Marie Ferrarella - Carrying His Secret

Was it the name of his attacker? Had he seen who had done this to him?

Straining, Elizabeth still couldn’t make any of the words out.

“What? I’m sorry, sir, I can’t hear you,” Elizabeth told him.

He struggled again to say something, but still nothing came out.

She needed help.

Adrenaline racing through every fiber of her being, Elizabeth continued pressing on Adair’s wound with one hand as she searched for her cell phone in her purse with the other.

Her phone was in her shoulder bag. It had to be, Elizabeth thought as the phone continued to avoid her questing fingers.

Finally, in frustration, she took the strap in her teeth to facilitate keeping the purse open while she used her free hand to upend it.

Wallet, keys, her AdAir ID badge, along with her cell phone, came raining down beside her. Grabbing the phone, Elizabeth quickly dialed 9-1-1.

Within a couple of seconds, a cheerful, competent-sounding female voice declared, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

A torrent of rambling words threatened to pour out of her mouth all at once. Elizabeth struggled to sound coherent. “I need an ambulance. Now.”

“Are you hurt, ma’am?” the voice asked calmly.

“No, no, it’s not me. It’s for my boss. Someone shot my boss.”

The woman wouldn’t know who her boss was. Elizabeth knew she had to elaborate, but she had trouble finding the words and slowing her breath enough to speak.

She tried again. “Reginald Adair’s been shot. Executive suite, top floor of AdAir Corp.” She all but gasped out the words. “Please hurry!”

Elizabeth dragged in a ragged breath, doing her level best not to sound like someone having a meltdown. Breaking down now wouldn’t help save Mr. Adair.

“Do you know who shot him?” the woman on the other end asked.

The routine question, asked so calmly, filled Elizabeth with unreasonable anger.

“No, I don’t know who,” she snapped. “Don’t you think that would be the first thing I told you if I knew who did it?” Her hostile words echoed in her brain. Elizabeth forced herself to calm down. “He’s still breathing. Please. Send someone quickly.”

Everyone knew where the sleek six-story chrome-and-glass building was located, but she rattled off the address anyway.

“Please, I don’t know how much time he has left. There’s blood everywhere.” Elizabeth could almost swear she felt Adair slipping away from beneath her hand even as she spoke to the 9-1-1 operator. “You need to send an ambulance now .”

“They’re already on their way, ma’am,” the woman told her. “Stay on the line with me until they come,” she coaxed.

Elizabeth was about to tell the 9-1-1 operator that she’d stay on as long as she could when she saw Reginald’s eyes begin to glaze over.

No, no, no, no! Please don’t die , Elizabeth silently pleaded.

“His chest isn’t moving,” Elizabeth cried out loud, panic mounting in her voice again. “I can’t feel his chest moving. He’s not breathing!”

Dropping the phone, she began to do chest compressions using both hands. “Open your eyes again, Mr. Adair. Please! Open your eyes for me.”

But no matter how hard she pushed on his chest, she could barely detect that faint whisper of a heartbeat she’d initially felt.

Doubling up her fist, she began to pound on Adair’s bloodied chest, remembering something she’d once witnessed being done in a documentary.

The distant sound of a siren penetrated the wall of panic and heavy breathing, both coming from her.

“They’re coming, Mr. Adair. I can hear them. They’re coming. Just hang on a little longer and they’ll save you. Just a little longer, please,” she begged.

The man on the rug, his body partially outlined in a growing pool of his own blood, remained very, very still. There was no longer any indication that he was alive.

Refusing to accept that the man she had worked for so faithfully for the past five years was beyond hearing her, Elizabeth continued to pound on his chest.

She was still pounding when the paramedics arrived at his office.

“Come on, come on, you can do this. You can cheat death. You’re larger-than-life, Mr. Adair. Work with me here! Please! ”

But a few seconds later there was no rhythm of any sort beating beneath her hands.

Chapter 1

An hour ago, Elizabeth Shelton had been driving out of AdAir Corp’s underground parking facility and on her way to her weekend.

It was eight o’clock on a Friday night and the rest of the employees who worked at AdAir Corp, one of the country’s leading cell phone providers, had already left for their weekends. Today the mass exodus had taken place at five o’clock, because that was when the building’s surveillance cameras had all been turned off. They’d had to leave, for safety reasons. A memo had gone out, and everyone knew that the existing system was being upgraded.

Elizabeth had stayed behind in order to catch up on some last-minute work. Work she needed to have prepared and at her fingertips for a meeting she was attending on Monday morning in her boss’s place. Reginald Adair was scheduled to be out of town on a business trip. He should have already left at six to catch his flight.

Preoccupied with something she had just learned earlier in the day—something that was going to completely upend her world once it became public knowledge...and it was going to become public knowledge, because that was the nature of the beast—Elizabeth had neglected to take several very important papers with her when she’d left the office. Without those papers her weekend would be completely unproductive despite the reams of papers she did have in her briefcase.

She’d gotten halfway down the block, reviewing everything she needed to have taken with her, when she realized her mistake. The papers that were the key to the entire presentation were still sitting on her side desk, waiting to be packed up in her briefcase.

Muttering a few choice words under her breath about the state of her mind, Elizabeth had executed a narrow U-turn and driven straight back to the underground parking facility.

Habit had her easing her vehicle into her designated parking space—not that she needed to stick to protocol tonight. There were no other cars on her level—or on any other level, she strongly suspected—because everyone else had gone home, or at least away from here, three hours ago.

She had to get herself under control, Elizabeth had silently lectured as she walked across the parking structure to the private executive elevator that only let out on the sixth floor. Her situation was what it was, and she was not about to do anything drastic to change it. That just wasn’t her way.

In the meantime, she couldn’t allow her dilemma to upset her to the point that she wasn’t able to do her job.

God knew she was going to need the money in the coming months. And besides, work was all she really had. She couldn’t take a chance on losing her job.

She’d laughed at herself then, as she got on the private elevator. Months? Was she kidding herself? It was more like years . She was going to need money—extra money—for years to come. Eighteen at the very least.

Most likely longer than that.

Later. She’d think about it later, she’d told herself. For now she just needed to get those missing papers and go home.

One step at a time, Lizzy. One step at a time will get you there. Wherever there is.

The elevator had come to a stop, its stainless steel doors sliding apart soundlessly. Waiting for her to get off.

Stepping out, Elizabeth hurried toward her office, which was just beyond her boss’s.