Chance (18 page)

Charlotte picked up each
of the wallets one by one and looked through them.
James Shelton
was
English and
Luca Fluccenzo
, Italian.

Who were these men?
Why would Logan have their wallets, credit cards and personal information?

So far, everything she
found was so confusing. Opening this one drawer gave her so much more to
question and no answers.

An overwhelming number of
questions flew through her mind, questions she realized she’d probably never
get answers to. She quickly began to figure out an explanation. Maybe Logan was
involved in some kind of credit card fraud; maybe he was stealing their
identities to use for some reason or another...

Charlotte would never know.

Of course, the worst
possible explanation crossed her mind.

Could these wallets be
from people he’d killed or had killed by others, like the scum I'd met and
spied on at our wedding reception? Maybe he’d held onto them as some sort of
trophies of their murders. Maybe he kept them to hamper police investigations.
Why wouldn't he have just destroyed them?

Surely, this can't be
true…

She shuddered at the
thought she was looking at and touching things that might somehow be linked
with Logan's victims.

After her first foray
into spying, she’d been forced to accept Logan was up to no good. She knew his
career was criminal and not patriotic, in the least, as she’d initially assumed.
Boy, had she been blinded by her infatuation and naiveté in the beginning of
their relationship. She been desperately trying to fill in the many blanks, and
had done so through rose-colored glasses.

What he did in his free
time was none of her business. It was his business; she'd convinced herself.
Hell, she was kept in his house against her will because of blackmail. She tried
to give him the benefit of the doubt concerning the wallets, aware that the
best-case scenario would still involve her husband being a criminal. Just of
lesser crimes. As much of a bastard as he was to her, she still cared for him
at some level and she wanted to believe he was not a murderer.

She pushed all of those
thoughts away. The questions, confusion and all of the feelings that the
contents of the drawer evoked within her. She was aware she needed to
concentrate on finding information about her father. That was why she was there,
not anything else.

The second drawer proved to
be equally interesting, yet equally as fruitless for her when it came to her
own particular search for information about her father. In there, she found a
stack of documents all relating to the same law company that was based in town.
Logan had a considerable amount of information about them. He also had evidence
they were laundering money, and dealing with criminal enterprises and ventures.

She wondered if one of the
enterprises was his, or whether Logan was merely using the documents he'd
acquired to blackmail them into getting what he wanted. Hell, he might even own
the law company itself for all she knew. After skipping through one page after
another and ascertaining they were all to do with the same thing, she put them
back, making sure to remember which sheet had originally been at the top of the
pile.

The third drawer gave her
the shock of her life and a sight she never expected to see in her house, had
never hoped to. It was a small collection of weapons. Of course, after
overhearing the conversation in the bathroom at her wedding and realizing a few
tough truths about Logan, she'd always suspected his gunshot wound had been related
to his dangerous career, rather than anything else. She’d always known, even at
the time, that he’d been lying to her bout being mugged.

He wasn’t a particularly
convincing liar when he was confronted with something outright. Perhaps this
was one of the reasons he insisted she not question him about his job in the
first place. Once she discovered he was involved in murder, she assumed he had encountered
guns. She figured he'd know how to use one and he probably
had
used one.
It would be foolish and naïve for her think otherwise.

Yet somehow, that had
always remained separate from their married life. That part of him seemed
remote, not as being at all part of the home where they lived. That part of his
life, was something from which she was able to separate and remove herself. Having
guns in the house where she lived seemed to make everything so real. It
connected those very separate parts of his life, parts she was still apparently
in denial about, to a degree.

Until this moment, she'd
managed to convince herself his criminal activity wasn’t an important aspect of
their everyday life together, and it didn’t affect their marriage. Now though, as
sat there in his large chair at his large desk, face to face with the mini
arsenal he kept in his drawer, she felt as if his entire world had just slapped
her in the face and kicked her in the solar plexus.

She didn’t know much
about guns, only what she'd seen on TV, in movies or read about in books. The
ones in the drawer certainly looked real. Why wouldn’t they be? There were four
guns total. Bullets were there as well, loose and rolling about in the drawer
as she hurriedly pushed it closed. She didn’t want to look at them. There was
simply too much reality in that drawer.

A part of her, a big part
of her, wished she’d never come into the office. Ignorance is bliss, as the
saying goes. Perhaps she would've been happier for longer, living in a blissful
state. Hell, it had only been moments and she'd already missed her ignorance.

