I almost laughed. I couldn’t help myself. I thought she had the upper hand here, but in fact I still had some cards up my sleeve.
“I’m not lying,” I said, trying to talk to her like she was an unruly patient. “We went in, looked at your financial records, copied everything from your laptop, and then we left. Not much in there.”
Her eyes went wide and her smile fell away. “You stole from my laptop?”
“Oh, well, of course,” I said, shrugged like it was no big deal. “You keep your password in your desk drawer.”
Her face drained of color and went a strange, sickly pale. “You copied my documents. From my computer.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I should’ve mentioned that right away.” I shrugged a little and beamed at her. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Maria?”
She seemed to gather herself and managed to stand up straight. Her face was still pale, but the anger slipped back into her eyes, and I caught a glimpse of the python there wrapped around her heart, waiting to slither around my throat and squeeze.
“I want you to understand something,” she said, speaking softly. “You broke into my office. You stole documents from my computer. You should be in handcuffs right now.”
“And yet I’m not, which is strange, don’t you think?”
“The only reason you’re not is that I feel bad for you. I get it, Dr. Coarse is very convincing. But whatever he said to make you think you should follow him, I’d really think twice about that. If you come clean and tell me what you took—”
“It wasn’t his idea,” I said, shaking my head. “It was mine.”
She blinked rapidly. “Excuse me?”
“I know what you’re doing, Maria. And I’m going to prove it.”
“You stupid girl,” she hissed.
I faced her, gathering my courage. “If I were you, I’d get the hell out of this hospital before we come forward with everything. Do you understand?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Then I guess we’ll see how this all shakes out, won’t we?”
She stood still, glaring at me, then shook her head once and turned. “You’re making a mistake. You have no clue who’s involved here.”
“I know more than you think.” I opened the door to the lounge. “Have a nice day, Maria.”
She walked off without another word. I watched her go for a moment, then stumbled into the lounge, found the bathroom, and puked into the toilet.
I knelt there breathing hard, sweat dripping down my back and under my arms. I felt horrible, like someone scraped the inside of my stomach with a steel wool sponge. I got to my feet, splashed some water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. Bags hung under my eyes and my skin was blotchy from stress.
She knew—she knew and she hadn’t done anything yet, which meant she was guilty.
But we couldn’t prove it yet. And now it was a race to see who could make something happen first. Maria would try to discredit us as soon as she could, and when that happened, we needed to be ready with the proof that would take her down.
I nodded to myself then turned and went to find Dean.10DeanI was so deep into the spreadsheets that I didn’t hear her knock at first. I jumped when she banged on my door again and stood up, only getting halfway there before she threw it open and came inside.
Fiona looked freaked as hell as she stared at me. Her face was pale, her eyes bloodshot, and she trembled slightly, like a cold breeze blew through the window. I took a step toward her, reaching out, but she flinched away.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Maria knows.”
Those two words made my heart stop. “What?”
“She came to me—she said she has a camera in her office—she knows, Dean. She knows.”
I didn’t move and stared at her for what felt like forever. My mind raced as I tried to make sense of this, and I had a hard time fitting all the pieces together. Maria knew that we broke into her office, but that didn’t make any sense. If she had proof that we were in there, and that we stole from her, then she should’ve gone right to the police and gotten us arrested.
I gently moved toward Fiona again and steered her over to a chair. She sat without much resistance and I sat in the chair next to her. I leaned over and put my hands on her legs, staring into her eyes.
“Tell me exactly what she said.”
She gave me a rundown of their conversation as best she could. When she finished, I stood and paced across the tight room before stopping near the desk, hand resting on the edge of my laptop.
“She’s afraid,” I said.
Fiona nodded. “I think so too.”
“Which means I’m right.” I laughed a little, shaking my head. “God damn her. She’s clever.”