Rula Sinara - Through The Storm

At first, she’d thought Brice’s increasing emotional distance, preoccupation with work and irritability were due to the change their daily lives had undergone when Nick came to live with them. She had thought her husband was avoiding the stages of mourning she and Nick had been suffering through, and she had decided not to confront him about it. She figured it would all pass and they’d find a new equilibrium; plus, it wasn’t fair to make Nick suffer through their marital stresses. Not after what he’d already been through and not when his uncle Mac couldn’t get over his bachelor-ness and take his nephew in. But since her initial suspicions, things had been getting worse. Maybe Tessa’s imagination was working overtime and she was reading into the bits and pieces of a phone conversation she’d overheard when Brice didn’t know she’d returned home early from taking Nick to one of his posttraumatic therapy sessions, but she needed to know for sure. If Brice was involved in criminal activity, no way was she going to let Nick live around him.

A door on the far side of the living room led to Brice’s office. He kept it locked whenever he took trips, but Tessa had been planning today for over a month now. Trust. Traitor. She reached into her pocket for the key she’d made, then entered. His office had always made her nervous. Like a mother walking into a crystal display shop with a hyperactive child. Just about everything was made of glass or covered in it. The shelves. His desktop, resting on a sleek, sawhorse-style base with wooden drawers and files under either side. The decorative items between books. It had never hit her before, but now it looked as if he were being daring...seeing just how much load his life could take before everything shattered.

She went to his desk and wondered how he kept the glass fingerprint-free. She avoided touching the surface and opened the drawers. A credenza along the wall behind the desk carried his main computer. No doubt he’d taken his laptop with him.

She wished like crazy that she knew his computer passwords. One backup of his hard drive would be all she needed, but she had no time to guess and no clue how to hack. She’d take anything, though—the last bank statement, receipts...anything that would put her suspicions to rest and prove Brice wasn’t involved in dark business dealings. Prove that the man who’d swept her off her feet was still the same Brice she’d married. A charismatic and shrewd but moral and ethical businessman. Her husband. Yet the last words she’d overheard from that phone call still echoed in her ears: No one can find out. I’ll deny involvement with my last breath.

The nape of her neck prickled as she rifled through his drawers, careful to leave everything looking untouched. She hated this: the sneaking behind his back, the spying...the adrenaline. Boy, did she hate adrenaline. The longer it took for Brice to notice something was wrong when he returned from his business trip in two days, the more of a head start she’d have. She cursed e-bills and cloud storage, then tried one last drawer. A small clear plastic container lay in the back, covered by a stack of manila envelopes. She lifted it out and stacked the envelopes in place. The container had at least six flash drives piled inside. Maybe some things are too sensitive to store in cyberspace. Huh, Brice?

Her cell phone ring tone sent her pulse scattering. She fumbled for it in her back pocket and checked the screen. Katia. Her editor must have already seen the article she’d sent her just an hour ago. Tessa took a second to steady her voice, then answered.

“Hey, Kat.”

“Tessa, are you crazy? I can’t publish this in tomorrow’s paper. Have you forgotten who your husband is?”

Tessa pressed a hand over her eyes. Why had she bothered? Had she really thought the friendship that had grown between her and Kat would make a difference this time? How often had she been told “no” and to stick to her assigned fashion column?

“No, of course not. It has nothing to do with him,” Tessa said, as she quietly closed the desk drawer.

The article had everything to do with him, but she wasn’t stupid enough to mention his name directly. They wanted her to stick to her fashion column and she had. Only, instead of recapping the season’s trends and giving her generalized opinion on them, she’d written about how outdated and deplorable the use of ivory in jewelry and home decor was, especially in an era of animal-rights awareness.

“How can it not?” Katia huffed into the phone. “Tessa, why do you think I offered you this column to begin with?”

Nice. Rub it in. Nepotism. She didn’t write for the paper because of any talent. She wrote for it because Brice got her in.

“Not only is he on the executive board of this newspaper,” Katia insisted, “he’s the lead investor in half the companies you mentioned here. You have no proof. We’d get sued for defamation. I’m not losing my job over this.”

“You won’t lose your job. You’ll be doing it. Isn’t uncovering truths and raising awareness what journalism is supposed to be about?”

“Maybe for some journalists, but that’s not the purpose of your column. That’s not what your readers are looking for. If they want to read about crime, they’ll turn to the front page. Your column is in the Arts and Home section. Remember that. Tessa, what’s going on? This isn’t how you write. Have you been sleeping? Watching too many crime shows?”

Only for ideas on how to rob her husband.

“Kat. Listen to me a minute. As my friend, not my editor. I know something is going on that involves some well-known businessmen and politicians around here, and I have a really strong feeling it involves the illegal ivory trade. We can wave a red flag over the issue.” She looked down at the thumb drives. If there was anyone she could trust, it was Katia. “I’m working on getting more solid proof. If you have to leave company names off for now, fine, but at least print the rest. Get the ball rolling. Attract attention to the cause.”

“Tessa...”

“Look, I have to catch a flight. I’m taking my nephew to his uncle’s so that I can focus on this. Just post it. Making waves could be good for both our careers.”

“Forget your career. Stop and listen to me.” Katia lowered her voice. “Nothing is private here. I’m betting every email is monitored. You’re playing with fire, and that’s not like you. Be careful. It hasn’t been that long since your sister and brother-in-law were killed. I think the stress is getting to you. Take a break. I can get someone to cover the column for a while.”

“I don’t need a break.”

There was a pause and she could hear someone talking in the background and papers shuffling.

“Tessa, I have to go.”

She started to object, but the line disconnected. Tessa cursed and jammed the phone back into her pocket. You have no proof. Why couldn’t her instincts count for something? Apparently personal agendas trumped both friendship and truth. She took a deep breath. Katia was afraid to ruffle a few feathers. Well, Tessa was about to do a lot more than that. She grasped the USBs and stuffed them into her backpack, knowing full well they could end up being empty or useless, but she was running out of time. She wiped her damp palms against her beige khakis and tucked Brice’s chair under the desk, but then pulled it back out and used the hem of her blue V-neck T-shirt to polish the drawer handle and the glass edge, just in case.

She locked the office behind her, then climbed the stairs two at a time, slowing down only as she approached Nick’s bedroom down the hall. She paused, slowing her erratic pulse with deep breaths before tapping on his door and cracking it open.

“Nick, you have thirty seconds or we’ll miss our flight.”