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“Only if you pay me,” Fabian mumbles.
Her eyes narrow. “Fine,” she snaps. “How much do you want?”
Seriously?
“I was joking,” he grunts.
“Well, I’m not,” she says.
“Fuck. Why don’t I just keep my big mouth shut.”
I shouldn’t be enjoying the drama of this weekend as much as I am. Life with Fabian is anything but boring: He’s impulsive and mad. How crazy is all this? I’m beginning to understand that he can uncover anything. Jo was right, he reallyisnothing like David. David would never have done anything like this. He would have been polite, aiming to curry favor, not hauling my family over the coals. Fabian isn’t trying to impress anyone; I don’t think he works that way. I’ve never been with someone with so little need to conform, whoreallydoesn’t give a shit.
He rolls over onto his back sighing. “I’m only helping if you promise me that you won’t say anything to anybody about where the information came from.”
She eyes him shrewdly but nods.
“I’m serious. I’m doing this so you can see what kind of guy he is, but if I ever found out you told anyone I’d done this, I’d come after you too. I can find out everything about you. Do you understand?”
Something passes over her face when he says this—a shadow, a beat of hesitation—but eventually she nods.
“Pass me my bag.” He waves at the beaten-up old bag on the floor. When she fetches it, he pulls out two laptops and places them on the covers, opening the lids and powering them up. He closes his eyes and gestures to a carafe with two glasses sitting on a mahogany table by the window.
“Get me some water.”
Cassandra dutifully trots over and brings him a glass of water, which he downs in one.
“Are you sure you want to see this?” he says, resting his head back against the headboard like the mere act of being upright is costing him dearly.
She frowns at him, and he sighs again, fingers flying over the keyboard before he points at the screen. “This is Javier’s sign-in screen, yes?”
She shifts to stand near the head of the bed, eyes skipping over his laptop. “Yes, God, yes,” she says, pressing her hand to her chest and looking at Fabian. I don’t know what she was expecting, but I don’t think it was this. “I couldn’t get into it this morning; he’d changed his password.”
Fabian’s laugh vibrates through the bed. He studies the other laptop, the code running down the screen.
“This might take a while,” he mutters, tapping keys, then he laughs again. “He’s such an idiot; he changed one number in it. Clearly not the smartest tool in the box.”
Windows pop up as he searches through the files. Fabian grunts. “He’s been busy, though; he tried to delete it all last night.”
“Seriously?” Cassandra’s eyes are huge, with fear or excitement I have no clue, like she’s relishing the idea of discovering her future husband’s innermost secrets.
“Yeah, but you can’t do that properly unless you know what you’re doing. The disk always has temporary files. I kept copies of it all anyway.”
Clicking through some folders, he looks up at Cassandra. “Are you ready?” he says.
Suddenly porn fills the screen, some with very young girls. I turn away.
“There’s worse stuff,” Fabian grunts.
“Show me it,” she says, mouth a grim thin line like a crack in granite. I can’t imagine what it must be like for her seeing what he’s been doing. I wouldn’t want those images in my brain.
“That’s enough,” she says suddenly, straightening. “Thank you,” she says to Fabian. “I’m going to need some proof,” she says. “Can you provide that?” He nods wearily. Perhaps this is the first question everyone asks him.
“But my role in this is confidential; there will be no trace back to me,” he says. “I’ll tell you what you need to do to collect the evidence, retrieve and store the files, gather a digital footprint of his use. Do you understand?”
She narrows her eyes at him. “Yes. I’m going to pay you very well for this, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Fabian sighs and nods at her like he’s had this kind of conversation before.
