Authors: Auralee Wallace
Suddenly the phone rang.
I screamed.
I stared at it just sitting there on my father’s glass desk.
It didn’t look like it could kill me, but it sure felt like it.
Should I answer it? It was probably the security guard. If I didn’t answer, he might come and check on me.
I picked up the phone carefully. It felt a little like bringing a cobra to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Jesus, Bremy! What took you so long?”
“Bart? I didn’t know it was—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quickly. “It’s not working.”
“What’s not working?”
“The email! He’s not downloading the file!”
I bit my lip. “He’s at the town hall…maybe he’s busy.”
“Oh no, he opened the email, but he’s not downloading the file.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and shook my head.
I was so stupid. I had sent the wrong email.
“Send the other one.”
“What other one?”
“The other email. It’s there. Look under drafts.” I slammed the phone down.
I shouldn’t be upset. I hated my father. So why should I care that he didn’t open an attachment labelled
Suicide Note
?
At one time, I knew with certainty my father loved me as much as Atticus St. James could love anyone.
My world had changed a lot since then.
I stared at the computer screen.
Nothing. Still the password box.
God, this was turning into one colossal failure. Why did I even bother going up against my father? He would always win. I would always lose.
Then the computer screen went dark.
It started to load.
He did it! Bart had gotten in!
As I waited, I couldn’t help but think I had learned something very valuable just now. While my father had no interest in opening files from me labelled
Suicide Note
, he did apparently have some curiosity when it came to attachments labelled
Blackmail
.
The computer screen turned blue then icons began to pop into view.
I was ready to go. I grabbed the mouse. Nothing was going to stop me now. Then the computer’s wallpaper lit up. I froze.
It was a picture of my father and Jenny at the press conference. In it, he was holding her hand. She was smiling.
My father wasn’t a sentimental man. He probably posted that picture to convince people he wasn’t a monster, but there was something about it that made me feel…lonely.
I inhaled sharply. Again, I didn’t have time for this. I glanced at the names of the files on the desktop.
Quarterly Review. Mergers and Acquisitions. Performance Measurement
.
All useless.
Where was the one labelled
Evil Plan
?
Then I spotted a file entitled
Ongoing
.
I clicked on it.
A new screen popped up with about fifty files inside. They were all named CHIP followed by a four-digit number.
Great…just freaking great.
I was running out of time.
I clicked on the details tabs then looked for the most recently updated files. Four had been edited in the last week.
Now what?
I only had one shot at this. I needed to get something good.
I narrowed in on the biggest file. The more information the better, right?
That’s when I noticed another file labelled
Jenny
.
Crap!
On the one hand, I needed to save the city. On the other, what if my father was doing more than healing Jenny?
Frick!
I moved the mouse back and forth between the two files as a timer boomed in my head.
Finally, I gritted my teeth and clicked.
A new screen popped up. It was blank.
No need to panic. It was just loading. I could see the little scroll thing on the side getting smaller. Pages were being added. I looked to the bottom of the screen…a lot of pages were being added.
Uh oh.
The phone rang.
I screamed a little less loudly this time.
“Hello?”
“What are you doing?” Bart shouted.
“I opened a file,” I replied carefully.
“A file with four thousand pages!”
“You sound worried.”
“Worried! Four thousands pages…and an application attached!” Bart yelled. “What part of staying under the radar did you not understand?”
His hysteria was not at all reassuring.
“Then what are you doing talking to me?” I screeched. “Hide it! Shut it down! Do something!”
“You should get out of there.”
“Done.”
Bart hung up swearing.
I stared at the screen chewing my nail for a second longer. I wondered if Bart was still going for it. Oh God. Why was I doing this again?
Then suddenly the screen went dark.
He was done.
I hurried around the glass desk to make my way to the door when I saw a single piece of paper lying in my father’s garbage.
I grabbed it and quickly scanned the contents. The details were, I was guessing, purposely vague, but it was something about the interested parties being notified of the event scheduled for the 31st at nine p.m. The 31st was tomorrow.
That’s when I heard the footsteps.
Gah! My hands were suddenly clutching my scalp.
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
I scanned the room for hiding spots. It was probably the security guard checking on me. I should just play it cool. But somehow the rational part of my brain wasn’t communicating with the part that was wailing and sobbing.
The footsteps echoed loudly in the hall.
I didn’t think. I just dove under my father’s desk. I buried my face in my knees to stop the frantic
no, no, no
shaking of my head.
Keep going. Please whoever you are just keep going
.
Suddenly the doors opened. The lights came on.
Silence.
I knew I should look to see who was there.
I could deal with anyone but my father.
“Brianna.”
God freaking dammit.
I slowly raised my head. “Father.”
“Breaking into my office was not part of our agreement.”
The sound of his voice rocketed dread through my body. I was too hot and too cold at the same time. Even my teeth were on edge.
I awkwardly got to my feet, trying not to whack my head on the corner of the desk.
I needed a way out of here.
What had Choden said about escape routes?
Likely, unlikely and impossible
. I scanned the room, desperately trying to avoid looking at my father.
The likely escape route was the door. Might as well go for that first.
“I was just leaving,” I said taking a few steps.
My father was looking at his phone, but he held up one finger in a casual wait gesture. My father did not wait casually. This was not a good sign. I should have kept walking, but my feet, with their years of training, rooted themselves to the floor.
“There,” my father said looking up.
He stared at me, waiting.
I tried to resist the urge to fill the silence, but it finally got to me.
“You’re back early.”
“Given all the recent crime…it wasn’t so much of a town hall meeting as a love fest.”
