The large grandfather clock chimed ten times at the end of the hallway as Ingrid sprinted down the hallway to her bedroom. She had only about an hour or so till Brad arrived home from work and she wanted to make sure that this evening worked out fine. Brad spent many long hours at the research facility he worked at which left very little time for the two to have intimate evenings .
However, when she opened the door, she found a woman waiting for her in the room. She was sitting on the edge of the expensive bed and was pointing a very nasty looking gun equipped with a silencer in Ingrid's direction. The woman motioned Ingrid to close the door behind her and then waved her over to a chair at the far end of the room.
When Ingrid sat down, the woman with the gun grabbed a chair and sat down about ten feet opposite the terrified woman. "Let's lay down some ground rules right away, Mrs. Pitt. I want no screams or sudden movements by you at any time. As long as things stay calm, there's no need for unnecessary violence. Do you understand?" she snarled.
Ingrid nodded her assertion. "O..Ok. Who are you? What..what do you want? Why are you here?" she asked, trying to keep the waves of hysteria she was feeling from overwhelming her and cause her to scream.
The woman smirked upon hearing Ingrid's queries. "My...my... you are the inquisitive one. Well, first off, my name is Helen..Helen T. Roy. About seven years before you and Brad went down the aisle, I worked with Brad at the same company he now owns. At the time, we were colleagues in the R & D department and were also very much in love," she said as she scratched her nose with the barrel of the gun.
"That...That's a lie! Brad told me I was the only one he ever loved! Why would you.." Ingrid shouted before being silenced by the sight of Helen's gun being waved angrily in her direction once again. She figured that it might be in her best interest to keep the disagreements to a minimum and keep her captor talking until the situation improved or help arrived.
"As I said, we were very much in love as we worked happily together on many projects for the company. Unfortunately, that love was tested as the company's directors were informed by security that there were several instances of unauthorized use of company equipment for personal reasons and other irregularities were uncovered. They were demanding answers and were ready to fire everybody in the department," Helen said calmly as she looked around the bedroom for a second or two.
She then looked at Ingrid again with face noticeably darkening in mood. "I had agreed with Brad to stand with him against any allegations but that proved to be a huge error. While I was denying our involvement in any wrongdoing, he was busy telling them how I was the chief culprit of all the illegal activity. Of course, I didn't learn any of this until after I was convicted of embezzlement and grand larceny. My life was ruined, thanks to Brad's using me as a scapegoat for what I know now to be his crimes. With no money or security, I wandered from menial job to menial job until I managed to obtain a new research job using a different name for credentials," she said before putting her left hand into her jacket pocket.
After a second or two, Helen withdrew her left hand from the pocket holding a syringe and a small glass vial in it. "While working there, I managed to perfect a formula that Brad and I were working on before everything went to hell there. The compound can transform organic into inorganic material within 90 seconds, depending on size and weight of the subject. It's a unique chemical composition which I doubt can be duplicated easily by anyone other than us two," Helen said while looking at Ingrid with an evil gleam in her eye.
Ingrid didn't like the tone of Helen's voice or the fact that she was now filling the syringe with the formula in question. "Look.. Helen.. no matter what you blame Brad for, there's no need to resort to violence. I'm sure we can work things out..." she said as her captor stood up and walked towards her with the gun in her right hand and the needle in the left one.
Figuring she had nothing to lose, Ingrid waited till the woman was just a few feet away and sprang at her with a ferocity that surprised even her. The two rolled around on the floor for about thirty seconds or so with the gun firing off a single shot that went into the bedroom wall before being thrown clear of the frantic struggle between the two women.
