Christmas at Timberwoods - Fern Michaels [13]
Backslide. Big time.
It was wonderful how a pizza or two could ease loneliness. And that wasn’t all. That had been eight years ago, just about the time they were beginning construction on the Timberwoods shopping complex. With a glowing recommendation from his instructor, Charlie had landed a job with the refrigeration crew. Night after night he had studied blueprints, munching down the facts and figures along with homebaked cookies and milk. By the time the duct was being installed on the roof, he had regained twenty pounds.
Charlie’s face flamed red with the remembered humiliation of being stuck in a shaft where they were stringing the main air-vent duct. It had taken a crew of six men forty-five minutes to extricate him. Ten minutes later he had left the site with the foreman’s cruel words and his coworkers’ laughter ringing in his ears.
An anonymous smart aleck had drawn and posted a cartoon of him, which he’d ripped off the board and kept. Not signed, but a few others had added their comments, which were hard evidence of discrimination. He still had it. Dumb shits, what did they know? He had vowed to show them all, to make them sorry.
After that, he’d nearly starved himself to death to get the weight back off. He’d lost most of it, but it was a constant fight to keep it off—a fight he would be glad not to have to worry about any longer. He didn’t have to. Heather Andrews was taken and he, Charlie, was out of the running.
The harassment he’d endured could be exploited in more ways than one. He’d never have to work again if he filed a discrimination suit. He’d studied the lawyers’ ads on the bus stops. Some awards were in the millions—why not him?
His flesh tingled with excitement. What the hell. He’d show them all—the guys. Heather. Everyone who’d ever made him feel like two cents waiting for change. But the lawsuit would come second. First, the very air duct which had caused him so much humiliation would become a secret method of retribution that would go down in history. Charlie Roman laughed just thinking about it.
He sobered, thinking that the legal proceedings would take a while. He’d have to lie low, maybe move out of the area. But there’d be no way his glorious revenge could ever be traced to him—he would act alone and the evidence would be obliterated. He should have done it years ago, but he hadn’t had the nerve. Suddenly he did. He thought and thought, driving on. All this planning was making him hungry. He longed for a thick slab of homemade apple pie.
The great glass-walled conference room at Timber woods Mall looked down on the parking lot. It was only eleven in the morning when Harold Baumgarten, chief of security, called the unscheduled meeting. Now, fifteen minutes later, the conference room was filled with the forty-three men and women who comprised the mall’s security force.
Harold squared his shoulders and shed his ominous frown. It wouldn’t be seemly for the security chief to look anxious. His men could handle any crisis, and this was a crisis; he knew it in his bones. His hands were perspiring freely as he shifted the crumpled letter from one hand to the other. He wiped his palms on his trousers, sucked in his breath, and opened the door to the conference room. A sea of faces greeted him as he walked on his short legs to the platform from which he would address his crew.
He held up his hand and waved the letter in the air. The buzzing group began to quiet. Baumgarten’s eyes raked the room, searching for Heather Andrews’s face before he remembered it was her morning off.
“You all know that I run a safe, secure shopping center, and I intend to keep it that way. But I have here, in my hand,” he said briskly, “a written threat.” He paused importantly, waiting for the gasps of shock and wide-eyed displays of interest. His audience, being inured to their chief’s dramatics, gave him no satisfaction. They merely waited politely for him to continue. Clearing his throat, Harold obliged. “According to the police, the first two threats were