"Damn it, my head," Vanessa muttered to herself after waking up the following morning. "It hurts so much."
She rubbed her eyes a couple of times and suddenly opened them widely after a flashback from last night struck her like a thunderbolt. "Cole?"
She looked around, but Cole was not in the bed, nor could be seen anywhere in the room.
Damn it! What did happen? Did he spend the whole night here? Vanessa thought while carrying her hand over the empty spot. Nah, he probably didn't.
She stood up and looked around again, remembering that she was the one asking him to stay there. And she didn't know if the fact that he wasn't there at that moment was pleasing her or upsetting her.
Vanessa shook her head, trying to get rid of these thoughts, and headed for the bathroom, hoping that a cold shower would clear her mind.
The water flowing over her body felt good, but more memories from the night before kept coming.
She was drunk. And that was about to end tragically if it wasn't for Cole.
Cole.
His burning touch.
She remembered.
His gentle embrace.
The feeling of his body.
Uninvited memories.
"I will never ever drink again!" She punched the wall angrily. "Never!"
Vanessa stopped the water, wrapped a towel over her body, and walked out of the bathroom.
"Cole?" She was startled after seeing him standing in the room. "Have you ever heard of knocking?"
"I knocked. But you didn't answer. I thought you had fainted."
"I was drunk, I am not sick."
"Do your head hurts?"
Vanessa took a second, smaller towel with which she started to dry her wet hair and answered him simultaneously, "Very much."
"I'll give you a headache pill. You will feel better."
"I am fine, thank you. Now, will you go out so I can get dressed?"
That was what Cole did without answering anything. He turned around and walked out.
Vanessa got dressed quickly, got her phone, and went downstairs to make some coffee, expecting to see him there again, but instead, she heard an engine and saw through the window his car leaving.
"Goodbye to you, too," she muttered ironically and went into the kitchen.
While she was making coffee, her phone rang.
"Hi, Jacks."
"Nessa, hi. How are you?"
"Better than I deserve. Aren't you mad at me?"
"For what?"
"Yesterday, I left without telling you anything."
"Cole told me you weren't feeling well, and he was going to take you home. Don't worry."
"Yes, in short. Where are you? You didn't come home last night, did you?"
Jackson's giggles came over the phone. "No. I'll be home tomorrow morning, probably."
"Another party?"
"We are going to a cottage outside of town with Nathan and the others. Do you want to come with us?"
"Um, I don't think so. I and party in one sentence don't end well."
"You sound like you've never been drunk before."
"I haven't."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Rest. Lie down and get some sleep. You'll feel better."
"Okay, Mom!" Vanessa replied, kind of annoyed. "Have a good time, Jacks."
After she finished her phone call, she drank her coffee with a few cigarettes. There was complete silence in the house. Rebecca was out of the country, Jackson wouldn't be home until the next day, and even though she didn't know when Cole would be back home, this was actually an excellent opportunity to search the house.
Vanessa went up to the second floor and entered Cole's room.
It was dark there. Long, thick curtains were drawn over the windows, preventing any light from entering. She turned on the bedside lamp that sat on the nightstand next to the king-size bed. The light was dim, but it was enough for Vanessa to get her bearings. She opened the nightstand drawer, but inside, she found only boxes of condoms, lube, and the like. She rolled her eyes and closed it. Then she moved to the other side of the bed and opened the other nightstand. There was a gun in its drawer. That didn't surprise her too much—not that all people kept guns in their nightstands, but it wasn't unusual either. She closed it and looked around again. There were no more cupboards to be seen in the room, only a large sofa with two armchairs and a table between them, on which were several sports car magazines.
She opened one of the two doors that were opposite the bed, and in front of her was revealed an enormous wardrobe. She walked in, but as expected, there was nothing inside but clothes and shoes.
The other door was probably for the bathroom, she thought. She opened it slightly to make sure and closed it after that.
Then Vanessa left the room.
She returned to the first floor and entered the office there.
There were many papers on the large desk. Cole worked from home quite often. After looking through them, she began to open the cupboards and drawers one by one. Nothing again. She leaned back against the chair and gave it a few spins, obviously disappointed. Until her eyes landed on the paintings on the wall opposite the desk. They were three in number. Vanessa stood up and approached the wall, focusing on the one in the middle.
She grabbed it with both hands and unhooked it, and a safe door appeared underneath.
Bingo.
Cracking safes gave Vanessa pleasure, but it could be time-consuming.
In any case, it would keep her busy for a few hours.
After giving the safe a good look, Vanessa hung the painting back and went up to her room. She pulled a stethoscope from her suitcase, a pen, and a paper sheet. Then she headed downstairs again, but first, went through the kitchen and out into the backyard through the back door.
She made sure that all three spaces in the garage were already occupied by cars—Rebecca's, Kristen's, and Jackson's, so if Cole returned to the house, he would definitely park in the front driveway.
However, the view from the office windows was to the backyard, so when she entered it, she turned on the camera monitor she'd seen sitting on the desk and turned it toward her. That way, she could watch and know if Cole came home unexpectedly.
It was time for action.
