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“They’re just doing their job,” Chess offered distractedly. She suddenly sat up straighter. “Maybe it’s not Derrick’s hand. Maybe it’s someone else’s.”
In an instant, Tazeem’s anger evaporated and all that was left was concern. He strode to Chess and settled on the leather couch. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and brought her closer to him.
Even though he didn’t believe it, he agreed, “It could be someone else’s.”
“Yeah, it has to be someone else’s.” Chess seemed almost frantic as she reasoned, “There’s no reason for anyone to cut off Derrick’s hand. He’s a good guy. This has to be someone else’s hand.”
Tazeem was tempted to remind her of all the ways Derrick wasnota good guy, but he fought the urge. Rubbing the side of her arm soothingly, he agreed, “You’re right. It’s probably not his hand.”
“Yeah, it’s not his hand,” Chess insisted even as tears filled her eyes.
With a sigh, Tazeem guided her from her seat into his lap. As soon as he had her in his arms, she began to sob in earnest. Though she didn’t say anything, Tazeem was astute enough to pick up on the underlying reason behind her tears. Deep down, she believed that it was Derrick’s hand and that something bad had happened to him.
Tazeem believed the same.
But verbalizing his thoughts wouldn’t help with anything so he just soothed her and whispered empty platitudes. Soon, her sobs petered out into sniffles.
“Why don’t you ask for the day off?” he suggested as he tenderly brushed a loose braid from her face. “I think you could use it.”
“I could,” she agreed.
Her leave of absence was approved almost as soon as she asked for it. Several employees approached Chess as she was leaving, likely to assuage their curiosity about what had happened, but Tazeem rebuffed them firmly. And soon, they were in his car on their way home.
TAZEEM WAS A TREMENDOUS HELP. He did everything in his power to make her forget everything that she’d seen and to distract her from her fears of Derrick being dead.
As soon as they got home, he drew her a warm, bubbly bath. While she bathed, he made her delicious spaghetti and parmesan chicken for lunch, showing off that he’d been studiously absorbing all her cooking lessons. After lunch, he put on her favorite romantic series even though he was always going on about the way romantic shows made him gag.
When Jay came back home from school, Tazeem ordered Chess to sit back and relax while he took care of their son. He ordered dinner for all of them from her favorite restaurant, and later that evening, he gave her a relaxing massage before going down on her. She didn’t even have to return the favor.
It was amazing.
He was amazing.
But of course, all that stuff did very little to lift her mood.
Derrick refused to budge from the forefront of Chess’s miserable thoughts. He was all she could think about – him and his bloody hand.
That night, she dreamt of herself cutting off Derrick’s hand with a saw. He screamed and begged her to stop. Blood splattered everywhere and soaked into her skin. Horror filled her, and yet she couldn’t stop. She just kept cutting, and cutting, and cutting… until she woke up in a cold sweat.
After that, she couldn’t sleep.
Tazeem woke up the following morning to find her groggy from having stayed up for half the night. Worried, he suggested, she take another day off. She turned down the suggestion. Staying at home and doing nothing would only open the door to more horrific thoughts. So she went to work.
But Synovent was the worst place to be if she wanted to forget Derrick.
Derrick was the only thing her coworkers wanted to talk about. Everyone agreed that the hand belonged to Derrick. The only point of contention was how it had gotten detached from his body and appeared on Donna’s desk.
Gossip flew through the company grapevine like a leafhopper. Some people thought he’d been kidnapped and this was a botched attempt at demanding ransom. Others thought that Derrick had done it to himself to elicit sympathy (everyone now knew that he was behind the sabotage). A few theorized that Chess might be behind it, but that theory was quickly shot down by firmer opinions that Chess wasn’t idiotic enough to mail the hand to Synovent.
The more morbidly creative of their coworkers opined that Derrick was dead. Theories flew around about how he must’ve gotten involved with some very bad people and ended up murdered.
Why was his hand sent to Synovent? Well, that was just a warning to Chess. She and Derrick were close, right? So she must know who he was messing around with. This grotesque show was Derrick’s ‘friend’s’ way of telling her to shut up or end up dead too.
Of course, Chess worked hard to look like she couldn’t hear any of those rumors. But she heard them, and they bothered her a lot. She wanted to scream at all of them that it wasn’t Derrick’s hand. But she couldn’t because deep down, she suspected it was.
TWO DAYS LATER, CHESS’S SUSPICIONS were confirmed.
The cops called her, along with several of her coworkers, to the station for further questioning. While she was there, they gave her the unfortunate news.
