The Fidelity Files (Jennifer Hunter #1)(72)

"Jen, is that you?"

I knew the voice. I'd known the voice for years.

There was no more interference. The connection was crystal clear and the voice... was unmistakable. The irony was thicker than liquid chocolate and not nearly as sweet. It was the very same voice I had been hoping to hear on the other end of the phone for over a week now.

But what do you know? It was coming through the wrong f*cking phone.

"Hello?" The voice demanded an acknowledgment. And before long, it would undoubtedly be demanding an explanation as well.

I cleared my throat and attempted to impersonate an eighty-year -old woman who had fought a lifetime, losing battle with Virginia Slims. "Yes? How can I help you?"

I should have just hung up. Right then and there. I should have just put down the phone, not answered for the rest of the night, or the rest of my life perhaps, and just left it at that.

I should have done a lot of things.

But I didn't. And now the voice knew.

"Jen, is that you?" it repeated, slightly more aggravated and a lot more insistent.

I sighed and surrendered to it. "Yes, Sophie. It's me."

There was a long silence, followed by a short but very distinct click.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen. "Call Ended," it informed me.

The phone slowly slipped from my sweaty fingers and I watched it disappear into a sea of white cotton and down. I held my forehead in the palm of my hand and closed my eyes. Because I knew. I knew for sure. The call wasn't the only thing that had just ended.

I bit my lip and waited. Waited for the inevitable callback.

If I knew Sophie at all, she needed that extra moment for everything to sink in. For the information to process and the world to start making sense again. She was like a slow desktop computer, one of those older models that required just the slightest bit more time to perform the simpler tasks, like opening up a Word document or transferring between applications. I could almost see the frustratingly slow hourglass icon hovering above her head.

But this time the task wasn't simple. And this time, after the extra moment had passed, and even the extra few after that, the world still wouldn't make sense. The program still wouldn't run. And the hard drive would inevitably crash.

My house had never felt so silent in the entire eighteen months that I'd lived there.

And then the phone rang. Not my business cell phone, not my personal cell phone. But my landline. My home phone. And it felt all too appropriate.

The number was no longer blocked. The caller was definitely ID'ed.

"Hi," I said softly into the cordless receiver.

There was more silence. She had dialed my number before she had finished processing. There would be silence. And I would wait.

"Hi," she finally said back.

I could almost hear her gears turning. The questions were popping up faster than she could sort through and prioritize them. The looming "illegal operations" were threatening to shut down the whole system if the answers didn't start coming – and fast.

And then somehow, remarkably, Sophie managed to sort through all of the streaming data and effectively generate one simple question that summed up every query struggling to run at once.

"It's you?" she asked faintly.

I nodded, knowing full well that she couldn't see me. But also somewhat thankful for it at the same time. I wasn't ready for her to know. I wasn't ready to stop coming up with bogus stories about work and having her console me on them.

And I certainly wasn't prepared for her to find out like this.

So much for my successful skills of dissuasion. Sophie had gone right back to that woman at her office and asked for the phone number again. My phone number. I should have known. Me of all people should have been the first one to remind myself that a woman on a quest for knowledge is as unstoppable as a man on a quest for sex.

"Yes, it's me," I confirmed, shamefully. I knew the reaction I was going to get. I knew the judgment I was going to have to endure. And so I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the blow.

"You're... Ashlyn?" She was still waiting for me to break out into laughter and tell her it was a huge joke. That I had told her colleague to give out my number so that I could teach her a lesson. That there never even was an Ashlyn. That I made it all up. Surprise! You've been punk'd!

And I suppose I certainly could have. But instead, all I said was, "Yes."

"How could that be? You work for an investment bank!"

"Worked for a bank," I explained. "I haven't worked at Stanley Marshall for about two years."

More silence. More careful computations.

"Remember that promotion I got? A little over two years ago? A bigger office? A new cell phone?"

The deciphering key was finally starting to take shape, and it was suddenly no longer just illegible lines of code. It was an entire story. An entire life that she knew nothing about, but now suddenly couldn't believe that she had missed.

"Yah..." she said hesitantly.

"Well, it wasn't a promotion."

"But how many? And why didn't you tell me? And—"

"I couldn't tell you!" I insisted. "I couldn't tell anyone. Nobody knows. It was just a decision I made on my own. Something I had to do for me. Plus, I didn't think you'd approve."