23. Todd
TODD
Icouldn't sleep.
I tried.
I spent the past several nights staring at the ceiling in my penthouse, replaying every second of that evening over and over again.
The files on her computer.
The look on Cici's face.
The tears in her eyes.
The way her hands had shaken.
The pregnancy.
Jesus Christ.
The pregnancy.
I went through my days on autopilot. Not feeling anything. I was just... numb. I scrubbed a hand across my face, and rested my head back against the sofa.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her standing in her kitchen.
Pale, terrified, and heartbroken.
The files flashed before my eyes. All the confidential documents. Right there on her computer.
I couldn't make the two things fit together.
The woman I'd come to know.
The evidence I'd seen with my own eyes.
One of them had to be a lie. I just didn't know which one.
My phone buzzed against the coffee table.
I looked at the screen.
Bunny.
I ignored it.
Two minutes later she called again.
I ignored that one too.
The third call came less than a minute later.
I answered.
"What?"
"Get dressed."
I looked down at my sweatpants. "No."
"Justin and I are picking you up in thirty minutes."
"I'm not in the mood."
"I wasn't asking."
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone.
Then sighed.
Unfortunately, I knew my cousin well enough to know she wasn't bluffing.
An hour later, I was sitting in a steakhouse in downtown Charlotte wondering how much prison time I'd get for strangling a relative.
Bunny sat across from me.
Justin sat beside her.
His leg was still healing, but he was finally moving around without looking completely miserable.
Neither of them had touched their menus.
That should have warned me.
This wasn't dinner. This was an intervention.
Bunny folded her arms.
"You look terrible."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Justin snorted into his water glass.
I glared at him.
He looked away.
Traitor.
The waitress appeared and took our drink orders. The second she disappeared, Bunny leaned forward.
"How's everything?"
I just looked at her.
Her eyebrows raised.
"And Cici? How's she doing?"
I looked down at the table.
The fact that I didn't immediately answer seemed to tell her everything she needed to know.
"Oh, Todd."
I hated that tone.
"What?"
"What did you do?"
I clenched my jaw. Right away she assumed I was the guilty one.
"Todd?"
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Nothing came out.
Because the truth sounded awful no matter how I tried to package it. Maybe I was the guilty one here.
Bunny slowly shook her head.
"Seriously, what happened?"
She gave me her 'don't mess with me' look.
"I've known you my entire life, Todd. Talk to me."
I looked away.
Neither of them spoke.
Finally, Justin sighed. "What happened?"
I stared at the condensation running down my water glass.
"I found more files on her computer. These were more incriminating than the first batch. You know, the ones on the USB."
Bunny frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I don't know what to believe anymore."
The words came out rough.
For the first time since sitting down, Bunny's expression softened.
For about three seconds.
Then it disappeared.
"That's not true."
I looked at her.
"What?"
"That's not true."
I laughed without humor.
"Apparently we're doing this."
"We are."
I rubbed my forehead.
"Bunny—"
"No."
She pointed a finger at me.
"You don't get to pull the CEO intimidation thing with me."
Justin immediately took a long drink.
Smart man.
I looked back at her.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
She didn't hesitate.
"If you thought Cici was guilty, you'd already be done with her."
Her words hit hard.
I didn't respond.
"You'd have fired her."
Silence.
"Wait, did you fire her?" The pitch in her voice rose an octave or two.
"No."
"Okay. Whew." She took a sip of water. "Think about it, you'd have cut all contact."
Silence.
"And you wouldn't be sitting here looking like someone ran over your dog."
I exhaled slowly.
Bunny leaned forward.
"You're looking for proof she's innocent."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Then why are you still thinking about it?"
I didn't answer.
Because I couldn't.
Because some part of me knew she was right.
I wasn't trying to prove Cici guilty. I was trying to prove her innocence, and figure out why none of it made sense.
The waitress arrived with drinks. Nobody spoke until she walked away.
Then Justin finally broke the silence.
"Did the hotel security come up with anything?"
"No."
"Nothing?"
I shook my head.
"Nothing useful."
I took a sip of my bourbon.
Then something occurred to me.
"The black SUV was back."
Both of them looked up.
"The one on Cici's road?"
I nodded.
"I saw it again."
Bunny frowned.
"The same vehicle?"
"Same one."
"What makes you so sure?"
"I remembered the plate."
Bunny shrugged.
"What was it?"
"CMV2005."
The color drained from her face.
I stopped talking.
Justin looked at her.
"Bunny?"
She stared at me.
"What did you just say?"
"CMV2005."
For a moment nobody spoke.
Then Bunny slowly sat back in her chair.
"Oh my God."
Every muscle in my body tightened.
"What?"
Her eyes found mine.
"That was Ethan's plate."
I went completely still.
Justin frowned.
"Ethan?"
I barely heard him.
Because suddenly I knew exactly who she meant.
Ethan Vale.
Former Director of Corporate Intelligence.
The last person I'd expected to think about tonight.
Or ever again for that matter.
I stared at Bunny.
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
My pulse started climbing.
"How?"
"Claire Marie Vale."
I blinked.
"What?"
"His wife."
