White Lies (Book 1)

Chapter 34

Nathan began rummaging through the files amongst the desk. I tried my hand at helping him, running my fingers across the aged pages which had been stacked and forgotten over the years. A layer of dust coated my fingertips – involuntarily, I sneezed.

"Bless you," was Nathan's distracted response. "I've searched this place high and low so many times, I can hardly count them. These documents contain the financial thumbprint of the Ericson business – and by extension, all the Ericson money. Old money. Every time I'm in here, I can't help but feel like I'm teetering towards a really big find. Maybe something that proves Aurora's been fucking my father and extorting him for cash, as Peter believes. Or maybe something that points to where all our money is going."

"What's with all the fish tanks?" I finally asked. "I find it so odd that they're all functioning, but don't have any fish in them whatsoever. This room feels like a sad aquarium."

He gave me a wry look, before making his way around the space and turning off the tanks individually. "Alfred's one sneaky fuck. The humming of all the tank filters helps mask the sound." One by one, his face was no longer illuminated by the fluorescent glow of the fish tanks.

Then I paused and waited. "The sound of what?" Still hearing nothing of importance – only the same faint humming sound from before.

Nathan then unlocked a nearby filling cabinet, opening it to reveal that it hadn't been a cabinet at all. Instead, housed inside was a very small, still functional refrigerator. Glowing faintly to indicate that it was still working. A very strange addition to the already mysterious office set-up.

"When I was ten years old," Nathan began, "Alfred decided that he'd take me on one of his joy rides. He sped along Alistair's busiest freeway at seventy miles per hour, and on the opposite side of the road. Completely fucked out of his mind. I had been in the passenger side of the car – and of course he crashed it instantly. Wrapped himself around a pole and nearly killed me. He gifted me several broken bones and a concussion. Alfred's fractured knee never fully recovered. But that little stint instigated what would become his very long-standing affair with an opioid addiction."

When he opened the small fridge, I gasped at the contents which waited inside. Alfred essentially possessed a small pharmacy – amphetamines and narcotics of every kind, in pill, powder and liquid form. I walked over and leaned in for a thorough look, becoming more and more disturbed by what I found. Fentanyl, codeine, alprazolam, ketamine, morphine, and something called sodium amytal.

"A barbiturate? What is that?" I wondered out loud. I had been so consumed in uncovering Alfred's pharmaceutical contents that I failed to notice Nathan as he speedily examined various cabinet files for pertinent information.

"A very potent depressant. Some people call it truth serum," was his grim answer. His mouth was pressed into a thin line.

I closed the door of the fridge hesitantly, quietly noting that while Alfred had an extensive stash of drugs, his stash had also been pretty depleted. Which means he had recently ransacked his stores– probably during his most recent visit. Nathan must've known about this side to his father for a long time. Perhaps he knew from a very early age. I felt horrified at the thought.

The full extent of Alfred's depravity was suddenly made very clear to me. In order to have fully functioned with a long-term opioid addiction, he would've had to successfully pull the wool over the heads of everyone from his wife and children, to his board of directors and employees. For years. That was no easy feat to achieve. Alfred must have been an exceptional liar – a gifted manipulator of people and of the world he governed.

"Here it is – I found his ledger," Nathan grinned, flicking through the pages of a slim black book. "His flight leaves for Vegas tonight. It's not too late for us to follow after him."