Absolute Zero Read online

  “Can I come in? We need to talk.”

  “No! Anne, I’m serious. You need to go.”

  “David, I’m not going anywhere. Not until I get some answers.”

  “What am I supposed to do, Anne? I don’t know what to tell you. You’re the one that fucked up, not me,” he whispered harshly.

  “How long did you know about this?”

  “What? I…who cares, Anne? It doesn’t make any difference,” he stated with finality.

  “I care. And it makes a huge difference. I was here last night, David. In bed with you. What was that? A final screw? You knew and yet you…I can’t even say it…”

  “I didn’t know! They only pulled me in because I’m a VP. I’m Operations, I have very little to do with R&D you know that. If I would’ve known…”

  “I find that really hard to believe.” she cut him off in a flat voice.

  “It doesn’t matter now. You need to go,” he commanded in a low voice before turning his head back toward the stairs.

  “I was with you. You knew I was under investigation and you still slept with me.”

  “Anne. Seriously, you need to go. I’ll file a restraining order if I have to. We’re done, do you hear me?”

  “I was with you that night and that morning,” she stated.

  “No. You left at an ungodly hour just like you always do. You did yourself in with your crazy-ass schedule. I was not with you. You were the only person in the office at 5 am. No one else, just you.”

  “I was working out. Not sending documents, not making phone calls. If they have me on tape, they’d see that. “

  “You were in the copy room. You scanned something before you walked to the gym. The time stamp on the tape coincides with the scan to your email.”

  “It wasn’t a test release. Check the memory, check my email. You’ll see…”

  “Anne. Please. Just stop. You shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t even be talking. Please go.”

  “Anne?”

  A woman’s voice. Scratch that, a very familiar woman’s voice. The accent was a dead giveaway. Somewhere beyond David…

  David’s Brazilian ex-girlfriend Ingrid.

  The light that suddenly flickered on in the hallway confirmed it.

  “What are you doing here?” Both women asked at the same time. The fact that Ingrid was wrapped in nothing but a white sheet pretty much told the whole story.

  “I thought you broke up.” Anne shifted accusing eyes to David.

  “We were taking a break.” Ingrid answered in her usual condescending voice before David could open his mouth. “What is she doing here, David?” His name came out Dah-veed with her accent.

  “It’s…we’re…” he stammered.

  “Forget it. I thought you hated her. All the nasty things you said about her, I must have assumed you were done. I guess I was wrong. The timing is perfect, though,” Anne stated through lips that barely moved.

  “What is she talking about? What the hell is she doing here?” Ingrid asked.

  “You need to go, Anne,” was all he could finally muster. The tension was so extreme; every nerve in her body was on high alert.

  “Could this day get any better?” she asked more to herself than him.

  “I want to know what the hell is going on!” Ingrid yelled from the top of the stairs.

  Anne’s attention shifted to the gorgeous woman before fixing her with a frigid stare. The sheet had shifted exposing one of her perfectly formed breasts.

  “Your right boob is showing.” Anne stated frostily. Ingrid immediately hiked up the left side of the sheet.

  “Your other right, jackass,” she murmured before settling her eyes on David’s very guilty looking face.

  “You’re a piece of shit,” she stated without an ounce of emotion before turning and making her way toward her car.

  He was too pretty for me anyway, she thought as she pushed the key in the ignition and turned it. She backed away, never turning to look back.

  Her eyes remained dry, her emotions were back in check and her logical mind focused on one thing.

  She needed a job.

  Chapter One

  3 Months Later…

  “Hi there. How’s it goin’?”

  Anne’s eyes remained glued to the magazine article in her lap. Out of the twenty available seats in the lobby, the woman had decided to take the one right next to her. Anything less than three seats away felt like an invasion of personal space, especially when the lobby was so woefully vacant otherwise.

  “Good,” she mumbled before a manicured hand interrupted her line of vision.

  “I’m Claire, and you are?”

  “Ah…Anne?” She reached up and quickly shook the offered hand in order to get back to reading what was actually an interesting article.

  “Hi Anne. So, are you here for an interview? I am. I’m in accounting. Please tell me you aren’t interviewing too – wouldn’t that be awkward?”

  “Um, no,” she answered simply, wanting nothing more than silence.

  “Oh! Good. I’m really nervous,” the voice confided next to her. “I talk a lot when I’m nervous, but it helps me calm down. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Well, actually…”

  “Great. So what do you do, Anne?”

  Really?

  “Um, I’m a…scientist?” she muttered without looking at her.

  “Oh. Wow. So you understand this stuff, huh?”

  “Ahh…what stuff?” she mumbled; her eyes stuck in the middle of the sentence she was attempting to read.

  “This stuff. It’s like, could they make the words any longer? Holy crap.” She could see the other woman’s head angle in toward hers, yet another invasion of personal space. Oh, please go away.

  Her body shifted away on the seat, hindered by the arm rest on the chair.

  She had spent the last three months in complete solitude. Sending out resumes, receiving either no reply or canned rejection letters for the first month. They weren’t kidding about being blacklisted. She was about ready to shift back to using her medical degree although the thought absolutely terrified her. She knew, deep down, that she wasn’t quite ready yet, but then again, she had never in a million years thought the situation she found herself in would ever be possible.

