Chapter 11 #2
He gives the egg mixture a final stir and sets the bowl aside. Then he grabs a nearby cutting board and sets a couple of red peppers atop of it. “Do you want peppers in the eggs, too?”
“Sure.” My stomach makes a hungry rumble. Last night I was too anxious to eat more than a couple of bites, so I’m starving this morning.
As Nico begins slicing the peppers, he asks, “I haven’t asked recently. With everything else… But how is your memory? Has anything come back yet?”
I sigh. “Not yet. Sometimes it feels like it’s right there—but then it’s gone.”
Nico looks up from the cutting board and gives me a sympathetic look. “I’m sure it’ll come back soon.” He stops. Glances at his watch. “That reminds me. The doctor is coming around noon. That’s another reason I took the day off. So I can be available when he’s here.”
“The doctor? Coming here?”
“Yeah. I know you’re supposed to have a follow-up, and I thought it would be better to do it here.”
“Nico.” I lean forward. “Doctors don’t make house calls anymore. Especially not neurologists.”
Two spots of pink color his cheeks. “Yeah, they will.”
“Nico. How much did you pay—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He starts chopping again. “He’s coming here. Around noon. And after, if he says it’s okay, I thought we could work on some jigsaw puzzles. If it’s not too much for your concussion, that is.”
“Wait. What?” For a moment, I wonder if this is all a hallucination, and everything that happened last night and so far this morning is just in my imagination. “Jigsaw puzzles?”
Nico studies the pepper with the intensity of a surgeon. Without looking up at me, he replies, “I ordered some. Last night. They should be delivered today.”
This is all so unexpected, I’m not sure what to do with it.
Nico believing me when I told him the truth. Rushing off to confront his father, and forcing him to admit what he did. Coming back and apologizing. Not just apologizing, but swearing to do whatever he could do to make up for his mistakes. Pleading with me to stay. To let him protect me.
And this morning; cooking breakfast. Taking the day off from work. Paying who knows how much to get the neurologist to come here for my follow up. Ordering jigsaw puzzles for me…
“Nico,” I say. “What’s going on here?”
“What do you mean?”
“All of this.” I nod at the array of ingredients and utensils on the island. “Cooking. Taking off work. Bringing the doctor here. Buying puzzles. It’s just—”
He looks up at me. Sorrow darkens his gaze. “I know it’s not even close to enough. Nothing could be. Not after… But I want you to be comfortable here. Not to feel like you’re an unwanted guest.”
“Oh.”
“Is it dumb? The puzzles? Maybe you don’t even like them anymore. I didn’t even think—”
My heart tugs.
It doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him.
But I know he’s trying.
“I still like puzzles,” I reply. “I have a bunch of them at home. In fact, that’s one of the last things I remember—sitting in bed, trying to decide whether to pay for expedited shipping on the puzzle I wanted to order, or wait for regular.”
Nico drops the knife with a clatter. “Shit.”
I jolt in my seat. My pulse skips. “What? Is something wrong?”
“No. Sorry. Nothing’s wrong.” He hurries out of the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “I just remembered something. I’ll be right back.”
While he’s gone, I look around the kitchen, focusing on the decor in an attempt to distract myself from the mess of emotions churning inside me.
It’s a large space, easily half the size of my apartment, with glossy marble counters that sparkle as the sun hits them and black steel appliances.
Everything in here is black or white—white cabinets, black coffee maker, black and white paintings on the walls, and shiny black tiles on the floor.
It’s an impressive room, for sure. Expensive, no doubt.
But I think I prefer my little kitchen with its mish-mash of colors and candid photos of me and my mom decorating the walls.
A pang of sorrow hits me.
It’s been five years since my mom died, and I still miss her every day.
If she were here, I could talk to her about Nico. I could ask her why she sent him away. I could tell her about my mixed-up feelings. How it feels strange to be here with him, but natural, too.
I could ask her why I want to forgive Nico, even after he hurt me so badly. I could ask her what she thinks I should do.
But she’s gone, so it’s up to me to work through this.
“Got them,” Nico announces as he comes back into the kitchen. He has a phone in one hand and a laptop, the other. “I can’t believe I forgot to give these to you right away.”
“Give me what?” I already have the burner phone Nico loaned me. And the jerks who attacked me probably wiped my laptop days ago and resold it.
“A new phone and laptop,” he replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Then he sets the two items in front of me with a small flourish.
