Chapter 19

“Are these it?”

Meredith and Isaac stood in the corner of his living room with barely enough space to move, staring at twenty cardboard boxes.

“How can one person have enough stuff at his desk to fill so many boxes?” She shook her head with amazement.

“Most of these are books, but I imagine there’s a lot of garbage in there. I told you the man was crazy.”

“And we’re looking for his journals? Which we hope are filled with information on a sex club shrouded in secrecy?”

“We have to give it a shot.” Isaac reached for one of the boxes. “If those journals are here you should at least read what’s in them.”

Meredith sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Are they labeled? Organized in any specific order? By year, maybe?” She suspected she knew the answer but hoped she was wrong. She didn’t want to go through all of those bulging cardboard boxes.

“No shortcuts, I’m afraid. We’ll have to go through them all. One by one.”

“These damn journals better be in there. And they better be worth it.”

“I had to sneak these boxes out of storage, put them in my car, and haul them up four flights of stairs. And, I had to do all of that more than once, because as you can see, there’s a hell of a lot of them. So how about you say: Thank you, Isaac, for all your hard work. Let’s get to it.”

She almost told him to fuck off but she reconsidered before the words crossed her lips. “I’m sorry. I’m not being a team player. I’ve been in a foul mood since our drunken night last week. Too much going on.”

Isaac started going through a box. “The draft you sent got me thinking that we should publish the piece sooner than we had discussed.”

“Why? How soon?”

“September.”

“That’s a month away. I need more time.”

“Think about it. Glendon packed up and went to wrestle crocodiles—”

“He didn’t go wrestle crocodiles,” Meredith interjected.

“He went somewhere, let’s just say that. Assuming the research in his journals goes back ten, fifteen years, that’s an excellent foundation for your piece. You talk about what was happening with The Raven Room at that time, and then, because you’ve been to the club, you layer in what the place is like now, the type of people you’ve seen there, what they do. Next, you bring up the deaths of the women, how they were killed, how they’re connected to The Raven Room. You link it to the police cover-up of the murders. That’s all you need. That’s your piece, right there.”

“You’re assuming we’ll find the journals. What if we don’t? Or what if we do, but they’re just the ramblings of a mad man?”

“You know the exact location of the club. Ideally, we’d know the history of it, but if we can find out who owns the property, that’s already something. It might lead to more information.”

“I need more time,” she insisted.

“You don’t, Meredith.”

The box slipped from her hands and its contents spilled on to the floor. She cursed.

“Just remember, we’re in this together,” he said.

Meredith looked down at the papers scattered around her feet. She recognized the potential value of the journals, but she was having a hard time finding the motivation to dig through endless stacks of dusty boxes. Walking toward the window she stared at the dark street below her. It had been a beautiful day earlier but now it was raining hard. She couldn’t remember a wetter summer.

“That night…what did I say to you?” she asked, her back to the room. “I don’t remember any of it.”

“You were drunk. We both were.”

“I’ve never been so drunk that I can’t recall several hours of my life. You seem to remember more than I do so I want you to tell me—what did I say that night?”

“A lot of it was impossible to make sense out of, and don’t forget, I wasn’t sober myself.”

Isaac moved several boxes around. He then picked up the papers she had dropped on the floor. Watching him organize the room instead of answering her question increased her trepidation.

“Julian Reeve. You talked about him.”

Great, she thought, he knew his last name as well. If he hadn’t already, Isaac could now find out a great deal of information on Julian. “What did I say about him?”

“That he took you to the club. Sounds like you really like it there. And what happened to Sofia. You also mentioned Tatiana. And how, recently, you two have grown closer.”

Isaac had used the word recently, which meant that he knew they were at least in contact with Tatiana, if not aware of her whereabouts. “What else?” she pressed.

“You talked about Thompson and Tatiana. What he did to her.”

“Why did you tell me to be careful with Julian?”

“The necklace. You found it inside one of Julian’s drawers. There’s a chance it might be Lena’s. You also told me why Julian goes to The Raven Room. The cutting.”

What hadn’t she shared with Isaac? Meredith wondered. “If I ask you to keep everything I told you to yourself, will you? I need to know.”

“As long as nothing happens to you,” he replied.

She wanted to trust him, but she suspected the two of them had a personality trait in common—no qualms about lying when it suited their needs. She felt Isaac had it in him to betray her.

“Why would Glendon leave behind his journals?” she asked, changing the subject. She opened a new box. “When you told me about the conversation he had with you about the club, it sounded like he was consumed by it.”

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was forced to.”

“He’s not wrestling crocodiles?”

