by Selena Kitt
I stared at the key in my hand.
“Look,” she said after a moment. “You don't have to. But you are really broken up over this crazy guy. Go find that vase and get some closure.”
Sometimes I really do have the best friend, and I don't deserve her.
“I'll call for a car,” Anton said. “You'll avoid the paparazzi that way.” I looked at him, but he was staring at Felicia. “My dear,” he continued before I was able to say thank you, “I think we should be seen in the vicinity of Mr. Ward's house doing something terribly illicit. Surely the dogs of the press are watching Mr. Ward's house as well.”
“Oh,” Felicia said, “I didn't think of that.” Then the blush on her face grew deeper. “What should I wear?”
I took that cue to beat a hasty retreat upstairs to get ready.
* * * *
Freshly showered, dressed in my best giving-up-on-life clothes from back when I was just a struggling artist, and preoccupied with the sick feeling in my gut, I sat a block from Malcolm's house in the back of the car Anton had called for me.
I chewed my lip and stared at the phone in my hand, waiting impatiently for the text from Felicia to let me know she was about to be caught on camera by whatever paparazzi had been lying in wait for me. I just hoped she wouldn't be caught up in the moment and forget. Then again, maybe that would be for the best. What if the vase wasn't there? What if I found it and... then what? Who cared? Just a reminder of a sweet, dreamlike time I could never return to. Why would I want it?
But I did want it. I wanted to see it, touch it. Maybe then I could figure out why Malcolm thought it was so important that his last words to me were his insistence that I have it.
I couldn't quite decide how to feel about things, and it was making me nervous. I always know how to feel about things. Until Malcolm came along, I suppose. He set me off balance, made me speechless, shocked me with his utter candor.
I hadn't heard his voice in days. Almost a week? Yes, four days, maybe five. I hadn't called his cell phone in the hopes of hearing it, because that was pathetic and also I didn't want to get pegged by the feds again. I wished I had, though, and now, sitting in the back seat of a fine car, hidden from the world by the dark windows, a silent, discreet driver studiously ignoring me, the sudden temptation to call him was almost overwhelming.
Then the phone buzzed in my hand, and a text from Felicia flashed across my screen.
“SKJii SDOI(*&h ddd Kanye i”
Yeah. She was kind of caught in the moment. Good thing the content didn't matter.
“I'm out,” I told the driver, unnecessarily. “I should be back in, like... an hour? Tops?”
The driver, whose name was Jeff, though I didn't want to use it and seem too familiar, gave me a watery smile and a deferential nod. He was old, his silver hair close-cropped to his head. He looked like an ex-Marine and for a moment I wished I could just stay in this car with him, chat and talk, be normal. But the ache in my chest would have given me away. I nodded back to him, shoved my phone in my hoodie pocket, and let myself out of the car.
Brisk March wind whipped around me, cutting through my old clothes as I strolled down the street, trying to look nonchalant. The hood of my sweatshirt sheltered my face from the eyes of others and the worst of the wind, and before I knew it I was approaching Malcolm's house.
It was weird. I felt as though I were approaching the house of someone recently deceased and I had to fight the impulse to walk on by, to not face the sudden, sharp change in circumstances. I watched my feet eat up the pavement as if they belonged to someone else, and when they mounted the front steps I had to bite the inside of my cheek to force myself to keep going.
I reached the door. It stood before me and I realized it was almost the same color as Malcolm's eyes. Stuffing my hand into my hoodie pocket, I drew out the key, looked at it for a second, then pushed it into the lock, turned it, and opened the door.
It gave way beneath my hand without a sound, and I stepped inside and closed it behind me.
The house was empty. That much was obvious. All of Malcolm's things were gone, cleared out to be given away regardless of worth or sentimental value, and I stood in the foyer feeling more melancholy than I though possible. Yeah, the house had been the repository of a crazy person, but it had been his repository. I'd never asked him why he had all that junk, and now it felt like I never would. He'd go to prison and maybe I'd write to him or visit or whatever, but it wouldn't be the same. We'd never be as open as we had out on the waves of the sea, not unless he proved his innocence.
