by Julia Derek
“You’re welcome. What did you learn that was so ground-breaking?”
“Oh, God. So many things…” He supported his forehead in his palm, elbow on the table, as if the sheer knowledge of them exhausted him.
“Did you hear anything about Cardoza?”
He frowned at me. “Cardoza? Why would they talk about him?” Some of the color in his cheeks vanished when he realized his mistake, but it was too late. Fury surged through me. All that talk about the Texas senator and Janine knowing Cardoza and he being involved in future projects had been just that then—empty words to make me go back to the dining room and get the recording device for Ian. I was so livid when all of this dawned on me that I was momentarily tongue-tied.
That prick. I should’ve known he’d say anything to get me to do his business…
He displayed his palms and had the decency to at least give the appearance of contrition for having played so dirty.
“Okay, so I lied about having seen Janine talk to Cardoza in Germany,” he admitted. “And about the Texas senator knowing him. But that doesn’t mean he’s not involved in the conspiracy. I still think he may be part of it.”
I wouldn’t even dignify that with an answer. Instead I just glanced at him as icily as I could and said, “Let’s go get that recording device so I can hear with my own ears all those incredible things said in that meeting. One can clearly not trust you to be telling a person the truth.”
He didn’t answer, just looked at me sheepishly.
“You do have a plan how to get the device back, right?” I asked, already knowing the answer to my question. And it was not the one I wanted to hear.
He sighed. “I’m sorry, Gabi, but I’m not sure we can get it back. There was really no need for that since we would be listening to them talking live. It’s not like we need to drop off the recording somewhere like we had to with that first one.”
I glared at him. “You’re actually being serious? You’re telling me you were just gonna leave the device on the bucket?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, that was the plan. I have a few of those devices.”
I could feel my face twist with anger. As I opened my mouth to yell that he’d better get that thing back, he held up a hand.
“We can always try to get it back,” he said, “but I won’t lie—it won’t be easy.”
He reached for my fingers, but I removed them from the table before he could touch them. “Gabi, please calm down. I know you didn’t hear much of what they said, but I heard plenty. Enough to know what their next step is and how they’ve changed key parts of their plan. Isn’t my retelling of what was said enough for you?”
I scoffed. “Definitely not. How can I trust that you’re telling me the truth when you lie so easily?”
He rubbed his forehead and blew out a breath, looking miserable. “I’m sorry I lied to you about Cardoza and Graham and Janine. Truly, I am. Please just hear me out here. I really did learn incredible things in all that time I had that plug in my ear. Things that change everything.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Uh-huh. And what exactly are some of those incredible things?” I was actually curious to hear what he’d say—even though I didn’t doubt for a second that it would all just be more lies. But maybe it would be mildly entertaining at least.
Throwing a glance over his shoulder first, he leaned closer to me. “Well, in addition to finally getting it confirmed once and for all that lots of their product have been among us for years already, I learned that they’re planning a coup against all major governments in the world six months from now. I always knew they had something like that in mind, but I thought it would take much longer. Like years. I didn’t realize they were so far along.”
I stared at him. A coup against all major governments… What he said was so ridiculous, so impossible, that I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud.
One of Ian’s eyebrows hiked and he watched me, the rest of his face frozen.
Finally I contained myself. I exhaled. “Ian, this is exactly why I need to hear what’s on that device. How else am I supposed to believe something like that ? A coup against all major governments? Come on, you can’t blame me for thinking that’s a little… crazy-sounding.” I snorted. “I feel like I’m part of a Steven Spielberg movie…”
“Gabi, listen to me. I know it sounds crazy, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Think about this—why would I be making all this up?” He gazed at me with earnest eyes.
I sighed, tired suddenly. “I don’t know, Ian. I really don’t. But I’m sure you have your reasons. Or you’re just plain insane. ” There, finally I’d spelled it out to him. But even as contentment spread within me for having done so at last, a small part of me ached when I saw how hurt he looked.
He shook his head. “Fine. I’ll get that thing for you and you can hear them discuss it with your own ears.”
“Great. Can’t wait to hear it.”
He glanced at his wristwatch. “In that case we should head back to the restaurant and get the waiter. By now they should have finished dinner and be ready for the check. He should be able to remove the ice bucket without a problem and hand it to me.” Ian smirked. “That is, if I give him more money, he might remove it and let me have it for a moment… Well, it’ll be worth it. If we move quickly, at least the bucket won’t get lost like that pepper shaker did.”
“You’re probably right about that,” I said and got to my feet, realizing I was exhausted. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d be able to remain standing for much longer. All I wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed.
With what was left of my strength, I started to head for the coffee shop’s exit. Ian joined me. As we were outside, I raised a hand to hail a cab.
“What are you doing?” Ian asked, frowning at me.
