Fidelity Files

by Jessica Brody

  I marveled at how right on the money John had been from the very beginning. I now realized that if I had to make a mental list of all the men who would attempt something like this, this man would most definitely be at the top.

  I took a deep breath as the lost sensation slowly returned to my tongue, and I was finally able to speak. "His name is Raymond Jacobs."

  16

  Support Line

  AFTER THANKING Jason Trotting for the drinks and leaving him with a fake phone number, I disappeared into the night with just the information I had come for.

  I don't know why, but I guess I somehow thought that once I knew who was responsible for the Web site, I would suddenly feel better, that all the anxiety would simply melt away. I guess I failed to realize that once I knew the identity of my evil nemesis, I would actually have to come up with a plan to stop him. And unfortunately, I hadn't thought that far ahead.

  Of all people. Why'd it have to be him?

  Raymond Jacobs. The vodka gimlet drinker who, two weeks ago, had gobbled up my impressive knowledge of car engines without even a single reservation. I had to hand it to him, though; he'd definitely pulled this stunt together fast. My trip to Denver felt like two days ago. And standing in Anne Jacobs's entry hall, hugging her, telling her she'd done the right thing, felt like yesterday. Suddenly I found myself wondering if I'd done the right thing by even taking on the assignment. Raymond Jacobs was clearly not the kind of man to get run over by a truck and then wait in the road to die. Oh, no. He got right back up and ran out to buy an even bigger truck.

  As I drove home the feeling of anxiety started to consume me. I wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and never come out.

  I wearily dragged myself up the stairs of my building and through my front door. I collapsed onto the bed like a ton of bricks. The walls felt like they were closing in on me. And the only person I really wanted to talk to was still not talking to me.

  It was always times like these when I would call Sophie, make up some bogus story about something that upset me at work, and she would calm me down. She would soothe me with her words and her comforting voice. It was the voice of someone who's known me forever and has been there for me through everything...well, almost everything. Because even though the solutions she came up with only applied to a make-believe problem, and the words she used usually had nothing to do with what was really going on in my life, it didn't matter. It was the fact that she was there for me. To listen and to respond.

  And I knew that I had to call her.

  I knew that I couldn't continue to not have her in my life. She was too important to me.

  "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?"

  I reached over to my nightstand and grabbed the phone off its charger. I started dialing.

  But before I hit the last number I was stopped by the sound of a different phone ringing. It was my business line. I hung up my home phone, picked up my bag from the edge of the bed, and fished out the ringing cell phone. "No Caller ID" was plastered on the screen of my Treo. Nothing new. Most people block this kind of call. Hell, most people block this whole section of their life.

  I pressed the green Talk button and held the phone up to my ear. "Hello?"

  There was a muffled voice on the other end, and I couldn't make out a single word the person was saying.

  "Hello?" I repeated into the phone.

  More static.

  "Hello? I can't hear you. Can you hear me?" I paused and waited. Still nothing. "Bad connection. I think you should call back."

  And just as I was about to hang up, the static cleared, and a soft and very confused voice came through the line. "Jen?"

  I sat very still on my white cotton comforter. And then, convinced that I had simply picked up the wrong cell phone, I pulled the phone away from my ear and held it in front of my face, double-checking that this was in fact my business line.

  The word Treo was blatantly plastered on the top of the phone. My personal cell phone was the pink Razr. I suppose the simple night and day difference in weight would have been sufficient enough to distinguish the two, but I had to see it for myself. With my own eyes.

  "Jen, is that you?"

  I knew the voice. I'd known the voice for years.

  There was no more interference. The connection was crystal clear and the voice... was unmistakable. The irony was thicker than liquid chocolate and not nearly as sweet. It was the very same voice I had been hoping to hear on the other end of the phone for over a week now.

  But what do you know? It was coming through the wrong fucking phone.

  "Hello?" The voice demanded an acknowledgment. And before long, it would undoubtedly be demanding an explanation as well.

  I cleared my throat and attempted to impersonate an eighty-year -old woman who had fought a lifetime, losing battle with Virginia Slims. "Yes? How can I help you?"

  I should have just hung up. Right then and there. I should have just put down the phone, not answered for the rest of the night, or the rest of my life perhaps, and just left it at that.

  I should have done a lot of things.

  But I didn't. And now the voice knew.

  "Jen, is that you?" it repeated, slightly more aggravated and a lot more insistent.

  I sighed and surrendered to it. "Yes, Sophie. It's me."

  There was a long silence, followed by a short but very distinct click.

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen. "Call Ended," it informed me.

  The phone slowly slipped from my sweaty fingers and I watched it disappear into a sea of white cotton and down. I held my forehead in the palm of my hand and closed my eyes. Because I knew. I knew for sure. The call wasn't the only thing that had just ended.

  I bit my lip and waited. Waited for the inevitable callback.

  If I knew Sophie at all, she needed that extra moment for everything to sink in. For the information to process and the world to start making sense again. She was like a slow desktop computer, one of those older models that required just the slightest bit more time to perform the simpler tasks, like opening up a Word document or transferring between applications. I could almost see the frustratingly slow hourglass icon hovering above her head.

