In Bad Faith

Chapter 10

Softly I hummed along to the music that played through my headphones, while I put another piece of chocolate in my mouth. I almost finished the whole bar, but since I skipped dinner this evening, I didn't feel any type of guilt about it.

I got way too caught up in the papers Floyd had handed to me the other day. It contained a lot more information than I'd ever expected to get, and this made me very excited. I was already halfway through annotating and marking all the hundreds of pages that I received. The file existed out of reports my father had made about his past missions, a short diary he wrote after my mom's passing, and a folder full of copied police papers regarding the investigation of her death.

It was a lot. And it wasn't light stuff, either. The police reports contained very detailed descriptions of how they found my mother, laying in a pool of blood with fourteen bullet holes in her body. And even though I had seen it with my own eyes back then, it was different reading it now. Back then I was a very young girl, who didn't even fully understand what had happened to her mother when she found her.

Now I did. She got killed. She got killed by criminals that got away with it. The guys were still out there somewhere, and the thought of that me nauseous. No one should ever have to find their mom pierced with bullets in their backyard, after coming back from school.

There were pictures, too. Not of my dead mother, luckily. No, these were nice pictures my dad seemed to have collected during his mourning period. It were printed digitals of their first vacation together, the day they got married, the day they got me, and other memories that felt like a safe haven to me. It gave me warm feelings, and I was smiling the whole time while looking through the photos.

The sound of the music coming through my headphones was roughly cut short by a phone call that popped up on my screen. Misha Zaveri. My screen flashed his name, and I felt my stomach tingle a little. My eyes quickly darted to the digital clock in the corner of my telephone screen, and I noticed that it was already 22;35. That meant I had been sitting here for three-and-a-half hours straight already, which was way too long. But that wasn't what was most surprising about it being this late. Most of all, I wondered why Misha would call me at this time. It wasn't very uncommon for him to ask me something work-related after office hours, but it has never been this late before. Was something wrong?

After a nervous and deep breath, I grabbed my phone to pick it up, but just before I was able to do so, the incoming call disappeared. I frowned in confusion. I didn't wait that long to respond.. I decided to call him back, and as I held my phone to my ear, I took the last piece of chocolate from the silver wrap, as I waited patiently for Misha to pick up. It only took several seconds before I heard his voice on the other end of the line. And his voice immediately always gave me this feeling. "Miss Fisher, I am very sorry for interrupting you. I didn't realize it was already this late," he told me, whispering. Wait, why was he whispering? It sounded like he was home, as I heard shower water running in the background. "It's no problem," I told him. And I wasn't even lying. How on earth did I not see it as a problem that my boss called me this late, for something that wasn't urgent? At least, his voice didn't sound urgent. It sounded tired, just like my voice did, probably.

I had been lacking sleep for days this week. The job at MZ Global wasn't easy. I had constantly been present, and it wasn't very uncommon to work more hours than I should. And usually, that wouldn't be a big problem for me. I was used to working hard, and I loved keeping myself busy. But this next to my actual job was tough. I spent most of my evenings making reports, answering emails, or updating Floyd, whilst also trying to keep myself alive by eating, sleeping, and cleaning my apartment every now and then.

"I just suddenly thought about that meeting last Monday. I promised Tracy I would sent her the annotations, but I forgot to tell you. Could you maybe do that for me?" he asked me, still in a whispering voice. I grew more confused every second. He had to call me at half past ten to ask me that? It was now Thursday, which meant that meeting was four days ago. How could this not just wait until tomorrow? "Eh, sure," I told him, as I opened my mail and started looking for the annotations that had to be on this laptop somewhere. "Thanks, really, I appreciate it," he told me, and by his voice, I could tell that he was smiling. What on earth was wrong with this guy today? He had been ignoring me once again, and now he was being kind to me all of a sudden?

Misha Zaveri was on my mind a lot since the party. Something between us kind of switched. He was still his grumpy and annoying self most of the time, but I got to see another side of him as well. It didn't show much, just occasionally. And I especially couldn't get this thing about his parents out of my head. He was literally left at a train station, and that fact alone made me feel sad for him. I empathized with him a lot more than I should, and that was probably because of my own past. I knew the things it could do to you.

"Mr. Zaveri? Are you drunk?" I asked him, still confused. And I swear I could hear him chuckle softly. "I'm not always drunk when I'm not at work," he told me jokingly. Misha Zaveri was telling jokes? He must've hit his head. "I was just doing some work and then this popped up. I called without realizing it was this late already," he said, and he sounded more clear now as he stopped whispering.

The sound of running water suddenly stopped from his end of the line, and shortly after I heard a female voice. "Babe? Who are you calling?" I heard her say, her voice echoing because she was standing in a bathroom. Maddison. So was that the reason why he was whispering? I did not know why this disappointed me as much as it did. "No one," Misha answered her, and my body was over flooding with emotions. God, why was it so easy for this man to make me happy, or disappointed, or angry? And why was he telling her that I was no one? Was it because she was afraid of me? Was she jealous? Way too many questions popped up, and I just blamed my emotions on my exhaustion. Because I was exhausted. My eyes prickled and my brain hurt. This operation was without a doubt the hardest I had ever been on.

"I have to go," Misha told me, as he was back to whispering. I nodded, not realizing he wouldn't be able to see it. "Yeah, see you tomorrow," I answered. "See you tomorrow Nadya," Misha said, and after that, he cut the line short.

What the hell was that?