“I’m going home. It’s late and I’ve had enough of this. You’ve gotta get that device back on your own. I’m sure you’ll be able to handle such a little detail without my help. Shoot me a text tomorrow when you have it and I’ll come over to your house to listen to it.” Barely had I finished talking when a cab slid up before me. I opened the door of the vehicle. Nodding goodbye to Ian, I dove inside and left him standing alone on the street in the drizzly night.
Chapter 6
“I’m glad to hear you’re feeling so much better,” I said to Emma. She and I were having lunch together down in the club’s cafeteria, me having a chicken stir fry and she a colorful salad with tofu. Her cravings for high-calorie, carb-rich foods had disappeared and so seemed her mood swings to have done as well; lately she was happy all the time. Or at least so she claimed.
“Yes, thank God, huh?” she replied and stuck a piece of tofu into her mouth, smiling big. “I can’t believe I wished this precious child that’s growing inside me”—she patted her stomach that was still not showing much—“was out of me there for a while. But I guess that’s what raging pregnancy hormones are all about. One day you’re up, the other you’re down.”
I nodded and smiled back. “Yeah, that’s probably true. Hey, what do you think of my new client, the senator? The one that Ariel used to train? Tall, dark-haired woman.”
I was determined to get to the bottom of why exactly Emma seemed to have a problem with Janine, even if that meant I’d need to corner her. Confronting her was the reason I’d asked her to have lunch with me today and now we had both pretty much finished our meals, so it was time.
The ecstatic expression on the plain girl’s face disappeared, and instead she looked like the whole world was weighing her down all of a sudden. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and cleared her throat, looking away momentarily. Then her gaze returned to me.
“I’m not sure who you’re referring to,” she finally said, obviously lying.
“The stately woman who came into the restroom when you were so upset a couple of weeks ago. I saw the way you looked at her. You were terrified, like you were convinced she was about to do something bad to you. And
then you ran into a stall to hide.”
“Hide?” Emma scoffed and sat up straighter. “I wasn’t trying to hide. Me running into that stall had nothing at all to do with anybody but myself. I just thought I was about to throw up when that woman entered the bathroom is all. That must be why you thought I was terrified. I was gagging.”
“Really?” I tilted my head. “Were you feeling sick yesterday too?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you came by as I was training the senator. You had that same terrified look on your face the second you saw her that time as well.”
“No, that had nothing to do with her. I just didn’t expect her to be sitting in that leg press. I thought it was someone else. I was just surprised.” She gave what sounded like a forced chuckle. “Good to know I must look scared when I’m really surprised.”
I exhaled. “Emma, come on. I know there’s something off with this woman and I think you not only know what that is, but have a reason to fear her.”
Making sure no one was close enough to hear what I was about to say, I grabbed Emma’s arm and leaned closer, hissing, “She was physically abusing Ariel up on the sundeck, for Christ’s sake! The way you react to her each time you see her tells me you just have to have an idea what’s going on. What is it? Please tell me. I really need to know.” Or want might be a more appropriate way to put it, but Emma didn’t have to know that.
Emma stared at me, and for a brief moment I thought she was about to tell me. But then she shook her head, removed my hand from her arm and stood up. “Please stop asking me about her, Jamie. I can’t tell you anything. You don’t want to know anyway. I have to go. I have a client. Thanks for buying lunch.”
She grabbed her purse that hung over the back of a chair and swiveled around, marching away from me.
I watched her as she walked out of the cafeteria, chewing on my upper lip. Well, at least I can be certain something’s off with the senator, I thought. Emma had just confirmed that for me. But how would I get her to tell me what was going on? Now I was convinced it was even more serious than I’d originally suspected.
Sighing, I pulled out my phone from my pocket to see if Ian had responded to the text I’d sent him an hour ago, asking if he’d gotten the recording device back. After a good night’s sleep, I no longer felt so sure Ian had lied about what he’d learned during the dinner meeting; I’d convinced myself of that in the cab back home. But only because I couldn’t imagine how anyone would ever be able to explain away the outlandish things he’d told me.
He had yet to respond. Disappointed, I put the phone on the table. I picked up the lonely piece of chopped tomato from my plate and listlessly stuck it into my mouth. I didn’t know what I wanted to know most—what Emma was hiding in regards to the senator, or if Ian had in fact been telling the truth about what he’d heard last night.
“Well, for example, I learned that they’re planning a coup against all major governments in the world six months from now.”
I huffed. How could he expect me to believe something so outrageous without having actually heard these people saying it? And why wasn’t he replying to my text? He was usually very quick to respond. Was it possible that he never got the text in the first place? Deciding that it was, I shot him another one, even though I was about to see him in an hour and a half for a training session.
Staring at my phone screen, I dared it to light up with a reply text from him. But of course it didn’t.
I put it in my pocket, got to my feet and left the cafeteria. I’d spend the next hour running on the treadmill. It was more than two days since I’d last put myself through any kind of workout and my body was yearning for one.
I went into the trainers’ lounge where I switched into workout gear, taking my sweet time. Then I walked back into the club and took a left where there was a stretching area. A couple of people were lying on the black rubber mats there, doing abdominal exercises and a variety of stretches. I plopped down between them and did some dynamic stretching to warm up before my run.
