25
Emaline
When I arrive at reception to check if Briis still in the ICU, I’m told that she has been moved into the recovery ward on the third floor. This fills me with apprehension because exposing her to a space where anyone can come and go will make her more vulnerable. Before jumping into the elevator, I purchase a bouquet of flowers and a box of fancy handcrafted chocolate truffles.
I’m relieved she has her own room and a bodyguard and police officer stand outside. The police officer had not met me before and refused to let me pass until I showed him my ID and received permission from my sister.
The Bear waits outside as I enter Bri’s room to find her sitting up in bed with color in her cheeks and a stiff smile. Half of her face is still a swollen, multicolored mess, but this is fast progress, and I wonder how much longer she’ll have to remain in the hospital.
“Good to see the police here,” I sigh, dragging a chair to her bedside and parking my backside down.
“Once they found out who is pursuing me, they had second thoughts about my personal safety and brought in an officer to guard the door,” she speaks clearly and dispassionately, not showing fear. However, realistically, she must be terrified. “He’s cute, huh?”
“The officer? I hadn’t noticed,” I state flatly, thinking it’s inappropriate to gush over the officer while he’s on duty. Still, then, my sister and I rarely see eye to eye with anything, including flirting with an on-duty officer while she’s lying in bed after being kidnapped.
“It’s interesting when you spend hours on your own and overthinking and…you start to imagine what life will look like in ten or twenty years, depending on decisions you make today,” she rattles off as her sky-blue eyes are fixed onto the horizon outside the window.
“Wow, Bri, that’s deep,” I say, unsure if she’s being serious. “What drugs have they given you that’s made you so prudent.”
“I’ve always been prudent, Em,” she snaps at me, flaring her nostrils in suppressed anger.
“Sorry,” I apologize, realizing we’re getting off to a bad start. “I bought you some flowers and chocolate truffles.” I am stating the obvious: who else would the chocolates and flowers be for? I’m hoping this will make up for my selfish comment.
“Thanks,” she smiles as I place the chocolate box and bouquet on the table beside her bed. “Chewing is a little hard at the moment, but the flowers are beautiful.”
“Have your friends from college come to visit you?” I ask, noticing the room is empty of other flowers and gifts. Our grandparents will never arrive empty-handed, so I’m assuming that they haven’t been for a visit since she moved in here.
Bri explains, “For obvious reasons, I told Harley to stay away since she helped me to conduct the master plan. But I’ll have to purchase a new phone since mine-”
“I found it in Aaron Leroux’s bag,” I stress. “Strange coincidence. I happened to be standing near his bag while he was on the field training, and I called your number, desperate to hear from you, and your ringtone went off in his sports bag.” I carefully read her expression to see if my story would trigger a reaction out of her. Instead, she continues to stare out the window at the cloudy sky and rooftops of nearby businesses against a backdrop of hills. “So, I cautiously and discreetly stole it from his bag, wondering why he had it in the first place.”
This mystery has yet to be solved, and I’m hoping Bri might do that today. “That was Harley’s idea,” she finally says, gazing out the window, distant and emotionless.
“What is the logic behind hiding it in Aaron’s sports bag?” I question curiously, glancing at the doorway and thinking of the large man outside in the hallway.
She exhales and winces in pain. “Do you still have my phone?”
I’m irritated by her avoidance, but I calm my frustration by answering, “No. I handed it into Office Davis, who’s in charge of your case.”
“Good,” she exhales as her shoulder relax. “Will you do me a favor?” she presses, glancing at the door.
“Sure,” I frown, wishing she’d just answer the damn question.
She nervously played with the hem of her sheet with her fingers. “Can you please shut the door, Em?” she nods toward the hallway.
Now, I understand what she’s asserting: privacy. The Bear’s narrowed eyes are the last thing I see before shutting the door on the men outside. “Do you remember me telling you about the USB stick I found in our parents” old accounting files?” she starts, and I swallow over a lump in my throat, fearful of what she’s about to reveal.
I sit back in the chair next to her as the sweet scent of her flowers fills the room, making me feel sick. “Of course,” I reply. “It had Vacation Pics written on the stick.”
