Trapped

by Annie Jocoby

  I felt so guilty.

  My dad shook his head. “What’s done is done. Okay, then, it’s time to bring out the big guns. We have no choice. You said that you thought that Nottingham was up to no good. From what you told me about him, and what Nick knows about him, I would think that you’re probably correct about that.”

  “Where to begin, though, dad? How do we prove it?”

  “I’ll get my security firm on it,” my dad said. “And hire a private investigator. There’s going to be some shake-downs coming, I can sense it. I know some people who can get things done. They get things done within the bounds of what’s legal, but they also can do things which aren’t. They were involved in this Paul Lucas mess in the first place. They can out-Nottingham Nottingham, if that makes any sense at all.”

  I smiled. “Dad, thank-“

  “No, Dalilah. I almost hate to get my security firm on it, because a part of me wants you to learn your lesson the hard way. But now that you’ve gotten all of us involved with your mess, it’s time to come off the sidelines. We’re going to come off the sidelines to clean up your mess, and cover up ours.”

  “Dalilah,” Nick asked. “You know how I feel about what you did, hacking and threatening me. No need to revisit that. We do need to find out, though, if you have any suspicions at all that Nottingham was up to no good.”

  “Well, yes,” I said, and I told them about the German conversation that I overheard. “I was going to try to hack him myself and find out about that trade, but I decided not to. But there is that. That’s the only thing, though, that I heard that would make me think that he’s doing something illegal.”

  “That’s a good place to start,” Nick said. “Have somebody look at all the trades that he has done, and see how close these trades have come to any kind of big announcements in the news. But, since that would only be circumstantial evidence, we’re going to need to go further to prove that there’s anything illegal.”

  “No,” my dad said. “The illegality ends here. We aren’t going to hack him. I won’t ask my security firm to do that, even though they can. I think that the best way to approach this would be to find these possibly illegal trades, and make Nottingham think that we have definitive proof that he’s doing something wrong. If that’s what has happened, here. There’s no guarantee for that, because, well, Dalilah’s information is so vague, it’s impossible to know if that’s what Nottingham is guilty of.”

  “Dad,” I said. “We need something more definitive. If your security firm can do that, then I think that they should.”

  Luke gave me a look. I just looked back at him. I felt bad, I did, but I wanted an insurance policy. Simply telling Nottingham that I had information without having something to back it up would be folly, in my opinion.

  “No,” my dad said. “We aren’t going to do that. We’re going to find things out legitimately, or not at all.”

  Nick chimed in. “Ryan, we need to talk about this. We’re all involved in this. At least, you and I have our necks on the line, here. I think that we need to take a vote on this. I personally am with Dalilah. I think that we need to get your firm to hack if they have to, to get actual hard information about any kind of illegal trade that he has made. If that’s what is going to be our ace, here. There’s no guarantee that this is going to be the ace, of course, but who knows what we can find if we really get looking at his hard drive.”

  My dad was shaking his head. “I hate doing this. I thought that I was out of the illegal stuff a long time ago. I’m getting pulled back into it, though, and I don’t like it.”

  “I know you don’t like it, Ryan,” Nick said. “But Dalilah is right. We need an insurance policy here.”

  Dad looked at my mom. “What do you think, beautiful? We do illegal acts to cover up our previous illegal act? Or we try to do things legitimately and let the chips fall where they may?”

  My mom sighed. “Ryan, as much as I think that we should do things legally, I know that your security firm is trained in this sort of thing. They’re pros. Let them do what they’re going to do, and, this way, if Nottingham calls our bluff, we have something concrete to show him.”

  My dad looked defeated. “Okay, let’s take a vote. We’re all in this.”

  “I’m not going to vote, of course,” Luke said. “I mean, I don’t have a dog in this fight, really. Except, of course, the fact that it’s my child who is at the middle of all of this.”

  “Then you have a dog in the fight,” my dad said. “You get a vote, too.”