Vanessa reset the safe's lock by turning the dial several complete revolutions. She placed the stethoscope near the dial surface and started listening to the clicks while rotating the dial. It took her nearly half an hour, but finally, she found the combination length. After that, she took the paper sheet, leaned it against the way, and drew two line graphs to find the combination numbers.
She reset the lock again and set it to zero. Then she started to rotate the dial slowly and listened carefully. She wrote down in the graph the dial position each time she heard the needed clicks.
One hour later, she had all the values written on the graph. She analyzed them and possibly got the numbers—5, 52, 61.
Vanessa turned her head back to the camera screen, as she did quite often all the time, and after making sure there was no movement around the house, she turned back to the safe. She had to test every possible sequence of the numbers, plus/minus one number deviation from each located number.
After ninety-three unsuccessful tries, the safe's door opened. Lucky ninety-four.
Finally!
Vanessa looked inside.
A gun. And documents again. She started flipping through them. Contracts. Notarial acts. Building permits. Some architectural plans.
Everything seemed perfectly normal.
Wait a minute. What's this? She pulled a sheet from among the pile of documents. On it was written '2-f/m - cleaned' and nothing more.
She quickly took out her phone and took a picture of the list. At the exact moment, the sound of a car engine was heard.
"Damn it!" she muttered, startled, looking over to the cameras. Cole was parking outside the house.
Vanessa quickly returned the sheet and the other documents to the safe, closed the door and returned the dial to the position where she had found it. She hung the painting back on the wall, turned off the monitor, and rushed to the door.
But the moment she reached for the handle, she heard Cole's voice, who had already entered the house.
There was no way she could leave the office without him noticing her, and on the other side, being in his office could probably look suspicious.
She leaned against the wall by the door, hoping he would go upstairs.
Unfortunately, Cole had headed straight for his office. He opened the door wide, and luckily for Vanessa, he didn't close it behind him. She remained hidden behind it. Her heart was pounding, but she stood perfectly still and made no sound.
Cole sat in the chair behind his desk, talking to someone on the phone in the meantime. He picked up his notebook that was on top and started flipping through it but quickly closed it. "Yeah, I should have a company business card somewhere around here. Here it is," he said on the phone, then paused for a moment, clearly listening to what was being said on the other end. "Okay, Mike. Wait for me there in fifteen minutes."
He tucked his phone and the business card into the pocket of his leather jacket, which, although he only wore on weekends, paired with his black jeans and t-shirt, looked killer and sexy.
He got up from his chair and left the office, closing the door behind him.
Vanessa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. That was close, she thought, exhaling the large amount of air she had taken.
As soon as she heard the front door of the house open and close, she left the office and ran to her room.
"Karevsky, it's me," Vanessa said on the phone after calling him and, in the meantime, sat down in one of the armchairs by the room's window.
"Good to hear from you, Blake. How is life under Willker's roof?"
"Weird. To put it mildly. I think I'd better finish my job quickly and get out of here. Anyway. I hadn't found anything interesting until now, but I think I stumbled upon something today. I already sent it to McKenna, but I'm sending it to you too."
"Got it."
"Seems odd. I'm curious. See if you can figure something out about this code."
For several seconds Vanessa received no response.
"Karevsky?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Yes, it's weird. I'll see what I can do. Bye."
Vanessa raised her eyebrows in surprise, looking at her phone screen. Did he just hang up on me?
She tossed the phone on her bed, and although Karevsky's demeanor was a little strange, she didn't pay much attention to that. He was a bit off in general; she laughed as the thought crossed her mind.
Now what? she asked herself, but right after that got up and started changing her clothes, apparently knowing the answer to that question.
After she was already dressed in comfortable shorts, sneakers, and a sweatshirt, she went down to the garage, started Kristen's car, and headed to the gym. She needed a little exercise to shake off the tension that had built up over the past few hours.
After entering the gym, she got directly on the treadmill and set it into high gear. Probably around fifteen minutes later, she heard Matt's voice behind her. "Long time no see."
He climbed up behind her on the treadmill and began to run to her beat.
"I'm not in the mood for that," she told him without turning to him.
"Since when are you not in the mood for that?"
He reached over her shoulder to the screen and slowed the speed so they both started walking.
"I'm trying to work out if you can't see."
"I see. But I can offer you another kind of training."
Matt reached the screen once more and turned the unit off completely. He then moved closer to her, placing both hands on the levers. "Come on, baby. I know you want it." He pressed himself harder against her so that his entire body was stacked against hers and began kissing her neck, moving his member slowly over her ass. "Let's see if he could set you in the right mood."
Vanessa turned, slightly angry, and looked into Matt's eyes. Usually, seeing him was enough to turn her on. But now, Cole and the memories of the damn night at the ball flashed back into her mind.
"Not again!" she muttered, tilting her head down.
"What?"
"This can't go on," she whispered to herself.
"I don't understand you." Matt interrupted her thoughts.
"It doesn't matter. It has to stop." She looked into his eyes again, grabbed the neckline of his tank top with one hand, and pulled him towards her, causing his lips to crash onto hers, and their tongues instantly entwined. "It doesn't matter."