  So here she was, sitting in a lobby of a major pharmaceutical company, situated in a po-dunk town on the other side of the country somewhere outside of Philadelphia - the only company that had actually reached out to her about a possible job opportunity. They had even flown an HR rep out to California to meet with her two months prior. The job was hers after an hour interview and all that was left was to hash out the logistics of moving from her high-rise, high-rent apartment in downtown San Diego to a home that she had never seen. A home that was owned by the company as a temporary residence for transplants like herself.

  She would live rent-free for three months – enough time to find a place of her own and hopefully long enough to catch up on some of the astronomical bills she still needed to pay. The meager belongings that she hadn’t sold were tucked firmly into a moving truck located somewhere en route to this small town.

  “So, are you here for an interview too?” The woman’s voice broke into her thoughts causing her eyes to roll. Luckily her bangs were side swept and created an obstacle to the other set of eyes that she could actually feel on her.

  She was never what one would consider a sociable person but this was borderline ridiculous. If the arm rest wasn’t sitting between them as a physical barrier, Chatty Cathy would surely be sharing her seat in the next few minutes.

  “Ah…no. Orientation,” she mumbled.

  “Oh, so congratulations. Are you from around here?”

  “No!” Her voice was forceful through gritted teeth. That sounded rude… “Ah, no. I’m not,” she added in a more congenial tone.

  “Ok?”

  Silence.

  “So like, where are you from?” the voice asked a moment later.
<
br />   She pushed her body into the arm rest as far as it would go. The close proximity of the other woman was actually becoming physically uncomfortable.

  “San Diego?”

  “Oh! I’ve been there! My cousin lives in Pauma Valley. I was just there two years ago. Spent a week sightseeing. It’s really beautiful. We went to…” she rambled as Anne continued to stare at the same word she had been staring at for the past few minutes.

  Endocannabinoid. The article was written by Dr. Kay Clark, a woman she had encountered several times at various symposiums. She was disputing the fact that endorphins were not indeed the cause of what was commonly referred to as “runners high” due to the larger molecular size that could not permeate the blood brain barrier. The article was fascinating, or at least it was…

  “…and the ocean was so blue…”

  She thought about the pile of magazines on the small table situated to the left of…what was her name? Gabby? It wasn’t, but it should have been, she thought with an internal smirk. If she rifled through them, she would probably find an article she herself had written.

  “So you came all the way from California. That’s amazing. Why would you leave? It’s Ok here, but…” She touched on a nerve. It caused Anne’s body to stiffen immediately.

  “…I mean, if I lived there, I’d probably never move. Where did you work? What did you do out there?”

  Her mouth was dry and getting drier by the second as apprehension rose. She swallowed but there was nothing to swallow. Oh, please go away…

  “Did you work at a different pharmaceutical company? Which one? Maybe I’ve heard of it?”

  “Ah…” she croaked out, pressing her body even further into the arm rest.

  “Did you develop anything I might have heard of?”

  “Umm…”

  “I take a couple different medications…”

  No shit. She clamped her lips shut.

  “So, where did you work?” the voice prodded.

  “I…it’s…just a…company.” She mumbled absently. Would it be improper to stand up and walk to the other side of the lobby? The room was nothing but glass partition walls on two sides and floor to ceiling windows to the outside giving the impression of a fishbowl or better yet; a monkey cage at the Zoo.

  “Yeah? What did they make?”

  Geez, lady…Anne fidgeted in her seat, the arm rest digging into her thigh. The nervousness began to subside and a small spark of anger erupted in her already buzzing brain.

  “Sex toys,” she muttered, still staring at the magazine in her lap. Maybe that would render the other woman speechless.

  “WHAT?!”

  Maybe not…

  “Yeah, right?” Anne straightened in her seat, feeling the other body move from her peripheral vision. “I developed this…warming lotion and ah…it didn’t work.” She widened her downcast eyes.

  “Wha…really? Oh my god, that’s…what happened?” the voice practically gasped.

  The buzzing in her brain ceased immediately as the lie manifested itself in her consciousness and gave her something else to concentrate on other than her physical discomfort.

  “We applied it on a test subject and…his penis exploded. It was horrible.” She closed her eyes and shook her head trying to hold back the smirk that threatened to overtake her features. “Did you ever see a hot dog cooked too long in a microwave? It was like…” She mimicked an exploding sound with her mouth, her fingers spread out and her eyes widened in mock horror as they continued to look down. If she looked at the woman’s face she would surely crack up at the ridiculousness of this situation. The small gasp confirmed that her statement had its’ intended effect. In fact, she could physically feel the woman moving away from her as the smallest of smiles played along one side of her mouth.

  “That’s just…well…” she could hear whispered next to her.

  That should just about do it…

  “Dr. Bennett?” A new woman’s voice caused her to look up toward the door to the monkey cage.

  “Yep, that’s me.” She stood up quickly, dropping the magazine on the chair to her right. She grabbed her briefcase and walked with purpose toward the new arrival.