  I groaned, inwardly. I knew how Luke was going to vote. I mean, I wasn’t certain, but I had a feeling that he was going to vote for doing things dad’s way. So, for doing things dad’s way, there was Luke and my dad. My mom seemed to be on the side of doing things the hacking way, and Nick did, too. I was clearly on Nick and mom’s side.

  Which left Scotty. I assumed that she would vote with Nick, but, who knows? Perhaps she, too, was afraid of things going awry if we did things the hacking way.

  We took a vote. To my utter surprise, my dad was the only one who voted to not hack. Everyone else, including Luke, voted to have the security firm hack if they had to.

  “Okay,” Ryan said. “I’m clearly outvoted, here. Now, you all know the risks. Nottingham isn’t going to be easy to hack, and, if he finds out he is being hacked, he’s going to throw the book at all of us. But, I understand the reason why you guys voted in the way that you did. We do need an insurance policy, and there’s more of a chance that this whole thing will go south if there isn’t an insurance policy than if there is. So, then, okay. I’m going to have my security firm do whatever it takes to prove that Nottingham has dirty hands.”

  We spent the rest of the evening planning it all out.

  That night, after everyone had left, Luke and I spent some time cleaning up the kitchen. We worked in silence for awhile, but I finally brought up the inevitable subject.

  “You voted with Nick and everyone against my dad. While I love you for doing that, I was wondering why you would? You were always adamant that I shouldn’t do that.”

  Luke sighed. “Dalilah, I’m trying very hard to reconcile that vote with my own conscience. I’m telling myself that it’s different the way that your dad wants to do it, because it’s not you doing the hacking. It’s the security firm. That’s not a great distinction, but that’s the one that I’m telling myself.”

  I nodded. “Well, that sounds like a good distinction to me.”

  “It’s not. Illegal is illegal is illegal. But, at the same time, I agree with Nick and everyone that we’re going to have to have insurance with that man. I just don’t think that bluffing is going to do it. He’s too intelligent. Too devious. I just think that we have to fight fire with fire.”

  “I love you, you know that? You surprise me sometimes, but in the best way.”

  “Don’t love me for this,” Luke said. “This is my dirty side. The side that I don’t like. It was bad enough that I had to go into that fetish club with Serena, using a fake badge, but, this…this is just wrong. I wish that there was something else that can be done, and, up until the point where Nottingham started blackmailing you, I really believed it was just going to be two lawyers going at it. To tell you the truth, I think that the fact that he’s getting down in the mud is what tipped me over. You can’t bring a knife to a gun fight, as you said before.”

  I held my breath. He clearly was still angry with me.

  Give him time. He’ll come around.

  After we did the dishes and cleaned everything up, we sat on the couch together. I rubbed my foot on his crotch playfully, but he gently pushed it away. “I’m sorry, Dalilah, but I’m not in the mood right now.”

  I felt rebuffed, but tried not to show my hurt.

  Then he rubbed my foot, and tried to smile. “Too much stress. Let’s go to bed. I somehow have to try to concentrate on getting my art career off the ground, so that I can at least realize a return on my investment. I don’t know how I
can possibly concentrate on that, though, with all of this nonsense hanging over our heads.”

  I took a deep breath. “Luke?” I said in a small voice.

  “Yes, Dalilah?”

  “I made the right decision, right? I mean, in taking the progesterone so that we could keep Olivia?”

  Luke looked startled. “Oh, honey, why would you even ask that? Of course you did. That was the only decision to make. That was the best decision you made.” Then he shook his head. “But those other decisions. I just don’t know. I mean, I know that it all was done for me. But there had to be a better way of going about it. There just had to be.”

  “20/20 hindsight,” I said. “Looking back, I think that I made some of the dumbest decisions imaginable. But, at the time, I thought that these decisions were good. I guess I really wasn’t thinking about how underhanded Nottingham was going to turn out to be.”