Slowly I walked around the lower floor. The place looked tiny now that it was empty, the same way a dead body looks small after the soul has vacated the premises, and I had to forcibly remind myself that I was here for a purpose rather than just turn around and leave. I should see if the vase was here. The movers probably wouldn't have taken a pile of broken pottery. It had no worth.
Or it was priceless, I thought, and giggled sadly.
I poked around the ground floor, but found nothing, so I moved to the stairwell and climbed up the steps. The house creaked beneath my feet, groaning like an old man complaining about his tired joints. The second floor was more of the same—beautiful wood, creamy walls. A library, a music room, a long narrow game room. I peered in the closets and looked in the fireplace, but there was nothing. My heart beginning to sink, I mounted the stairs to the third floor.
Here the house became more like a home than a mansion. A honeycomb of bedrooms and bathrooms greeted me, and I started at the front, snooping around, looking in every nook and cranny I could find, but nothing greeted me until I entered what had to be the master bedroom.
It was larger than the rest and emptied out onto a terrace. The cloudy sky outside made it dim and dreary, but there was a door to the master bath that I hadn't been able to access from the hallway. I tromped to it and looked around. The light from the terrace barely made it inside, and the high, tiny windows were stained glass, giving me very little to work with. I sighed and tried the wall switch, but nothing happened. I squinted up in the darkness and saw that all the bulbs had been removed from the room.
Malcolm was a serious weirdo. I wished I didn't like him so much. Opening the door as wide as I could, I took stock.
A shower stall. A toilet closet. A bathtub and a linen closet. Nothing to do but start checking behind all the closed doors. I crossed the white tile and opened the linen closet.
And there, sitting on the shelf, was the vase.
That's the thing. It was actually there. At least, I was pretty sure it was the vase, even though there were several key differences in the vase I found and the vase I had expected to find. For one thing, it wasn't broken. For another, it was so dark in the bathroom that I could barely make it out and it didn't quite look like the vase that I had broken—a weird, random pattern seemed to be painted onto it—but when I reached into the closet, my heart hammering a mile a minute, cool porcelain met my fingers. Then I lifted it, tipping it toward me, and something inside it made a clunk sound.
Swallowing around my suddenly dry tongue, I turned it over. A small dark object slid out and fell to my feet, hitting the tiled floor with the flat slap of plastic.
He had left something for me. Somehow. It was like a plot twist out of a movie, which, now that I knew Malcolm, was completely predictable. Replacing the vase on the shelf, I knelt down and retrieved the object that had been hidden in it.
It was a thumb drive.
My heart started to beat faster.
Calm down, I told myself. Don't freak out yet. Anything could be on this drive. Anything at all. It could be the photos of me, it could be old love letters, anything. Getting my hopes up would be stupid.
Clutching the drive so tightly in my hand that the sharp plastic edges bit into the bones of my fingers, I sprinted out of the bathroom, wove my way through the maze of the third floor, and pounded up the stairs, hoping Malcolm had left his bedroom intact.
He had. T
he computer still sat at the far wall, the screen dark but the lights still on. I prayed he hadn't left it password protected as I hurried over to it, uncapping the drive before I reached out and wiggled the mouse. To my immense relief the monitor flared to life, showing his desktop. The picture on it was one of the pictures of me that he had managed to capture—a beautiful still image of my mouth and chin, the curve of my throat, the swell of my shoulder—but I forced myself to ignore it. My fingers shook as I found a USB slot on the tower and shoved the drive in.
I waited, hopping from foot to foot until the computer dinged, recognizing the drive, and I clicked on it, opening up the directory.
A password dialog popped up.
I nearly shrieked with frustration, but I took a deep breath and tried to think like a dumb motherfucker.
