by Linda Verji
“Which is when you decided to put in cameras in my house,” she scoffed. “I hope you enjoyed the show.”
He went still. “That was a mistake.”
“Everything you’ve done so far has been a mistake.” Her words came hoarsely. The tension inside her wove its spell around her like a rope constricting her throat as she spoke, “You know you could’ve just asked or handed me over to the police. Instead you – and your mother - followed and watched me like some team of serial killers while I was stupidly falling in love with you.”
She only realized she’d revealed too much of her true feelings when his eyes widened.
“Shakira,” He tried to reach for her hand but she snatched it away.
“Don’t.” She stood up, refusing to look at him. She didn’t need to see the pity in his eyes to know that she was the fool in this situation. Crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing her forearms defensively, she continued, “I never ever lied to you. I know my mother messed up but I was bursting my ass trying to get you your money and then you…” Her words broke off as her throat clogged up with sudden tears.
“I’m sorry, Baby.”
“Don’t baby me when you know you don’t mean it,” she added bitterly as she swiped roughly at the one stupid tear that had dared to dribble its way down her check. “You are so good at pretending that I don’t even know if anything you’ve ever told me is true. I mean you faked compassion. What else are you faking? Are you gay? Is your real name even Nathan? Did you kill Charlie?”
She knew she’d gone too far immediately she said the last sentence and her gaze jerked upwards. Nathan stiffened and anger flashed in his features. Shakira stared at him defiantly not prepared to take it back and willing to trade words with him.
He stared at her wordlessly before his shoulders slumped. Thickly, he asked, “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“This isn’t some kind of test that you can rewrite,” she snapped. “It isn’t that easy.”
He looked at her in silent helplessness. What did he want her to say? That a sorry was enough? It wasn’t. She needed more than words. She needed his trust and that wasn’t something she was even sure he was capable of giving. She understood where he was coming from, why he was so distrustful but that didn’t make it any easier to let this go. She wasn’t going to accept being punished for the sins of his mother.
“Start by being honest with me.” She said coldly, “Is there anything, I mean, anything, I don’t know about this whole stupid mess?”
Tense silence followed her words as Nathan kept his head bent as if sifting through his memories to find something. Shakira stared at him willing him to say no and mean it this time.
When Nathan stirred, her hopes died a painful death. He offered, “There’s a man called Alim who’s also been following you.”
“Wow, this only gets better.” Sarcasm dripped from her tone as she struggled to hide her hurt. “Is this Alim guy another one of your friends?”
“He’s some kind of criminal.” Nathan’s misery was evident in his voice. “I think he’s got some ties to whatever Charlie was into.”
“Nathan,” She shrieked his name in shocked. “You knew I was being followed around by a criminal and didn’t tell me? What is wrong with you? What if he’d come after me? Or found out you knew about him and come after you? What is wrong with you?”
Nathan hung his head in shame.
Shakira was unmoved. To think she’d been feeling sorry for him. He could’ve gotten her killed.
“You are unbelievable.” She turned on her heels afraid that staying another minute in the same room with him would only make her break one of those lovely vases on the mantelpiece. The last thing she wanted to do was add to Wayne’s bill.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan’s voice drifted after her.
She slammed the door on his apology.
It took her hours to go to sleep and when she did it was to restless dreams of the scene that had sent her to jail – only this time it was Nathan bleeding on the floor and not Charlie. She could hear herself screaming for him to come back and that she wasn’t angry at him. They’d just started lowering Nathan’s casket into the ground when she heard him calling her name.
“Shakira.” His hands soothed over her body pulling her from sleep.
Shakira groggily came awake. Resisting the urge to stroke his unshaven face and confirm that he was still here, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I cracked it.” His eyes lit up as he announced, “I cracked the password.”
CHAPTER 24
Shakira barely noticed that it was still dark outside as she followed Nathan to the living room. A cursory glance at the wall clock revealed that it was just a few minutes past five thirty.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.” Nathan shook his head as he settled on the couch and set the laptop on his lap. “Your boy had a real sense of humor. The password was a combination of Al Nichols, one of the notorious Louisville Grays, and his 1877 game-throwing scandal. It was one of the first documented baseball cheating-”
“What’s on it?” Shakira interrupted as she sat next to Nathan, her eyes already zeroing in on the screen. She was not interested in knowing where Charlie had picked his password from just what he was hiding.
“Sorry.” Nathan tilted the screen slightly so she could see.
There was only one file on the drive marked as Aquarium Investments. The cursor hovered over the file before he clicked on it to reveal its contents. In it were several spreadsheet files named in the oddest ways. CHIPiranhas-BOSHawks7214, PHXKnights-BUFMachines12314…the list went on and on. Shakira palms were practically sweating and she watched in bated breath as Nathan clicked on one spreadsheet.
Names and numbers.
Lots of names; lots of numbers.
The data was split into four columns but the rows stretched endlessly beyond the length of the screen.
It took a while for the weight of what they were holding to hit Shakira. When it did, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “Please tell me those are not the names of players.”