Charlotte pushed that
foolish thought out of her mind, too.
Regardless
of Logan’s career or belongings, she'd been living in fear of him for so long.
His personality and his controlling nature would remain the same and she'd
still be in practically the same position. She was convinced of that. She moved
her hand to the fourth drawer, conscious of time.

More documents filled the
fourth drawer, of a lot less interesting variety. Bills, mainly. Telephone, power.
Actually, these things all had to do with the house. They were the type of
ordinary, everyday papers one would expect their husband to keep in his desk.
Just holding them in her hand made her feel more normal and even more relaxed.

Yes! My husband is
actually 'normal' in this small way.

She found herself taking
comfort in that thought. As she experienced a degree of comfort, she heard the
sound of the car outside. He was home.

She leapt up from the
desk, alarm bells screaming in her brain. She hurriedly stuffed the bills back
into the fourth drawer and pushed it closed before darting to the door and closing
it behind her.

Her hand shook as she
grasped the key and struggled to get it into the lock. She heard the car engine
switch off. Then she heard the car door shut and then Logan whistling to
himself as he walked the few short steps towards the front door of their house.
Panic constricted her chest, before she finally got the key inserted into the
lock. She locked the door before pulling out the key and then dashed back
upstairs into the bedroom as she heard Logan close the front door.

Her heart was in her
throat as Charlotte slipped the key back into his jeans pocket and literally
jumped into the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin as she heard his shoes
on the stairs. She closed her eyes, pretending to sleep.

“Charlotte…” Logan’s
voice rang up the staircase.

She didn’t respond, still
keeping up the façade that she was napping. She heard his footsteps get louder
as he climbed the steps. Then he paused in the doorway of the bedroom.

“You’re still in bed?” he
laughed. “You lazy bitch.”

He tossed his coat at
her. “Get up. I thought you said you had work to do.”

“I do,” she yawned,
stretched and sat up, checking the time and keeping up her act. “Wow, I must've
dozed off.”

Avoiding his eyes, she got
up and got dressed, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

The next time Logan was
in his office, Charlotte watched him again. She watched where he put the key
and casually kept her eye on him as the day progressed. She became quite adept
at secretly watching him. She soon discovered that when he emptied his pockets
to get undressed and come to bed at night, he'd open the top drawer of his
bedside table and put everything in there.

She’d seen him do that countless
times, of course. However, previously, she'd had no reason to pay any attention
to what had been in his pockets when he did that. Now, knowing that the key was
amongst the coins she heard dropping into the drawer, she was also aware that
sometimes, he'd get up in the morning and put on a fresh pair of pants or jeans.
He didn't always bother to grab the key.

It killed her to know
that the precious key to the office that had caused her so much angst when
she'd tried to get her hands on it, often laid untouched in the top drawer for
most of the day—just ripe for the taking. She couldn’t risk taking it because at
any time during the day he could go into the bedroom to pick it up when he
wanted to work in the office. Of course, once he’d finished in the office, the
key would generally stay in his pocket until he went to bed that night.

She learned all of this
within the next week, becoming a keen observer of his habits. She became more
aware, actually paying attention and watching rather than just letting it all
wash over her. Playing the part of a domestic spy certainly made her usual day-to-day
boring life a little more interesting. It was almost a game to her, although it
potentially could lead to life changing results.

There'd been
opportunities during that first week, for her to go into his office. However, she
forced herself to wait. She decided it was best to continue observing him, and
making sure she knew his habits inside and out. Only then could she be certain
of where the key was. She didn't want to repeat the performance of her taking
him to bed and rifling through his pockets while he slept. Her new method was
much easier, less risky and less stressful; it just required patience.

***

Finally, she couldn't
wait any longer. It had been nearly nine days since her first time in the
office and she was anxious to see more. One morning, Logan unexpectedly left
the house for work. She waited what she felt was a safe amount of time before
she took the key from its hiding place in the drawer and made her way to the
forbidden room.

Having already been
through the first four drawers on the left side of the desk the last time she'd
been in the room, she didn't want to waste time looking at the same stuff that
didn't prove helpful in her quest to help her father. She only took a brief few
moments for a quick, cursory look in those drawers. She confirmed the contents
were the same.

