by H. B. Rae
“Well Martin was with Rodney’s sister. They had always seemed to be perfect for one another and well, Sasha came to the office and she suspected Martin was cheating on her. I mean this was the sort of guy that had always wanted to be with one person forever. I admired him for that, and now he is throwing it all away and I have the proof to back it all up.”
His father was silent for a moment and his mother was listening intently. She very seldom spoke out in conversations unless she was directly asked. John never knew why but it was not his place to ask. “Some people are imposters. I don’t know why he couldn’t have stayed with the same woman, but if he had been serious at one point there might have been a major change in their relationship that drove him away.”
“She can’t carry a child, but that should not mean anything. There are other ways of getting a child into this world. Hell there are children just waiting for a loving family to adopt them!”
“Son, there has to be something else in their relationship going on that they have not told you. There are several sides to a single story and right now you have only heard bits and pieces of it. Maybe it’s time for you to look further into it. I mean that’s what you are good at.”
He shook his head. “I am going to close up shop after this case. I don’t think I can take this any longer. I don’t think I can continue helping people get divorced. Yes, it is a lot of money, more than I ever thought I would be making, but this is not worth it any longer. I need more. I want to help people find those they have lost. I want to find out who is responsible for their disappearance. I want more.”
“We have always supported you, even if we didn’t approve. I know you have an idea about what you are doing.”
John wasn’t sure what else to say, his father continued to look at him. He seemed to know there was something else on his mind but he was not willing to talk about it. The oven beeped and his mother quickly pulled out the lasagna tray. He had to admit it was nice to be with his family and he could not help but like it. One day he wanted this, a family.
Chapter 6
He was back at the office and had barely spoken to Sheila the next morning. Everything he was reading was all the information that had been given to him by Sheila. She had not left anything out and what he was reading he wasn’t happy. He was half tempted to call Rodney and tell him everything that had happened – Rodney would kill Martin if he knew what was going on. Even he hadn’t known. Then again there wasn’t enough evidence in this file alone to say that he had indeed carried out the deed, but John seemed to know it had been him.
He heard the knock on his door and allowed her to walk in. She must have known how long it would take him to read over everything. She stood there in the doorway, wearing a pencil skirt and purple blouse. She was gorgeous, he finally looked up to her eyes.
“I know there is a lot going on in your mind and I am sure you might want to talk about it.”
“You are right, I do want to talk about this, but not to you. I am so sorry if that sounded rude, but there is someone else I need to talk to about this.”
Sheila nodded. “I understand. If you change your mind I will be at my desk.”
There were no words that came out of his mouth and all he could do was nod. Sheila knew what he wanted and left him in his office, with the door shut. He picked up his landline and made a phone call out. He was surprised when Rodney actually picked up the line.
“This is Rodney,” he said.
“Hey Rod, it’s me John. How have you been?”
“I’ve been good man, and what about you? It’s been a while!”
“It sure has. Would you want to catch up sometime?”
“Yeah, let me look at my calendar and I’ll get back to you. Is this the best number to reach you at?”
“Yes it is. I will be leaving the office around six this evening so you should call beforehand.”
“Sure thing,” he said. “Is something wrong? You sound as if there is something on your mind.”
“When we go out I will tell you. This is something we need to talk about face to face.”
“Alright, well I will give you a call in an hour or two. I have a client coming in and I’m not sure how long it will take to finish up.”
“That’s perfectly fine. I will talk to you soon.”
Disconnecting the line, he was not too sure how to approach this situation. With everything he had read he could not believe what he had not been told. He could understand why Sasha would not talk about it but Martin should have been able to tell him what had happened several years ago. It was an event he was certain that Rodney didn’t even know about. Yes, he didn’t want to talk about Sasha’s personal life, but Rodney needed to know what had happened to his sister.
Getting up from his chair, he was walked to the door. He paused for a moment and wondered if Sheila needed to talk about it. She too had discovered this, and even if she didn’t know them personally he was certain she would be able to understand what had happened. He wondered if she felt something when she read over it.
Opening the door she was sitting there on her tablet. She looked up at him. She appeared to be deep in thought about something. She spoke, “Is everything alright Boss?”
“Everything is – not alright. I guess there are things that I wish had never happened. Things that should have been able to be changed, but no. Do you think she didn’t tell me because of how painful the memory was to her?”
“We don’t speak about the horrors of what has happened,” she said and it sounded as if she had her own personal experience. “Sasha most likely didn’t tell you because she felt ashamed. How could someone allow that to happen to themselves? She had no control over that, and even if she knows that, she is not going to be able to forget. Especially if she had trusted him.”
John was sick by it because he had trusted Martin not to be that type of man, and yet he was. He was repulsed and he knew once Rodney was aware he would want to act irrationally, but he had more to lose. He would do what he needed to by his sister without going outside the law.
