CHAPTER 56: THE FIRST STEP

Myla.

It was hard for me to pick my next course of action. Indecision plagued me and worry created such unease inside me that it made my stomach hurt. I picked at and played with the food in front of me. A bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel. It had sounded good at the time but all I could think about were those horrible photos. I immediately wanted to block that number and delete them but Sophia thought it would be better to keep them, for now anyway. I might need them for an investigator if I decide to hire anyone. She still thought getting the police involved wouldn’t be a good idea. As for me? I wasn’t sure at all. Whoever had sent the photos still hasn’t texted with anything resembling demands.

“Eat, Myla,” Sophia urged. She sat across from me, a worried look on her face. That made me nervous too. She wasn’t exactly the type of person to worry about much. “You’re going to make yourself sick if you don’t eat. Probably. Besides, it’ll take your mind off of things for a little bit at least. Give it a try.”

“I don’t think I can.” I stared at the bagel. It did look tasty, but with my stomach acting the way it was, the idea of actually putting something in it sounded unappealing. Not even the coffee next to it sounded good. “My stomach is a basket of snakes right now. Food. Coffee. All of it sounds like the worst idea on the planet at the moment.”

“Maybe whoever it is just wanted to scare you,” Sophia suggested but even she didn’t believe her own words. I could tell. Her voice lacked any kind of confidence in what she was saying. “They haven’t texted anything or asked for anything yet.”

“But you said they were letting the photos marinate, right? It’s only been a few hours,” I told her. I leaned my head in my hands, still picking at the everything bagel part of my sandwich. My fingertips picked off one sesame seed after another, neatly placing them on the plate it rested on. “I just know it's not over yet.”

“Try to be optimistic?” Sophia said but in a way that made it sound more like a question than a statement.

“While I love you for trying, it’s not working. I’m miserable and I still don’t know what to do about Fabian,” I said. “I think I need to talk to him about this. What if he did get photos too? He could think I had something to do with them.”

“He’s not stupid,” she responded. “There’s no way in hell Fabian will think you had anything to do with this. What we need to do now is talk to Grace. No. Fuck that. We need to do more than just talk.”

“We don’t know it was her, Sophs,” I said. As much as I wanted to blame someone, anyone at all for this mess I found myself in, it felt unfair.

“Come on. Don’t be so naive. It has to be her. Who else is harboring such a massive grudge against you?” Sophia asked. “Her hate boner for you is strong.”

“I can’t believe she would stoop to doing something on this level though,” I replied. I wanted to find the good in people. Honest. While Grace had yelled at me, cussed at me, gave me dirty looks, and actively tried to steal Fabian (again…while married!), I didn’t want to believe she would do this. I still remembered our girls’ night out. I remembered how vulnerable she’d been with me. She couldn’t be evil enough to do this. Right?

“Myla,” Sophia said. “Come on. The saying, Hell has no fury like a woman scorned, was created for a reason, girl, and this woman has been scorned several times over now…” She paused to make sure I was looking, our eyes locking. She was deadly serious. “By you!”

“I didn’t do anything to her though. Well, not directly,” I said. I immediately felt ashamed of the high-pitched, whiny tone to my voice. I sounded like a child that was desperately trying to explain they did not break that valuable object on the floor even though there was no one else around. Absolutely no one. I let out a frustrated sigh, a low-throated growl escaping me as I did. I couldn't help it. This whole thing was so…so…asinine! It was ludicrous! Ridiculous even! Grace was a gorgeous, successful woman with an amazing career and what many would term an “amazing” life, myself included! She was jealous of me? Pshhah! Good one universe.

“It doesn’t matter what you think. What matters is what Grace thinks. And I am betting she is thinking you are standing directly in her way of the one thing she wants.” Another dramatic pause from her. If I didn’t know any better, she could have been auditioning for a soap opera. “Fabian.”

“Fabian,” I nodded. “Right.”

I fidgeted with my bagel a bit more until Sophia, fed up with it, took the sandwich from me and then ate it herself. I gave her a half-hearted look of disbelief that she would take my food.

“What?” she asked, a mouthful of my breakfast sandwich in her mouth. “You weren’t eating it.”

“It’s fine,” I told her. She was right, the thing was just going to waste. I know she wanted me to eat something but the nest of snakes my stomach had turned into still wasn’t having it. They metaphorically squirmed and wriggled around inside me so I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to eat anything for a good while. Maybe the whole day.

“What we need to do now,” she said, a bit of bagel accidentally falling from her mouth and hitting the table. “Is to think up a plan of action. First step, find out who sent the pics. Second step, put some cement boots on them. Third step, throw them in the river.”

“Cement boots?” I asked, smiling despite myself. “We’re not in The Sopranos.”

“I don’t think they actually did that in the show but I get your meaning,” she remarked. “But the first step is still valid.”

“True,” I replied, that nest stirring up again. The thought of confronting whatever sick person decided to do this made every feeling inside me ten times worse. “But how do we do that?”

“We need to be logical about this. Okay?”

I gave her a firm nod of my head.

“The first thing we need to figure out is everyone who had access to the camera feed coming from that room. Sound good?”

I nodded again. That actually did sound like a good plan.

“How do we do that though?” I asked.

“Well, we need to figure out if that is a camera placed by building security or if someone else planted it there. How many people do you think know about your quote, unquote, secret spot?” Sophia asked, even going so far as to provide air quotes with her fingers.