“Exactly. There was one file on the USB titled Family at the Beach. Our last beach vacation was to San Diego, so I assumed these pics were taken then. Can you remember how old we were, Em?” Her voice is distant, and she is still gazing out the window as the sickly scent of the flowers makes my nose itch.
“Um, I think I was about seven or eight. I barely remember it, but there are pics of that vacation somewhere…” Bri shoots me a sharp look, and I stall, wondering if I missed something.
“Why would a file that contains nothing but family pics at the beach be locked with a password entry, Em? Think about it,” she grills me, and I’m taken aback.
“Um, I don’t know,” I say shaky. “Maybe they were precious to Mom.”
Bri rolls her eyes. “A sheltered life has done you no favors,” she mumbles, reaches for her cup of water, and places the straw between her lips as I dwell on what she uttered.
“Why are we even discussing this? When I want to know what happened with your phone,” I snarl at her, only because she rolls her eyes at me as if I’m dumb. “I know I’m missing a trick here, but enough with the cryptic language. It’s driving me insane.”
“It was a fake label, Em,” she shouts, forcing me to lean away from her aggression, plunging me far too close to the stinky flowers. Regretting and raising her voice at me, she quickly calms. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout, and I hope they didn’t hear it in the hallway.”
“I think the entire hospital heard it, including those working in the incineration room,” I say, getting up from the chair to sit on the windowsill, away from the flowers.
She splutters in a chuckle, then takes another sip of water. Once she swallows, she continues, “At first, I tossed the USB stick aside, resigning never to open it. But the more I thought about it, the more it captivated me. Why would Mom place a password on a set of family pics? The only reason I can think of is that she wrote Vacation Pics to deter anyone from sniffing around. And was it a coincidence the USB stick was in amongst their clients’ old accounting books in a storage unit we didn’t know existed.” She clears her throat and sips her water again. “Have you asked Gramps about the storage unit?”
“No,” I shake my head, noticing water dribbling out from the plastic bottom of the bouquet. I open the only cupboard in the room to find a glass vase to put them in.
“They really are beautiful, Em,” she says softly, brushing the tips of her fingers across the open blooms.
“I know you loved pink when we were kids, so…” I state, placing the bouquet in the vase, then stepping back to the window sill, a safe distance from the nauseating scent of the flowers. Actually, it’s not a safe distance, so open a window a crack to fill this small room with fresh air, diluting the heady scent, even though it’s freezing cold.
Bri frowns at me. “You’re weird.”
“Now, I haven’t heard that for a long time. You used to call me weird almost every day when we were younger,” I proclaim, feeling no sting when she said that, which is good.
“Because it’s true,” she argues.
“Anyway,” I begin, “please continue your riveting story.”
“Is that sarcasm, Em? Didn’t think you were type,” she hits back.
“Times have changed,” I contend with her, and a slimy smile worms across her swollen dial.
“Does that have anything to do with the Leroux boys?” she enquires mischievously.
“No,” I lie, stopping that line of questioning before it starts. “Did you manage to break the password?”
“Yes,” she finally answers, putting me out of misery. “It took several days, but I figured out what it was. Our birthdays. Which reminds me…I missed your birthday, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but I don’t care. I’m just pleased you’re safe and sound.” Grandma and Gramps also forgot because they were sick with worry about their missing granddaughter. It turns out she wasn’t that far away after all.
“So, when,” she lowers her tone to a whisper, “I opened the file, I found more accounting stuff, and at first, I felt annoyed that I hadn’t come across a treasure. Until I looked at it more closely and discovered that the Viche’s accounts showed money being laundered to offshore accounts to disguise illegal activities and tax evasion to sixty million dollars.”
My mouth drops open in shock.
“The only reason I noticed the laundering was Mom had highlighted each line of vanishing money and typed a large question mark beside them. There were also side notes giving more information that I don’t entirely understand,” she swallows, playing with the hem of the sheet again. “The dates correspond with our parents’ disappearance.”
An eerie silence falls as my mouth becomes desert dry. “So…it was the Viches who…” I can’t say it. They were last seen on the streets of Johannesburg on CCTV and vanished just like Viche’s money.