  Luke kissed my forehead gently. “So intelligent, yet so naïve at the same time. In a way, a weird way, this makes me actually love you more. You don’t always see how dirty people are. I mean, you knew that Nottingham was dirty, but you didn’t know how much. I love that you still seem to have a part of you that’s optimistic about human nature, no matter what happens.”

  I sighed with relief. So far, Luke and I were hanging together.

  We might have been hanging by a thread, but, as long as we still had even that thread between us, there was a chance that we could get through this.

  Chapter

  Luke

  I went back to my new studio the day after the big pow-wow that we had with Dalilah’s mom, dad, Nick and Scotty. Although I had that whole mess hanging over my head, I had to put my nose to the grindstone. Dalilah brought it home to me when she said that a judge was going to decide the best interest of the child according to income – my income relative to Nottingham’s. While I had the feeling it wasn’t even going to come to that – who won this battle would be whomever decided to blink first – on the off-chance that this whole mess would be decided by a judge, I felt that I had to get my ass in gear.

  And, even if the whole mess didn’t, in fact, get decided by a judge, I still wanted to get going. Because, no matter what happened, there was going to be a baby in about six more months. In six months, I would be a dad. And I had to provide not only for Dalilah, but also for Olivia. Olivia would be the baby’s name, assuming that the baby was a she – Dalilah was scheduled the following week to go in for her first sonogram that would be able to tell the sex of the baby.

  For my part, I really hoped that the baby was a girl, for no other reason than the fact that I would have loved to honor my mother with my daughter’s name. Of course, I would be happy either way, really.

  I was feeling the pressure, for sure. I was still hustling for commissions for myself, and I was also working like hell with the rest of my cooperative in publicizing our upcoming major fund-raiser, which would happen the week after next. So far, the fund-raiser was going to go well, even if it would still be nothing compared to my Matthew Jane premiere. We were able to attract attention of a lot of the more minor players in the art world, which was a good thing.

  What I wouldn’t give, however, for just one of the heavy hitters that attended my premiere to give our cooperative a chance. We would be well on our way if that were the case.

  Then, one day that week, the most unexpected thing imaginable happened.

  The day started just like any other. I had gotten into a nice routine of spending about two hours every day composing, about four hours a day helping the cooperative publicize the upcoming fund raiser, and another three hours a day hustling for private commissions. I figured that, since I had a lot of artwork that had, thus far, gone unsold, which meant that I already had a good portfolio, I was better off actually working on the marketing end of my business as opposed to the composing end.

  These were long days, but I felt like I was getting somewhere. And that was important, because parting with that initial investment of $20,000 hurt bad. But everybody was cool and hard-working, and there were some massive talents in the cooperative, so I knew that it wouldn’t be long until I was making a good income.

  The only thing was that I was, essentially, facing a deadline. By the time Olivia came, I felt like I had to have enough money saved up to move out of Serena’s home. That was important to me – I had to provide a good home for Dalilah and the baby.

  I never even permitted myself to think that Dalilah and I could possibly lose custody to Nottingham. I always assumed that we, as the good guys, were going to win.

  My life, aside from worrying and stressing about the entire Nottingham thing, was focused. Laser focused on getting ahead.

  So, when I got my unexpected visitor that day, I was shocked. And very pleased.

  I was working on a painting when JJ told me that I had somebody there to see me.

  “I’ll be right there,” I said.

  “No,” JJ said. “I think that you probably shouldn’t keep this person waiting.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m right in the middle of something. I’m kinda on a roll.”

  “Trust me,” JJ said. “You want to talk to this person.”

  Argh! “Okay,” I said, following her out. “This better be good.”

  “It is,” she said. “I promise.”

  I followed her out the lobby of our building, and, standing there, in the flesh, was Henry Jacobs.

  I gulped, feeling mixed emotions upon seeing him. I hated him, of course, because he destroyed Dalilah. Yet, I also knew that he was a king-maker, so the mercenary in me was more than happy to see him. I had no idea why he was there, or why he was coming specifically to see me, but I was encouraged that he was there.