“Full of sunshine, aren’t you?”

“I thought I was doing pretty good, considering.”

“Were you close with Sofia?” Isaac asked. “How have you been holding up?”

The questions caught her off-guard. No one had asked her how she felt about Sofia’s death. In comparison to Julian, who, for the second time, had lost one of the only people he appeared to have ever loved and Tatiana, who mourned her twin sister, the only family member she had left, Meredith considered her own feelings unimportant. “I only met her once.”

“How did you meet her?”

“At Julian’s.”

“Is Tatiana OK? It sounded like she was in bad shape after what her husband did to her.”

Meredith didn’t want to reveal more about Tatiana than she already had. She focused on the only person who she didn’t mind being vocal about. “Thompson is the kind of man that needs to hurt women.”

“Just like your friend, Julian.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t have to protect him from me.”

“I’m not.”

“I saw the look in your face when I said he was just like Thompson.”

“He’s not just like Thompson.”

“Are you sure of that?”

Meredith glared at Isaac.

“How did you get him to take you to the club?”

“What do you think?” Her voice was filled with scorn. “I used my best asset—my pussy.”

Isaac threw the papers in his hand back into the box and approached Meredith. Refusing to acknowledge him, she continued to flip through a stack of yellow-stained paper.

“Being nosy is in my DNA,” he said. “Like it’s in yours. We can’t turn it off. Whatever type of relationship you have with Julian is your business and not anyone else’s. I’m a straight-up vanilla guy. It seems to me that a lot of men out there use their so-called fantasies and kinks as an excuse for abusive and violent behavior and that should never be tolerated.”

“How about the straight-up vanilla guys who manipulate, beat up, and destroy a girl’s self-worth? I guess being vanilla is their cover.”

Before Isaac returned his attention to a box full of papers, he smiled. “Remind me to get you pissed off more often. You reveal how smart you really are.” He closed the box and moved on to the next one. “It’s hot.”

Even though he meant it as compliment, it didn’t feel like a compliment to her.

“So, do you think Thompson’s involved in the murders?” Isaac added.

“I did for a while. But he was out of town when most of them took place,” Meredith explained. “Have you ever found yourself losing someone who you believed would always be part of your life?” she asked, changing the subject once more. She thought of Julian.

“My ex-wife.”

The knowledge that Isaac had once been married caught her by surprise. “How long were you married?”

“Six years. The last two years were just fighting against the idea that we might not be right for each other. Hurt like hell. But our divorce was one of the best things that ever happened to both of us.”

“What’s her name?”

He grinned.

“What?”

“You’re a true journalist at heart.” Isaac carried one of the boxes across the room. “Simone.” He stacked it on top of the ones they had already gone through. “Her name is Simone.”

“That’s a strong name.”

“She’s a strong woman.”

“Do you ever miss her?”

“At times. When I look back I don’t miss the things I imagined I would, like the sex, the weekend-long trips outside of the city, or our late night political debates. I miss her for who she is. Completely separate from anything that we did together.”

“If you still miss her then why was the divorce one of the best things that happened to you?”

“We’re both happier now. Simple as that.”

“You do seem happy,” Meredith said as she picked up a pile of books at the bottom of the box. A photograph fell out from inside one of them. She kneeled down and forced her hand between the stacked boxes to reach it.

“What is it?” Isaac asked with curiosity.

Meredith grabbed the photograph and, after looking at it briefly, passed it to him. “Any idea who this is?”

“I’m afraid not.” Isaac flipped the photograph. “There’s a name on the back, Rebecca, and a date.”

“Could be Glendon’s daughter.”

Meredith took the photograph from Isaac. The girl in the photo, not more than five or six years old, wore pink flannel pajamas, and her hair was in disarray as she ran, with an expression of pure joy, toward her Christmas presents.

Meredith slid the photograph into her back pocket then checked the time on her phone. “I’ve got to go. Got plans.” She and Colton were getting together at his place.

“What? I was hoping to blow your mind by ordering us dinner from my favorite Greek restaurant. And then you’d stay the night.”

Meredith didn’t want to have sex with Isaac again. She liked him but henceforth she would be sure to keep their relationship platonic.

“Next time,” Meredith said, walking toward the door.

“I’m holding you to it.”

“You don’t have to. Have you looked around? We went through four boxes.” Paper and books littered Isaac’s living room. “Tomorrow, same time?”

“Just ring the bell. You’ll find me, and the best Greek food you’ll ever eat, right here.”

“And seventeen cardboard boxes?”

He winked at her. “It’ll be worth it.”