A Deadly Promotion Read online

  A Deadly Promotion

  Melanie Jones Brownrigg

  Amazon

  Copyright © 2020 Melanie Jones Brownrigg

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Scott Hardie

  Printed in the United States of America

  To all my friends and family who have supported me in my wild whim to become an author.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Deadly Promotion

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Acknowledgement

  About The Author

  Books By This Author

  A Deadly Promotion

  Chapter One

  After prying my eyes open, I desperately tried to focus. But my vision was too blurry, and I couldn’t figure out where I was. An unbearable pounding sensation in my head made me nauseous and it felt as if my head was spinning around like a top. Reaching my hand to the back of my head, I felt dried crusty hair combined with a burning liquid, both matting my strands together. Running my fingers through the wetter part of my tendrils and bringing my hand forward, I blinked several times, my vision adjusting just enough to make out a red liquid covering the pads of my fingertips. My stomach catapulted at the shocked sight of blood.

  Looking around, I realized I was a crumpled heap on the floor. While multiple parts of my body felt sore and bruised, nothing felt broken, except my head. It felt like it was going to explode. The incessant throbbing had me fighting off an urge to vomit.

  What on earth had happened to me?

  My neck refused to swivel around to assess my location. Resting my whole body against the wall, I felt the touch of cold cinder blocks against the back of my aching head.

  Just relax for a moment and gather your strength, I told myself.

  Closing my eyes against the harsh fluorescent lighting, I attempted a long breath of air to fill my lungs. “Ouch,” I cried, upon trying to move and wondered if a rib or two might be fractured.

  Concentrating hard, I tried to recall the last thing I remembered, hoping to better understand my predicament.

  After several long minutes of trying to get my bearings, it finally came to me … I was leaving work. Forcing my eyes back open, sure enough, I found myself sprawled on the stairwell landing and looking up at the number 12 on a closed, gray metal door. My office was on the fifteenth floor of the forty-story Engineering Building. Apparently, I had made it down to the halfway point between the twelfth and eleventh floor. My daily routine included walking up fifteen floors when I arrived each morning, and then exiting the building by walking down the same flight of stairs. You could count on it.

  But this didn’t make sense. Julie Mitchell, my coworker, followed a similar routine. Though we rarely arrived at the same time and climbed to work independently, we always left work together. And, as a precautionary measure, we had side-by-side employee parking spaces and walked each other to our cars in the evening. She wouldn’t have left me on the stairs and gone on without me. So, what happened?

  It only made sense for me to have lost my balance and fallen. Julie must’ve gone for help when she saw I’d hit my head on the wall. That must be it. I’d wait here a few moments and the cavalry would arrive to rescue me. With thoughts of medical assistance in the forthcoming future, I pushed myself up against the wall and patiently waited.

  Time lapsed slowly, waiting for responders to fling open the door and rush to my aid, their arms filled with medical bags, a stretcher, and warm comforting blankets. How long had it been? Realizing my handbag had fallen on the landing beside me, I worked diligently at scooting close enough to retrieve my phone. At last I grasped the device and pulled it to my face.

  Six-thirty-five! Unbelieving my cloudy eyes, I stared at the digital numbers for a length of time. Long enough for the five to become an eight. How was this possible? I left work every evening shortly after five. Surely, I hadn’t been here for going on an hour and a half. Where was Julie? Where was my rescue team?

  While a lot of people in this building climbed to their work-floor in the morning, it was rare for anyone to use the stairs going down in the afternoon. Most either preferred to use the gym in the basement for workouts or were inclined to alternative exercises. Many had hectic lives and as soon as the workday ended, they headed off via the elevators. At this hour of the day, I was most likely on my own.

  Realizing no one was coming to my assistance, I first checked my phone for a signal, hoping to call for help. Sadly, the thick cinder-block walls resulted in no service. With little choice left, I attempted pulling myself to my feet. My head raged like an angry sea and I swayed back and forth like a drunken sailor. Unsteady on my feet and fearing a second fall, I clung to the wall for balance. After teetering wildly to the point of tumbling forward, I sank back down to my butt.<
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  Realizing my mobility was too encumbered, I resorted to scooting on my rear. Edging my way across the landing, I encouraged myself to take it one step at a time. All I had to do was make it down the remaining flight to the eleventh-floor doorway and then drag myself to the elevator. If I could just make it to the lobby, the evening security guard would call for help.

