ELENA Chapter 5

Elena woke up at 6:30 when the alarm jangled her out of a sound sleep, her headache gone. She almost felt great until she saw the piles of bills on her desk and remembered losing the sale to Advanced Technologies yesterday. "Back to the grind", she thought as she headed for the bathroom and a hot shower. After toweling off she lined up her vitamin bottles and systematically opened caps and swallowed one tablet after another - and then grabbed her hair dryer. She was out the door at 715am. Elena's neighbor joked that they could set their clocks by the time she left each morning.

As soon as she had turned the corner, the blue van across the street backed out of the carport and disappeared around the corner. A few blocks away, the dark-haired driver stepped out wearing a jumpsuit type uniform. He was holding several large magnetic placards which he placed on each side of the van. Jumping back in the drivers seat he retraced his route, and pulled into Elena's driveway. If a neighbor happened to be looking they wouldn't have been alarmed to see a worker from CAMP CREEK PROPERTY MANAGEMENT entering Elena's house. Once inside he chose two bottles from Elena's vitamin collection and replaced the contents with identical looking tablets. Next he began systematically going through Elena's desk. Under some folders in the bottom drawer he found what he was looking for, stuffed several papers inside his shirt, and slipped out the front door.