Worryingly, she'd noticed
there seemed to be a few less bullets rolling around in the gun drawer than
she'd seen previously. A sick feeling seized her gut upon that realization. She
tried to push that, and the potential implications out of her mind and not
think too much about it. She had a job to do; she must remain focused on her
goal.

She nervously pushed
ahead and opened up the last drawer on the left.

Only five more drawers
to go after this one,
she told herself boldly, bracing herself to continue to exploring the desk.

This one was stuffed to
capacity with receipts for various purchases. It was almost overflowing as she
pulled it open. A couple of them even fell out onto the floor. She picked them
up and had a quick look. She saw receipts for groceries, a new mouse for the
laptop, tobacco...

Tobacco? Logan bought
tobacco. Hmm, does he even smoke or use it at all? It's as if he's a total
stranger in so many ways. Maybe he bought that for somebody else.

Either way, she decided
she didn’t want to waste time looking at hundreds of receipts. It would take
too long. She didn’t have the luxury of time to waste during these little
secret spying excursions of hers. In addition, she figured that logically, any
information she needed to find, wouldn't likely be amongst a mountain of
receipts.

Charlotte stuffed any
runaway receipts into the drawer. Then she carefully closed it and moved to the
right side of the desk, beginning with the top drawer.

This one contained a
knife, two flashlights, a pair of handcuffs and a couple of leather bound
notepads. She picked up one of the notepads and turned to the first page. It
was blank. She flicked through the pages. Most of them were blank until she got
to the center.

There, she found a list
of what looked to be random letters.
BJWK. JSKWOL. FHSN. WJSNFY SK FY
SKWFHRTR
. She had no idea what it could mean. It looked as if it was some
kind of code. She frowned and continued flicking through the pages. Farther
along, there was more of the same; random sequences of letters that were
grouped in what appeared to be various word-sized chunks. Then there were some
numbers, written in the same manner.

None of what she'd seen made
any sense to her at all. The second notebook wasn’t much different, in terms of
her not being able to decipher any type of meaning. Except this book contained only
what looked like names. Mostly surnames were listed:
Jenkins, Haddles,
Mikkelson, Freeman, Josephs, Stevenson...

None of the names she saw
were familiar; none of them meant anything to her at all. With a defeated sigh,
she returned everything to exactly the way she’d found it and then she closed
the drawer.

Charlotte was becoming
quite frustrated with her entire session of inconsequential snooping. However,
she was glad not to have found anything too disturbing. An occasional strange
and morbid thought would pop into her mind, uninvited. Just before she'd open a
new drawer, her anxiety would spike and she'd brace herself. This was probably because
of her finding the guns.

She'd have fleeting
thoughts and fears of finding something morbid, sick or bizarre. Maybe in
addition to keeping wallets, maybe he'd keep things like a human finger or
other physical trophy or evidence of a murder. Maybe he'd have photographs of
dead people or even a picture of himself with another woman. The possibilities
were limitless.

She'd force herself to continue
her search. With each new drawer, she'd unearth more meaningless documents;
things she didn’t understand or care about. Nothing she saw made any sense to
her. She didn't learn anything new or useful about her husband or anything else.

Charlotte's anxiety and frustration
levels continued to build steadily. She simply wanted to leave that damned room.
She'd feel a sense of doom just being there. It felt as though every second she
spent in there, was bringing her closer to getting caught.

Charlotte was just about
to give up her search completely when she reached the last drawer in the desk.
Finally, in the bottom right drawer, she found a small key that looked as if it
might fit the filing cabinet lock. Surely, he'd keep his most of his important
documents locked in there. Especially things he'd already dealt with and might
want filed safely away for future reference. She left the key where it was for
the moment.

She looked around the
room. There was the computer, as well. An almost infinite amount of information
can be stored there. It sat large and proud in the center of the desk, the wide
screen tempting her to turn it on. She thought he might be too smart to keep
anything too incriminating on his computer, but perhaps there'd be something of
use?

She'd been about to
switch it on when she realized it would most likely be a waste of time considering
he'd almost certainly password protect it. A man as secretive and paranoid as
Logan, wouldn’t take unnecessary risks with something as basic as that. She
briefly thought she might try it anyway, but not right then. She’d already
spent a half hour in the office and was feeling increasingly anxious, having no
idea when he might return.