I said nothing.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Brianna? I assume this has something to do with your suicide…or is it the blackmail you’re here about?”
Brianna
. He knew I hated it when he used my given name. I had been
Bremy
for as long as I could remember. My father had always thought it silly. I took that to mean I was silly.
His eyes moved over my suit. “I see you dressed up.”
“Don’t do that,” I snapped shaking my head. “I don’t want to play.”
His face hardened.
“What
do
you want, Bremy?” he asked. “The way I see it, I gave you your freedom. Apparently that wasn’t enough.” He half-sat on the corner of a conference table. “I suppose you want an apology. Is that it? I think you’ll feel better if you just ask for it.”
“No, I don’t want to forgive you,” I said looking him square in the face. “I want to hurt you.”
Everything was suddenly right there between us.
I hadn’t allowed myself to really feel the pain of what had happened. I had kept the memory under a glass dome like an oddity you might find at a freak show.
Well, the dome was off, and I wasn’t going to let either one of us look away.
“You should know, your mother’s death was her own fault.” His eyes bored into mine. “If she had been loyal, it never would have happened. I had hoped to raise you better…to instil in you and your sister what was missing in her. I can see I only half-succeeded.”
He took a moment to glance again at his phone. A dismissive gesture. Something to let me know how little I mattered to him.
“But as I said, it was an accident. One of her own making,” he added.
“It’s funny,” I replied almost smiling. “Every time you say that, I believe you a little less.”
In my memory, I could still clearly see the note lying on the pillow of my bed.
It had looked innocent enough from a distance. At the time, I had thought maybe one of the maids had left it…a note about dry cleaning…maybe a delivery.
Then I saw the words.
Your father killed her
.
It wasn’t hard to guess the
her
referred to my mother.
Normally, I would have ignored it. When you come from money, people are always trying to hurt you. But there was something about that note.
Something I couldn’t explain.
Or maybe it just made it harder to ignore everything else. Like how my father never talked about my mother. Or the fact that there wasn’t a single picture of her anywhere except for a worn snapshot hidden away in the drawer of his bedside table.
Still, I didn’t do anything about it. Not at first.
Then one night, on the anniversary of her death, I caught him sitting at the edge of his bed looking at her picture. His eyes were glassy, and the room smelled like Scotch.
My father never drank.
The pressure of the moment had been building in me to a point where I could no longer take it.
“How did she die?”
People had always said it was an accident but never gave any details.
He put her picture back in the drawer and shut it. “It doesn’t matter.”
I knew instantly that I had asked the wrong question.
“Why did she die?
His head had snapped up then. He turned those ice blue eyes on me; behind them a deadly monsoon raged.
“She was disloyal.”
That was it…three words.
They were my big secret.
The reason why I gave up life as I knew it.
He had killed her. Just like the note had said.
That night, I packed my things and grabbed all the money I could find. Just as I had made it to the door, he stopped me. He needed to tell me the conditions of my release.
There had been no last pleas for me to stay. No
I’m sorry
. No
I love you
.
I hadn’t wanted to hear more then.
I did now.
“Tell me all of it.”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Finally he said, “Maybe it’s time you did know the truth. A real life cautionary tale. You always were too much like her.”
He paused. I didn’t move. I was terrified to hear what he was about to say, but I had to know.
He shook his head then began. “At the time of your mother’s death I was working on a biological weapon.” His eyes moved to mine. “Does that surprise you?”
I kept my face frozen.
“No? Good. I think it’s time for us to be completely honest with one another.” I could see the challenge raging under the surface of his controlled face. “I stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Your mother…she knew nothing about it. Not then. No, she thought I worked with pharmaceuticals.”
He smiled wryly.
“You see, in the beginning of our marriage, she never asked questions. She was just happy. We were happy. Then you girls were born.” He shook his head. “And she changed.”
I could feel the familiar pain swelling in my chest, but I held it back. He didn’t deserve it.
“Suddenly she wanted to know all about the business. The ins and outs of how I made my money. I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth. She couldn’t handle the reality of my world, and frankly, I loved that about her.” He sighed deeply. “But she kept pressing. It didn’t matter how many times I told her the importance of loyalty and trust. She kept pressing. Then she started drinking.”
He stopped talking for a moment, eyes far away.
“If she had just listened to me…been loyal to me…none of it would have happened.”
I clenched my fists. “What did you do?”
“One night she came to my office, painfully drunk,” he said, voice tinged with disgust. “I was looking at the prototype for a weapon. It was in capsule form. Nasty thing. Could melt a person’s insides in less than five seconds. My people still hadn’t figured out the best delivery system for it. Bombs?” he asked with speculation in his voice, as though he were discussing a thing of no more importance than what to have for dinner. “Contaminate the water supply?”
I waited. My every muscle raged with tension.
“Your mother wanted to know what it was. I told her not to worry about it. But she pushed and pushed. She questioned
me
. The man she had made vows to.” He could no longer hold back the anger from his voice. “I told her it was a painkiller—something that could help people like Jenny. She didn’t believe it.”
He looked me directly in the eye and smiled.
“She said, ‘Well then, I guess there isn’t a problem if I take it.’”
The shock of the words tore away my ribcage leaving my heart bare.
I spun away from him, squeezing my eyes shut.
My mind’s eye was already making his words come to life. A scream burned in my throat, tearing at me to let it out.
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t give him that.
I inhaled deeply before turning back around. “Did you even try to stop her?”
My words echoed over the glossy white walls of the room.
A flicker of something passed over his face. I could have almost believed it was pain, but then he said the words that would break us forever.