The Panic Pure

Chapter Two

 CHAPTER TWO

 Sophia brought him his lunch at exactly 11:45. Beef barley soup, half of a turkey sandwich, and a fresh fruit salad. Everything had been carefully prepared by Olivia and delivered by Arthur with the assurance that no one else had touched it.

Sometimes Danny wondered who ate the other half of his sandwich. It was one of those questions that only years of therapy kept him from stressing about. It was almost nice to wonder, but let himself not care about it.

He knew that he was strange to the people around him. He knew that he had worries and ideas that other people just didn't concern themselves with. But he also knew that he was a lot better than he used to be.

There was a time in his not-too-distant past when his fears had crippled him to the point that he wouldn't have even dreamed of being able to leave his house. He never would have been able to speak to anyone that wasn't already a part of his comfort zone.

Now he went to work every weekday, interacting with different people all the time. He had found people that he trusted, which was something he had never had before, except for Arthur.

Arthur was the one constant in his life, the single person that he would trust completely and without question. Arthur was the only person that he could always be sure would never do anything to hurt him.

He ate the last of his sandwich and started in on the fruit salad. He knew he should have probably eaten his soup next, since the fruit seemed like more of a dessert-type food, but the soup was his favorite and he wanted to save it for last. To savor the hearty warmth.

There was a knock at the door, then Sophia stepped in the room without waiting. She was dressed in her usual semi-severe style that was so at odds with her young face--elegant charcoal pantsuit with a dark blue blouse underneath, her makeup flawless and her strawberry blond curls carefully pinned up and away from her face. "There are two FBI agents here. They say that you told them I would give them some information?" She quirked an elegant brow at him.

He quickly finished chewing and swallowed. "I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you. They want to know about Janeane Brooks from Marketing. I guess she didn't just start slacking off. They say that she's really disappeared."

"Oh no," Sophia said, her brow furrowing a little.

Danny nodded jerkily. "Yeah. Can you give them anything they ask for? I would really like it if they're able to find her."

"It would be sad if something happened to her. She's such a nice girl," Sophia said.

"I thought so too," he said, even though he had never had a face-to-face conversation with the woman. He could only assume from what he had seen of her that she was a nice woman.

Sometimes he thought that someone might be nice, then they turned out not to be. There were plenty of people in the world that wore their faces like masks all the time, lying with their every look and expression. He knew he wasn't the best at judging the good from the bad. But he really thought Janeane might have been a good person, not someone that would have wanted to hurt him just because they could.

He had seen her plenty of times in passing, and not just from the video feed he got on his computer that let him update his files every day. She had always dressed neatly, though he had seldom liked her shoes. They made him think of witch's shoes--like the shoes Aunt Lauren wore, all pointy and sharp, more lethal weapon than footwear.

Just the thought of Aunt Lauren made his stomach want to curl in on itself. Not enough to be sick, just enough to make him think fondly of his Legos and the safety of his study where his books were always waiting for him.