Chapter 33
Abigall
“No,” I said immediately. “I’d like to see it now. You promised me, remember?”
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“Yes, I remember,” he shook his head playfully, as if he had expected I would say that. “This way,” he said, leading me toward his study.
We reached the study, and Conrad unlocked the door with a small key he pulled from his pocket. He stepped inside first, turning on the lights, and I didn’t hesitate before following him in.
What caught my attention was the safe in the corner, Conrad led me to the far corner, where the imposing safe was built into the wall.
Conrad stood in front of the safe, his broad frame blocking my view as he quickly keyed in a combination. His movements were deliberate, his fingers moving so fast I couldn’t catch the sequence.
With a faint beep, the safe clicked open. Inside, stacks of documents lay neatly arranged in labeled envelopes. To one side, bundles of crisp foreign currency were stacked like bricks, their colorful bands contrasting against the muted tones of paper and metal.
Conrad reached inside, pulling out one of the thicker envelopes. He turned to me, his expression unreadable but -his eyes watchful. “Everything you need to know is in here,” he said, holding the envelope out to me.
Itook it, my fingers brushing against his as I did. His eyes followed me as I crossed the room to the plush armchair near the window, hyper aware of his gaze following me across the room. I sat down and placed the envelope on my lap, running my fingers over the seal before tearing it open.
The first thing I saw was a stack of financial documents. I polled them out and began to read, my eyes scanning the dense text and rows of numbers. Conrad’s voice broke the silence as I worked through the pages.
“Alexander was careful,” he said, his tone solemn. “He’s always been good at covering his tracks. But thanks to Susanna’s info, we knew where to look.”
I didn’t reply, too focused on the documents in front of me. They were bank statements, carefully detailed, showing large sums of money being transferred to accounts I didn’t recognize. The recipient names were pseudonyms, but the amounts were stappering.
“Those accounts belong to the men who took you,” Conrad continued, his voice cutting through my thoughts.” It’s all there–dates, amounts, everything. Alexander funneled the money through a shell company to avoid detection, but we traced it back to him.”
My hands tightened on the papers as I flipped to the next section: grainy photographs taken from surveillance footage.
Conrad moved closer, leaning over my shoulder to point at one of the images. “This was taken the morning of your kidnapping,” he said, his breath warm against my ear. “That’s Alexander, in the area near the hideout. He was there, Abigail. He knew exactly what was happening.”
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I stared at the photo, my stomach churning. The resolution was poor, but the figure in the image was dressed to the nines, the way Alexander always was. He wore a dark coat and a hat which hid the top half of his face, his posture stiff as he sat in his wheelchair, propped beside a large Jeep.
Of a truth, I had doubted Conrad when he said he had proof had seen first hand the way he could believe anything Susanna told him, even if she woke up one day and said the sky was green. But to have this much…
I pulled the final item from the envelope: a slim, outdated MP3 player. I turned it over in my hands, frowning.
Chapter 33
What does this have to do with Alexander?” I asked, lookin up at Conrad.
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His Tips curved into a smug smile as he took the device from me. “This,” he said, pressing a button on the side, ” Is the nail in the coffin.”
The MP3 player crackled to life, and a voice filled the room. The audio was grainy and distorted with background noise, but as I strained to listen, I could make out the word being said.
“She’s at the company,” a man’s voice said, low and steady “Get her in the car as quickly as possible. Remember, no mistakes.”
My heart stopped.
Another voice responded, higher–pitched and eager. “Understood, sir. We won’t mess it up. You can count on us, Mr. Alex.”
The recording ended abruptly, leaving the room in heavy silence.
I stared at the MP3 player, my hands trembling. “Mr. Alex, echoed, my voice barely above a whisper.
Conrad nodded, his expression mirroring mine. “There’s no doubt, Abigail. He was the one pulling the strings. He orchestrated the entire thing.”
I stared at Conrad for what felt like an eternity, my gaze fixed on his face..
A nervous chuckle escaped his lips the longer I held his gaze. “Why are you looking at me like that, Abby?” he asked, an awkward smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
My expression turned apologetic. “I’m sorry, Conrad, for doubting you,” I said, my voice soft. “I… I just never thought. Not Alexander. He was the only one who stood up for us, when everyone else turned their backs. I never imagined he’d betray us like this.”
Conrad reached for me, pulling me into a hug, “It’s alright, I’m not offended,” he murmured, his voice warm against my hair. “I know the truth about Alexander’s true nature is a hard pill to swallow.”
I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my cheek. It was calm, the storm beginning to build inside of me.
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He thinks I’m a fool. My husband must think I’m the biggest fool on the planet. There was no other explanation for the nonsense he had just presented to me. He had given me a puzzle with missing pieces, then tried to convince me that the gaping holes were part of the design.
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Did he think I wouldn’t notice that everything he had shown me felt too neat? The financial document, the pictures from the surveillance footage, and even the recording that had just played all of them felt too convenient. Too perfectly timed.
If Conrad expected me to be convinced, he would have to wait. The voice in the footage could be anybody. Just because ‘Alex‘ was a short form of Alexander’s name was hardly evidence. I could walk into any shopping mall right now, shout ‘Alex!‘ and watch at least six heads turn. Even the photos obtained from the surveillance cameras were nothing useful. All of them were too grainy to get a good look at the man’s face. Even if they had been clear enough, the hat the man in the pictures wore would have still been a problem. Either way, there was no sure way I could know the man was Alexander, just because he was in a wheelchair.
But Conrad clearly thought I was that stupid. I wrapped my hands tighter around him. I had to play along. I had to let him believe he had succeeded. Because if he thought I was a fool, he wouldn’t see my next move coming,
