by Raven Snow
Rowen sensed Darren. “Are you kidding me?” Well, he was definitely coming back to this office then. Rowen ducked down behind the desk. That was a lousy hiding spot, but it was the first one that had come to mind. She quickly scanned her surroundings, looking for another. The footsteps were just outside the door now, and she could hear someone talking. It seemed that Darren was not alone.
Rowen remembered the computer. If they were coming in here, the computer uploading some mystery program from a flash drive was going to look more than a little suspicious. Rowen scarcely had time to reach up and hit the power button on the monitor before the door opened. And that was that. She definitely didn't have time enough to find herself a new hiding place. That was unfortunate. This was a pretty lousy one.
“Do you know where you left it?” asked a woman’s voice. It sounded like Julia Martinez.
“On my desk,” said Darren. “I laid it out so I wouldn’t forget it.”
“And yet you did,” Julia said with a giggle. “I swear, you’re the most forgetful man.”
“Keep laughing it up, and you can forget about that raise I said I’d give you.” Darren’s tone was a teasing one. They had stopped in the center of the room. Neither had moved any closer to the desk Rowen was hiding behind.
“Oh, yeah right,” Julia shot back. “You want to keep me happy. Otherwise, I’ll defect on over to one of your rivals. I bet you the little paper the Greensmith girls are running would be happy to take in a skilled correspondent such as myself.”
“And here I thought they only dealt in print.”
“I’m sure they’ll make an exception, so watch it, Mister.”
“Yes, ma’am.” What followed were some rather disconcerting noises. Rowen could hear the gross wet sounds of two people kissing. Well, that solved that mystery then. At least there was that. Rowen considered trying to take the camera from her purse and maybe snap a picture, but there was no way to see what was going on without poking her head out from around the desk. So much for that. Rowen didn’t dare make a move in that direction.
Now that Rowen knew for a fact that Darren was cheating on his wife, she wished he would stop. Didn’t he have a party to get back to? At the very least, Rowen wished he would stop making those horrible sounds.
“We have to get back to the gala,” said Julia. Thank you, Julia.
“I suppose you’re right. Do you see it?” The footsteps moved closer to the desk.
Rowen’s heart was steadily beating faster and faster in her chest. Suddenly, she remembered the flash drive still in the computer tower. She could tell the file was still installing. The computer tower was whirring where it was working on it. Oh, geez, it seemed so loud now that she knew it was still going. What if Julia or Darren heard it? They were already coming closer to the desk.
“It’s not here,” said Julia. “Are you sure you left it here?”
“Of course I am,” said Darren.
Rowen could feel a lot of shuffling going on. There had been a few stacks of papers on the desk when last she’d looked. They were likely trying to sort through that. It sounded like he was missing the notes to that speech he was supposed to give or something.
“I don’t see it,” Darren finally agreed, giving a sigh.
“Where else could it be?” asked Julia.
“I don’t know. In the desk, maybe? I don’t think I left it in one of the drawers, but I might have.” Darren began to move around the desk.
Rowen braced herself. The desk was so high. She was so obvious, sitting right there beneath it. He was going to see her for sure. Rowen closed her eyes, cringed, and waited for that to happen.
There was laughter in the hallway. It sounded like Willow. What in the world? Had she lost her mind?
“Did you hear that?” asked Julia.
“Hmm?” Darren stopped moving around the desk. “I don’t…” The laughter came again. “What was that?”
Both Darren and Julia moved toward the door. Rowen heard it open a bit more. She heard their footsteps fade down the hallway. Without wasting a moment, Rowen sat up and switched the monitor back on. The install had finished, it said. Close the window open now and the program would begin uploading its contents to a cloud. No one would know it was even there.
Rowen closed the window and snatched the flash drive from the computer. She set everything the way she had found it, as best she could remember, and went to the door. She didn’t leave at once. Instead, she listened for a moment there. She strained her ears and tried to hear what was going on. She didn’t hear any more laughter from Willow. Rowen wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or a bad one. Carefully, she ventured out into the hallway and took a few cautious steps in the direction it seemed Willow and Benji had gone. “Sorry,” she heard. “I didn’t… I didn’t know anyone was going to be here, I’m sorry! We’re both sorry. Are you sure this is against the rules, though?”
“I’m sure,” Julia said, flatly.
“Oh, don’t be too hard on them,” said Darren, sounding far more mellow about whatever was going on than Julia did. “They’re young. They were doing what young people do.”
“I…” began Benji, but he trailed off. It was probably for the best. He didn’t sound like much of a liar.
“Don’t get mad at Benji,” said Willow. “I ran this way to tease him, and he just followed me. He was super mad the whole time, kept telling me to come back. I should have listened to him.”
Against her better judgment, Rowen ventured closer. She moved to the end of the hall and peered around the corner. It was there that she spotted Julia and Darren standing in the doorway of the office Benji shared with Frank and the other people he worked with.
“This is going to reflect poorly on you when we consider you for a promotion,” Julia said, speaking firmly.
“Oh, no it’s not.” Darren waved a hand as if dismissing all of this. “Carry on Benji. Forget we were ever here. Come on Julia, we need to find that speech and get back to the gala.”