If I were a dumb motherfucker, I postulated, who thought life should be like a movie and this was a great romantic plot twist, what password would I put on the critical information that would keep me out of prison?
I leaned forward and typed in “Sadie.”
The dialog box disappeared and the directory filled out.
Of course.
I began to click around.
With each file opened, I felt my mouth drop wider and wider. It was all here: offshore bank accounts, spreadsheets with discrepancies highlighted, huge documents detailing the history of this or that chunk of money and Don's exact role in making it disappear... Malcolm hadn't been kidding when he'd said he had proof. He not only had proof, but he had built a whole case, as though he were an expert in corporate law. Actually, he probably thought he was, given his self-assessment of all his other talents. But mostly I was just shocked that Felicia's farfetched theory had been right. He'd left the evidence of his innocence for me in the vase, and now I held his future in my hands.
Huh, I thought. Somehow, I wasn't shocked that her thoughts and Malcolm's had lined up so neatly. They both liked life to be like a movie, chasing that Oscar-winning scene. They both had artistic souls.
...Still, the question remained: how had he done it? I'd broken the vase on a Friday night, and we had left on a Monday. There was no way the vase could have been repaired before we departed New York...
Then I remembered. Malcolm on the phone in the cafe in Dubrovnik, speaking in Japanese. The note left in French for the man whose life he had changed, along with a wad of bills as thick as my wrist.
He had arranged it. I wasn't quite sure how he'd arranged it, or what the exact arrangements had been, but he'd planned it all out. Before he even knew if he was going to die or not. He'd decided to put the pieces in place just in case. Just in case he decided to live and needed to something dramatic as hell to keep my life interesting.
It was such a Malcolm thing to do that I had to laugh. He was such a dumb motherfucker, and I loved it.
The realization brought me up short, but then I nodded.
Yeah, I thought to myself. That's right. I love it.
Suddenly able to breathe easily, I popped the thumb drive out of the computer and capped it, shut down all the programs, then unceremoniously pulled the plug. I hadn't brought my purse with me, the pockets of my jeans had holes in them, and the pouch of my hoodie was far too unsecured. I wavered with indecision, and then with a huff of exasperation I stuffed the drive down my underwear, where it nestled in Malcolm's favorite place. Fitting, in more ways than one, though admittedly not the most sanitary spot. But when you are as flat-chested as I am, hiding things in your cleavage is not an option.
I had to get this to his lawyers.
Head whirling with thoughts of the future, of the possibility that there might be a future, one in which he was alive and free, I jogged back to the stairs and took them two at a time down to the third floor. I paused on the landing, and then decided that if Malcolm wanted me to have the vase, then I should probably take the vase, too. I slipped into the hallway and started for the master bedroom.
I was so preoccupied that I almost didn't hear the front door opening, but my lizard brain heard it. The part of me that always listened for the bedroom door opening heard it. The part of me that slept with one eye open heard it.
I froze in my tracks.
“Hullo?”
A man's voice with a British accent floated up from the lower floors.
Someone else was in the house.
Old impulses rose up, telling me to run, to flee, but even as my legs twitched with the flight response, my civilized brain was trying to override it, telling me that not everything was dangerous.
Yeah, right.
Swallowing hard, I inched my way across the floor, praying it wouldn't creak under my weight, and leaned over the banister, trying to hear where the intruder was in the house.
“Hulloo?” the voice called again. “Sadie MacElroy?”
Whoever it was knew my name, knew I was here. They had to have been watching the house. The voice seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. Very cultured, a bit nasally, and definitely at the front of the house, between me and the front door. Was there a back door? Not that I could get to it without being seen, and if there was it probably led into a closed garden...
I took a deep breath and tried to think.
There wasn't any reason I couldn't be here. I had a key. I had permission from Malcolm—albeit through his lawyers—to be here. So really, it was the other person who shouldn't be here. Paparazzo? Reporter? They must have been waiting for someone to show their face. Though usually they stayed within the bounds of the law and remained outside. So probably not paparazzo. Who, then?