“Yes,” she sighs.
I slip my fingers under my glasses to rub my wary eyes. Still, more questions need to be answered, and I’m not leaving until they are. “Why didn’t you go to the police with the USB? Mom discovering their illegal activities is a motive for their deaths.”
“We don’t know if they died,” she argues. I don’t know how many times we’ve had this argument, but I find it hard to believe that our parents would abandon us, even if they were afraid for their family. “I was planning to go to the police when they turned up at my dorm room at my sorority house and tipped my room upside-down and threatened to hurt our grandparents unless I give them the USB.”
“How did they find out?” I ask in horror, wondering why she hadn’t told me.
She proclaims, “I haven’t figured that out because the only person I told was Harley.”
I gasp. “There’s your answer. So, it had to have been her. Your friend is two-faced-”
“No, she wouldn’t do that,” she snaps confidently.
“How can you be so sure?” I’m almost shouting now and lowering my voice when the security guard outside clears his throat.
“Because she was the one that hid me in the basement of her parent’s house while they were away on vacation, then transferred me to the crypt temporarily when they returned,” she enlightens, even though I don’t feel enlightened. I don’t know how she can say Harley has nothing to do with it.
“You have no other explanation for how they found out, Bri. It could only be Harley,” my voice rises again out of frustration. “Who else could it be?” Then it dawns on me. “Wait. Harley worked with two other men, both of whom were on Aaron’s football team.”
“I know,” she says exhaustively. “I told her not to bring them into the equation, but she was close to Kieran, and I think she had a slip of the tongue.”
“It had to be one of them, Bri,” I shrill as my stomach lurches. “Your friends are traitors.”
“No, they’re not,” she yells back, then recoils in pain, placing her hand against her swollen cheek. “They helped me. Harley told Kieran late into the plan when I went into hiding, Em. So, your accusation doesn’t add up.”
I pause to think it over and realize that she’s right. Whoever squealed to the Viches had to have done that when she discovered what was on the USB stick, which leads us back to Harley. Timing is everything. I decided to drop the subject because it upsets her, even though she’s stupid for denying the obvious. But it begs the question...what else is Harley doing behind her back?
“It has crossed my mind that we may have been watched and followed for years,” she says quietly, then flicking her hand dismissively, “but that’s too far-fetched.”
“I won’t dismiss it. Anything is possible,” I say to make her feel better, even though if that was the case, why raise their ugly heads now?
“I swear, Em, there’s no way it was Harley. She wouldn’t betray me like that,” she cries out. Now, the emotion emerges, and I’m not equipped to deal with it.
There’s a knock on the door, and the ‘cute’ police officer pokes his head inside, “Sorry to interrupt. We can hear arguing, so I’m checking to see if you’re okay?” He’s directing his question at the broken blond in the bed, not at me, the distraught sister.
“I’m fine, thanks,” she says, giving him a flirtatious smile that makes me want to vomit. She’s lying in bed, swollen and bruised, and all she can think about is hooking up with the policeman. Some things never change.
“Anyway, your grandmother is here to see you,” he informs us, barely taking his eyes off my sister. Maybe romance will blossom over the hospital bed.
“Oh great,” Bri says excitedly. “Show her in.”
“No. Wait,” I try to stop her at the risk of appearing rude. “We need to finish our conversation. How did your phone get into-”
“Shush,” she hushes me because the officer is still there. “I’m exhausted, Em. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll fill you in then.”
“We don’t have time,” I almost beg. “There’s more people involved than you.”
The officer looks peculiar when he sizes me up, and I wonder what she’s told him about me. Or is that me being paranoid?
“Is everything okay here?” he says sternly as Grandma’s bustling figure emerges behind him.
“Yes,” I sigh. “I’m leaving and…” addressing Bri, “I will be returning.”
“Can’t wait,” Bri murmurs sarcastically as Grandma hugs me, carrying a bag of green grapes and a small box of fudge. I wanted to tell her not to waste money on that brat in the bed, but I decided to bite my tongue and not for my sister’s benefit.
But seeing Grandma reminds me of another mystery yet to be solved: who paid off the overdue invoice?
There can only be one suspect.