“I can’t tell you that.” Nathan shook his head slowly as he stared at the screen with wide eyes and parted lips. He looked as shocked as she felt. “Please tell me those are not dollar signs next to their names.”
“I can’t tell you that.” Shakira pointed to the third column on the spreadsheet. “He even recorded the dates when they received the money.”
He pointed to the fourth column. “What are these?”
She counted the digits. “Oh damn! Swiss accounts?”
The two looked at each other for a couple of seconds suspended in temporary shock. If the length and number of these spreadsheets was anything to go by, they were holding the details to the biggest sports scandal in the twenty first century.
Nathan cupped his hand over his mouth as he minimized that sheet then clicked on another. He scanned the names. “Holy shit! Is that Owen Ure’s name? No wonder that mutherfucker sucked at the Knights-Vikings game. He was on the take.”He erupted, “We need to get this to Karyn.”
Just as Shakira said, “We need to get this to Wayne.”
“We-are-not-taking-this-to-Wayne,” Nathan emphasized each word as he riveted his gaze on Shakira. “The guy is involved in this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” If there was anyone who wasn’t involved in this mess, it was Wayne. He’d helped her out more than anyone else had ever done. And she was not messing with the FBI anymore. Gates had cured her of that need.
“Hear me out.” There was a trace of pleading in Nathan’s tone as he set the laptop on the coffee table. “Wayne was Charlie’s best friend, right?” Shakira nodded. He continued, “So why did he offer to defend you?”
She scowled. “Because he’s a nice guy.”
“He’s a lawyer.”
“Lawyers can be nice too.”
“Not lawyers like Wayne,” Nathan returned. “I did some research into him-”
“Research.” Her eyebrows shot up to her hair. She knew exactly what kind of messy business Nathan’s research entailed.
“It was just a basic google search,” he raised his palms defensively but when Shakira cut her eyes at him, he capitulated. “Okay, a little bit more. But…” He raised a finger as he added, “…I found some interesting facts. Did you know that through the entirety of his career, Wayne has never taken a Pro Bono case? Why would he start now?”
That she didn’t know. Her defense of Wayne was just a little more tentative this time. “Maybe he just didn’t have time. Maybe he just liked me.”
“Riiiiight. Liiiiiked.” Nathan said but it came out sounding like ‘keep telling yourself that’. He capped it with, “If someone was suspected of killing London, would you have defended them?”
Hell No. Her mind practically screamed the response but she said, “If they were innocent.”
“Really?” Nathan arched his eyebrow in disbelief. His piercing gaze was enough to make Shakira squirm a little on the seat. Now that she thought about it, Wayne’s defending her seemed a bit iffy. He’d never pretended that he believed she was innocent so why had he offered his services if he was Charlie’s good friend. Nathan offered, “I think he did it so he could keep and eye on you and find out if you knew anything about the scam they were running.”
“I’m not saying I believe you.” Shakira’s tone was doubtful as she thought aloud, “but Wayne’s just a lawyer. This thing is huge – really huge. How could he run it right under the government and the league’s nose?”
“I bet if we check more of these files we’re going to find names of some league officials,” Nathan speculated. “He’s some kind of lawyer to celebrities, right?”
“Yes,” Shakira nodded slowly, remembering the day at his office when the Olympian had come by for an appointment. “And many of them are athletes.”
“This guy has access to the players and has his savvy friend Charlie to help them hide their money. As for the government, his job gives him the perfect cover. Lawyers are always around cops. What’s to stop him from getting a dirty cop like Fenton on his side?”
“Or Gates,” Shakira suggested.
“Or both of them.”
Shakira rubbed at her temples as her mind struggled to wrap itself around this mess. It just wasn’t possible. Wayne was a good guy. He wasn’t some kind of criminal running around bribing and killing people. But then there was such a thing as too much coincidence. She focused absently on Nathan. “If he and Charlie were in on it together and were moving this much money, why would he kill him?”
Nathan’s brow furrowed. “Something went wrong?”
“Or someone got greedy?” Shakira suggested. “Maybe Fenton skipped town with the marked money without Wayne knowing but gave Charlie a cut to keep quiet. When the FBI started sniffing around Charlie, Wayne had to kill him not just to protect his investment but because the breadcrumbs would lead straight to him.”
“Or Gates killed Charlie because he didn’t get his cut,” Nathan added.
It was a stretch but the more she thought about it the more it made sense.
Nathan scowled. “What about the thumb-drive?”
That was tricky. “I don’t think either Wayne or Gates knew of its existence. Charlie was probably planning to use it as leverage with the cops if he ever got caught.” Charlie had always been the back-up plan kind of guy. That’s why he’d held on to his part-time work at McPhersons – just in case his freelance gig didn’t work out.
She gasped. “That’s where Rochelle McPherson comes in. She was involved in this too.”
“How do you figure?”
“Charlie’s salary was really high for the amount of work he did – really high.” It was what had raised her suspicions about their affair. “I think Rochelle was cleaning the money for him.”
Shakira’s mind reeled with the amount of information she’d just stuffed into it. Were Rochelle and Charlie even having an affair? Or was it just a cover for their business arrangement.
