37. NINEAH
NINEAH
Stretching out in his—our—giant bed, my muscles stiff in the best way, I couldn’t wipe the dumbstruck smile from my face. I felt like the giddy high school sophomore that’d felt up my first tit and I had to admit, this was arguably better.
Rolling over the side, grateful the worst of my injuries were finally beginning to heal, I hopped down onto the carpet and went to the bathroom to pee.
Though Abraham had been pretty good about cleaning me as part of his aftercare, in the light of day, there was nothing sexy about come running down your leg.
After a quick rinse in the shower, I brushed and flossed, pulled my hair into a bun on top of my head and drew one of my own oversized T-shirts on, instead of one of his massive ones I’d been wearing all week.
He hadn’t left me since we’d arrived here, electing to order in everything I might need from food to tampons, but I figured we’d need more groceries at some point.
All we’d done the last seven days was fuck and cook and fuck and eat, and save for a freezer full of frozen game meat, there wasn’t much left in the refrigerator.
I quickly made myself a coffee to sip on while I did what I hadn’t had the time or space to since I’d arrived here—I snooped.
Though, could it even be considered snooping if the house was technically yours?
I wasn’t sure, but I definitely felt like an interloper as I tiptoed through the halls, peeking through doors and closets, and opening drawers.
Over the last few days, I’d noted the empty spaces on the walls where photos must’ve hung at some point, gaps on my side of the shared walk-in closet, and small inconsistencies I’d wanted to ask about but hadn’t wanted to ruin the mood with my endless cache of questions.
However, I couldn’t ignore the way Abraham was still drip-feeding me information that when I really thought about it, told me nothing at all.
I knew I wasn’t currently working, but nothing about my routine.
I knew we’d supposedly been having marital troubles, but when I so much as hinted at wanting specifics, Abraham expertly changed the subject, either by placing his mouth or his length between my legs and I hadn’t asked again.
A couple of nights ago, he’d urged me to turn my phone on and begin letting people know I was fine, but seeing the increasingly panicked text messages on my screen, the countless missed calls, and the voicemails from Zajre and Matty had been overwhelming.
The truth was, I wasn’t ready to confront reality.
To see how much my best friend had changed in five years or the children she and her husband now had.
Because I knew the second I opened that door, others would follow.
Like the matter of my CPUs. My abandoned projects.
My job. The ongoing investigation into my accident that I knew deep down, was anything but.
I hadn’t asked Abraham for a laptop since arriving, but the pressing need to act, to make sense of the life I’d left behind, weighed on me with every day that passed.
Taking a large gulp of my heavily creamed coffee, I moved into Abraham’s study that’d been tidily organized since the night I’d found him in it.
I glanced around the room and took in the sparse, but tastefully masculine decor.
Shadow boxes stored his commendations. His degrees hung on the walls in dark oak frames.
The aesthetic was obviously representative of the man, but there were sleek, minimalist touches like the black velvet sofa and the abstract stone coffee table—traces of feminine input he’d allowed in his personal space, and that made me smile.
Moving deeper into the room, I went to the eastern wall that was entirely made up of shelves filled with books and ran my fingers over the spines.
Scanning the rows of titles, it took me a few minutes, but eventually I found what I’d been searching for.
Setting my coffee down on the table, I then grabbed the rolling ladder.
Climbing to the far upper left end of the wall, I reached for a thick leather bound book with a title-less spine and pulled the album from the shelf.
I climbed back down and brought the heavy book to the sofa where I opened the album to the first photograph before slamming it shut.
OH FUCK.
I blinked.
Surprised, impressed, disgusted, humiliated, a gamut of emotions ran through me, none of them stopping me from opening the album again.
I winced at the black and white portrait of the heavily made up woman wearing nothing but a pair of white stockings, bridal Jimmy Choos, and a long wedding veil staring back at me.
It was a POV, taken at a high angle as she glanced up at the lens from under her lashes.
As far as boudoir shots went, it was pretty tame stuff, but the look in those large, fierce eyes was deviant, almost enraged.
I could admit that it was an objectively gorgeous shot.
The sunlight from the window that reflected off of the side of my face pulled back the veil of desperation there, and I wasn’t just pretty or bridal in this photo.
I was wanton. Mentally preparing myself, I turned the page and my lungs deflated.
It was the same POV. Same pose. Same outfit, sans heels.
However, the stockings had runs in them.
Mascara streaked my cheeks in angry stripes.
My lipstick had smeared onto my chin. My perfect hair had come almost completely undone and the pink gemstone tiara that I now realized matched the engagement ring I recognized from the digital camera’s pictures, was missing the veil entirely.
And yet, the same eyes on page one that’d conveyed impatience, petulance, even resentment for being made to wait were now docile.
Blissful even. It was then I realized the photo had a time stamp and a title.
07. 09. 22
14:22:22.
