A Ruthless Victim, Nadia Siddiqui [red scrolls of magic txt] 📗

“Alex Paulson, I think...maybe Alexander is what it’s short for; I’ll have to fish out my legal papers to be certain.”

Nathan makes a note and nods. “I can pull it up through the court systems for sure.”

“You can’t think that could possibly have anything to do with this, do you?”

“Well, Mr. Kramer, nothing else has been right, so might as well give it a shot.”

What looks like hope shines briefly in Kramer’s eyes. Nathan wonders how long it’s been since Bradley Kramer has had reason to hope about anything at all.

Chapter Four

T he office of Alexander Patrick Paulson is a very small one. It’s a standalone building that seems to have been set on a small quarter acre lot with the dreams of looking like something else. It wasn’t like he was terribly hard to track down, and his firewalls were terrible. Through some searching, Nathan discovered that this man, Alex, spent a handful of years in jail after Bradley exposed him for his crimes. He stayed until he could work off just enough of his sentence to pay bail, and it seems like another good portion of his finances have been made in steady payments to something that Nathan is fairly certain is one of the judges in his county. It appears that he’s paying bribes or hush money for the fact that he was allowed to go free sooner than he was supposed to. No doubt, he should have spent a good deal longer behind bars for the amount of money that he embezzled. It seems to always be this way, that the rich men get richer, and the poor stay poorer. If it had been anything else that had been stolen from the company that somebody else worked for, they would have been persecuted to the extent of the law.

However, that’s how corporate America tends to work.

Now, Alexander Paulson seems to be working a combination of a tax preparation office and bail bondsman. No doubt, he still gets a fair amount of money that crosses his hands but nowhere near the money that he used to get certainly. At first, Nathan isn’t one hundred percent certain that he wishes to go inside, but he needs to know for certain just what they might be dealing with here.

The interior of the office is broiling hot; there seems to be one window unit pumping through the entire building, and central air conditioning is a joke apparently. The woman behind the front barrier sits with her feet up on the desk, fanning herself with a file folder. She doesn’t so much as look up; she doesn’t even open her eyes to meet his gaze; she's so concerned with regulating her body temperature.

Despite the semi-professional setting, she’s wearing a low cut blouse and a tight pencil skirt covering her slender but slightly toned legs down to the knees, where she’s got her legs crossed at the ankles. Black high heels with an ankle strap circling each one are still on her feet. Nathan would have assumed that those would have been the first thing to go. Perhaps it is simply just his preference, but he never did much care for high heels. He prefers any other type of shoe. However, the company doesn’t exactly give time for having a personal life, nor does it allow for dating. Nathan wouldn’t have known how or where to go on a date in the first place.

The wallpaper is peeling in the corners, and the smell of cigarettes and cigars lingers in the air. Nathan doesn’t even see Alex anywhere in the office, and clearly, she’s not too concerned with the prospect of people coming in or out. It’s curious to Nathan, given that he knows how much money is in this man’s bank accounts, that he would be working in an office like this. Nathan would have expected the man to have gone right back into the corporate world; he would have been welcome enough there, as most of them are crooked anyway. It’s surprising to Nathan that a man who grew up used to a certain standard of life and having certain things would be able to tolerate living this way for very long. The carpet is threadbare and patchy; this looks like the sort of place that Nathan would have expected to find on the ‘bad side’ of town right next to the jail. That certainly would have made a lot more sense.

Furthermore, from the research that Nathan has been provided by the company, he’s owned this building for some time and lives not too far away. From the pictures of his townhome, it also appears that is of a substandard quality compared to somebody of his income level. Routinely, the company pours through the contacts lists, bank statements, text messages and email files for anybody that they send Nathan or any of the other Doe operatives out on missions for. They will pour over all records, high school and college transcripts, utility bills, account for every cent until they know the person just as well or better than they even know themselves. The company is straightforward and leaves very little room for error. They noted almost nothing out of the ordinary other than the hush money payments and the fact that his electric bill was through the roof. It took the company less than an hour to learn all of this after Nathan had sent off a couple text messages about his vision and the possible kidnapping, as well as giving the name that Bradley gave him. They only answered him with an office location and left the rest to him.

Personally, Nathan sometimes wonders if it is a team of humans that large or simply a very intelligent artificial intelligence system. Neither would surprise him in the slightest. Whenever it comes to the company, Nathan is certain that anything is possible.

Nathan clears his throat for