Black Diamond Chapters 4 -5

Chapter 4

Jeff had an early class, so he was gone by the time Melissa dragged herself out of bed the next morning. She felt groggy and unrested. A cup of coffee started her brain moving, if sluggishly. She stared out the kitchen window at the yard while she drank a second cup. The overgrown shrubbery looked dewy and innocent in the morning sunlight; a few fading blooms clung to the branches of the roses, and a patch of chrysanthemums sported a profusion of white and gold flowers.

Friday served up one of those days where one minor annoyance followed another. Mrs Moskowitz started it, with a call on the office phone to make sure Melissa had gotten her message about selling the ten shares of MFI. “Just doing some fine tuning,” the woman told her, offering the usual explanation for her inexplicable whims.

Shortly after that call, Margaret Holstead, a new customer, recently widowed and inexperienced at handling money, rang up. “I want to return those hundred shares of Mag Engineering you talked me into buying,” the woman said.

“Return them?” Melissa asked.

“I looked at the listings this morning. They went down again yesterday, and that’s the second day in a row. That stock isn’t at all satisfactory. I want my money back.”

“I can sell them for you, Mrs. Holstead,” Melissa offered. “But I don’t recommend it. You’ll take a loss and I know that stock will go back up. Mag Engineering is about to introduce a major improvement in their block design.”

“You said it would go up before, but it hasn’t yet, and I don’t see why I should have to wait around for it. I want to return it.”

Melissa tried to explain the stock market didn’t work that way.

“I don’t see why not,” the woman complained. “If I don’t like a dress I get at Nordstrom, they let me have my money back or a new one. Just last week I returned a toaster to Target because it didn’t work. They took it back and gave me a new one that’s just fine. I want a stock that works right.”

Melissa finally resorted to suggesting that Mrs. Holstead call her accountant to discuss the situation.

Just before lunch, a construction crew working on the road cut the phone and internet lines, depriving them of contact with clients and associates, and worse yet, severing the all-important network links to the Street. It took almost an hour to get service restored.

While it was out, Tom Regan, their resident super-salesman wandered the corridors, poking his head into one office after another. “Can you believe this?” he said to Melissa when he stopped in her doorway. His red hair stood out in spikes. “No phones. What are we supposed to do? We ought to sue somebody. Do they have any idea how much money we lose every minute the lines are down?”

Melissa waved at the pile of reports she was studying. “I was kind of enjoying the peace and quiet. It makes a nice change.”

Tom gave her a sour look. “I suppose you can afford it. Some of us have to earn our living.”

He wasn’t the only one in the office who resented her background, but he was the most vocal about it. Melissa didn’t apologize for it anymore. “Ask Smoltz who pulls their weight around here,” she suggested.

The man’s mouth moved in an expression that was somewhere between grimace and sneer. “Yeah, well, it helps to have connections,” he said.

Without warning she experienced a sudden, lurching distortion of time and place; her vision blurred and tilted; she saw a slight figure in ragged clothes, with scarred face and long, stringy hair, occupying the place where Tom Regan stood.

The swish and crackle of papers spilling onto the floor jerked her back to reality. She stared at Tom Regan’s red hair and freckled face, seeing just an annoying co-worker. He didn’t sense anything wrong and moved away before she could move or say another word.

“Jealousy,” she muttered as she reached down to gather up the sheets. She took a deep breath and turned to the next page of the report she’d been studying. The words danced in front of her eyes. The booklet shook so badly she had to stop and wait. She kept seeing the silver hoop earring and a curiously dead face against a white portion of the paper. Was this kind of thing a normal reaction to a stressful experience? Or was she losing her grip?

Eventually phone service was restored. Her first call came from a man with a scratchy voice who refused to identify himself. “It doesn’t matter who am I; I’m just looking out for your interests,” the anonymous caller said. “It might not be healthy to hold onto Kinmont Chemical stock too long,” he suggested.

“Why?” she demanded. “Who is this?”

A soft click and a dial tone answered her.

“Hell,” she said, staring at the phone. After a moment’s thought, she looked up a number on her cell and pressed it. The woman, a friend as well as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, could give her no information. She’d heard the rumors about an impending buyout of Kinmont Chemical but had no hard facts and no names.

Chapter 5

At one-ten that afternoon, Melissa sat across from her lifelong best friend Natalie Garrison in a corner booth of a new Vietnamese restaurant. After they both ordered the lunch specials, Nat stopped chattering about her work for a high-end fashion designer and looked Melissa in the eye for a moment before asking, “Okay, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Melissa asked.

“You know what I mean.” Nat took a drink from her water glass and put it down. “You look like hell. What’s bothering you?”

Melissa raised her eyebrows. “Thanks for the support?”

“Get off it.” Nat rolled her eyes. “You’re gorgeous and you know it. Except when you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Not that long. Not exactly. Something weird happened last night.” She relayed the details to Nat.

“Holy smoke,” her friend said when she’d finished. “Any idea why?”

