~Part Fourteen~
Shelby slept fitfully. She had bizarre dreams of being up on the conference room table again. She dreamed that Lillianna had returned as CIO and she had made Shelby participate in another staff meeting. But this time it was even worse. Shelby was chained to a wall and was made to sexually service the entire company, and no condoms were available. It looked more like a gang bang than anything else. At the end of her dream, Nancy was so disgusted and repulsed by her she got fired and sent back home to Mike.
Mike was drinking a beer and scowling when she awoke several hours later. She stumbled out into the living room, a headache very much firmly established. "This whole situation is bullshit," he said, reading a page of notes he'd taken. "We can't do anything to them. We can't touch them! I don't know what to do!"
Shelby sat down on the couch and looked at Mike. "What's wrong, baby?" He asked.
Shelby's mouth moved before she could stop herself. "I...I have to go back," she said.
Mike's mouth fell open. "What?! What are you talking about?" He asked.
"I'm sorry. But I do," she said, rubbing her temples.
Mike stood up from his recliner and walked over to her. "Has something happened? Why would you say that?"
"I don't know if I should tell you," she said. Mike sat down next to her on the couch. Shelby shook her head but a tear fell. "I have to go back to her."
"Shelby!" Mike said. "This doesn't make any sense! Why?"
"I know it doesn't. But...but I just have to."
"Shelby!"
She trembled all over, figuring Mike would probably find out anyway. "Look, they know where I am. It's not that hard to know where I'd go. They know how to find me. They know I started the fire."
"Wait a second. How do you know that they know this?"
Shelby just looked away.
"Did they come here or something? To the trailer?!" He asked, shocked.
Shelby looked back at Mike and nodded once.
A muscle along his jaw twitched. "Did they threaten you?" He asked angrily.
Shelby shrugged.
"Well, then we'll hide you somewhere! That way they can't find you!"
Shelby chuckled unhappily "No," She said. "I don't think I can go anywhere to get away from them," she said. More tears fell.
"Well, we'll go even higher. We'll call the FBI," Mike said.
But Shelby just chuckled. "The FBI? What, so they can put me in witness protection?"
Now it was Mike's turn to shrug. "If we have to. Yes."
"This just gets crazier and crazier. Where does it end?" Shelby asked.
Mike hugged her. "But baby. Going back to her? There has got to be a different way."
But Shelby shook her head. "I don't see it."
Mike just held her. "What can I do to help you?"
"Just hug me tight," she said.
~~~~~~~~~~
Shelby took the car when Jamie eventually brought it back. She went by herself to Marie's Dining and ordered her favorite meal there: the chicken salad sandwich, seasoned fries, and a pickle. She coincidentally sat in the same booth and in the same spot that she had sat in with her friends a scant week ago. She stared out the window at the Addington Building. It was going to be her home again. She couldn't deny the foreboding she felt in the pit of her stomach about going back.
Suddenly Michelle was there in a flurry at her table. She looked incredibly worried.
"Michelle?!" Shelby said. She stood up and hugged her best friend tightly.
Michelle slid into the booth across from Shelby. "I stopped by at your place and your stepdad sort of filled me in on what's been going on. No wonder you had been ignoring my texts and my calls! I thought I'd done something to piss you off!" She said.
Shelby shook her head vehemently. "No. Not at all. They took my phone, is all. And I still don't have it back," Shelby said ruefully.
Michelle scowled. "So...tell me everything that happened. It sounds more than bizarre."
Shelby ate and talked. Michelle's vegetable soup came and Shelby still talked. Their dessert came and Shelby was still talking. Finally she stopped to take a breath.
Michelle shook her head. "I don't...girl, I don't know what to say!" She said. "I feel for you. I really do!"
"They've kind of got me between a rock and a hard place," Shelby said.
"Yeah, they do," Michelle agreed. "So...what do you plan on doing?"
"I can't take Nancy coming into my room, or showing up whenever I least expect it. That will drive me crazy. I'll always be on the lookout for her. That's no way to live."
Michelle nodded. "Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer?" She offered.
Shelby shrugged. "Kind of. Though I don't see Nancy as my enemy. Exactly." Shelby put her head in her hands. "God. It's so complicated!"
Michelle nodded. "Babe, it sounds like it."
"I have to move back in with her. At least for the time being."
Michelle just shook her head.
"I have to go back and see if the situation can at all be changed."
Michelle gave her a very small smile.
But Shelby, an optimist at heart, couldn't deny that she also felt a teeny tiny bit of hope about the whole affair. Maybe she really could change some things. Maybe she could change Nancy's mind. Anything was possible, right? Maybe it could be different. She wasn't sure, but she had to try.
She looked out the window up at the fourth floor. There was already scaffolding there. Evidently repairs had already begun to the exterior of the building.
After lunch she and Michelle walked over to the building to get a closer look. The workers high on the scaffolding waved at them and they waved back. Shelby admired them for being able to work so high up in the air without their knees shaking.
She took a deep breath and walked over to the front doors of the Addington Building. She gave Michelle a hug. "I don't know what to say," Michelle said. "Hopefully this isn't really goodbye?"
Shelby shrugged slightly. "I'm going to try my damndest so that it's not."
And she rang the call button.
"Can I help you?" Said the tinny male voice from the speaker.
"Shelby Jacobson to see Nancy Addington."
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No, but you can bet your ass that she'll see me," Shelby said.
She waited a minute outside and then heard the click of the door being unlocked.
Shelby gave a small wave to Michelle as she disappeared into the building. Michelle returned her wave and blew her a friendly kiss.
"She'll meet you in the apartment on the fourth floor," the security guard said after he made a short phone call. "Come with me and I'll unlock it for you."
Shelby felt her stomach clench as she rode the elevator up to the burnt floor. It still smelled like smoke and pieces of the rugs were missing, presumably burnt sections that had been cut off. The place was a flurry of activity. Workers walked up and down the fourth floor hallways fixing what could be fixed and repairing what could not.
The apartment was empty when she got there. She sat down on the couch. It smelled good in the apartment, like the ocean or something. Nancy must have gotten some air fresheners. Nothing in there had been destroyed.
