Chapter 8 #3
He stormed over to the door and opened it. “Give me my key back, and get out.”
Alissa’s nostrils flared. “I’m not done yet.”
“You sure as hell are. And by the way, I cannot believe you didn’t know you could just call Ted’s office and he’d have given you an appointment without using me.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you know that? It’s his job to meet with interns, fellows, and registered lobbyists.
Come on, Alissa. You definitely knew. You just used me to cozy up with Ted, or claim some kind of extra special relationship to curry favor with your new bosses.
The fact that you could have done it the regular way makes it extra slimy. ”
Rachel knew Alissa well enough to read her face, and she saw plenty of surprise there. Maybe Alissa didn’t know she could have just called.
Alissa went on the attack.
“So that’s it? Four months together and a chance to change the future of your beloved Maine for good and you’re ending it like this?”
“Give me my key and get out.”
“Oh, I’ll give you your key. But I’ll give you more than that.” She slapped a keychain into his outstretched palm, then reached into her bag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. She handed it to Kell, giving Rachel a cold, deadly look.
“Ask your new little girlfriend what she knows about your uncle.”
“What?” Rachel gasped. The gong rang louder.
She flashed back to a quiet conversation with Alissa at her cubicle. This would have been about five months ago, when Alissa had asked her to look into cross-border pipeline issues with Canada and the U.S.
And Rachel had found the Luview family connection.
“What’s this?” Kell opened the paper.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
“Emails. Between you and me,” Alissa said with a triumphant smirk.
“What do emails between you and Rachel have to do with any of this?” Kell asked, eyes skimming the page, brow dropping as he read.
“How do you think I made the connection between you and your uncle? It was Rachel!”
The room dropped into an unending abyss. Rachel’s body went cold.
The emails between her and Alissa at work.
Oh, no.
“Rachel knew I was trying for a job at MonDex. She’s the one who told me about your uncle in the first place.”
“WHAT?” Rachel shrieked. “I never knew you were getting a job with Big Oil!”
“That’s not what these emails say,” Kell muttered, his words slow, his voice sick. He held the page out to Rachel, who scanned quickly.
The first email was from Rachel to Alissa: Hey, did you know there’s a Ted Luview who is the commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and Conservation? That must be Kell’s uncle, or maybe a cousin?
Alissa to Rachel: Great catch! And the Canada-Maine pipeline is under negotiations.
Rachel to Alissa: Wouldn’t it be great to protect all that land from a pipeline?
Alissa to Rachel: Or maybe I’ll get a job with MonDex and secure this project.
Rachel to Alissa: Sure, sounds great. If you get hired, help me get a job, too! :) Working for Big Oil would be phenomenal. I would totally leave Stanford for that!
Rachel’s stomach fell to the floor like a dislodged boulder.
“There it is,” Alissa said nastily. “In writing. Rachel’s the only reason I knew about your uncle. She–”
Rachel interrupted her. “Alissa asked me to research cross-border pipelines. I saw the Luview name and–”
“And you never said a word to me,” Kell growled at her.
Growled.
“Alissa told me the research was a secret, and–”
“That’s a convenient statement,” Alissa interrupted, looking at Kell. “It couldn’t be more clear that she knew I was trying to get a job at MonDex, and even wanted to use me to get herself a job there.”
“That was sarcasm! I didn’t think you were serious! I thought this was all a joke.”
“A joke.” Kell’s words were ice picks. “A joke?”
“Kell,” she said, pleading. “When she says maybe I’ll get a job with MonDex and secure this project, I thought she was being totally sarcastic. Like, who at EEC would ever do that? So I jokingly–jokingly!–wrote back about her helping me get a job. The smiley face is sarcasm.”
“Oh, please!” Alissa rolled her eyes. “The words are right there.”
Rachel was drowning.
Drowning.
Everything Alissa said made black seem white and white seem black. Like the truth was a lie and lies were truths. Everything really was about Alissa, not Kell. The fault really was with Alissa, not Rachel. But the look on Kell’s face when they made eye contact was clear.
He believed Alissa.
No no no no no.
Her mother’s voice pierced it all.
Confidence, Rachel. Always, confidence.
Squaring her shoulders, she turned to him. “Kell. Why don’t we all calm down and—”
“Get out,” he said again, except this time, he was looking at Rachel.
“Kell, I–”
“Both of you. Leave my apartment.”
Alissa swished out the door, turning back to wave at both of them. “You two deserve each other. Losers. Have a good life.”
He promptly re-opened the door, gestured for Rachel to leave, and looked down at the floor. His chest was rising and falling, shoulders expanding. He was nothing but barely controlled rage.
“Kell, please,” she pleaded. “I can explain all of that. I can. I–”
“I’m only saying it one more time, Rachel.” His head snapped up, eyes on hers, radiating betrayal and pain. “Get the hell out of my sight.”
Frantic, she grabbed her purse and walked to the door, her heart beating against her ribs like a dying animal in a cage as she stepped into the hallway and turned to speak.
“Kell, I–”
The door crashed shut.
And Rachel’s world crashed down around her.