  But this time the task wasn't simple. And this time, after the extra moment had passed, and even the extra few after that, the world still wouldn't make sense. The program still wouldn't run. And the hard drive would inevitably crash.

  My house had never felt so silent in the entire eighteen months that I'd lived there.

  And then the phone rang. Not my business cell phone, not my personal cell phone. But my landline. My home phone. And it felt all too appropriate.

  The number was no longer blocked. The caller was definitely ID'ed.

  "Hi," I said softly into the cordless receiver.

  There was more silence. She had dialed my number before she had finished processing. There would be silence. And I would wait.

  "Hi," she finally said back.

  I could almost hear her gears turning. The questions were popping up faster than she could sort through and prioritize them. The looming "illegal operations" were threatening to shut down the whole system if the answers didn't start coming – and fast.

  And then somehow, remarkably, Sophie managed to sort through all of the streaming data and effectively generate one simple question that summed up every query struggling to run at once.

  "It's you?" she asked faintly.

  I nodded, knowing full well that she couldn't see me. But also somewhat thankful for it at the same time. I wasn't ready for her to know. I wasn't ready to stop coming up with bogus stories about work and having her console me on them.

  And I certainly wasn't prepared for her to find out like this.

  So much for my successful skills of dissuasion. Sophie had gone right back to that woman at her office and asked for the phone number again. My phone number. I should have known. Me of a
ll people should have been the first one to remind myself that a woman on a quest for knowledge is as unstoppable as a man on a quest for sex.

  "Yes, it's me," I confirmed, shamefully. I knew the reaction I was going to get. I knew the judgment I was going to have to endure. And so I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the blow.

  "You're... Ashlyn?" She was still waiting for me to break out into laughter and tell her it was a huge joke. That I had told her colleague to give out my number so that I could teach her a lesson. That there never even was an Ashlyn. That I made it all up. Surprise! You've been punk'd!

  And I suppose I certainly could have. But instead, all I said was, "Yes."

  "How could that be? You work for an investment bank!"

  "Worked for a bank," I explained. "I haven't worked at Stanley Marshall for about two years."

  More silence. More careful computations.

  "Remember that promotion I got? A little over two years ago? A bigger office? A new cell phone?"

  The deciphering key was finally starting to take shape, and it was suddenly no longer just illegible lines of code. It was an entire story. An entire life that she knew nothing about, but now suddenly couldn't believe that she had missed.

  "Yah..." she said hesitantly.

  "Well, it wasn't a promotion."

  "But how many? And why didn't you tell me? And—"

  "I couldn't tell you!" I insisted. "I couldn't tell anyone. Nobody knows. It was just a decision I made on my own. Something I had to do for me. Plus, I didn't think you'd approve."

  "Of course I wouldn't have approved! Married men, Jen! Married! And you kiss them?"

  I bowed my head. "Uh-huh."

  "And let them touch you?"

  I could hear the disgust hanging between the syllables of her words. The images in her head were projecting onto the empty white walls of my bedroom, like a giant movie screen.

  And at that moment...we were one. One mind. One thought. One vision.

  I saw me as she saw me.

  And I didn't like it.

  "Uh-huh," I managed to get out, blinking back tears.

  "I...I don't even know what to say."

  I closed my eyes. "Sophie. Why don't I come over? We'll open a bottle of wine and we'll talk about this. I'll tell you everything. I'll start from the beginning and I won't stop until you understand where I'm coming from. All my motivations. All my reasons. They're in there, I promise. And they're good. I can prove it to you."

  "I can't see you right now." Her words were fast and her tone was distant. Sophie may have only lived five minutes away from me by car, at almost any time of the day, but tonight she was a million miles from here.

  And that was finally a distance this Southern Californian could understand.

  "Okay," I said softly, the first tear successfully fighting its way from beneath my tightly shut eyelid and triumphantly making its slow victory parade down my cheek.

  "I feel like I don't even know you."

  I opened my eyes and several more tears followed closely behind. "But it's still me, Soph! I'm still the same person. I didn't change over the past two years; I shouldn't have to change over the past two minutes!"

  "But you did change!" she fought back. "You're not even who you say you are. You're an entirely different person. With an entirely different name even!"

  I sniffled. "It's just a stage name," I offered hopefully. "Like a character in a play. Or a TV show. Ellen Pompeo plays Meredith on Grey's Anatomy. Evangeline Lilly plays Kate on Lost. I play Ashlyn...in a weekly TV show about a girl whose job it is to expose cheating men to the women who love them!"

  But Sophie wasn't convinced. "Those are TV shows! They're not real. This is real, Jen! These are real people! It's not pretend. It's not like when we were little, playing with my dad's psychology books or playing house." She paused. "Although I never thought you'd grow up to play the home wrecker."

  "You wanted to hire me!" I shot back, wiping my running nose with the back of my hand. "You were going to call that home wrecker and hire her to wreck your home!"