  Gathering my purse to my shoulder, I began my arduous journey. Inch worming my way across the landing and hugging tight to the wall with my whole body, I turned ninety degrees to begin my descent down to the next floor.

  Peering down the remaining flight, my heart lurched from my chest and slammed against my ribs. At the foot of the steps, lying in front of the doorway was the hazy shape of a figure. From the red sweater and black dress pants, I feared it was Julie. And from here, she looked dead.

  Chapter Two

  Powering through the dizziness, pain, and nausea, I picked up my butt-scooting pace, my rump thumping harshly against each stair, every drop a clumsy attempt and a challenging hurtle to get to Julie as quickly as possible. In what seemed to take forever, I finally arrived at her side.

  “Julie, can you hear me?” I asked, checking her vitals for any signs of life. Finding her nonresponsive, her eyes staring into space, and her neck at an odd angle, I knew she wasn’t alive. “What happened to us?” I asked of her, knowing she couldn’t possibly answer me.

  It took everything I had in me to leave my friend in the stairwell and work my way out the door. Crawling on all fours down the hallway and arriving at the elevator, I pulled myself to my knees and mashed the call button. When the bell dinged and the doors parted, I dropped back down and dragged myself inside and then back up on my knees to mash the lobby-level button.

  By the time the doors split apart on the ground floor, I was exhausted from my long trek and thoroughly upset over what had happened to Julie … and to me as well. Dazed and confused, I pulled my body from the elevator out into the hallway and called out, “Help! Someone, I need help. Please, anyone.”

  Nothing.

  What was the guard doing? For sure he had a monitoring system at his desk. His views, among many, most definitely included the bank of elevators where I was. There were also cameras in each of the lifts, including the one I had just dragged myself out of. It had been my hope for him to have noticed my presence while descending in the car. He should have been ready to offer me immediate assistance and, if not, I certainly would’ve expected him to spot me on the floor in the hallway. Why couldn’t he hear me? The front desk was only a few feet at the end of this corridor, left of the big glass front entrance doors.

  “Help!” I screamed as loudly as possible.

  Then waited.

  Still nothing. It occurred to me that he might be making his rounds. If so, he’d eventually find me.

  I’ll be fine, I consoled myself. Better than Julie. That was for sure. Poor Julie. I tried once again to remember what happened. Vaguely I recalled a noise behind me and then a fierce whack to my head. There wasn’t anything else I recalled at this point. Maybe when my head wasn’t splitting open … literally, I’d be able to remember more.

  Unable to bring myself to even a sitting position, I laid on my right side against the hard, white-marbled tile. Staring at the five closed elevator doors, I hoped the guard would return to his post, or someone else would exit the building.

  Unable to stay alert, I began fading away. Possibly my fall had resulted in a concussion. For certain, I had a headache, nausea and blurred vision. In addition to the gaping, bleeding hole in the back of my head, I was drowsy, weak and unable to walk. My memory, disoriented and muddled, was unable to recall what happened and I was most assuredly experiencing some short-term memory problems. Hopefully, it was only a minor concussion and not some sort of permanent brain damage.

  “Help,” I cried again after more minutes slowly ticked by with no assistance. It seemed heart-wrenching to think I’d made it this far and then died from brain swelling or some other equally traumatic event.

  Just then the elevator dinged its arrival, causing my hopes to soar to an unprecedented level. Please be help, I silently begged. The sound of the doors swished open and I heard footfalls exiting the doorway from an elevator farther down from me. For just the briefest of seconds, everything was quiet. Then simultaneously I heard the elevator doors closing and the wonderful sound of feet clomping in my direction.

  “Hello, hello. Are you okay?” I heard a deep male voice approaching from behind me. A briefcase was dropped beside me and the figure bent to examine me. “Hello,” he said again.

  “Please help me,” I cried in a pitiful voice.

  He must’ve pulled out his cell phone because a moment later I heard him making a 911 call. First, he requested an ambulance and then gave the building address. “Hurry, she’s bleeding from the back of her head.” A pause followed. “What’s your name?” he asked directing the question to me.

  “Paige Davis,” I whispered, which he relayed.

