I thought about Brody Driver and how badly he must have wanted to ruin my business.Or maybe just steal Ridley and boost his own career.It was hard to tell.
I thought about Helen.I had trusted her.Not as much as I trusted Keaton – but I had allowed her to run my calendar.To deal with my correspondence.To attend and make notes at meetings.I had fired her for a reason.
Not a reason I could bring to mind right now.They all drifted into one.Was Helen the one who was always late?Or the one who had screwed up the Heathwell meeting?Or had she been the one who spilled coffee over the contracts I was working on for a midday deadline?
I couldn’t even bring her face to mind at the moment when I fired her.I probably hadn’t bothered looking.
I had earned my reputation as cold and aloof.I had earned it deliberately.Now…
Now this had happened.I had to wonder whether there was some cosmic reason why my very next secretary happened to be the one who made me want to stop being cold and aloof at all.
And now I was thinking about Keaton again.
I tried thinking about Quijada.About whether there was something off about him when he came into my office or it was just my paranoid imagination.Getting attacked by a former employee who knew half your corporate secrets could bring on paranoia.
There was a lot about him that seemed complicated from today’s vantage point.The fact that he was dating Keaton’s sister could turn him into an asset or a liability.Both Keaton and now I had reasons to let him off easy if he did something poorly.
Because I couldn’t do anything that might make Keaton upset or disappointed in me.
And we weren’t even dating.
How bad would it get if we were?
Shit.
And now I was thinking about Keaton again.
And I thought about Keaton on every trip to and from every studio.I thought about Keaton at lunch when I couldn’t eat with him but instead had to grab a salad in the back of the car.I thought about Keaton as I explained time and time again what his footage had uncovered.I never named him as the cameraman.It didn’t matter.He never strayed too far from my thoughts.
And with every thought of him, there was an unfamiliar feeling growing.
A feeling of doubt.
It started to play over and over in my head.The footage.The fact that footage from later on that same night had been leaked.
I hadn’t asked him about it when he showed me the clip.It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Keaton could be the one who had betrayed us.It seemed obvious that Brody and Helen were in this together.Where would Keaton even fit into the picture?
And yet…
Why had he even been in the club in the first place?
Why had he been pointing his camera towards the place where Ridley was hanging out and filming?
Why hadn’t he said a word about the fact that he had been there when the footage first came out?
“Last one?”the driver asked.I looked up at him and met his eyes in the rearview mirror.I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t alone.
“Oh?Yes,” I said.I recovered my thoughts enough to realize he was trying to confirm where we needed to go next.“Yes, take me back to the office.”
I had to see him again.
Not for the usual reasons this time – but because there was a cold fear slowly taking over my gut.
A fear that Keaton was not what I thought he was.
That I had trusted the wrong person and told him some of my deepest secrets.
The car pulled up outside of the office and I practically jumped out of the door before it had finished slowing down.The driver was on payroll – he knew to take the car back to the parking garage below the building.I didn’t need to worry about that.
