts to the world outside the door behind them. There was no hint of spray paint or rubble or warped, mildewed wood. The large room had been furnished with two simple but comfortable and expensive-looking couches, facing each other across a coffee table at the center. A few side tables stood against two of the walls, and the floor had been re-finished in a cherry polished hard wood. The walls were stark white and decorated with canvas copies of famous paintings such as “The Dance” by Henry Matisse, and “Sunrise” by Claude Monet. He seemed to like color, abstract, perhaps, and beautiful.
But along one wall, there were no paintings. Instead, there hung steel manacles, crude, cruel and cold in their otherwise pleasant environment.
Annabelle stiffened when she saw these, and found herself scooting closer to Jack, who reciprocated by moving his tall body in front of hers.
There were several men in the room – Annabelle would wager somewhere between a dozen to fifteen.
All of them wore black but one.
That one was smiling. “My dear, don’t let the ornaments frighten you,” the man said. He was tall and portly, nearly round in the middle, and he was dressed from head to toe in white. His white shirt was tucked into a white pair of perfectly creased pants which appeared to be held up by nothing less than white, gold-clasped suspenders. On his feet were white wing-tipped shoes.
His face was of the friendly, familiar sort. It sported a mustache and beard, also white, and wire-rimmed glasses. Santa Claus?
Her eyes widened.
The Colonel glanced from her to the manacles on the wall and gave her a reassuring gesture. “Those aren’t for you, sweet heart,” he said in his thick Southern drawl. And then he looked away and nodded toward one of the other men in the room. “Gentlemen.”
At that, the throng of darkly dressed brutes in the room rushed toward Jack.
It was an instant brawl. Annabelle was thrown back into Reese, who caught her and pulled her back against the door, to relative safety.
Almost immediately, Annabelle could see why the Colonel had gone to the trouble of hiring so many strong- arms. By the time Jack was actually pinned to the wall and locked into place, all but five of the men originally standing were lying on the ground.
Annabelle’s heart pounded hard behind her rib cage. She found herself moving toward Jack, breathing heavily as if out of empathy for him. But Reese had tightened his grip on her arm. When she looked over at the him, he gave her a single shake of his head. Behind his glasses, Reese’s hazel eyes locked onto hers.
There was something there.
But Annabelle didn’t have a chance to decipher it before the Colonel’s voice once more grabbed her attention.
“Whew,” he said softly as he pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and proceeded to wipe his brow as if he had been the one fighting. “Such a fuss.” He tsked. “Such a fuss.” He replaced the handkerchief and then gestured toward one of the two plush couches that furnished the large converted room.
“Please, Miss Drake. Have a seat.”
Annabelle hesitated, shooting a glance toward Jack. But he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was focused straight ahead. His expression had gone dead. An entirely unreadable and nearly unrecognizable mask.
Reese nudged her forward and she hesitantly moved toward the white couch nearest to her.
“That’s it. Make yourself comfortable.”
Annabelle moved to the middle of the couch and sat down, facing the wall that Jack was manacled to. She stared up at him.
“I’m sure you’d both like to know what this mess is all truly about,” the Colonel said then. He moved so that he stood in between Annabelle and Jack, drawing her attention away from the wall and to his own portly presence.
So, she stared up at him instead, taking the opportunity to narrow her gaze and release a little of the pain and hatred she felt into the space between them. He only smiled at her.
“I can understand your ire, Miss Drake. Reese has had to do something which I’m not entirely a fan of, but which was necessary, nonetheless.” He explained, his speech slow, the drawl a veritable caricature of his namesake’s. “Mr. Osborne wished that this matter be dealt with in such a way as to guarantee no further unwelcome disclosure of vital information.” He splayed his hands out in supplication. “Why, what was done simply had to be done,” he continued. “And that’s all there is to it.”
He moved around the couch and drew her attention to a side table which was topped with a tray containing several tea cups, saucers, and a few plates of cookies and muffins. He picked up the tray and brought it around to the small coffee table between the couches.
He took a seat on the couch opposite her. “Though it may be hard, try to eat something. I find certain foods soothe the soul.”
Annabelle didn’t move. Instead, she glared up at him. “Are you for real?” Her fevered, furious brain recoiled from the man in front of her. Surely, the Colonel Sanders thing had to be a joke. No one looked like this in real life. Was the facial hair stick-on?
He ignored the expression and went about pouring himself a cup of tea. “‘All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.’” He put the tea pot down and stirred the sugar in his tiny china cup. “Shakespeare.”
“I know.” She told him through gritted teeth, her glare still in place. So, it was an act. He probably looked a little like the Colonel at first and maybe someone started calling him that. So, he decided to live it up. The bastard was eccentric, and that wasn’t good. Geniuses tended to be eccentric. Evil geniuses were always bad news.
“Now, where was I…Oh, yes. You’ll want to know what is transpiring. Please allow me to enlighten you. You see, my employer, a one Mr. Godrick Osborne, is the current president of research and development for the pharmaceutical company, MediSign.”
“I was right,” Annabelle said blandly. “It’s about medicine.” Her voice sounded far off, even to her own
