Eight - Ryan
I put out my last cigarette and put my feet up on the coffee table. The city was quiet tonight, a bit too quiet, like an omen. I clutched my hands behind my head and closed my eyes, then I decided I was going to pour myself a drink.
I had completely forgotten about Patricia, and when I heard a knock at the door, my heart fell to my knees. “Oh, God,” I muttered under my breath, getting up and dragging my feet to the door. I opened up and there she was, leaning against the frame of my door, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Were you asleep?” she asked me. I pulled my robe together and spun on my heel.
“No, I was watching TV,” I said, turning back to her. All of a sudden Sarah’s face fell into the light, and I couldn’t help but let out a frustrated sigh. She didn’t even look at me, but just stood in the doorway until I gestured for her to come inside. “Make yourselves at home.”
“How could you sleep at a time like this?” Patricia yelled, diving for the couch. She wore a puzzled expression, and when I came a bit closer, I could smell alcohol on her breath.
“Have you been drinking?” I asked her, my eyebrows furrowed. She leaned in and sniffed me, and then she shrunk away in pure disgust.
“Have you been drinking?”
There was silence. Sarah was just standing there, gawking at the two of us. The truth was, she made me uncomfortable just by being there. I asked her to have a seat. She raised her eyes to me, but only for a moment, and I averted my gaze elsewhere. “Well? What do you have for me?” I asked Patricia.
“How are you so calm about this? Someone leaked all the information.” She took off her heels and wiggled her toes, then she clenched them up against the rug. Something she’d always done ever since we were little kids.
“We already know who did it, it’s that son of a bitch, Dave!” I could almost feel the heat rising to my cheeks. “And it was you who hired him, wasn’t it?” I turned to Sarah.
“You do realize that Dave is one of my most trusted employees, right?” All of a sudden she wasn’t silent anymore, but she was angry, so angry that her lips were quivering. “Who are you to question the way I work?”
“Who am I?” I asked her, coming a bit closer. “And don’t you think the CEO of this company would know better than you?”
“You’re not the CEO of Callaway Tech, Frederick is. And he knows better than to hire an idiot, and this idiot over here knows better than to hire a snitch!” her face was red and shaking; I was taken aback more than anything. Finally, she got up and dusted herself off, but Patricia begged her to stay.
“Come on, you can’t leave now,” she said. “We need to sort this out, now.”
“Well, Ryan’s making it a bit difficult to talk to him right now,” she replied, staring somewhere over my shoulder. My gaze dropped to the floor, and I mumbled something along the lines of, “please, just stay so we can get this over with.”
“Oh my God,” Patricia said, her eyes wide. She blinked at me repeatedly, almost like she had reached unfathomable conclusions. “What about Samantha?”
The silence lay on our skin like poison, seeping into our blood and paralyzing our veins. My face was one of awkwardness, and my pupils became dilated. “What about her?” I asked, the thick silence chilling me.
“She was the one who did this. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Sarah smiled. I looked over and she had a glimmer in her eyes like she had won the whole world. I waited for her to say something because I wanted to pounce, but she remained silent and basked in the tension.
“What do you mean she did this?” I snapped, my eyes fixated on Patricia’s. “Why are you being like dad?”
“Because he was right,” she told me, and then suddenly I felt uneasy. I thought back to all the things I told her, all the information I trusted her with. It all came tumbling down, and I tumbled down with it. “He warned you about her, didn’t he? And you never listened to him.”
“What do you think I am, some kind of idiot?” I snarled. “Samantha’s a great woman, and she’s a pleasure to work with.”
“That’s right, she’s a pleasure to work with,” Patricia said, eyeing me suggestively.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” My fists fell limp to my side. I couldn’t help but get defensive, but deep down I was consumed by doubt.
“You gave her the info, didn’t you?” Patricia asked me again. “You told her about the software, you even gave her information about our codes!”
“You leaked our codes?” Sarah jumped. I was under fire, and they were coming at me from all directions. The city lights couldn’t save me now; I was trapped.
“This woman is a professional!” I yelled, slamming my hand on the coffee table. My mind was racing at about a hundred miles per hour. Nothing made sense anymore, especially my relationship with Samantha. Just yesterday she came over to my house, and the more I thought about our encounter, the more confused I became. She was pretty distant, and at the time I wondered if it was something I did. I remember calling her multiple times this morning, but when she never picked up I figured she was only busy.
“You’re bringing this whole company down, and you’re bringing us down with it,” Patricia barked. “And you know what else he did?” she turned to Sarah. “He gave away our release dates.”
“Well, it all pretty much makes sense now,” Sarah said with her hands clutched in her lap. She was being unusually reserved. I prepared to pounce again, but when she folded her arms across her chest in silent protest, I diverted my attention back to Patricia.
“It does, doesn’t it?” she was quick to provoke me. Somewhere down the line, I stopped resisting her accusations, and I admitted to myself that I was a total idiot. I had let that woman into my life, only to have her destroy it. A thousand thoughts were bouncing across my skull, from our nights together, to all the drunkenness that ensued, to all those things I told her. And the worst part was that I only remembered half of those things.
“This isn’t good,” I said, rather to myself. I scratched my head, turned around and headed for the bar. I could feel Sarah’s eyes on me as I poured myself another drink and downed it all in one gulp. I felt the keen burn on my tongue and throat -a burn that made me recoil- but I needed it. “I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have said.”
“Listen, it’s not too late to undo this,” Sarah said, shifting in her seat.
“I need to figure this out on my own,” I replied, stroking my beard and trying not to panic. I worried about our company and our software and our stocks. I worried about my father. Samantha was like the devil, reeling me into her web of lies so she could get on top. “She hasn’t been responding to my calls for a couple of weeks now,” I said, massaging my temples.
“Well, surprise, surprise,” Patricia said. She had been grilling me ever since she came here, but oddly enough, Sarah was silent. Her eyes were just fixated on the rug, occasionally following things that weren’t there. I had a hard time discerning her thoughts, but I knew she had probably killed me ten times in her brain. With this move, I had jeopardized our company, and there was pretty much nothing she could do about it.