Forty nine minutes.
I flipped back to the first page.
07. 09. 22
13:33:06.
I chewed and swallowed the new information like a fresh-baked roll as I flipped through more, unable to look away from the damage like wreckage from a category-five storm.
All of them were renditions of the same concept—befores and afters, time-stamped and titled with the distance between them, none of them particularly graphic, but the depravity in each of my expressions increasing with each turn of the page.
Ravenous, feral, soul baring stares that morphed into submissive, sated, even shy looks.
I felt like a creepy voyeur looking through these, though it was my own face and body in the optics.
“Multiple subjects make it a hobby, Abraham. One makes it felony stalking,” I mumbled under my breath. Though, I had to give credit where it was due. He was talented.
I didn’t know how I knew he’d taken the photos, but I just did. Most of the ones from my camera had been unfocused and a little blurry, like I’d handed it to bystanders to capture a moment. These were art.
I rifled through the photos until I came to the end of the album, deciding to ask Abraham about them later, then placed it back on the shelf.
That was when I saw it. In the center of the room, idling in plain sight, like a homing beacon, a sleek desktop computer sat on top of Abraham’s Amish-crafted oak executive.
Remembering the micro-SD card in the camera, the voice returned.
Do it.
Plug it in and let’s see how much of a liar you really are.
Swallowing, I told the voice to fuck off, but instead of disappearing, this time she clapped back.
You and I both know you can’t help yourself.
Once a delinquent, always a delinquent.
The computer speaking to the very worst of my natures, even more than an abnormally tall man who wanted to love me more than he wanted to disappoint me with whatever secrets he held so close, I watched it with trepidation. And because I wasn’t strong enough to resist, I didn’t even try.
Listening for the sound of SUV wheels coming up the street, I moved behind the monitor, took out my phone, opened the password breaking app, and set it on top of the desk.
Shit. The adaptor.
I left Abraham’s office for the bedroom.
Finding my purse, I rummaged through the designer bag, immediately vowing to condense to something smaller, and found what I was looking for.
I wrapped the USB cord around my wrist, grabbed the dongle, and the ancient Cannon, and was about to return to the study when I noticed the safe door under the bed was ajar.
My curiosity blaring louder than any alarms, warning me that I was already crossing too many boundaries, I ignored it as I reached under the bed and pushed the door aside with my nail.
Inside, was a holstered ankle piece, probably a .
380, two flares, a smaller version of the first aid kit from his study, a SAT phone, a stack of pressed bills bound by a paper seal, and more than one velvet box with the unmistakable embossment of a brand label on top.
I swallowed, reaching for the smallest and with trembling fingers, opened it.
A rose quartz gemstone in a heart shape winked back at me, thousands of little reflective twinkles catching in the safe’s auto-light.
Holding it up to the tiny bulb, I twisted my neck for a better look and I saw it.
Tiny, yet unmistakable because I’d purposely designed it that way, was a tracker.
I placed the ring back inside the box, put it back in its place, then shut the safe.
Returning to Abraham’s office, I popped the battery out of the camera and fished out the four-terabyte micro-SD.
Slipping the chip inside the dongle, I pushed it into the slot on the side of the monitor, and connected the USB to my phone.
One ear on the driveway, I glanced at the clock, noting the time.
Once I was logged in, I immediately opened an html browser and prayed I’d been too dickmatized over the last five years to change the signature of my password decoder.
Unfortunately for me, an app wasn’t going to do shit to access the site I basically used as an online landfill.
Pulling up the application in a separate window, I opened the folders in the micro-SD, rapid-clicking in and out of them until I found what I was looking for. Opening a third window, I copy-pasted the URL until I came to the login site, then let the application run.
Tapping my feet against the floorboards, I waited an agonizing seven minutes until finally, the site accepted the login.
I didn’t have time to go through everything now.
I’d have had to open another program just to sift through the twenty six terabytes worth of data.
Instead, I changed the password, downloaded a few folders I recognized, then logged out of everything.
I spent the next twenty minutes wiping the PC and was returning everything to my purse when I heard a vehicle pull up.
Yanking the tie from my hair, I shook out my curls, considering greeting Abraham at the door naked, but thought better of it.
As wet as the idea made me, I was still pretty sore and I’d already tested my limits this week.
Instead, I added a pair of silk shorts to the T-shirt and slid into my slippers.
Taking the stairs two at a time, my stomach growling from my lack of sufficient breakfast, I hit the living room just as the door opened.
I smiled, rounding the corner, hoping I didn’t look so flushed from having just committed a felony.
Was it still a felony if you were hacking marital property?
“What’d you get?” I asked, then stopped short. An expressionless Abraham carried in groceries, but it wasn’t his angry stare I met. Her arms crossed over her chest, eyes blazing, Zajre Humphries stood in the mouth of the foyer.
“Nineah.”