Rowen hurried out of sight again when she realized they were about to come her way again. She ducked into an office room and hid behind the door. It served as a better hiding place than her last one. Darren and Julia passed her by without so much as a glance. Rowen waited until she heard them go back into Darren’s office before she rushed out the door and down the hall toward Benji and Willow.
“There you are.” It looked like Willow had been expecting Rowen. Her lipstick was smeared, and her smile was wider than ever. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” She looked back at Benji to lead the way.
Benji was staring off into space. He had lipstick stains on his face and didn’t quite seem to be all there. He looked positively shaken.
“Benji,” Willow repeated, louder this time. It made him jump. “Come on. We need to get back to the party before Darren does. If Rowen isn’t there, it might look suspicious.”
“Right.” Benji launched into action. He left the office room and started walking.
“I pretended we were making out,” Willow explained like she was very proud of herself for having such a cunning plan. “Well, I mean, I guess we were really making out, but you know what I mean.”
Rowen nodded. “I appreciate it. They were about to find my hiding place?”
“Did you get your stuff finished?”
Rowen nodded again. She took the flash drive from her pocket and waved it at Willow, as if that proved what she was getting at somehow. “Right at the last minute, but yeah. I got it.”
“Was it worth it?” asked Benji, putting something of a damper on everyone else’s relief. He was mad, and he had every right to be. Rowen wasn’t sure how to answer him.
It took a few minutes to make it back to the party. If the people covering the doors had noticed how long they had all been in the bathroom together, they didn’t comment on it. Instead, they let them in and all three immediately went to go stand against a wall where there weren’t many people around.
“What now?”
asked Willow.
“Now we see what we got from this thing, I guess.” Rowen and Eric had had the foresight to ensure that they could get to the files before Seraphina could. “We should head back to my house. I’m sure Eric and Rose are waiting.”
“I guess.” Willow looked around the gala that was still going on. “We should wait another hour or two, though, right? It would look suspicious if we just up and left now.”
Rowen hated the idea of lingering around here any long than necessary. She was convinced something horrible would happen. She would drop the flash drive and lose it or something. Willow had a point though, even if she was only suggesting it so she could party a little longer. “Fine. But not two hours. An hour or an hour and a half, maybe.”
“I’m going with you,” Benji announced suddenly.
Rowen and Willow both looked at him. “What?” asked Willow.
“I’m going with you,” Benji repeated. “When you leave here, I’m coming too.”
“But--” Rowen began.
Benji cut her off. “I helped you find it, didn’t I? I’m coming with you and that’s that.” Rowen wasn’t sure how to argue with him on this one.
Chapter Eleven
Why did Benji have to pick now to grow a pair? Rowen missed the Benji she had known until now. She had much preferred him as a pushover. It was selfish of her to want that, but hey, it was what it was.
Rowen made a point to text Eric a warning. Benji is coming too. He helped me install the program. Doesn’t know about Seraphina. Thinks I was looking for information on Jerry’s murder. Don’t say anything, it read.
They stayed at the gala for another hour. The speech came not long after they had returned. A procession of heads from various Channel 2 shows got up on the stage and talked about how thankful they were, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. Darren Hawthorne got on stage last. He had a piece of paper he glanced down at occasionally. That was probably what he had gone back to his office for. It didn’t look like he had needed it. He had the speech down. He thanked everyone who worked with him then went into a long spiel about Jerry. He talked about how much the man had meant to them all and that there was a void left without him that could never be filled… Even though they were thinking about filling it with Benji. Not that they said that last part out loud.
A picture of Jerry with his coworkers was projected on the screen behind Darren. Jerry was smiling, sitting with Frank and Craig and Julia Martinez. Benji wasn’t in the picture, so this might have been one from before he came on as an intern. Either that or they didn’t consider interns important enough for heartwarming pictures. Regardless, Jerry looked happy. His dark brown hair was stringy and his beard was scruffy, but his smile was bright and genuine. He looked like a man who really enjoyed the work that he did. Maybe he had been a little hard to deal with, but Rowen didn’t think he deserved to die. Feeling the respectful hush that fell over the room, she was more determined than ever to solve this thing.
Once the auction winners had been announced and the gala was beginning to wind down, Rowen slipped out with Willow, Benji, and some other party goers. Rowen took her own car. Willow rode with Benji who followed her home. Back at home, Rose was indeed there waiting with Eric. It seemed they had watched the horror movie she’d intended to watch with Eric together. Rowen was a bit annoyed about that, but she supposed it still didn’t quite make up for leaving them both here during the gala.
Rose didn’t look particularly thrilled to see that Benji had come along. She gave him a skeptical once over when he entered. Any questions she had about Ben’s situation didn’t get asked. It was likely she didn’t trust them being asked around Benji.
Rose wasn’t the only one who distrusted him. Chester had to be locked away upstairs. “He senses everyone is on edge,” Eric explained as he led the dog upstairs. Rowen was right with Chester on that one. The atmosphere was unbearably tense. She opened a bottle of wine and brought it into the living room with a few glasses before they began. Maybe that would take some of the edge off. Only Willow seemed to be at ease.