“I don’t see why she would stay with him after that.”
“She probably stayed because she didn’t think she could be with anyone else. She was probably certain she wouldn’t be able to be with anyone else. Her loyalties were to him before that had ever happened and her loyalties were still probably there regardless of what he had done to her.”
“He should not be allowed to breathe.”
“You can’t do anything about what happened. Just give her the material to have a solid case against him, that way she can take him for what he has; then she can go live her life and hopefully start over.”
John looked her in the eyes and nodded. “I will. Would you arrange for her to come by today? I would like to talk to her before I speak with Rodney, and I would like for you to accompany me. I think she would be more comfortable if there was a woman around.”
Sheila nodded. “Sure thing Boss. Anything you need.”
He could not help but feel something whenever he looked her in the eyes. Part of him wanted to reach out and touch her, but he refrained. They were both professionals and these feelings he had needed to be locked away. Besides, he was not even certain she felt the same way, even with the observance of his father he was certain there was nothing.
Turning away from her, he headed back to his office. He knew tonight was going to be a long night.
***
About two hours had passed and so far they had been unable to get into contact with Sasha. For whatever reason she was unreachable and John wondered what was going on. It was very unlike her not to be around her phone. Especially since she knew he would be calling her.
Sitting in one of the chairs, he was looking intently at Sheila. He wanted to talk to her and tell her what he was thinking, but so far he was unable to do as much. She pushed out her seat, walked towards him, and sat down across from him. She was studying him and spoke, “Neither of us can speculate what is going o
n. It is possible that she is just busy. All we can do is wait.”
“I suppose so,” John said. “What would you like to do?”
“Well it is only one in the afternoon. Would you like for me to pick up some Thai and bring it back up here?”
“That sounds wonderful,” he said. “You know what I like.”
She beamed at him and got to her feet. “I should be back in about forty minutes. If you need anything, call me.”
“I will.”
He stood up as well and walked her to the door. She turned towards him and smiled. “Bye for now.”
She slipped out of the office and he waited there for a moment, not sure what he was feeling or even why. That was something his mother was talking to him about yesterday. She was saying that he wasn’t getting any younger and that she wanted to be a grandmother. John told her about Sheila and she remembered who she was and she approved. They worked together though and wouldn’t a relationship make things more complicated? If they were together he would be distracted. No, he couldn’t be with her and he was just going to leave it at that.
Walking towards where Sheila sat, he saw that her tablet was there. He saw that there was a crack on the screen. He had never really observed her tablet before, but he knew she was always using it. Maybe from the overuse of it is why it cracked, then again it was possible she had just dropped it. Technology was so fragile, but as Sheila had shown him, useful.
He stood there for a moment, someone opened the door and he saw Sasha standing there. She was distraught and he saw she was not alone. Standing behind her was a woman he had not seen since college, Nancy Shaw. He realized Sasha had tears in her eyes and Nancy seemed to be consoling her.
“We got messages from your assistant that you wanted to have her come here. What is going on,” Nancy asked. John could not deny that she had changed since college. She had lost weight and she looked terrific.
“I just had a few questions, and there were things we found out. Those are some of the things that I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What sort of things did you find out,” Sasha asked. She seemed annoyed and John was curious to know what was going on to make her change so drastically.
“I know why you can’t have children. I found the report and you refused to tell anyone what had happened. You would not tell any of the officials who attacked you, but they could not prove someone had forced entry into your home and Martin was not there. It was as if he left you there after what had happened.”
Sasha was shaking. Nancy took a step in between the both of them. He watched as Nancy looked over at Sasha and she shot him a look of disapproval. “You have no right in getting her medical information. I can sue you.”
“Nancy I am getting all the information I need to make sure nothing can be used against her when the divorce is going through. I don’t want Sasha to lose her case because I wasn’t thorough.”
“It is fine Nancy,” Sasha said as she stepped forward. “Martin – Martin does not remember anything. I lied to him and told him I was attacked. I went for check-ups and they established that the damage done would make it impossible for me to have a child.”
“Why did he attack you?”
“I was threatening to leave him,” she choked. “He never really stopped drinking. He would get drunk a lot and he was constantly violent towards me. When we were first together, he didn’t touch me. He treated me like a queen but now he treats me like a punching bag. He hates me for something he did to me.”
“Why did you stay with him this entire time then?”
“Who would want me after what he did? Who would want a woman who couldn’t carry a child? I had been with him since I was a teenager and I was hoping the man I fell in love with would come back, but he never did. The Martin I knew – he is never coming back.”
“That bastard has already filed for divorce,”
“Great, then you don’t have to. You can now prove he is in fault of their agreement.”
