by Parker Wren
“Hey, kid,” he said to me. “Interested in getting brunch today?”
I welcomed the break in conversation with Henry.
“Sure,” I said. “Are you wearing that?” I teased.
Dom stuck out his bare chest and his belly, rubbing it. “What, don’t you think everyone will like this sexy look?”
I smiled. “Of course. Why even bother with pants?”
“That’s exactly what I’m always saying.” Dom looked at me and then crinkled his nose. “Who are you one to talk about anyway? Go shower, you stinky runner.”
“Why, you want to join me?” I asked in an exaggerated sultry voice as went up the stairs.
“Oh, yes, please,” Dom said, starting to follow behind me.
“You wish,” I said, grinning. “No shower for you.”
Dom pretended he had been stabbed in the heart and fell dramatically to the floor.
“You two,” Henry said, shaking his head.
--
Once Dom and I were ready, we gave a quick goodbye to everyone, telling Henry and Brit that we would see them when they returned. Henry didn’t seem to have any interest in divulging where they were headed. Dom tried to press him about it, but all Henry gave him was some joke about it being “top secret, man.” I thought it was probably more likely that Brit would tell me once they got back.
Grayson had been reading a book on the back deck when we left, so other than a quick wave, I didn’t speak with him. The heavy ache in the center of my stomach when I thought about him or interacted with him was starting to felt a little less pronounced. I figured that this was progress.
Dom and I drove to a coffee shop in Oak Bluffs and settled at a corner table with large, overstuffed chairs. We pulled out our laptops (including my work laptop—not the old one I had purposely ruined to borrow Henry’s).
“What would you like?” Dom asked.
“Just a small coffee. You know how I like it.”
He nodded and disappeared to place our orders.
We had made plans the previous night to finally review the information from Henry’s computer. I divided up the data on two separate thumb drives, placing one next to Dom’s computer.
Dom came over with our drinks.
“So,” he said, “what the plan?”
“I’ve given you all of the computer files for now,” I said. “I’ve got his emails. We’ll just go through everything carefully and see what we find.”
“We’re trying to prove that Henry is innocent, right?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess, ideally. I mean, I hope so. But I think you said it to me the other week: it’s hard to prove a negative. I think anything that can show he’s working on his own business stuff—not his dad’s—will help his case.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why he’s been so secretive lately about where he’s going all the time or what it’s about,” Dom said.
I sipped on my coffee and let it burn a sliver of my tongue. “I agree. It’s odd. I can try to get more out of Brit. After all, she’s told me he wants to start his own business and completely get out of business with his father, and she’s pretty furious about it. Did I tell you there were fighting this morning?”
“Really? What about?”
“I have no idea. When I walked in from my run, they were in the living room, sitting in silence. But the look on Henry’s face”—I shook my head—“wasn’t the same, nice, easygoing Henry that I’m used to seeing. It was just a look of pure… fury.”
Dom was quiet for a moment. “Interesting,” he said. “I’ve never seen him like that.”
I shrugged. “In any case, I have no idea if they were fighting about the business or something else.”
“Yeah.” Dom paused. “Let’s, maybe, not report all of that—their fight, I mean—back to Manuel. Just doesn’t seem like something he needs to know.”
I leaned back in my chair and pulled up Henry’s emails on my screen. “Fine by me,” I said. “You know how I feel about this job and what we’re doing. I would like nothing more to prove Henry’s innocence and just be done with everything.”
Dom nodded.
“Anything good?” I asked after we had been working for about an hour and had started to put the pieces together.
“Well, I guess you could call this good, but I think there is room for improvement with the production, ” Dom said as he turned the laptop towards me.
A graphic porn video filled the screen.
I put my hand up and coughed on my coffee. “Goodness grief, Dom, give a girl a warning! I guess I should just be thankful that you have the sound off.”
“I’m sure that couple over there would love it,” Dom grinned, then pointed to an elderly couple a few tables away from us.
I sighed. “Why do I feel like you are always one mute button away from getting arrested?”
Dom laughed. “In all seriousness, some of the hidden folders have paid off.”
“Really? That’s great. What’s in them?”
“Business plans.”
After going through the files and emails, Dom and I pieced together the full story of Henry’s business. He was launching a tech startup with a group of friends; specifically, they were developing an app and a website. The money that he had been moving around his bank accounts was seed money that he was putting into the company. They were also courting investors.
“So, let me get this straight,” Dom said, after we had read through the business plans, emails with investors and partners, and pitches that Henry had created. “It’s an app where people can donate to charity?”
“Looks like it,” I said. “You customize and select what types of causes you would like to donate to, or you can just say to divide up your contributions wherever, and the company does their research about charities with good ratings. They take a small cut and automatically produce your tax receipts at the end of the year. It’s automating charity giving.”
“’Easy Charity,’ they’ve called it,” Dom said. “I wonder if that’s a good name.”