“Um.” I eyeball the expensive iPhone and MacBook he just presented me with. “Where did these come from? Because they’re not mine.”
Nico shoves his hands into his pockets. “The laptop is new. I had it delivered along with the puzzles. And the phone I’ve had for a couple of days, but I finally got all your data restored on it last night.”
“All my data? How? You don’t have my account—”
Oh. Right.
“I didn’t hack into anything personal,” he says quickly.
“No medical records or grocery lists.” He circles the island and tosses the peppers into the egg and cheese mixture, then adds, “I secured the phone first. So no one else can access it. You won’t have to worry about anyone pinging your location and finding you here. ”
My stomach lurches. I hadn’t even thought of that. Some private investigator I am.
“Anyway,” he continues, “Anything you had stored in the cloud, I transferred it over. There wasn’t a lot—”
“There wasn’t?” My voice pitches up. “What do you mean there wasn’t? I store tons of stuff there. My case files, all my photos…”
“It’s possible I missed something.” Though it’s clear from Nico’s voice he doesn’t think he did. “Take a look. Let me know what’s missing.”
I turn the phone over in my hands. “When did you have time for all this? We didn’t stop talking until almost 1 AM.”
Nico turns to the stove and adjusts the burner. Quietly, he replies, “I couldn’t sleep last night. So I thought I’d work on that instead.”
My heart tugs again.
It shouldn’t, but it does.
“It’s still best you don’t tell anyone where you are,” Nico says. He pours the eggs into the pan, then scatters the peppers on top. “Just to be safe. Not that anyone can get to you here, but—”
“I won’t.” I unlock the phone—it still has my same passcode, but I decide to let that one go for now—and swipe through the apps.
Everything looks the same as I remember, except this phone doesn’t have a tiny chip at the corner of the screen.
It doesn’t have the worn case with an A-1 Investigations sticker on the back.
Rather than start with the cloud storage, I click into the messages app. There are ten missed texts, four of them spam, and the other six from Brian.
I immediately read his messages, starting with the last one first. It’s from the night of the first attack, so I don’t remember the conversation. But it was innocuous enough, just chatting about the weather and taking his grandkids to a car race in Florida. Nothing to stir my memory, unfortunately.
But with each progressive message after that, his concern becomes more evident.
Everything okay? Never heard back from you last night.
Hope you’re not working too hard. Take a break sometimes.
Maybe it’s time for a vacation. There’s room if you’d like to come for a visit.
I hope you’re being careful with those nighttime stakeouts. Do you have the pepper spray I gave you?
I’m getting worried. Are you alright?
And finally.
Sofia. Text me. I’m worried.
“Crap,” I mutter.
Guilt squeezes my chest.
Nico looks at me with alarm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, exactly. It’s just—” My fingers hover above the screen while I debate what to tell Brian. “It’s my old boss. Brian.”
Nico’s features go still. In a carefully calm tone, he asks, “What about him?”
I can tell what Nico’s thinking. He thinks Brian might be a part of this. But it’s not possible. First, because Brian’s in Florida. And second, Brian’s the closest thing I have to a dad. He would never do anything to hurt me.
But Nico’s father hurt him, didn’t he? Elio Parisi didn’t just hurt you. He hurt Nico, too. And if Nico’s own biological father could do that…
No. Elio Parisi is an asshole of the highest order. Brian isn’t. And there’s no way Brian would send a crew of masked attackers after me. He wouldn’t.
“He’s just worried,” I reply. “I guess I was texting with him the night of the attack—”
“The night you were attacked in the alley?” Nico’s eyes flash dangerously. “You were texting with him? Did he know what you were doing? Where you were going? What did he say?”
“Nico, relax.” I lean across the island and pat his hand. “Apparently, we were just checking in. We do that sometimes. We were talking about the weather. And he was telling me about his grandkids. That’s all.”
“Soph.” He holds my gaze. “Right now, everyone is a suspect.”
“It wasn’t Brian,” I insist. “He wouldn’t. He wasn’t just my boss. He was my mentor. He taught me everything. He gave me a job after—”
No. Don’t bring up my failed attempt to join the FBI. Not now. Not when Nico feels so guilty already.
Why do you care if he feels guilty? the logical voice in my head asks. He should feel guilty after what he did.
Shut up, I silently respond. Don’t worry about why. I just do.
