Page 53 of Mr. North
“Hi, Beth.”
“Hey, are you okay? You sound sick.”
There’s a pause, and then Thalia says, “It’s nothing. Just a head cold. I’ll be clear of it in a couple of days. Listen, I want to apologize. My behaviour was so shitty the other day at Raph’s place. I drank way too much, and I kept on—”
“I’m sorry, Thalia. Can we talk about this another time? I need Paxton’s number from you ASAP. It’s important.”
“Important? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, everything’s fine. Nate just explained to me about the brake lines being cut on Raph’s Maserati the night of the accident. He thinks it was intentional. That the person who cut the lines is still out there. Apparently Paxton is the only person who still has a copy of the accident report.”
“Oh my god. Are you...are you serious ?” For a second she sounds angry, and then she’s crying, sobbing tears of relief. “I can’t believe it. I seriously can’t believe it.”
“I know. We need to find this file, though. The truth is somewhere inside that paperwork. We need to study it and figure this out, and to do that we need to speak to Paxton.”
“Of course. I’ll send you his number now. Beth?”
“Yeah?”
“Paxton has a false back on the top drawer of his filing cabinet. Check there. You might find what you’re looking for.”
A secret compartment? What kind of person would have a secret compartment in their filing cabinet? My insides are in knots all of a sudden, twisted up and tangled, making me feel nauseous. The kind of person who has things to hide, that’s who. Nate said Paxton wouldn’t give back the file when he asked for it after the accident; he said he repeatedly forgot it. Why would he have done that if he knew Nate was trying to clear Raph? Surely he would have pored over the information inside the file with Nate, trying to help find the key to proving him innocent. As I hang up the phone, a weighty sense of dread is settling into my bones. Nate must have heard everything Thalia said, because he heads directly for the filing cabinet and pulls the top drawer open, reaching into it. His expression is deadly serious as he roots around inside, hunting for the false back to the drawer. A moment later, the concentration on his face dissolves and his hand withdraws from the filing cabinet, holding onto a file of paperwork at least an inch thick. “Well, that was easy,” he says.
My cell chimes in my hand. I check it and see that Thalia has done what she said she would. Paxton’s contact details stare back at me from the lit screen. “I don’t think,” I say slowly, “that we should contact Paxton after all.”
The right hand side of Nate’s mouth lifts up in a tense smile. “Yeah. I kinda think you might be right.”
