I went upstairs calling her name for the third time, a tiny fissure of worry opening inside me when again, she didn't respond and I didn't hear the water running. I didn’t hear anything.
Her room, cleared of all her personal items, hit me like a fist to the gut. I looked around helplessly. She was gone? Why? My heart slammed against my ribs as fear slid down my spine. Was she in danger? I saw a piece of paper sitting on her dresser and rushed to it, grabbing it.
Brogan,
I'm leaving to stay with my friend Daisy. Please don't call me tonight. I'll contact you when I'm ready.
Lydia
I swallowed, reading the note a second time, trying to understand. Why? A sick hurt assaulted me. When I'd left this morning, everything had been fine. We'd made sleepy love before either of us were fully awake, and she'd kissed me and smiled as I'd left, telling me she'd see me later that evening. And now she was suddenly gone with no explanation? And her letter, it was so . . . terse.
I turned and stared blankly at the bed, remembering the night I'd revealed all my secrets to her. My eyes moved to the bedside table, blinking at it repeatedly as more sick hurt gripped my heart. The folder—my stupid, ridiculous folder—the thing that had once kept me going, it was gone. Lydia had taken it with her? I stumbled to the bed, my legs collapsing as I sat down on the edge, putting my head in my hands. Why, Lydia? I didn't understand. Why?
**********
I sat at my desk staring blankly at the stack of papers in front of me. After finding Lydia gone, I’d come to my office in the Bronx. I couldn't be at the apartment. God, would I ever be able to be at my own apartment without her? She'd told me not to call her, but I'd done so anyway, getting only her voicemail. I'd give her a couple of days. And then I'd go to Daisy's and demand she talk to me. She owed me an explanation about why she'd left and why she'd taken my folder. My stomach felt sour and my head hurt. I'd been going over every moment of our exchanges over the past few days for hours and still hadn't come up with an answer.
Why? Why now? Where are you, Lydia?
My thoughts were interrupted by the muted sound of glass breaking. I stilled, listening intently and not hearing anything again for several minutes. Something on the street maybe. Although, since moving here, I'd worked in a business where instincts could save your life, and right now, something felt off.
I started to stand when I heard another faint noise, this time closer and from within the building. I sat back down and reached under my desk for the gun I kept there. And I waited.
I didn't have to wait long. A minute later, the door to my office clicked open and Stuart De Havilland entered, looking like death warmed over, shaking, and pointing a gun at me. What the feck? I kept my hands on my lap, not moving a muscle. "Stuart," I said evenly.
He lurched toward me and my hand reached toward my gun, but retreated when he fell into the chair in front of my desk, smirking at me as he took something he'd been holding between his upper arm and body and set it on his knees. My folder. My gaze moved from it to his face. I forced my expression to remain unaffected.
"You were a whore," he said excitedly, letting out a strange, high-pitched laugh.
"Where'd you get that?" I asked.
"My sister gave it to me," he said, watching me closely. Cold sickness moved down my spine but I worked not to react. Was he lying? But if he was, why was Lydia gone, and why hadn't she called me? Had she really betrayed me . . . again? Or . . . for real this time? Confusion and horror made me dizzy. Surely she hadn’t been lying to me. Had she been working with Stuart all along to try and turn the tables? No. Impossible. No, no, no.
Visions flicked quickly and painfully through my mind—watching Lydia seemingly alive with happiness as she'd worked in my office, how others had softened with her presence, how the young people we worked with had almost found a mother/sister figure in their life. Someone they could trust. No, that couldn't have been a lie. I felt gutted by anguish. I wanted to fall to my knees and weep; the very thought brought a hopeless rage barreling through my chest.
Stuart twitched and the gun in his hand jerked, causing my blood pressure to spike.
"How about you put that down while we talk?" I suggested.
"No fucking way."
I let out a breath. "Okay then, have it your way. Let's get this over with. What do you want?"
"I want everything you have, you piece of fucking gutter trash."
"You want your company back? Fine, it's yours. I'll sign it over to you in the morning."
He waved his gun around and my hand inched toward my gun. "I don't want my fucking company back! Fuck my company! I want your money. All of it, every cent."
"Why would I give you my money, Stuart?"
"Because of this," he yelled, picking up my folder and waving it around.
"There's nothing in that folder that would persuade me to give you a dime," I lied. The truth was, there wasn't anything in that folder that would do the job of ruining me, at least not in the way Stuart was counting on. But for it to get out that I'd been a prostitute . . . that I'd kept the information in that folder at all, filled me with sick shame.
"You're lying, you piece of shit whore. These people in here—did you know the husband of one of the women who hired you to be her boy toy is running for state senate now?" Yes, I had known that. It hadn't mattered because they were in a different state now because of me. I'd done that and it was enough.