Chapter Three

I’m running as fast as I can through the trees, my heart is racing. I feel like it will explode any minute. I can see the opening in the gate, my escape isn’t far off. I hear people yelling dogs barking, I know they are searching for me. I’m almost to the exit, my freedom, “Stop right there!!!” The guard yelled. I keep running, there’s a gunshot and it all goes black.

I shot up from the bed drenched in sweat, heart racing. I look at my surroundings and realize I’m in my apartment in L.A. I rub my eyes and try to focus on my room. This nightmare has been occurring every night for the past six months. Something is going to have to change so I can actually get some sleep. I look at the alarm clock, 5:30am, crawling from the bed, grabbing my work clothes and heading for the shower.

Getting out of the shower I glance in the mirror and see the dark circles on my chest and shoulders. Just another reminder of my secret life, a life I wish I could get away from quickly. I walk into the kitchen for a short breakfast, Frannie my maid is cooking eggs and singing some god awful old rock and roll tune. She turns around to see me watching, “Good morning Mr. McAlister, would you like toast with your eggs?”

“Yes Frannie, that would be great, I need to leave pretty quickly. I have a new assistant at the office and I need to make sure she comes back today.” I see her smile out of the corner of my eye. Frannie has been pushing me to find a wife, she is almost like a mother hen.

“Make sure you’re nice to this new assistant Mr. McAlister, ``It's hard to find good workers in L.A. nowadays.” Frannie has that look on her face that makes you want to slink back to your room. She knows I’ve been pretty hard on all of the other assistants, most of them didn’t last a week. I can’t handle incompetence and laziness, most people would kiss my feet just to have this job.

“I can’t help it, all of those other assistants were terrible at their job, Ashley just sat there staring at me, Melissa spilled my coffee on my lap twice in one day,” I couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her the real reasons I fired them. I needed an assistant with some fire in her personality, not someone that was so scared of me she dumped coffee in my lap because she was shaking so bad.

I waved goodbye to Frannie and headed for the elevator. If I left now I could beat rush hour and make it to the office before Lilly arrived. Gary was waiting for me with the car door open, sometimes I think he has a sixth sense he always knows when I’m heading down to the car. “Good morning Gary, I hope you didn’t wake up too early because of me,” I knew he did but I was trying to be nice.

“Of course not sir, I naturally wake up early,” Gary stated sarcastically. I smiled at him and moved to get in the car.

I rolled down the privacy window so I could speak to Gary. “Gary, I have something I need you to do. I have a new assistant at the office. Her name is Lilly Peters and I need to make sure her background is good. I don’t want another mishap like Ashley happening.”

Gary looked at me through the rearview mirror, he understood me without having to ask questions. “If you don’t mind me asking sir, was Ashley taken care of or is she still around?”

I knew what he ment, I had a frown on my face and responded with, “She’s taken care of.” Ashley ended up working for some of my competition, her background check was not done thoroughly so she slipped through the system and into my records. By the time I figured out who she was she knew too much about my secret life, I couldn’t just let her walk away.