Nathan’s features were troubled as he snapped the laptop shut, tucked the thumb-drive into his pocket and exploded off the couch. “We need to get out of here.”
“Why, what’s wrong?” Shakira asked, though she mimicked his actions.
“Wayne knows we’re here.” Nathan started for the bedroom. “He’s the one who paid for the fucking room.”
“Wayne’s in Boston.” Shakira reminded him as she traced his footsteps.
“Alim isn’t.”
Shakira caught her breath and grabbed her chest. She’d even forgotten about her other mystery stalker. “Think he’s in on it too?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He headed straight for the bed where her valise sat, stuffed the laptop in the side-space and then rifled through it. “But practically everyone now knows you’ve got that damn thumb-drive. We need to get out of here before one of them decides to get it back.”
He threw her a t-shirt. She caught it deftly and slipped it over her head. Her words muffled by the fabric, she asked, “It’s barely six. Where are we going?”
“We can’t go to the apartment…” He held out a pair of green shorts.
She shook her head. “Yoga pants.”
“…not while Gates and Alim are still out there.” He handed her the pants. “Landa Heron’s just a few minutes from here. We’ll check in there. At least we can trust Zeke’s guys.”
“Okay.” While she stripped out of her booty shorts and replaced them with the yoga pants then put on a jacket, Nathan called Zeke to let him know their plans. Nathan hadn’t changed since last night so he was practically ready to go. By the time he was done with the call, Shakira was hopping around the room on one sneakered foot while looking for the other.
He helped her search the room before finding it under the vanity table. He waved the shoe triumphantly. “Got it.”
“Thank you.” She smiled as she reached for the shoe. On instinct she raised herself slightly and touched her lips to his. It was only when Nathan drew his head back in surprise that she realized what she’d done. They were supposed to be fighting, right? He didn’t give her a chance to retract the kiss. He dipped his head and kissed her, a deep boneless kiss; the kind of kiss that had her snaking her arms around his neck and tagging his body down to hers. She moaned in protest when he separated their lips.
“I love you,” he whispered against her lips, dipped in for one last kiss then released her. “Let’s go.”
He grabbed his and her bags from the bed and marched out of the room leaving her standing there in shocked silence. Oh wow. What a way to drop a bomb then walk away. Was he serious? Or was this one of his games? Had he said deliberately or was it one of those ‘that’s why I love you’ slips of the tongue.
“Shakira,” he called out from the living room interrupting her confused thoughts.
She hurried after him with the intention of asking what that was but came to a grinding halt when she saw him tucking a gun into the back of his pants. “You have a gun.”
“Yes.” He didn’t explain further. She wanted to ask but thought better of it. In their situation, a gun was a good thing.
He led the door open for her, closing it behind him as he too exited the room. Though lit, the hallway was as quiet as a graveyard. Their feet barely made a sound as they padded towards the twin elevators. One of the elevators had an arrow pointed upwards and the number three blinking indicating that it was on its way up. They were on their way down. Nathan punched the next elevator’s button and it’s down arrow lit up.
“Are you serious?” Shakira asked as they waited.
“About what?”
“That you love me?” She didn’t take her eyes off his face, eager to see if he really meant it.
He gave her a lopsided smile. “More than you know.” Despite the smile, there was genuine feeling in his keen eyes that was hard to deny. She hoped he wasn’t fooling her again because with the way her heart was doing it
s happy dance she didn’t think she’d survive the disappointment.
His smile fell as he continued, “And I’m sorry that I didn’t trusting you. The last thing I want to do is to hurt you in any way but I did. There was nothing right about anything I did or how I hid it from you. I’m sorry.”
How could she not? She slid her arm around his waist, “I’ll take the apology. I know why you did everything you did but don’t expect-” Her words were cut off by the ping of the adjacent elevator.
Its doors slid open and a slender woman with a huge wig, spectacles and a calf length dress exited it just as their own elevator chimed its arrival. Shakira probably would’ve ignored the woman if she hadn’t turned to face them completely, her eyes piercing and intent as she reached into her purse. In a split instant Shakira noticed that the woman had a razor cut on her chin and pale skin there indicating a recent shaving.
The woman wasn’t a woman – and she was pulling a gun from her bag.
The realization hit Shakira just as Nathan shouted, “Move,” and shoved her into the elevator.
CHAPTER 25
Alim.
Nathan sprung into action before second thoughts occurred.
With his body weight, he shoved Shakira into the elevator cab just as the first shot rang and a bullet whizzed right past his head. It must have nicked him because he felt its painful sting on the right side of his face as he stumbled into the elevator after her, his hands automatically releasing their bags to the floor. In the periphery of his subconscious he heard Shakira cry out as she crashed into the wall but she was the least of his problems.
Alim was coming.
And so were his bullets.
A volley of shots cracked threateningly in the hallway breaking the dead silence. Veins pulsing with barely contained alarm and already reaching for his gun, Nathan flung himself towards the corner that Shakira was also crawling to. He swiftly turning with his back to Shakira to protect her, crouched low and pointed his pistol.