“Uh…should have been no one. Except Fabian knows. Well he knows now. I don’t think he knew about it beforehand. If he did, he didn’t say anything to me about it,” I said.

As if the mere mention of his name so many times had summoned him, my phone started to buzz and when I looked down, his name stared back at me. My heart immediately started to race and the squirmy, wriggling snakes in my stomach burst into such activity I thought I would throw up. I held up my phone in a shaky hand to where Sophia could see the name too.

“What do I do?” I asked, my voice thready and warbling. “What if he knows? What if he got pics too? What if he…”

“Myla!” Sophia shouted abruptly. A few heads turned our way but I tried to ignore them as best I could. “Snap the fuck out of it!”

“O-okay,” I replied, almost dropping my phone in my sheer panic. I managed to hang on to it though (which I felt I did NOT get enough credit for at the time).

“Take deep breaths and let them out slowly. Come on now. Go ahead.”

I did what she asked and focused on my breathing, even closing my eyes to better concentrate. After a few seconds, I began feeling better.

“What I want you to do now is ignore him. Okay? I know it sounds like a bad idea but if he doesn’t know anything and hasn’t gotten any pics like you did, he will now. You get me?” She gave me another one of her intense looks, like she was trying to stare straight into my soul or something. I gave her a shaky nod. “The sound of your voice in this state will be a dead give away.”

I nodded again.

“We are going to find this sick fuck first and handle it. And we need to do it fast before Fabian can step in or hunt you down when you keep refusing to talk to him.” One last nod from me as she looked on. There was an impatient look on her face. “Like now. We need to go now. So let’s get up and head to the Roseforce building. And try not to look awkward or suspicious. That’s going to be hard for you, but the less stares and questions we get, the better.”

So, the two of us got up, threw away our trash and headed out the door. We were less than six minutes from Roseforce by foot so we walked. It was a pleasant day, the air carrying a gentle breeze while the sky overhead was mostly blue and only filled with a sporadic assortment of clouds. The gentle, mildness to the day felt like a weird contrast to the storm of inner turmoil whirling around inside me.

“I just don’t understand,” I whispered, mostly to myself. It was all so hard to believe that someone would be able to sextort another person like this and still live with themselves afterward. I mean, what kind of disgusting human does that?

“What?” Sophia asked.

I blinked, realized I had said that out loud, and smiled at Sophia in a pathetic attempt to reassure her.

‘Nothing. It’s nothing,” I replied.

We turned right at the end of the street and there, rising high into the sky was Roseforce. And somewhere in there, I knew, was Fabian. Just thinking about running into him, on accident as the two of us played PI, was terrifying. Suddenly, this plan of Sophia’s sounded really stupid. We weren’t investigators and neither one of us had any idea what the hell we were doing. In that moment, the urge to call the police and have them handle everything was really, really, really strong.

“Let’s go,” Sophia said, picking up the pace. She turned back to look at me. “We’re going to head straight to Kevin’s office and get his help. He’s into me, so I think he’ll do it.”

“Kevin?” I asked. “Who is Kevin?”

“Kevin Munce,” Sophia shot back, going even faster. She was getting a bit ahead of me now and it was hard to keep up with her. I think, and I wasn't entirely sure of this, she was actually getting excited. Like she enjoyed the idea of playing PI. I have no idea why. “He’s the Director of Building Security and Procedure. Or something like that. We’ve met for like one or two dates since I’ve been here. You wouldn’t know because of the whole getting-swept-off-your-feet-by-the-boss thing.”

“Uh…right,” I said. I guess I’ve been more preoccupied with everything Fabian for a while now and haven’t been spending time with Sophia or asking about what she’s been doing while we were here. Well crap, that didn’t make the metaphorical snakes happy at all. They did what felt like dozens of tiny backflips all at once at the thought of how badly I’d neglected our friendship. “I’m s…”

“I swear, everything is good, Myla,” Sophia said, rushing so much her breathing was getting heavier and heavier. “I was only messing with you. See? We can already laugh about it. That’s a good thing.”

“Right,” I said even though neither one of us was laughing.

We rushed into the building, trying hard not to be noticed and probably failing miserably. The harder we tried to be inconspicuous, the more we stuck out. Or that’s what it felt like to me anyway. Fortunately, even if we got one or two weird looks, the people we walked past left us alone and didn’t ask any questions. Five to ten minutes later, we were both standing in a simple office with a good-looking man in his late twenties to early thirties (or so I guessed, it turns out he was actually 38, so late-thirties) looking at the two of us with mild amusement.

“Sophia Moore. What a nice surprise,” he said cheerfully, showing off a set of very white teeth.

“We need a favor,” Sophia told him, holding up a hand to shush him. “Big time.”

The look of amusement slowly faded from his face and he looked more serious than I would have given him credit for. I mistook him for one of those guys who always like to joke around.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Everything okay?”

“Show him,” Sophia demanded.

I felt a cold wash of fear swept through me. Someone else other than us was going to look at the pics? She never mentioned that.

“It’s okay. You can trust him. I swear,” Sophia reassured me.

I hesitated for a moment longer but then did what she asked. I trusted her. I took out my phone, pulled up the text and handed it to Kevin Munce, Director of Building Security and Procedure (or something like that).