Page 114 of The Attraction File

FORTY-FIVE

Edgar

“Evaleen is here?” I asked Grace as she stirred her tea in the kitchen.

Her doe eyes widened and lifted up to me.

“Yes. I saw Ms. Bechmann come in after lunch.”

At that moment, I felt relief and also worry. Thankful that I had a better chance of tracking her down in the office than I did at home.

In my house, she had become adept at hiding in her bedroom or always being in the shower. She took lots of showers.

I thought I would find her yesterday at the office party; I knew she had been there because I saw the box of crackers, but again no Evaleen.

The cookies and tea idea came to me this morning and I ran home before lunch, not at all surprised she wasn’t there.

Mr. Marks had told me she was apartment hunting. I asked him to watch her for the past few days. Not my best idea but I had to know she was safe at least.

I couldn’t let her leave. Not without knowing I wanted to help her raise that baby. The cookies and tea were my last effort to stop her.

Would she know what they meant? She didn’t last time. At least she might think they had to do with how I cared for her body.

Now that I thought about it, the idea seemed terrible. Pathetic in an I can’t think of anything else sort of way. They’ll just remind her how she got in this situation to begin with.

No wonder she’s avoiding me, I’m an asshole. A selfish dick who only has one thing on my mind, sex. What woman would want a man like that for the father of their child?

As I dashed out of the kitchen, I noticed something in the corner of my eye. Evaleen. She was walking into Jacob’s office.

Was she about to quit? Maybe move away and take the baby with her? I mean, obviously, the baby was still inside her so it went everywhere with her, but I mean after she gave birth.

I couldn’t let that happen. Racing down the hall my only hope was that she had read the note I left her in the kitchen and didn’t toss it away with my sad surprise.

Just as I got to the door, I saw that Kara was away from her desk. Good. Now I could walk inside and stop her. Knowing Evaleen, she would have told Kara that they not be interrupted if she was about to quit.

I opened the door and my jaw fell open at what I saw. Evaleen had her back to me as Jacob stood in front of his desk facing her. Her hands were behind her back because she was being handcuffed.

The two detectives that I saw with Jacob coming out of his office last week were arresting Evaleen.

“What is going on here?” I yelled and moved next to Evaleen.

She was crying and everything in me wanted to hold her while at the same time, punch those cops. Also, my brother. I wanted to punch him too.

“Edgar, they have evidence that Ms. Bechmann was forcing Ashton to hack the system here at Mimir.”

I shook my head. “No, that isn’t true.”

How could my brother lie like that about her? I was sure these cops were corrupt, but that didn’t mean my brother had to believe them or help them arrest her.

“It’s true. We were able to find a file from Ms. Bechmann’s own office that contained everything we needed to know. Mr. Mimir here helped us after our department discovered that picture of you we showed you a few months ago originated from Ms. Bechmann’s computer.” Detective Hardy pointed to me before continuing, “She tried to cover her tracks by sending it to herself, but that didn’t fool our IT guys. When we searched her office we found buried in her filing cabinet a file labeled the Attraction file. See for yourself.” Detective Mackeson threw a folder on Jacobs’s desk.

I opened it and found some memos about different employees. My eyes widened when I came across one about Morgana being put on leave a few months ago. That Evaleen herself had caught Henrik having sex with her. There was Henrik’s signature at the bottom.

Every single document in here looked like something that was damning to different employees. Something that could get them fired, yet these particular employees all still worked here. The last two files were on Ashton and me.

Apparently, Ashton had gotten arrested in his early twenties from a bar fight. He lied on his application for the company and never put it down. She knew of it.

Mine was worse. It was more than one piece of paper. There were photographs of me with women I had been with. Some even taken in my own home.

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