I shrugged. “Hard to say. Maybe not the catchiest. My very unsolicited opinion, though, is that it is a good idea for a project. People don’t have to research charities, the company does that for them, and they can give a little bit to every cause or a lot to just one or two causes. All they have to do is spend about ten minutes filling things out.”
“Henry never struck me as a techie type,” Dom admitted.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Looks like he’s more of the business side of things—trying to get investors, build relationships with charities and what not, whereas his partners are dealing with the coding and software.”
“The question is,” Dom said, “why is he being so secretive about it?”
By now, Dom and I were on our second cup of coffee and eating muffins. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I mean, based on what Brit said, neither she nor Henry’s dad are a fan of him starting his own business. So maybe he’s just paranoid and doesn’t want anyone to see anything until a final product is closer?”
“Maybe,” Dom said. He was staring at the coffee counter, lost in thought.
“Well, this is good news, right?” I said. “We can report back to Manuel that Henry doesn’t seem to be involved in the Ponzi scheme anymore.”
Dom nodded. “Yeah. I just hope it convinces Manuel.”
“I just have one more email account to go through,” I said. “This one seems to be used mostly with his family, so there might be something good here.”
“I don’t understand why he has so many different email accounts.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s kind of weird.”
Dom began to write the report to Manuel while I scrolled through the final set of emails. Talks with his mom about holiday plans, his brothers sending Henry pictures of their children, and then—
I nearly spit out my coffee.
“Whoa,” I said.
“What?” asked Dom, looking up from his computer.
&
nbsp; I showed him the emails that had been exchanged between Henry and his father one week prior. We started from the bottom of the email chain and worked our way up.
Henry,
You know as your father, I will always be proud of you. You’ve always made good choices. Up until now.
You will NOT be starting your own business. At least not the one you pitched to me. It is a pipe dream, and it will fail. I have accepted that you will not continue the family business, but you WILL be starting your job with the consulting group in the fall.
If you fail to do as you should, you will no longer receive any financial support from me.
- J
“What’s ‘J’ stand for?” I asked Dom.
“John,” Dom replied. “Henry’s father.”
Henry’s reply:
Dad,
If I can even call you that. I do not give a shit about your money. You can keep it. You have never once supported anything that I do, unless it was working for you. How easily you forget the things that you have done. You have no high horse to stand on here, especially when it comes to my business.
And one final reply from his father.
We will talk about this in person next time we speak. – J
“I guess Brit wasn’t kidding when she said Henry’s father wasn’t a fan of him starting his own business,” Dom said.
“No kidding,” I replied.
“And then… there’s that part,” Dom said, pointing to the line that Henry wrote for his father: How easily you forget the things that you have done.
“Not good,” I said quietly, shaking my head.
“I know,” he replied.
“But, it could mean lots of things, right?”
“Sure,” said Dom. “There’s the obvious—that Henry knows about his father’s Ponzi scheme—which, as Manuel said, isn’t too far-fetched, given that he worked for the guy. Henry didn’t say anything about being involved himself, but it’s certainly a possibility. I mean, he did do a lot of work for his dad at one point.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Or it could be something else—something completely unrelated, like Henry’s dad cheated on his mom or something.”
Dom shook his head. “The way you’re saying that so optimistically is kind of depressing.”
“Well, when we’re looking to alternatives to Henry’s guilt and something that could land him in prison, a cheating parent is a much better alternative.”
“This is true,” said Dom. “So… what do we do? Report it?
I closed my eyes. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I think we have to,” Dom sadly said. “Look, at most, it shows there’s a chance that Henry knows his dad is a crook. That has nothing to do with Henry himself moving around the money, which is all that Manuel cares about anyway. In fact, it might help Henry’s case. We show how him and his father have this acrimonious relationship—no way that he is helping his dad move that money.”
I opened my eyes and sat up. “You’re right, Dom,” I said, annoyed at myself for not having thought of it first but also silly for feeling like I needed to beat Dom to the good ideas. “You’re absolutely right.”
“I’m smarter than you give me credit for, kid,” Dom said. His crooked smile brought out his side dimple.
I smiled. “Okay,” I said. “You send the report to Manuel then. We can only hope that they finally realize this whole mission is futile—that there’s nothing for us to find here.”
“Or they might just want us to press Henry for more information about his father,” Dom said.
“Maybe,” I said. “But there are worse things.”
----
Dom and I didn’t finish until the late afternoon, and we decided to grab some burgers while we were still out.
As soon as I took a big bite, Dom asked me, “So what now?”
I made him wait until I was done chewing before answering. “Well, I guess we just have to see how pleased Manuel is with the intel. How convinced he is. There’s a small chance he’ll send us home soon—abort the mission—or, more likely, he’ll want us to push Henry and Brit to see what they know about John’s business. But that’s not going to help them find the person laundering the money very well.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right,” Dom said. “I just have a bad feeling.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Something isn’t sitting right with me. Manuel just seems so… convinced that Henry is moving the money. It’s like he knows something that we don’t. And so he gets angrier and angrier every time I suggest that I don’t think he is.”