  “No, I have no idea what happened to her.” Another pause. “She’s barely conscious, but I’ll ask.” He leaned over me once again. “Paige, do you know what happened to you?”

  “No,” I managed in a weak tone. “Police too,” I muttered trying to lift my pounding head. “My friend, Julie Mitchell, is dead in the stairwell.”

  “Shit,” I heard him say. “Send the police too,” he relayed, continuing to stay on the line with emergency dispatch.

  It took a tremendous effort for me to stay alert and answer questions as he conveyed them into the phone. I managed telling him my company’s name, Harrington Oil & Gas, located on the 15th floor, and I was able to relate information about Julie being in the stairwell at the bottom of the 11th. “That’s all I know,” I concluded in a frail voice.

  “Help is on the way, just relax,” he urged. “You’ll be just fine,” he said soothingly.

  “Stay with me until help gets here,” I begged, not wanting to be left alone.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he assured me. True to his word, he plopped on the floor beside me and clasped my hand while we waited. “Just hang in there,” he encouraged.

  I hadn’t been able to focus on him to see what he looked like, but he was wearing black, slip-on dress shoes and dark gray dress pants. But if he would stay with me, I didn’t care one iota about his attire or personal features. Thank goodness he came along when he did because the guard still wasn’t anywhere to be found and no one else had exited the elevators.

  Long minutes later, he began rising to his feet. “I need to go watch for their arrival,” he told me. “I’ll let them in the building and then I’ll be right back.”

  Moments later, I heard him calling out, “In here and hurry. She’s over there. And someone’s at the 11th floor stairwell … dead, according to her.”

  Scuffling noises followed as the police swarmed around me. Some began climbing the stairwell while others were taking the elevator. One was asking me all kinds of questions, but I no longer had the strength to respond.

  Medical personnel entered next and someone crouched beside me. “Can you open your eyes?” I was asked. Unable to perform the task adequately, my eyelid was pried open and a bright light beamed into my pupil. After a quick assessment, medical directives were ordered by a duo of paramedics and then I was hauled onto a stretcher.

  “Let’s get her out of here,” one of the medical attendees directed.

  Amid the chaos, I gave one last look back as I was carried from the building. While being rushed past a side hallway leading to the restrooms, I caught a glimpse of someone lingering behind a fake plant. Beside it, I saw the glint of an aluminum baseball bat leaned against the shadowy figure.

  Chapter Three

  “Someone was there,” I tried my best to inform the medical team. But before they realized I was mumbling something we were out on the street. Noises were everywhere … passing cars, footfalls clunking over a nearby street grate, the chattering of pede
strians, and the sound of a car honking at a nearby signal light.

  The door to the ambulance flung open and the carrier was pushed inside, the wheels collapsing underneath to allow entry.

  “I’m going with her,” the male voice of my rescuer firmly advised.

  “And you are?” one of the EMTs asked.

  “Paul Williams,” he answered. And before objections could be made, he was climbing in behind us, toting my purse and his briefcase. “I’m going,” he said solidly.

  “Someone was there,” I repeated, but still no one paid me any attention while an IV was inserted into my arm and my head was attended to. I felt Paul’s hand holding mine. I jiggled it to get his attention. “Someone was there,” I said once again.

  “What?” he asked, leaning his ear near me and trying to discern my weakened voice.

  “Sir, you need to lean back,” he was instructed. “Stay out of the way.”

  “She said something,” Paul told them.

  It felt like I was yelling. Apparently, my voice wasn’t even audible. “Someone was there … down the side hallway with a bat,” I finally muttered loud enough for him to hear me.

  “Someone was there, you say… with a bat?” Paul repeated to make sure he properly understood.

  “Yes,” I answered softly and then I passed out.

  * * *

  From the point I lost consciousness, to the point my eyes fluttered awake, I had arrived at the hospital and been taken in for x-rays and then off to emergency surgery where my head was operated on to remove a mild epidural hematoma. After coming to in a recovery room, the surgeon informed me of having suffered slight trauma to my occipital lobe, along with a mild concussion, a few banged-up ribs, and multiple bruises.

  A short time later, I was moved to a private room where I was left alone to stare at the closed curtain encircling my bed. I told myself it was just as well, considering the door to my room had been left open and the jabbering of staff and visitors could be heard as they walked by. Still, I wished a clock were visible