“Getting his money is not what I am after,” Sasha said. “I want to get back the part of me that he took away! I want to be the woman I was before he violated me. That is something I will never get back!”
There was nothing he could say to that. There was absolutely nothing he would be able to do for her. Sheila walked in. She had a large brown bag in hand and she looked at all of them. She seemed surprised to see them all there in the main part of the office and scurried to her desk setting the food down. It was obvious she didn’t know what was going on, but she did know what was transpiring.
John turned towards Sasha. “That is something that we all know you will never be able to get back, and we know it isn’t fair, but there is nothing more we can do.”
Sasha was wiping the tears from her eyes and nodded. “I know that, but I wish it was a possibility. I want him to know what he did. I want that bitch to know what he did. I want to ruin his life – I want him to hate himself the same way I hate myself.”
Nancy moved closer towards her and she had her hand on her shoulder. “We should go and finish this. We don’t need this divorce to drag out any longer than it needs to be. I’ll go ahead and take everything you have found.”
John got to his feet and walked to his office. Nancy was close behind him. Sheila was sitting behind her desk and she still didn’t know how to help out. They were in his office and Nancy shut the door behind them.
“You haven’t changed a bit John,” she said.
“You have, and I didn’t even realize you were in Primer. I thought you had moved back down south.”
“Originally yes, but I got a better position out here and that’s why I came back. Would it be too much trouble to ask if we go out sometime, just to catch up?”
John handed her the file he had and looked her in those blue eyes. He finally looked down and realized she was wearing a V-neck. He immediately looked back to her eyes. She bit her lower lip.
“I – I suppose that would be alright. Uh, when would you like to go out?”
“I am staying at the Morton Hotel. I will make a reservation for tomorrow evening.” She took the file from him and she stepped forward as well. “I hope you dress well.”
She walked out and he stood there strangely confused about what was going on. There seemed to be something she was hinting at and he was not too sure what it was. He had been friends with her, but they were not very close. He wondered why she was not asking Sasha, but then again she had a lot going on in her life.
Finally, stepping out of his office he saw that they were both leaving. Sheila seemed to understand everything going on. She walked over towards him after several seconds had gone by.
“Is everything alright? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
He looked at her and he shook his head. “Nancy Shaw is the last person I was expecting to see here.”
“Do the two of you have a past?”
John felt the immediate urge to deny having a past with her, but it was not the same sort of past she was insinuating. “We were friends in college. She was dating Rodney and she became my friend, but Rodney broke it off with her and we stopped talking as much. We spoke every now and again but we were never more than that.”
“It seems as if she feels something towards you.”
“I doubt it. She hated me after I dumped her best friend and she refused to even say hi to me after that.”
“What did she ask you when you were in there?”
“She wanted to meet me for dinner tomorrow.”
“I see,” she said and he realized that she was somewhat upset. “Uh, well you should not let your food get cold.”
“Thank you,” he said as he grabbed his out of the brown bag. He always got the same thing and so did she. John looked up at her and noticed she was playing with her necklace. He wanted to let her know there was nothing between him and Nancy. He wasn’t entirely sure why she wanted to talk to him anyways.
“Sheila, is there something wrong?”
&nbs
p; “No,” she lied. “I was just curious about what was going on. I know that it’s none of my business, so I would like to apologize Boss.”
“You don’t need to apologize. Sheila there is absolutely nothing between me and Nancy. I don’t have any intentions of being with her.”
She seemed bewildered by what he was saying and shook her head. “It is none of my business,” she said. “I hope you don’t think of me as being jealous.”
John couldn’t help but be confused and looked at her. “Sheila, I am sorry if I said something out of line, but I just – I don’t know what to say. I am bad with this.”
She was using a plastic fork with her food and shook her head. “Boss, there is nothing you should be apologizing for.”
Walking towards his office he nodded and shut the door behind him. He seemed to always know how to make things awkward. Putting his food down on his desk he only looked at it. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to go out there and tell Sheila how often he had been thinking about her. He wanted her to know she was special to him and that she made everything so confusing for him.
Taking in a deep breath he was prepared to go out there and tell her everything. He wanted to admit that he had feelings for her and as he was getting the nerve to do so, the phone rang.
***
He was sitting at the pizza joint with Rodney across the way from him. They both had open beers and Rodney knew now what was going on. However, he only knew his sister was getting a divorce and that was the extent of it. John realized it was not his place to go ahead and say anything to him about what Martin had done to his sister. Rodney finally cleared his throat.
“We have been attempting to hold a conversation, but we have proven that this is just awkward. Now can you tell me why you really picked up the phone and called me?”
“I don’t know what is going on with my life.”
“What do you mean? I thought you were set with what you were going to be doing. You seemed so psyched to get out there and start working these cases.”