  Hopefully Gabby didn’t get the job. Otherwise, the entire place would be buzzing about Anne - the crazy penis-exploding scientist. She hadn’t thought about that…

  Who cared?

  Maybe they would stay away from her, then.

  *****

  “Hey there.”

  The woman behind the front receptionist desk looked up and did a double take.

  “Ah…hey.” She finally uttered before swallowing nervously.

  “I’m waiting for a man named Cameron Winters.” He extended his arm and looked at the rather impressive watch on his wrist. “He didn’t by chance sign in?” He angled the small book on the counter toward him to peruse for himself.

  “Ah…no,” she replied in a small voice. His head turned toward the glass partition to the lobby, scanning over the multitude of empty chairs before passing over two seated women. His eyes passed then snapped back to shapely legs crossed at the knee before wandering up a suit clad body ending with what he would consider an extremely cute face framed by a stylish short haircut. Her face was angled down, she appeared extremely uncomfortable – possibly due to the fact that the woman next her was clearly crowding her space. Did she just roll her eyes? Yes, she did. His body angled toward the lobby, involuntarily fixated for some reason.

  Her hair was a sort of reddish brown color, the sun shining in through the lobby windows caught it, causing the strands to shine…

  “Who’s that?” He asked, his eyes still watching her.

  “Sir?” The receptionist asked softly.

  “That woman… in the lobby.”

  “Ahhh…which one?” she asked. The phone began to ring, causing her eyes to shift down and up toward his turned head.

  The cute one, he almost said before he caught himself. She was cute. From his vantage point, he could see her profile clearly. She had a small, slightly upturned nose, perfect lips, defined cheekbones…Her suit jacket was high necked, buttoned to the top, very severe – almost military like. The rigid nature of her outfit didn’t mix with the pixie-like features on her face. Her face…the expression was priceless. She was clearly annoyed. Her body was actually plastered to the side of the chair she was seated on, as if she were trying desperately to put some distance between her and the other woman. His eyes didn’t bother to wander to the woman seated to her left. He was more than content to focus on the pixie.

  “The one with short hair.” He stated instead. He turned toward the receptionist. Her eyes were cast down toward the ringing phone.

  “Ah…let me…” her fingers fumbled for the sign-in book, dragging it across the raised counter top before it fell with a thud on the actual desk itself. “Sorry…” she mumbled as she righted the book. Her pulse was absolutely throbbing at this point.

  “Bennett. Anne, I mean, Dr. Anne Bennett.” She finally stammered out.

  “Really? And what is Dr. Anne Bennett doing here?” She heard his accented voice in her now pounding head.

  “Umm…orientation, Sir. She’s a…ah…new hire.”

  “Hmm… I wasn’t aware we were hiring…” he stated more to himself as his head turned once more.

  You haven’t been in the country for a year…she thought, but kept it to herself.

  “Yeah, so…” she started as the phone continued to ring.

  “You can answer the phone, you know.” He turned toward her once again, a small smile playing across his face.

  Was he being friendly, sarcastic? Why was he even out here in the first place? He was making her nervous as all get out…

  “I’ll just wait for Mr. Winters out here,” he stated as he walked toward the opening between the glass partitions of the lobby.

  “Ah…yes. Ok, sure…yes…” She watched his retreating back before reaching for the phone and dropping it almost immediat
ely with her shaking hands.

  *****

  “And then we went to Balboa Park, and of course the Zoo. They have the best Zoo. Did you go to the Zoo often? I bet you did. How could you live there and not go to the Zoo, like all the time, right? Did you ever go to LaJolla Cove? That’s really pretty, too. We don’t have anything like that, although Philly is close and if you like history…”

  He wandered into the room, completely undetected by the subject of his interest but a small nod from the other woman before she droned on. He sat on the opposite side of the room, facing the two women before grabbing a magazine from the stack on the small table next to him.

  The smaller woman…Anne, sat staring at the magazine in her lap, angling her body away from the woman, her hair side swept and concealing her features on one side which was probably a good thing considering her facial expressions.

  “So, where did you work?” the woman asked and it truly appeared the question made her nervous. She uncrossed her legs and crossed them again and her voice seemed to stammer in reply.

  The prying continued; the hesitant answers followed until the strangest thing occurred. Did she just say she worked for a company that made sex toys?

  He looked down at the cover of last month’s Bio Supply Trends before his eyes snapped up at her words, not quite believing what was coming out of her mouth. Apparently the other woman was just as shocked as he was judging from her body language. She sat upright, eyes wide. She whispered something before Anne continued on with some crazy story about exploding penises and hot dogs in microwaves. She did not just say that. Was she serious? He watched her eyes grow wide as she demonstrated the explosion while still concentrating on her lap. The small smile that curved one side of her lips up indicated her pleased state as the other woman was not only rendered somewhat speechless but she also moved toward the opposite side of her seat.

  He bit back a shocked laugh as he continued to watch her closely. Another person, a woman, judging by her voice, walked into the opening. His head turned toward the windows to avoid detection.

  “Dr. Bennett?”

  “Yep, that’s me,” she announced jovially.

  She was out of the chair in a shot, grabbing her briefcase and wandering toward the woman and out of the opening causing the other woman to follow behind.