“Maybe Manuel isn’t working for who we think he’s working for?” I suggested.
“But who would that be? I have no idea,” Dom said. “I feel completely in the dark. And I don’t like it.”
CHAPTER 22
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the mess of the entire situation.
There I was: an imposter, fooling a group of people into believing that I was their friend. They didn’t know I was spying on them. Even though I was playing a role, I had still somehow managed to develop feelings for someone who didn’t know why I was there—someone I could never tell the truth to without him hating me. I was foolish—so foolish—for thinking that not only did we have a connection but that anything could happen in the real world. As soon as Grayson knew who I was or what I had been doing to Henry, I would be an enemy.
I also didn’t know where my relationship with Dom stood. We had each other here, at least; we could trust each other. And I had rationalized my immoral actions, like breaking into Henry’s computer, with the idea that I could somehow help Henry. Who was I kidding? I was an amateur spy and a bad person who should never have accepted the job from Manuel. And if this was adventure, then I wanted no part in it.
I decided that trying to sleep was pointless, so I cracked open the door and peered down the hallway. I didn’t worry too much about waking up Dom since he was such a deep sleeper, but I was always cautious about Grayson. His door was still shut, and I didn’t see any lights on downstairs. With Henry and Brit out of town, I figured I could turn on the TV and not disturb anybody.
I crept downstairs and reveled in the silence that consumed the house. I always thought it was wonderful the way the world stopped at night for most people. What if we were awake twenty-four hours a day? If we didn’t physically need rest, would we still mentally go insane from having too many hours to fill?
I stumbled in the dark and searched for the lamp. My eyes hadn’t quite adjusted, and with no moonlight, I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of me. I finally felt the couch with my hands and reached up to turn the light on.
As I was fiddling with the light cord, someone grabbed my wrist.
My heart seized. I threw myself away from him, towards the couch, but he was quicker; he grabbed me by the waist and pushed me onto the floor.
Without thinking, and still unable to see in the blackness, I twisted my body to face him. I snapped my palm into the center of his throat, then kneed his groin. He cried in agony and fell.
I started to stand up to run. Suddenly, the light flickered, and I willed my eyes to adjust. But before I could run, I felt a piece of cold, hard metal against my temple.
Shit.
“Don’t move. Don’t you dare open your mouth,” the second man growled.
There would be no screaming.
Dom. Grayson. Wake up!
I did as I was told. I knew that with guns, unless you absolutely didn’t have a choice, you didn’t resist.
“Sit,” the second man demanded.
While the first man curled and nursed his wounds, I took in my surrounds. I could barely see around me, and then men hadn’t turned on the lights. They were wearing bandanas to cover their mouths and hats, but seeing their eyes in the darkness would have been impossible. I couldn’t even make out the color of their clothing.
The gun was now pointed in front of me, with the second man star
ing at me.
“Who are you,” he demanded.
“What?” I asked. Even with all of my years of training, my father teaching me what to do in these situations, I still hadn’t been in them enough to remember what to say or how to act. Please, I thought. Please. Dom, Grayson—someone—come downstairs. Why did Henry and Brit have to be out of town tonight of all nights?
“I said, who are you,” he said angrily.
“I’m… I’m… my name is Ariel,” I replied.
“Why are you here,” he shot back.
“I’m here with my boyfriend, we are just visiting…”
“Lies,” he snapped.
I was quiet. I didn’t know what to say.
“Since you don’t seem to be willing to tell the truth,” he said, kneeling in front of me and lowering his gun at the same time, “I’m here to give you a warning. You stay away from Henry. You leave now. And if you leave now with your little boyfriend, we won’t come back.”
My mind was racing in a million different directions. Why would they think we were after Henry? Who could possibly know about the operation?
Before I knew whether it was the right thing to say, I said it. “But we are trying to help Henry!”
The men looked at each other.
“How is that?”
I felt the tears pushing back behind my eyes. “We want to keep Henry safe. We know he’s innocent. We are trying to prove it.”
The gun was back to being pointed at my head.
“If I find out you are lying,” the man said, “I will chase you down no matter where you go.”
“Ariel!” I heard a frantic, loud male voice. It was Grayson, coming down the stairs, running with his hands up.
“I’ve called 911,” he said, keeping his hands in the air. His voice was shaky, and he was terrified, but he overcompensated with a heavy layer of confidence. “You can keep whatever you’ve taken. We have no beef with you. Please, please, just let her go safe.”
The guys didn’t even hesitate. They ran out the back door to the beach.
It was still pitch black. Grayson immediately turned on a light and ran over to me.
“Ariel? Ariel? Are you okay?”