Page 31 of Grift

But the sterility of the space itself and the silence there leaves me with a strange chill.

The building manager let the movers in, and they’re almost done by the time I find them. I direct them to put boxes in specific rooms, and when they leave, I start to unpack. One of the two matching dressers is completely empty. There’s a master walk-in closet, and Patrick’s suits and other belongings have been moved to one side.

He quickly and expertly made room for me in his life. I decide to take up the space while I can. The more normal this can feel, the easier it will be to figure out what to do next. Maybe if we can work together, there’s some way that we could solve this once and for good.

I’m hanging up my suit bags, the last of my clothes, when Callan’s words come back to me. “I put the hard drive in your safe. He doesn’t know.”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what hard drive he’s talking about. I’ve never actually seen the tapes. Honestly, I don’t know what’s on them. My parents say that I got drunk and made a sex tape, but they’ve never let me see it. Not even when I’d raged and demanded it, early on before I realized how much money suppressing them was taking. How much it was wearing my parents down.

Over the years I’ve dealt with a range of possibilities in therapy, from the idea that I really did have a lapse in judgment that was filmed and used against me to something even worse. My father always said that seeing them would devastate me, and I’d taken him at his word after a certain point.

But this, this isn’t about my father anymore.

If I could get the hard drive, then maybe I could finally see – finally understand – exactly what it is that my father’s been so desperate to protect the world from after all these years. I’ve never thought like this before. Hopefully I don’t regret being bold.

An hour later, I’m in the lobby of the Trinity Casino in a dark dress and heels. My thought is a pretense of seeing Patrick. I could offer to meet him for dinner or ask him if he’d be willing to take me to my Cambridge apartment for a few last things, and to hand off the key to my sublet. I’ll think of something. That’s what I tell myself on the long elevator ride up.

This time no one helps me find his office, which is dark and empty. It’s only the second time I’ve been here, and I quietly close the door behind me and switch on the table lamp. There’s a desk and chair, a conference table, and a long side credenza that’s stacked with books and papers. For the first time, I look at what’s on the walls.

A college degree. A football award. Pictures of a younger Patrick in football uniform, looking handsome, vibrant and happy. There aren’t any pictures of him with his family, a fact which doesn’t surprise me but makes me feel a little sad.

That’s when I see it: the heavy painting that’s totally out of place. I’ve just gone over and steeled myself to pull it back. It swings away from the wall with surprising ease. There’s something similar in my apartment, installed by my parents.

There’s the dial.

I have to make a decision here. A go or don’t go from which there’s no turning back. The hell with it. I remember his birthday, April 22nd, from the wedding paperwork and I’m turning the dial to the next to last digit when a familiar, deep voice suddenly booms just inches from the other side of the closed door.

“Sounds good, Ian. I’m going to wrap up early and get home,” he’s saying. The door is turning.

For a second I consider swinging the painting back, trying to hide what I’m doing, but there’s just no time. Patrick seems to have realized that the door is closed and there’s a light on, and he throws open the door with a look of pure rage contorting his handsome features. God help whoever he finds on the other side. Then of course, it’s me.

Confusion softens his features he sees me. “Jessica? What are you doing here?”

He steps into the office, closing the door firmly behind him. His eyes sweep over my dress, then up to the painting, putting it all together. “Answer me.”

He’d looked so angry, square jaw, firm line of his mouth, and narrowed eyes when he walked in. For one heartbreaking second, he’d looked so pleased to see me. But something else has replaced it now.

There was a time when I was studying for my field exams that I’d hit a roadblock. I needed help, I needed extra time, and I was terrified to ask. It wasn’t until just a few days before it was scheduled that I’d gone to my advisor in tears. She’d been helpful, negotiated me extra time, but she’d told me sternly. “It’s fine to be wrong or it’s fine to need help. The issue is that you lied to me every time I asked if you were doing okay.”

This situation is reminding me a lot of that day.

He still hasn’t moved, waiting and watching me with something undiscernible in his eyes. This man’s patience could be my undoing.

“I heard you talking to Callan,” I say, my voice carefully devoid of emotion. “I thought that the tapes would be in your safe.”

He looks back quickly at the door. And then it hits me, really hits me, that he’s going against his father in this. What he’s going to do with them, I don’t know. But he obviously isn’t exactly cooperating with his father in the whole blackmail plan.

“What are you going to do with them?”

“Honestly, I hadn’t gotten that far. I thought if I could get them that maybe I could – or we could –“ my voice trails off. It’s a terrible idea on every level and I don’t even know what to say. Patrick talked so openly about his need for trust, and how if I needed anything, to just come to him.

And now, on the first day we’re married, I’d seen an opening and reverted to the kind of strategy my mother would use. God. It’s not that I’m wrong for wanting to see them. But how I’d handled this, when I didn’t really know if I’d find them and I didn’t really know him and how he might react?

“When I came through the door and saw you, I was happy to see you,” his voice was tight. “Jessica, I understand you’re in a difficult position. We both are. But you can’t do things like this. If you want something I have, or if you want to discuss something, you bring it up.”

He’s beginning to look angry now, the disappointment melting into something else that’s making me aware of how big he is. My mouth is dry. There’s something powerful, commanding, and a little dangerous about the energy. I should be afraid. But for some reason, it’s a different set of sensations I’m feeling.

“I trust you. I have to be able to trust you,” his voice is very quiet.

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