A beat later, I wonder, Is it weird to have so many conversations with myself?
“Maybe I’ve lived alone too for too long,” I mutter.
Nico shoots me a look of confusion. “What?”
“It’s nothing. Just… talking to myself.”
“Okay…”
“Anyway, Brian wasn’t involved. But he’s worried because he hasn’t heard from me. So I need to figure out what to say that won’t make him worry more.”
Nico’s shoulders lower a smidge. He gives the eggs a stir, then says, “Just tell him you lost your phone. It’s not even a lie, technically.”
Right. That would work.
After I quickly shoot off a text to Brian apologizing for my silence, claiming I lost my phone on the subway and just got a new one, I open up my laptop and move on to my files.
In the moment it takes for the program to open, I’m still convinced my files are all there. That Nico wasn’t looking in the right place, that, despite his incredible skills with computers, he simply missed something.
Then the program opens, and I realize he was right.
My heart sinks.
There’s nothing there. No folders. No files. It’s just an expanse of white.
“Soph?” Nico moves the pan off the burner. “What is it?”
“My files. You were right. They’re gone.” A beat later, I realize what that means. “I didn’t delete them, Nico. Whoever took my things did it. Which means—”
“The attack could be related to one of your cases.” It’s said like a foregone conclusion. “Or something to do with your business.”
I knew there was a high likelihood of that, but I’d still held out hope the attack could have been random. That maybe I wasn’t targeted. But given this news…
“All my client files. My old photos.” A lump sticks in my throat. “The last ones with my mom. I kept meaning to print them out.”
“Hey.” He hurries to my side. “It’s okay. There’s always a way to get files back. It’s just knowing where to look.”
“But… I thought I could look through my old client files. See if there was something that jogged my memory. Or at least give me a hint to who might have attacked me.”
“What about a backup?” he asks.
“The cloud storage was my backup. I had everything stored on my laptop and in the cloud. Brian… he used to have file cabinets. With mountains of paper. But when I took over, I wanted to modernize it. So I spent weeks transferring everything over. And I paid for extra cloud storage just in case I ever lost my laptop.”
Frustration builds. How could I be so stupid? Why was I so insistent on getting rid of the paper copies? Why didn’t I—
“Wait!”
Nico jolts. “What?”
“I saved some of the cases on a USB drive. Not the most recent ones—I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. But most of them.”
“Where’s the drive?”
“At my apartment. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before now. I have it in my desk. The top drawer. Shoot. How could I have forgotten?”
“Because you were hurt.” His hand comes to my shoulder. It’s warm. Comforting. Some of the anxiety rushing through me settles. “It hasn’t been that long, Soph. You had other things to deal with.”
“I need to get it. The drive. And maybe if I call about restoring the storage…”
“Sofia.” Nico turns me to face him. “Let me do this. I can send someone to your apartment. And I’ll work on restoring the files. Once we have them, we’ll work together to search through them. Okay?”
But I always do things on my own.
“You don’t have—”
“I want to, Soph. Let me do this for you, at least.”
The stubborn part of me wants to insist on doing it myself.
But Nico can do things I can’t. He can hack into the cloud storage servers to see if there’s anything left to retrieve. He can send one of his very capable employees to my apartment to look for the USB drive. On my own, it’ll take longer. It’ll be more dangerous.
“Okay,” I agree with a sigh. “If you could help, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course.” He gives my good shoulder a small squeeze. “I’ll absolutely help. As soon as I’m done cooking, I’ll send Houdini over to your apartment.”
I blink at him. “Houdini?”
Nico chuckles. “His nickname. Houdini’s real name is Val. Short for Valentin. He was on my Delta team. And he’s the best at lock picking out of all of us.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense. With the nickname and all.”
“It does. Now.” He steps back, his hand drifting down my arm as he moves away. “How about we eat breakfast? Then I’ll make some calls before the doctor arrives. And you can take a look at the puzzles I bought. Let me know if I got ones that are hard enough.”
He makes it all seem so simple.
It reminds me of something else Nico used to do.
Whenever I was stressed out—over a test, over college applications, the increasing hours for my part-time job—he’d pull me into his arms and reassure me, “It’s going to be okay, Soph.
You’re not dealing with this alone. I’ve got your back. We’ll work it out together.”
I know I’m still supposed to be mad at him.
And accepting his help doesn’t mean I forgive him.
But I want to. And I missed him, even after everything.