  “Hello,” I said, shaking his hand. “I’m Luke Roberts. I understand that you’re here to see me?”

  “Yes,” Henry said. He was short, about 5’6”, balding, with glasses. His posture was slightly hunched. He was very well-dressed, from the shine of his black shoes to the perfectly tailored suit with the little pink handkerchief placed strategically in his jacket pocket. “Mr. Roberts, my name is Henry Jacobs. I’m the lead critic for the New York Times, and I was at your premiere back in December. Can we go someplace and talk?”

  “Certainly,” I said. “Would you like to come back to my studio?”

  “I most certainly would,” he said. “I’m very interested in your current work. I understand that this cooperative is having a fund-raiser in a few weeks, and I would like for it to be well attended.”

  I cocked my head, wondering if I was dreaming the entire thing. Henry Jacobs sought me out? After he ignored me in his article about my show, choosing to focus completely on the other two artists who were displaying with me that night? What the hell was going on?

  The little man followed me through the maze that led to my studio. Once he got there, he went through my paintings, one by one. He didn’t say a word, but I saw him nodding his head several times.

  He finally looked at me. “Mr. Roberts, I owe you an apology, so I wanted to deliver it in person. I was at your premiere at the Matthew Jane. I found your work exquisite, and I recognized that you were an important artist in the making. But I ignored you in my review of your Matthew Jane showing. I would like to rectify that by helping you get the word out about your upcoming fundraiser. I would also like to write a review of your work that you are going to show at your fundraiser. So, please select your most representative paintings for this show.”

  I was in shock, to be honest. I had no clue that Henry Jacobs even still had me on his radar. “Thank you very much, Mr. Jacobs. I don’t know what to say.”

  He kind of nodded. “You don’t have to thank me. I am just trying to correct an injustice. I’ll see you at your fundraiser.”

  And, just like that, he was gone.

  I walked out to see JJ, feeling that I was in an absolute daze. “Henry Jacobs is going to be at our fundraiser. And he said that he would like to help get the
word out about it.”

  JJ leaped up in the air. “Whoop!” she said. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh.my.god!” She started dancing around the room and shaking her ample hips. “I can’t believe it. How did you manage that?”

  “Well,” I said. “That huge showing I had in December? He didn’t write me up, at all. In his review of that show, he completely ignored me. The reason why he came to see me today was that he thought that his ignoring me in that review was an injustice that he wanted to correct. That’s probably the craziest thing in the world, huh? I mean, the lead critic for the New York Times slumming with us?” I started laughing.

  I went to call Dalilah, but then thought better of it. She might not take too kindly to Henry Jacobs being at my fundraiser and publicizing it, considering what he did to her. I finally just decided to tell her when I got home. She might not like it, emotionally, but, rationally, I knew that she would be happy.

  It felt like, once again, things might be looking up for me.

  But, then again, it felt like that before. I got the rug pulled out from under me that time, and I was afraid that it would happen again. So, I couldn’t be overly confident.

  I still felt, though, that I had a second chance to make my mark. And I was going to make the most of it.

  `

  Chapter

  Dalilah

  I was so stressed out that I was worried about my health, and the health of the baby. My mind was constantly going a mile a minute, trying to anticipate what was about to happen. I felt, however, that I needed something to take my mind off of all of it, so I decided to go down and see Luke at his new studio. I really wanted to get to know the other artists there at the co-op, because I knew that they really wanted me to join them, too. I didn’t really have the money for that, however, although I wasn’t necessarily above asking my dad to invest in the co-op - if I thought that it would be a good investment.

  That was the thing – I needed to know that this cooperative was solid. Then I would know that my father could get a good return for his investment. The last thing that I wanted was for my father just to give me money, without much hope that he would get the money back. Asking him to invest, though, made it seem, to me, like it was another business decision for him, and that made asking him for money all the more palatable.