Page 33 of A Life Imagined
“Prove me wrong, then.”
“Take care, Heylen,” he said and hung up.
From her desk, Elise gave him a sly smile and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket.“I have questions.Come for a smoke?”
Mathias sighed.Better to squash the curiosity before it gets the best of her.
The clouds darkened in the sky overhead as he and Elise stood by the staff entrance, smoking.The muggy air clung to his skin, and Mathias felt a drop of rain graze his temple.He predicted it would be bucketing down within the hour.
“He called yesterday, too, while you were out.”Elise brought her cigarette to her lips.
“What happened to passing on messages?”
“I don’t remembersecretarybeing part of the job description.”
Mathias gave a dispassionate grunt.
“What’s this about, then?Are you planning some sort of joint venture?”she asked.
He’d looked into the company Heylen had acquired.It was a family-owned operation run by a fellow Belgian businessman.While Heylen had only purchased it to limit competition with JFH Logistics, the business made a tidy profit and was a decent-sized player in its own right.
“Let’s make this clear—I’m not working for Heylen.”
“But if he’s asking for you specifically, you must have done something to impress him.”
Mathias tapped his ash.Partnering with Heylen would give him access to an entirely new tier of contacts.He’d be rubbing shoulders with the cream of Europe’s corporate world.It was less a steppingstone than a springboard.
“That’s not it,” Mathias said.“He just can’t stand for someone to tell him no.”
Elise raised a skeptical eyebrow but wisely kept her thoughts to herself.She parted her lips to exhale a demure curl of smoke.“Did you hear about what happened at the beach?You know, before I moved here, I had no idea about any of it.I’m sure it was in the news.I was just so self-absorbed.”
“Was?”
Elise shot him a look.“God, humans have made such a mess of things, haven’t we?”She gave a woeful shake of her head.“I don’t know how Rayan does it—seeing all the misery at the camp.It’s so sad.”
Mathias eyed her shrewdly.Rayan had a high tolerance for misery, built up like a muscle.“Well, the world’s a sad fucking place.”
There was a crunch of tires, and they both glanced over as an unmarked delivery van turned into the parking lot and pulled up alongside the warehouse.
Elise frowned.“I didn’t know we were expecting a delivery today.Were you waiting on something?”
The driver got out, hoisted a small wooden crate from the back of the van, and placed it on the ground by the roller doors.Mathias and Elise dealt with enough shipments, many valued at six figures or more, that their delivery people knew to never leave one sitting outside.Mathias watched as the driver returned to the van and drove back out onto the road.He tossed his cigarette to the ground and walked over to crate, Elise at his heels.As he got closer, he could smell the fetid stink of decaying flesh.
“Don’t touch it,” he instructed Elise sharply.She recoiled and placed a hand over her nose.
His name was inscribed in large black letters on the top of the crate.He retrieved the folding knife from his pocket and extracted the blade, then used it to jimmy off the lid.A foulness filled the air, and Elise shrank back in horror.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
A severed pig’s head stared up at them, mouth open and eyes a cloudy black.The crate was lined with a sheet of plastic to prevent the ooze leaking from the pig’s neck from soaking through the bottom.A knife had been crudely shoved into the front of the animal’s skull.
“Amateurs,” Mathias muttered.
He would have drawn blood by now.Either Marsela was handling him with kid gloves, or she had another agenda.Regardless, he couldn’t get a read on her intentions, which was unusual—and dangerous.
“This is about the drugs, isn’t it?”Elise said, her eyes wide behind her glasses.“What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to go inside and get Vicente to take care of this.Have him toss it in the dumpster out back,” Mathias replied evenly.