I looked around, but I had no idea where the fire escape was, and even as I frantically tried to remember where it had been situated on the outside of the house the sound of heavy footsteps started up the stairs.
“I only want to talk! Miss MacElroy? Please, it's important. My name is Morris Denton, and I work for Mr. Ward...”
I bit my lip and backed up from the stairway. He was going to be here any second now. Why, oh why wasn't there a second stairwell? What kind of rich person's house was this? I didn't want to talk to him, but I was stuck.
He came up the stairs.
My first impression was of a man Malcolm's age, but far more staid and conservative. Malcolm dressed beautifully, but there was that irrepressible something about him, a humming energy beneath his skin that I now recognized as the creative force. This man looked far more like a successful businessman than Malcolm did. His dark hair was cut in a sober style instead of Malcolm's wild locks, his skin was pale and his eyes were dark and serious behind gold-rimmed glasses. His coat hung well on his lean body, and he seemed surprised to actually find me when his line of sight crested the stairs.
“Oh! Miss MacElroy. There you are...”
I took a step back, even though I knew it was futile. It showed I was weak, too. But instead of pressing his advantage, Mr. Denton suddenly looked contrite.
“I'm so sorry,” he said, and he spread his hands, showing me his palms. A clear, universal gesture that told me he meant no harm, and I forced myself to relax a tiny bit, but the thumb drive in my underwear was a harsh reminder that I had a job to do. An important job. I didn't have time to talk to whoever this man was.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was just leaving.”
“Please!” The word erupted from him and he took a step forward, startling me. The edge in my blood came back. Who was this guy, and why was he here?
I narrowed my eyes. “Yes?”
He subsided a bit. “I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. You are Sadie MacElroy, yes?”
I lifted a brow. “Who wants to know?” Not the most original of lines, but I felt that, given the circumstances, it was a legitimate one.
He seemed to relax. “My apologies. My name is Morris Denton. I'm the Chief Technical Officer of Warden Industries. I've worked with Mr. Ward for a number of years and it's my belief that he is innocent of the fraud and embezzlement charges that have been leveled against him.” His
British accent was pleasant and lilting, and I had to fight my natural impulse to agree with him on the assumption that someone with a British accent would naturally know what they were talking about.
“How do you know who I am?” I asked him instead.”
He colored. “Everyone knows who you are. As Mr. Ward's current paramour and alleged kidnapping victim—” He held up a hand as I opened my mouth to protest. “—which it is obvious you were not, you are in a very privileged position and I have been frantic to reach you. You are well protected by your employer at the moment, but I have to admit I asked someone to watch the house and let me know if you showed up... I thought if you did, I might be able to enlist your help.”
Oh, really? I wasn't quite buying it. This guy had to be an undercover reporter or something. “Help with what?”
“With finding evidence of Mr. Ward's innocence, of course.”
“Why would you think I would know anything about that?”
His brow furrowed. “I've watched Mr. Ward grow increasingly erratic over the past half year. It was clear something was bothering him. Fleeing the country with a young woman is only the culmination of his behavior, and it is not entirely unlikely that he may have taken you into his confidence.”
“I wasn't,” I lied.
His face fell. “But... perhaps, as someone who knew his personal habits, you might have a guess?” I stared at him and he held his hands out, a gesture of vulnerability. “I admire Mr. Ward very much. He has been like a mentor to me. Please, help me?”
My eyes narrowed, but his face remained placid, pleading.
“You say your name is Morris Denton?” I said at last. “And you're the CTO of Malcolm's company?”
He nodded.
“Then I'm going to have to see some photo ID,” I told him, and crossed my arms.
I mean, come on. I'm not fucking stupid.
A flash of something crossed his face, but almost immediately it was eclipsed by a relieved smile. “Of course,” he said. He opened his fine coat and dug into the inside pocket, taking out his wallet. Opening it, he selected a card and handed it to me. I plucked it from his fingers and studied it.