Some secrets are necessary, if they help the truth to come out.

I had gone months and months without a man before Jack came along. But ever since he had come into my life, it was like I changed on a biochemical level – I needed him now.

Physically.

And often.

I wanted his body so badly at times it almost hurt. I turned to look at his form in the bed beside me. Ordinarily, when I felt like this, it would be nothing at all to reach over and wake him gently, and kiss him until he understood what I needed, and make love to me quietly before he was even properly awake. Sometimes, I would slip under the covers and take him in my mouth until I felt him rouse and place his hands on my head. He’d harden, cum in my mouth and go soft again, easily, then slip sweetly back into sleep again with nothing but a little catch in the breath and rustle of the blankets. We never mentioned these night time trysts to one another. But now, with him as mad with me as he was, I missed them so badly it was almost like being physically ill.

I wanted to reach out and beg for his cock. To shake him and tell him how badly I needed him right now. Instead I got up silently, and walked cat-like downstairs. I slipped my shoes on without any socks, stole into the study and carefully retrieved my envelope from its hidden compartment. I stuffed this under my arm, put on a bulky jacket and grabbed my car keys.

As I drove on in the night, my nerves were frazzled. It was amazing to me how petrified a person could be when the world was so obviously still and quiet. Every soul seemed to be sleeping, but here I was, doing what was may well have been the single most dangerous thing of my life. I sped a little. I arrived at the park, found a place for the car and noticed with a fresh wave of terror that many of the lights lining the path were broken. I saw her standing in semi-darkness, cursed under my breath that I was a little late, and climbed out the car.

The night air was damp but not cold, and as I walked over to her I had to shake the thought that scary men in black might leap out of the bushes at any second to halt me on my mission. But we were well and truly alone here. I hadn’t been followed. In fact, it was easy to believe, in this inky night with nothing but still trees overhead and wet grass beneath, that Belinda and I were the only two humans on earth.

My feet whispered in the grass as I approached her. Her face was shadowed but I would recognize her form anywhere. She greeted me quietly, hands still in her pockets. We walked together and into a concealed corner formed by a trio of silvery trees. I watched as her breath curled out into the air in front of her.

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

She answered by extending her hand to me. It looked so white in the dim light. I grabbed the envelope, hesitated a little, then handed it over to her. And with that, it was done. I waited for something to happen. But no. It had appeared, for now at least, that I was getting away with it.

I watched as the envelope disappeared into Belinda’s jacket and then we continued walking on. At this late hour, and with my stomach as full with butterflies as it was, I half imagined the very trees around us could sprout eyes and watch what we were doing.

“Tell me exactly what’s on the tape,” she whispered.

I took a deep breath. Without socks, the wet grass was brushing against my ankles and slowly seeping into my shoes.

“The beginning is muffled. I had to get them to stand close to it. They never thought to search the place. You can hear some ruffling. I gave them some documents, nothing serious. Notes on the interviews I did with the guys. You have a copy.”

We walked on.

“I didn’t want them to catch on that I was trying to lead them on,” I said. “But they say it eventually. They say outright that the entire department was aware that Bruce Gartman wasn’t there that day. One of them insinuated that they took him out later, but nothing concrete. They state without a doubt that the team was paid off, that they knew what was being set up on those hard drives, everything. Starts at about six minutes in.”

We were so deep in the park now I could no longer see my car.

“I’ll make copies the second I get home,” she said. “I already have my guy ready to set up the website to go live early tomorrow morning. And the article will be on the desk of yours truly’s favorite editor before start of business tomorrow. Agatha already knows to expect a copy of this” she said and gestured to her coat. It was a strange, complicated, fragile ballet. But maybe, just maybe we could pull this whole thing off.

“You haven’t told him?” she said as we rounded a large copse of trees and made our way back to the parking lot. I shook my head.

“As far as they’re concerned, the story isn’t happening. No names.”

“Honey,” she said, “if you’ve really given me what you say you have, it won’t matter a bit whose names they have. I still don’t think you quite understand how big this is.”

“Maybe.”

We walked in silence for a few moments, then parted ways. She dissolved into the night, taking my secret parcel with her. The whole exchange had taken less than ten minutes but had without doubt been the most harrowing moment of my career.

In the envelope was the finished article, the one I had told the guys wasn’t ever going to happen, plus a damning audio recording of my two kidnappers, taken a few days before where they had escorted me to my home office to retrieve the notes they demanded. I’ll never know what possessed me to have it installed. Installing a voice activated recorder that cleared itself every 72 hours and fit snugly under the lip of my desk seemed a little paranoid at the time. But it was the final piece to this puzzle. The piece that would allow me to do it all: expose the corruption for what it was, keep Jack safe, and bag me a story so epic it would have been an apex for even the most accomplished journalist.

I had done my research. The documents they were intending to destroy that day had even wider implications than I thought. There was no department, no high-level politician, no campaign r bylaw that wasn’t affected. The military were involved, several regulatory bodies and banks to name a few. I had written clearly and with infallible evidence about each step of the fateful Operation September. Within hours the content on that audio plus the material I’d handed to Belinda would deliver a devastating blow to the entire hidden mechanisms that had allowed all those people to die that day. I imagined that in future, people would talk about tomorrow as the first thread that was pulled that unraveled a tapestry of fraud and deceit so immense, the world would come to a standstill.

I was cold when I climbed back into the car. Everything was out of my hands now. There was nothing else left to do. A faint morning light was threatening on the horizon.

I started the engine and made for the airport.