Charlotte looked down at
the filing cabinet key that was sitting on the bottom of the drawer. She took a
deep breath and picked it up with trembling fingers. She was conscious of the
fact that every second Logan was gone, increased the chance of him coming back
and catching her in the act. The mere thought of that made her feel sick.

Suddenly, an odd feeling
came over her. She had the strange, overwhelming and uneasy sensation of being
watched. She knew she was probably just being paranoid, but she started to
wonder if Logan had cameras installed in the office. Hell, he might've had them
throughout the house. Maybe he knew from the very beginning, what she'd done
and what she'd planned.

She couldn’t bring
herself to use the key to look in the filing cabinet. She had to get out of the
office that moment. She worked herself up into a panic and made herself feel ill
with apprehension. Without any thought, she absently slipped the small key into
her pocket, as she made a hasty exit from the office.

Relief washed over her
when she put the office key back in the bedside drawer. With her hands still
trembling slightly, she went downstairs and made herself a sandwich before
curling up on the white sofa in the living area and reading a book. She spent
the next couple of hours trying to immerse herself in the story. Trying to
forget her own life, by reading about someone else’s.

It turned out Logan
didn’t return for another three hours. By the time he came home, she felt much
better. In fact, she was strangely happy to see him. He was in a good mood and
they spent a rare enjoyable evening together watching television, drinking wine
and making fun of the shows they watched.

***

It was two days later
when Logan noticed the key to the filing cabinet was missing. Charlotte had
been careless. She still had the key and forgotten all about it. She just assumed
she'd get the chance to return it before he tried to use it, perhaps the very
next morning when he went out to the store and had left her behind.

She could've done it then,
too. However, she didn't. If she'd been honest with herself and really looked
at her motivation, Charlotte would've realized a part of her didn't want to
return to the office for any reason. A huge part of her didn’t want to find out
anything more about Logan or her father, than she already knew.

Hell, if she had the option,
she'd forget everything she discovered about him, starting at her wedding
reception. She wanted to be blissfully ignorant again. This man who she’d given
her heart to, trusted with her entire life, was a total lie.

Everything
about him was a lie. She felt like
such a fool to have to admit what she now knew, even to herself. She'd fallen
for his false charms and manipulations. It had all been a show, superficial and
all wrapped in his manly, handsome package. She'd given in to him so
completely.

What happened to me? I’d
always been so headstrong, independent and self-assured. I don't remember ever
being so stupid, or easily influenced by appearances.

Charlotte had always
believed women who stayed with violent, lying partners were weak, stupid or completely
crazy. She'd never been able to understand why anyone would get into that type
of situation. However, if they did somehow wind up in that situation, they
should just leave. There were no excuses or reasons to justify staying.

Fast forward to today. Charlotte
had changed so dramatically and not in good ways. However, she now understood all
too well how people could fall into these traps. It happens slowly. The
beginning was fun and exciting. It all goes to Hell so slowly, it's easy to
turn a blind eye to it, to be seduced into it and fooled. Now she found herself
trapped in one terrible situation. Logan had her right where he wanted her.
She'd become a prisoner and sex slave to a violent criminal.

The only way out of her life
as an inmate involved a task she dreaded. She didn’t want to do it. She felt sick
every time she even thought about stepping into his office, and every time she
had to confront more of the truth about who her husband really was. The truth about
Logan’s seedy criminal career made her feel sick and so ashamed of all of her
stupid, gullible mistakes.

Charlotte was sitting in
the kitchen trying to complete some designs on the breakfast bar. She was
motivated for the first time in weeks after having just completed a business
plan she was sending to a fashion consultant for advice; something Logan told
her was a total waste of time.

Charlotte jumped a little,
startled, when she heard Logan cursing and moving things around in his office.
He was quiet at first, and then he grew increasingly louder as he became more and
more frustrated in his quest.

“Where the hell…? What
the
FUCK
…?" he said.

Both the volume and the severity
of his swear words increased the longer she heard him ransacking his office. Charlotte
could tell he was close to losing his temper completely. She knew if he reached
his boiling point, he'd lose control and begin to take his anger out on the
furniture and possibly even on her, if she got in his way.

She got up from the
breakfast bar and rushed into the hallway. Of course, she was careful to remain
outside of the room but near the door of the office. She knew better than to enter
his office. That, was forbidden area. She also learned all too well that
regardless of where he was, she should never invade his personal space when he's
in a foul mood. She'd be wise to give him ample space.