As I went up on my hands and toes in a pushup position, alternating moving my feet up to my hands to stretch my hips, I caught sight of Emma training a woman with big hair and too much makeup on. They were talking and laughing while the woman sat on a workout bench, doing bicep curls with dumbbells.
I couldn’t help but notice that Emma’s eyes were red-rimmed and that her nose was red, which made it look like she had a cold or had recently been crying. Since she’d been well when I had lunch with her twenty minutes ago, it could only be the latter option.
Had her hormones all of a sudden dipped again, making her depressed? Or was it something else that had made her cry? Thoughts of Senator Janine Eastwood perhaps? Conviction that this was so streamed through me. Oh, God I have to find out what the deal is with this woman!
Just as Emma spotted me, I looked away. I didn’t want her to catch me staring at her. It was bad enough that I had ended up picking an area to warm up and not spotted her being there, training a client. She might think I was following her around, which might annoy her and make her even less inclined to reveal what was up with the senator.
I pushed myself up to my feet and hurried away from the area and walked up on a treadmill.
One way or another I’ll find out, I told myself and started running.
Forty-five minutes later I was drenched in sweat. I ran down to the women’s locker room and took a quick shower, then got ready for my session with Ian. He had still not responded to my text.
When I was back up on the club’s fourth floor, I saw him waiting for me at the fitness desk. I let out a quiet sigh of relief; for a brief moment I had been filled with fear that something had happened to him. Something bad. Thankfully, my fear had been unjustified.
I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder. He turned around to face me.
“Happy to see you’re all right,” I said sarcastically.
“Why would I not be?” he asked and walked with me as I headed toward the stairs that would take us either up or down the club’s several floors. I pointed to the stairs that would take us to the third.
“Why didn’t you respond to my two texts?” I asked, ignoring his attempt to appear clueless. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get them.”
“No, I did get them. I just thought it would be better to discuss this in person since I was going to see you anyway. Besides, you know we shouldn’t discuss such matters over the phone anyway. Try to be less specific in your wording when you text me about them, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. You have the device?”
He exhaled. “Nope, unfortunately not.”
I stopped halfway down the third floor. “What? Why not?”
He stopped walking too. I expected him to at any second break into a big grin and tell me he was only kidding, then produce the chip from his athletic shorts. But he didn’t. Instead, he adjusted his shorts and said, “By the time I got hold of the waiter, it was too late. The busboys had removed the ice bucket. On second thought, I decided that trying to bribe him was too risky. This bloke’s different from the one at the Standard. Money might’ve pushed him to produce the bucket for me, but he’d also start to suspect that I’d lied about being a big supporter of the governor and that I had other reasons to get that bucket on the table. The stakes are too high for me to risk the politicians finding out they were being tapped. You’re just going to have to take my word for what was being said during that dinner.”
He started walking again. I remained in the stairs, thinking how incredibly convenient his explanation was. It truly was amazing how this man had an answer for everything.
All the way down on the third floor now, he turned to look at me.
“Are you going to stay there the entire session?” he asked.
Not bothering to answer, I walked down to where he was. We continued into the functional training area in silence.
Well, I thought. At least now I could be sure he’d been lying all along re
garding the politicians’ conversation. If he hadn’t, he’d have produced that chip for me so I could hear the “truth” with my own ears. I wouldn’t have been able to question him ever again. Once more, it had been confirmed to me that this man was simply mad. Crazy or not, though, I could use his help in finding out what was going on between Emma and Janine. Since it didn’t seem like Emma was going to enlighten me, I had to come up with other ways—and I would begin by hacking into her email account.
After having spotted Emma’s full name in a subject line among the senator’s emails and hearing what Emma had said today, it seemed these two knew each other. Maybe I’d find some emails exchanged between them. It was worth a look. Surely, it would be a lot easier to get into Emma’s account than it had been getting into Janine’s. I didn’t want to involve George into this matter, so Ian would have to do the hacking. He owed me bigtime after I had gotten him the password to Janine’s account and retrieved the recording device for him. He also needed to make amends for having tricked me.
The thought of how he’d fooled me to make me go back into the dining room caused the skin on my cheeks to go hot. I had to clench my teeth together not to snap something nasty at him as we stopped at the TRX stand. I made myself smile instead and pointed at the TRX handles.
“Let’s do some squat rows to warm you up,” I said. “Give me twenty.”
Grabbing the handles, Ian began squatting and pulling himself back to a standing position repeatedly.
“Don’t you want to know what else they were talking about?” he asked when he’d finished the last rep.
“I do, but it’s better that we discuss that when we’re alone. How about we get together at your place tonight and you can tell me?” I gave him a seductive glance and smile that conveyed better than any words ever could what I really had in mind. Well, what I had in mind after we’d checked Emma’s email, that is.
His eyes gleamed darkly as he returned my smile. “Sounds good to me.”