The memory hit almost immediately.
Claire. Pretty, had long dark hair. I think she was a teacher.
She was nice. I'd met her at a few company events.
Christmas parties.
Fundraisers.
Years ago.
I couldn’t quite make the connection between her and Ethan, but who am I?
"CMV," Bunny said quietly. "Claire Marie Vale."
I stared at the table.
"2005."
"The year they got married."
Justin looked between us.
"Okay. Somebody catch me up."
I leaned back in my chair.
"Ethan Vale worked for Archer Consulting."
"Doing what?"
"Corporate intelligence."
Justin frowned.
"What does that even mean?"
"It means he knew everything."
The words left my mouth before I realized I'd said them. And suddenly I hated how accurate they sounded.
Executive travel.
Acquisition schedules.
Security planning.
Flight manifests.
Executive movement.
Sensitive negotiations.
Risk assessments.
Everything.
Every file we'd found on Cici's laptop.
A cold feeling settled into my stomach.
Bunny looked at me carefully.
"You think he's involved."
I didn't answer immediately. Because once the thought entered my head, it refused to leave.
Two years ago we started noticing problems. Information appearing where it shouldn't. Deals becoming public before announcements. Investors moving money in suspicious ways.
At first we blamed coincidence.
Then bad luck.
Then somebody started digging.
Eventually the trail led to Ethan.
Not enough evidence for criminal charges.
Enough to terminate him.
Enough to end his career.
I remembered as security escorted Ethan from the building, he'd paused at the door and looked back at me. There hadn't been any yelling. Just a cold smile.
"You think this is over?" he'd asked quietly. "One day you're going to regret this decision, Todd."
At the time, I'd dismissed it as the bitterness of a man who'd just lost his livelihood.
Now I know better.
I looked up.
"Wasn't there something going on with him?"
Bunny sighed.
"Yeah, marital problems amongst other things, I heard he got divorced."
I nodded slowly.
"Divorced." I repeated. "And what kind of other things?"
Her head tilted.
"If the rumors are true, they were having money issues."
"Money issues? He made great money working for me."
She nodded in agreement.
"He didn't have an earning problem, I heard he had a spending problem. Gambling, specifically. Him and Claire were having problems long before he left."
Justin looked confused.
"What does that matter?" I couldn't help but to ask.
Bunny's gaze found mine.
"Because maybe you didn't ruin his life."
The words hung in the air.
"Maybe you were the last thing holding it together."
Nobody spoke after that.
No one needed to.
Something clicked.
For the first time since leaving Cici's house, I felt a direction.
I was back in my office less than an hour later. I felt bad leaving Bunny and Justin at the restaurant, but I needed answers.
I pulled up the files recovered from Cici's laptop and started digging.
Then I started making calls.
Security.
IT.
Compliance.
By the time Charlotte's skyline had faded into the darkness beyond my office windows, half my company had spent hours pulling records.
For the next three hours I buried myself in access reports, and security files.
Everything related to Ethan Vale and anything connected to Cici.
The first thing I found made my blood run cold.
One of the acquisition files recovered from Cici's computer had been created eight months before she ever flew for Archer Consulting.
I stared at the date, then checked it again. Then a third time. Impossible. I opened another file and found the same thing. Then another. And another. Files that existed before she'd ever met me, before she'd ever walked onto my aircraft, before she'd ever known my name.
My stomach tightened.
I kept digging. The second discovery was worse. Several document access times occurred while Cici had been in the air. I pulled flight records. Cross-referenced timestamps. I double checked everything.
There was no mistake.
At the exact time one document was supposedly being accessed, Cici had been flying my aircraft over Colorado.
Another occurred while we were crossing over Illinois.
Physically impossible. It wasn't her.
Not Cici.
I sat back in my chair. My pulse pounding.
By midnight my security team had located the archived building footage I requested. The quality was terrible and the date could barely be seen. But it showed someone entering a secured records area after business hours.
No one was scheduled to be there.
Just a shadow moving through a hallway.
I stared at the screen.
Then at the timestamp.
Then at the personnel records attached to the report.
Ethan Vale.
I felt sick.
Because suddenly I wasn't looking for evidence anymore.
I found it.
The final report arrived shortly after one in the morning.
I opened the attachment.
Read it once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
The USB device recovered from Cici's laptop matched a batch ordered through a procurement request submitted by Ethan's department before his termination.
I stared at the screen.
Unable to breathe.
Every piece pointed in the same direction.
None of it led to Cici.
Not one thing.
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
And suddenly I saw her standing in her kitchen, tears running down her face as she begged me to believe her. I heard her voice echo in my head.
I didn't do this.
The strain in her voice echoed through my head on an endless loop.
She'd told me the truth.
About all of it. And I hadn't believed her.
Then another memory slammed into me.
Todd...
I'm pregnant.
I opened my eyes.
My chest felt hollow.
What the fuck Todd?
I walked away.
I reached for my phone because one thought drowned out all the others.
If Ethan Vale had been willing to frame her...
What else was he willing to do?
I picked up the phone and called Cici.
Straight to voicemail.
Called again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
"Damn it, Cici."