“No. At least nothing I can make any sense of.”

“Anything else strange happened lately?”

“I don’t know if it you can call it strange, but… Jeff’s been having these weird moods. You know the depression episodes he’s had since Mom died? They’re getting more frequent. And deeper...worse. When he’s in one of them, he’ll fly off the handle for no reason at all. The other day he and I got into this absolute screaming match over whose turn it was to put the trash out. I mean, is that strange or what?”

“It doesn’t sound like the Jeff I remember,” Nat said.

“He’s always had a temper. But it used to be different, like he’d explode and yell for a couple of minutes and then it would blow over and we’d end up laughing about it.” Melissa took a sip of water. “We haven’t done much laughing in a while. When he gets into one of these moods it can last for days, or even weeks.”

“Weeks? Sounds to me like he needs to see a counselor or something.”

“When I suggested it, he advised me to mind my own business. Forcefully.”

The waiter brought plates of spring rolls for them. “Have you thought about moving out?” Nat suggested. “Getting your own apartment? You’re twenty-six years old and a successful stockbroker, or whatever the fancy title is.” She picked up and bit into a spring roll with a look of near bliss. You couldn’t tell it by checking her figure, but Nat loved food and took tremendous pleasure in it.

“Investment Counselor,” Melissa said. “A very junior one. I’ve considered it. But I’m afraid Dad would starve or burn the house down if he was left on his own or with just Jeff. Would you believe he bought an earring?”

The spring roll Nat lifted froze in midair. “Jeff? Lord, no. I can’t imagine. But a lot of guys have them these days. I guess it’s really not all that weird.”

“For Jeff though?” Melissa said. “This is my brother we’re talking about. President of the Young Republicans. Poster boy for buttoned-down chic. Anyway, he wears it when he’s in his foul moods. I think it’s kind of a signal, like posting a sign saying, ‘Don’t cross me right now’. Believe me, I try not to.”

“That’s what’s keeping you awake at night?” Nat said.

“Just that? No.” Melissa lifted a spring roll and set it down again. “A couple of times lately, I’ve had this feeling that someone was following me. Or watching me. There’s never anyone there when I look. Last night, though, late, I saw someone watching the house.” She sighed and wiped her mouth with the napkin. “Nobody else seems to be aware of it, so I’m beginning to think I’m losing my grip.”

“Don’t they say that crazy people always think they’re completely sane and normal?” Nat suggested.

Melissa tried to smile. “Well, I still think I’m sane. But there are times when I wonder.”

“Nonsense. You’re the sanest person I know. Just under a bunch of stress. What about Doug?” She paused when the waiter showed up to deliver the soup. “Did you guys break up or something? Not that it would be much of a loss, but I know you’re kind of fond of him.”

“Fond of him?” Melissa said, smiling for the first time since they’d left her office. “That sounds more like a pet than a boyfriend.”

Nat shrugged. “If the shoe fits...”

“It was never all that serious. Anyway, I called it off. We’re still friends, just not dating.”

Nat sighed. “Thank goodness. You don’t need a cold fish like him.”

“Did you know that someone is buying up outstanding shares of Kinmont Chemical stock?”

Nat shook her head. “No. But why should that bother anyone? Your family and the Montgomerys hold a clear majority, don’t you?”

“Yes. Someone is also spreading rumors that one of the principal shareholders might be willing to sell.”

“Any truth in it?”

“Not as far as I know,” Melissa said. “But I got a crank call about it earlier. Veiled threats about it not being healthy to hold onto my shares.”

“Yikes. But isn’t it set up so that more than one family member would have to sell for someone to be able to get control?”

“Not necessarily. There are a couple of ways an outsider could get control. But it’s not something I’m really worried about. It’s just another thing piling up.”

“Has anyone talked to you about selling your shares?”

Melissa waited while the server delivered the rest of their lunch. “I’ve turned down two offers to buy my shares at a pretty good price.”

“Would Jeff sell his?” Nat asked.

“I doubt it. Actually, I don’t know. He’s so…mercurial these days.”

“Is he still set to graduate next spring? Will he and Ellie tie the knot then?”

“As far as I know, and I don’t know.”

Melissa asked Nat about her family and spent the rest of the lunch listening to updates on her parents and cousins, and a few stories from her job.

Nat picked up the bill the waiter presented.

Melissa reached over and took it from her. “I’m calling this therapy as well as a meal.” She dug out her wallet and extracted two twenty-dollar bills. When she looked up, Nat was studying her with a troubled expression.

Melissa had some idea what Nat saw. Melissa’s fair skin and slender bone structure lent her a deceptively fragile air, but now the shadows under her blue eyes were so dark they looked like bruises and her cheekbones stood out too sharply. No amount of makeup completely erased those signs.

Nat waved a hand. “Okay, diagnosis from Dr. Garrison. You’re as sane as anyone I know, but you’re under a lot of stress. My prescription is some time out. A movie, a show, dinner, whatever. You doing anything tomorrow night?” she asked.