  "That's when it wasn't you!"

  "What difference does it make whether it's me or the girl next door or Marilyn Fucking Monroe? You wanted the same thing that all my clients want. You wanted something that I give. Peace of mind." My voice softened and I stroked the white duvet cover underneath my knee. "And now you're going to hate me for giving it to other people?"

  Sophie didn't respond right away. I could hear her breathing. Her breaths always got shorter and louder when she was upset. "I just need some time to think."

  "Okay," I murmured. Because who was I to argue? There was nothing more I could say to convince her not to hate me. And there was definitely nothing I could add to convince her to accept me. Or accept what I did.

  But as I hung up the phone I felt a small ounce of comfort in knowing that despite everything else, at least I could finally be certain that I had convinced her not to go through with it. She would never again even think about hiring anyone to seduce her fiancé. And it took the longest, bumpiest, most un-traveled road to get there. But I was finally there. In the clear. Sophie knew. There would be no more secrets. No more excuses. No more lies.

  And even though I'd never felt such an unsettling hollowness in all my life, somewhere deep inside, beneath the frustration, beneath the horrific fear of losing my best friend, I felt my very first taste of serenity.

  Until thirty minutes later, when I heard a knock at my door.

  I peered through the peephole at Sophie's un-brushed hair, unmade-up face, and unadorned pink sweatpants. I attempted to paint a courageous smile on my face as I swung the door open wide.

  She stood on my doormat, completely still, her mind clearly not made up yet as to whether or not she was actually going to come inside. As if MapQuest would only take her this far. What came next, she still wasn't sure.

  So I rested my head against the side of the door and looked at her with pleading eyes. Not pleading for forgiveness, but pleading for understanding. Support. Unconditional friendship.

  But what I didn't know at that very moment was that what she came here to say was ultimately not going to be a testament of her friendship... but a testament of mine.

  Thinking back, I had underestimated her ability to adapt. Her ability to upgrade to a faster processing speed. And ultimately, her ability to not only accept the information she was provided, but to allow it to completely corrupt every ounce of logic in her entire system. Like a virus.

  She stood up straight and looked me directly in the eye. Her voice never faltered as she recited the same line she must have rehearsed over and over again in the five-minute drive to my condo. "I still want you to test Eric."

  17

  The Origin of the Species (Part 3)

  I GUESS you could say I stumbled into my current job as a fidelity inspector. It's not like I planned it. It's not like I woke up one morning with the brilliant idea that I wanted to spend the rest of my life seducing married men.

  The first one was, for all intents and purposes, an accident.

  It was a work happy hour. The crowd had finally dwindled down to just me and a few young female coworkers from my investment bank. After a few too many Rolling Rocks, we began what started out as a very innocent but amusing game of Truth or Dare. Which eventually morphed into just "dare." It was all very harmless. "I dare you to pretend you knew the bartender in high school, and then act offended when he doesn't remember you." Or "I dare you to walk up to that table and ask them how they're enjoying their meal." But after a few more beers it started to take a more scandalous turn, when dares to casually say "Nice balls" to the people playing pool and dares to flash pieces of covered skin to passersby seemed to become more amusing and popular than the less risqué versions that had entertained us earlier in the evening.

  The hot seat had passed several times around the circle, and at approximately 11:30 P.M., it landed on me for the last time.

  "Okay, Jen." My c
olleague Rebecca pointed a long polished finger in my direction.

  I smiled and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. "Yes," I replied confidently and fearlessly. I had successfully fulfilled my last dare with flying colors when I walked into the men's room, motioned confusedly to the urinal, and said, "What a strange-looking sink" to the man inside. The girls had watched from the restroom hallway, laughing hysterically and high-fiving one another like frat boys at a porn convention.

  Rebecca eyed her two neighbors knowingly, and they all exchanged smiles.

  "What?" I asked, wanting to be a part of the secret.

  Her eyes drifted off to a man at the end of the bar, who was dressed in a smart business suit and mingling with a group of other well-dressed professionals. "See that guy over there?"

  I surreptitiously glanced to my right. "The one holding the glass of whiskey?"

  Rebecca's face showed her clear distaste for his choice of alcohol as she nodded. "Yes."

  "Okay," I confirmed.

  She exchanged another verifying glance with Hilary and Tina on either side of her. "Well, you have to go over there, talk to him, and without ever suggesting anything, get him to ask you back to his place."

  I burst out laughing. "Yeah, right."

  But when I looked up, expecting to see three faces laughing right along with me, I was greeted with nothing but deadpan expressions. "You're kidding, right?"

  Rebecca shook her head. "No. C'mon, the stakes are getting higher, step up to the plate."

  I looked over at the man again. "No! I can't do that."

  "If anyone can, it's you," Hilary piped in.

  "What does that mean?" I asked.

  "It means," Tina began, "that you're by far the best looking of any of us, and we have this little theory that no matter what the place or the time or even the outfit you're wearing, any man would jump at the chance to take you home."

  I snorted. "That's ridiculous!"