Chapter 7 #2
“I’m not. He left this morning for San Francisco, back to his real life and whatever business brought him through Lake Tahoe in the first place.
” I try to keep my tone light and unaffected.
“It was exactly what it was supposed to be. A brief encounter, no strings attached.” I grimace when I say, “I don’t even know if he’s married or in a relationship.
I didn’t think to ask.” I groan in disgust.
She pats my hand. “Not your fault if he is a cheater, but do you think he was?”
Going with my gut, I say, “No. I don’t think he has anyone special. He seemed…lonely, like me. We both needed last night, I think.”
Gemma studies my face with the careful attention of someone who’s learned to read between my carefully constructed words over the past two years of friendship. “Yes, and now you wish it could be more.”
“It doesn’t matter what I wish. He’s gone, and I’ll probably never see him again.” I take a large bite of my sandwich to avoid further discussion.
“Did he at least leave his contact information? Say he’d call when he gets back to wherever he’s from?”
“He left a note saying he’d be in touch.”
“Well, that’s something. Maybe?—”
I shake my head. “Gemma, can we talk about something else? Please?”
She recognizes the note in my voice that means I’m approaching my limit for emotional excavation. “Of course. How’s the job search going?”
We spend the rest of lunch discussing career prospects and her latest dating disasters, which are comfortable topics that don’t require me to examine my feelings about mysterious strangers who disappear before dawn.
As the afternoon progresses, my thoughts return to Aleks despite my best efforts at distraction.
Not just to the physical intimacy we shared, though that was certainly memorable, but to the conversations that preceded it.
The way he listened when I talked about my father, the grief I glimpsed when he mentioned his brother, and the sense that beneath his polite exterior lay depths I’d barely begun to explore.
Had I imagined the connection I felt when we opened up to each other? Was the chemistry purely physical, enhanced by wine and candlelight and the novelty of sleeping with someone who wasn’t Tripp?
By evening, curiosity gets the better of me.
I open my laptop and search for “Aleks Sokolov” in various combinations with terms like “international trade,” “Eastern Europe,” and “business.” The searches return nothing useful.
No LinkedIn profile, no company websites, and no social media presence that matches the man who shared my bed last night.
In an age when everyone leaves digital footprints, when even my elderly neighbors have Facebook accounts they barely use, complete online anonymity strikes me as unusual.
Most legitimate businesspeople have some kind of professional web presence, even if it’s just a basic company listing or industry directory entry.
I try variations of the spelling. Aleksander Sokolov, Alex Sokoloff, Alexander Sokolov but still find nothing that matches the man I met or explains what kind of trade business requires complete digital invisibility.
The absence of information bothers me more than it should.
I tell myself that some people value privacy, that not everyone needs to broadcast their professional activities online, but something about the complete void where there should be at least some trace of his existence makes my investigative instincts itch.
Dad always said to trust my gut when something didn’t feel right. “Information that doesn’t exist is still information,” he’d say when teaching me about research and verification. “Sometimes what’s missing tells you more than what’s present.”
I close the laptop and head upstairs to clean the guest room. The practical task should help clear my head and restore normal routine to a space that’s been transformed by intimate memory.
The bed is easy to remake with fresh linens. I vacuum the carpet, dust the surfaces, and replace the flowers on the dresser with a new arrangement from my garden. Gradually, the room returns to its original state, ready for the next guest who might book it.
I save the bedside table for last, opening the drawer to see if he left any comments in the leather-bound notebook and quality pen I provide for guests who want to jot down thoughts or recommendations during their stay.
A notebook is still there, but it’s not the one I placed in the drawer.
I pull out the leather-bound journal, immediately noticing that it feels different in my hands.
Heavier and more worn, with creases and marks that suggest frequent use.
When I open it, instead of blank pages waiting for guest observations about their Lake Tahoe experience, I find page after page of dense handwriting in a script I can’t entirely decipher.
Numbers, letters, names I don’t recognize arranged in columns and lists that look like some kind of code or accounting system. Entries like “VK—50k—03/15” and “Judge Morrison—quarterly—confirmed” alongside series of numbers that could be account references or transaction codes.
I flip through several pages, trying to make sense of the information.
Some entries are in English, and some in what might be Russian based on the Cyrillic characters, but that’s a wild guess mostly based on his faint Eastern European accent.
There are dates going back six years, with numbers ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and names that sound both American and Eastern European.
This isn’t a guest notebook. This is someone’s private record of.
..something. Financial transactions, maybe, though the cryptic notations and multiple languages suggest something more complex than standard business accounting.
Aleks must have switched the notebooks by mistake, taking mine while leaving his behind in the drawer.
I guess it was an easy error to make when packing quickly in dim morning light, especially since both notebooks are similar in size and binding.
As I study the pages more carefully, noting the meticulous organization and obviously sensitive nature of the information, I realize this wasn’t a minor mistake.
These records represent something important, perhaps valuable enough that their owner would want them within arm’s reach even during a supposedly routine overnight stay.
What kind of businessman keeps encrypted financial records in multiple languages in a notebook instead of a computer?
What kind of legitimate business requires such elaborate documentation of payments and relationships?
There aren’t any dollar signs, but I’m sure things like ‘50k’ reference fifty thousand dollars.
I close the notebook and sit on the edge of the freshly made bed, staring at the leather cover as though it might contain answers to questions I haven’t even thought to ask yet.
Who is Aleks Sokolov, really? What kind of world is he involved in that requires such careful record-keeping of what appears to be significant financial transactions?
More importantly, what does it mean that he left these records behind in my house?
I slip the notebook back into the drawer and finish cleaning the room, but my mind keeps returning to the pages of coded information.
Every instinct Dad taught me about recognizing when situations don’t add up is screaming that I’ve stumbled into something far more complicated than a simple case of mistaken identity or forgotten belongings.
The man who made me feel safe enough to break my own rules about keeping distance from guests, who shared vulnerable stories about his dead brother and made me believe in the possibility of genuine connection, apparently carries secrets that require encryption and multiple languages to protect.
As I turn off the lights in the guest room and head back downstairs, I worry that last night changed more than just my perspective on taking romantic risks. It opened a door to questions I’m not sure I want answered, and complications I’m definitely not equipped to handle.
I settle into my living room with a cup of tea and try to focus on job search emails, but the notebook upstairs seems to call to me like a puzzle begging to be solved.
Who are you really, Aleks Sokolov? And what have you gotten me involved in?