“Chill out,” she told Benji, tucking a stray strand of brown hair behind his ear. “We got what we needed. No one’s going to get in trouble… Well, some people are going to get in trouble. Not you, though.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Benji grumbled, sitting very stiffly on the sofa. He looked at Rose as they waited, doing a bit of a double take like he wanted to ask her something.
“What is it?” Rose finally came out and just asked.
“Are you going to be writing about this?” Benji asked, nodding to the flash drive sitting on the coffee table.
“What?” Rose’s gaze darted to Rowen, like she wasn’t quite sure how much to share. That probably wasn’t lost on Benji, which was bad. He had to be feeling like an outsider already. “It depends on what we find out,” she said after a moment. “Probably not, though. If we find anything out about Jerry, that’ll go to the police first.”
“Why aren’t you taking that directly to the police then?” asked Benji.
“We’re curious,” said Willow with a laugh. “Aren’t you curious? Come on, dude. We’re all only human here.”
Benji frowned down at the flash drive again. “I don’t know. This all feels pretty illegal.”
“It’s a gray area.” Eric gave a shrug as he reentered the room. It didn’t look like he actually believed that, but he didn’t seem too concerned about how they had obtained the information on the flash drive anyway. He sat down next to Rowen on the sofa and placed his laptop on the coffee table. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got.”
Everyone was looking at Rowen, so she went ahead and picked up the computer, popping the flash drive into one of the USBs. The program started to upload. “It’s installing,” Rowen explained, looking back at everyone else. She leaned forward and poured herself some wine. This was a lot of very strange pressure. It seemed like everyone expected the facts laid out before them asap. As it stood, Rowen had a feeling the information she was gathering wouldn’t be nearly as organized.
The install finished and a login popped up. Rowen signed in and found where the files had already uploaded to a cloud. The files were all in text form, crowded together in unpalatable file sizes. “This might take some time to get through.” Rowen had hoped that might relax everyone, get them to let off and maybe talk amongst themselves as she skimmed over what they had here. Instead, everyone just moved onto the sofa with her. Everyone crowded around and tried to look over the files along with her.
“Well, all right then.” Rowen began to scroll. What else could she do? Ask them to come back later? She sincerely doubted that that was an option.
The files she was scrolling through now were old e-mails. There were a lot of e-mails titled, “No Subject” to an e-mail address that read, “[email protected]. She would have to look those through with Eric when they had a bit of privacy. She hoped Benji made no mention of them. He didn’t. His attention was obviously elsewhere. To be fair, a murder did seem a lot more pressing than an affair.
“Is that Jerry’s e-mail?” asked Rose, pointing to one of the messages.
Rowen looked at where she was pointing. “Yep. That’s him. That’s the person who e-mailed me anyway.”
“Jerry e-mailed you?” asked Benji, turning on the sofa to face Rowen.
Rowen nodded. “Yeah. That is, he e-mailed our paper anyway. He was trying to sell us a story.”
“What kind of a story?” asked Benji.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Rowen opened up the e-mail Jerry had sent Darren. “We don’t know what kind of story. We’re hoping to figure that out, hopefully through what we’ve found here.”
Mr. Hawthorne, the e-mail read. I have some footage that might interest you. It seems we were both at Dogwood Park last night. Let’s talk. Give me a call. -Jerry
Rowen read all of this out loud. The others listened, wearing thoughtful frowns. “Sounds like he was threatening him,” Willow
said, finally.
“What was he threatening him with?” Benji asked.
Rowen exchanged a knowing look with her husband. She had a good idea of what he had been threatening Darren with. She wasn’t sure if she should say it aloud, though. Eric looked to be thinking the same thing. Finally, he shrugged. “He could have been having an affair,” said Eric, coming right out with it.
Benji looked over at Eric, his eyes wide. “But I thought Mr. Hawthorne was married.”
“He is.” Eric gave him a patient sort of nod. “That’s why I said he was having an affair and not, ‘He got a new girlfriend.’ I think there’s a good chance he’s having relations with someone other than his wife.” Rowen noted that Eric chose to leave out the part where Seraphina had hired them to find evidence of this. Rowen just hoped her cousins had taken note of that as well.
“What was on the video?” asked Benji, looking back at the computer. “Where is it?”
“We don’t know where it is yet,” said Rowen. “But I assume he caught some footage of Darren and this lady lover of his kanoodling in the park.”
Willow giggled and repeated the word, “Kanoodling.”
“That’s just a guess, though.” Rowen pressed on, ignoring her immature cousin. We don’t know for sure, but it feels like a good bet. The two met in the park, maybe to go somewhere else together. They shared a kiss or a light make-out session, and Jerry caught it all on tape.”
“Who was it?” asked Benji. He was just a font of questions.
“We don’t know for sure,” Eric began.
“Yes we do,” Rowen amended.
This was news to Eric. He looked at Rowen who looked down at her own feet. She should have texted this to Eric sooner. Either that or she should have saved it until everyone had gone home. “What do you mean?” Benji prompted, looking absolutely overwhelmed by all of this.