Page 7 of Don't Tell

I place her on the bed gently.

I stand over her. I watch her chest. It rises and falls steadily. I pull the duvet up to her collarbone, careful not to brush her skin with the back of my hand, and I step away from the bed. But I can’t help myself. I stop and stare down at her.

She looks peaceful with her eyes closed. Precious even.

I turn around and walk to the safe before I do anything that’ll make her wake up and slap me. The door is still ajar. The interior is still empty.

What was inside the safe were the original acquisition papers from the Maddox deal. The private memos. The reasoning. The methods I employed in ripping the company out of Henrik’s hands. They were legal — my lawyers made sure of that. But they were also brutal and unethical.

In the wrong hands, these documents become a lie. Nobody grabs them by accident. This is planned. Leaving the key on the nightstand was a nice touch. A humiliation ritual.

I'm not sure who it is. That’s what happens when you offend a lot of people. It could be Neil. He wants my company badly, and I can always smell the jealousy rolling off him in waves. But Neil is too stupid and too desperate to pull something like this off.

Then who?

I take my phone off the dresser. I scroll to the one number that answered at any hour. My eyes find Suzanne as I wait for Marisol to pick up.

“Mr. Nightingale, is everything alright?”

"Not exactly, Marisol, but we’ll talk about it in person. For now, I need you to pull every file we hold on the Maddox acquisition. I also need footage from the Cresswell bar. I’m looking for a woman. Tall redhead."

“Hmm…did she take something from you?”

Suzanne moans and shifts her body slightly to the left. She curls up now, looking adorable between my sheets. I keep watching her. “Yes, I just need you to find her and figure out who sent her.”

“Do you want the police involved?”

“No. This stays between us.”

She is quiet for one second. I know she is surprised. Things like this don't happen to me. I’m usually very thorough and careful. Yet this woman managed to trick me.

"I'll call you back in an hour," Marisol finally says.

I end the call.

I stand in the middle of the bedroom with the phone still in my hand and let myself, for the first time since I opened my eyes this morning, confront the question I have been sliding past.

What exactly happened last night?

My memory is hazy, but I can still remember a bit of it.

I went to the bar last night. I was on my second glass of whisky when the redhead approached. She seemed perfectly harmless and eager. When she offered to buy me a drink, I thought it was clever flirting. She slid onto the stool next to mine, and I remember her hand on my thigh. She ordered a second drink, then a third.

That’s exactly when my memory cuts off. Nothing after that.

But I know exactly why I was at that bar in the first place. I was trying to prove something to myself. And even now, when the answers are more important than my ego, I still won’t admit it.

I put the phone face down on the dresser and look at the woman on my bed. She’s still asleep. Her cart is in the hallway. I can see the handle through the open door of the bedroom.

I walk to it. It’s only fair that I check inside. The cart is the only object in this suite I have not inventoried. I roll it into the room. I lift the stack of folded towels off the lower shelf. A softbound sketchbook with Suzanne's name on the cover slides out and lands at my feet.

Interesting.

The cover is gray cloth. The corners are worn round. There is a smudge of charcoal on the spine where I imagine her thumb has held it open.

I pick it up and open it.

The first page is a pair of hands, wringing a cloth. The line work is fast and precise — the bones of the knuckles, the cord of a thumb tendon, the wet weight of the fabric. I've never seen anything on a page feel as real as this.