From the Book

“What is this?!” I shouted as I unassumingly stepped back into the dimly lit office to discover my best friend Lex with a heavy pistol sharply pointed at a man dressed in a dark grey suit, next to what looked to be a corpse flailed out on the thin blue carpet. At the alarming sound of my sudden outburst, the suited man snapped his focus to me, giving Lex an opportunity to tackle the man to the ground, knocking him unconscious. “Lex!” I shouted in a whisper. “Shhhhhh,” Lex began to rummage through the wooden desk in the corner of the room. “This wasn’t part of my plan by the way,” she informed me as if that made a difference. “What plan?!” Panic grew in my racing mind. Lex was ravenously tearing apart each drawer and component of the desk, eventually uncovering a false bottom in the last crooked drawer. “Isn’t this your business office? Are you looking for something?” Lex ignored me. Stowed in the drawer was a small brass key, and six digits on a small piece of brown stained scrap paper. There was a large towering bookshelf behind the desk housing a small iron safe, which Lex swiftly approached with the key, storing the numbered paper in her jacket pocket. “Are you supposed to be doing this, is this even your office?” Lex continued to ignore me, and opened the safe, quickly grabbing a thick stack of paper documents, along with a black leather case. “Go, now,” she whispered to me. “What do you mean, what about the bodies on the floor!” instead of answering me, again she ignored my questioning and shoved me out of the room, pulling me toward the back of the building.

“What are we doing? The cab will come around the front of the building.” I protested Lex’s forceful actions. “We’re not taking a cab,” she sighed, rushing me out the back door. Waiting in the cold air of night was a glistening black car I didn’t recognize, and a mysterious driver I didn’t recognize. “What’s going on?” I asked Lex as she pushed me into the car that immediately swerved off into the night. I inhaled heavy cologne and cigarettes as I sank into the creased aging leather seats feeling regret for every decision I had ever made. Lex pulled the numbered paper out of her jacket pocket, and entered it into the case lock, cracking it open. “Oh my God what is that?!” I shouted upon seeing the bundled stacks of cash hidden in the case. I began stammering, unable to comprehend the situation.

“Here,” Lex handed me a stack out of the case. “What is this? What is this for? What is going on?” Lex rolled her eyes and sighed again this time seemingly less stressed. She handed another stack to the grimy driver. “Appreciate it Alexis,” the driver replied to her, stashing the stack of money in his coat. “It’s your cut for helping me with this, $20,000.” Lex casually answered me sifting through the papers in the document she had taken from the safe. “What do you mean helping?” I asked Lex. She turned to look me in the eye for the first time tonight. She had a sarcastic expression, looking annoyed that I had spoken again. Looking down into my fidgeting hands in my lap holding a large stack of wrinkled bills, I carefully placed the money into my small shoulder bag. I started to think back on the day’s events. I had been assisting Lex with her business security. Thinking back now more deeply, I probably should have seen the red flags when she asked me to see if the business security system was secure, and if I could see if hacking into it was possible. Thanks to me, there was no record of what had been done.

Lex had been guarding a small tattered black book all day, which I had a feeling would inform me what was going on. The car came to a screeching halt in front of an old crumbling diner causing me to lurch forward, creating an opportunity to reach the black book Lex had been so desperately holding on to. My heart was pounding, unsure if she had seen me grasp the book. “This is you,” Lex turned to me. My clammy shaking hand grabbed the cold handle of the door, and I stepped out of the car onto a cracked and broken black top. Lex's cold eyes bored into me as the car began to pull away from the diner. As the car was leaving, Lex cracked a small smile in my direction, and the car was gone as fast as it had been there.

I stood for a moment in the cool air of the night, finally able to take a breath. The neon buzzing in the few letters still lit on the diner sign had a faint blue glow that was illuminating the empty parking lot. I was startled by a notification from my phone. It was a text from Lex reading: No need to worry about the men from the office. They have been taken care of, you’re clear. Was I supposed to feel relieved? Without responding, slowly I stepped forward and pulled open the heavy creaking door of the diner. Choosing a dilapidated booth in the back, I began my dive into what Lex had written in the black book. Dazed and dumbfounded, I placed the worn book onto the sticky table surface, and my pounding head into my still shaking hands.

We had been close friends for four years, and now this? I had trusted this person to watch over my dog for the first time two years ago when I was out of town for holiday, as well as when I traveled to my younger brother’s jazz band performance, again for my mother’s birthday, and two weeks ago for a short visit home. She had been in my house, with my dog, access to my mail, and with a key. We got coffee twice a week, and embarked on a multitude of hiking trips through the fall woods. The deeper I ventured into the details of the book, the more I wished I hadn’t. Who was this person I thought I knew? I had been made an accomplice, an accessory to a crime against my will without my knowledge. However, I was also up $20,000 in one night, in a matter of hours. I wouldn’t have to struggle this month now, or the next even. Maybe I wasn’t so bothered by what had happened. After all, it was me who disabled the security, I knew it had been perfectly executed. Lex had never let me down before, and had always been a reliable person for me, and had never lied to me. I continued searching through the book. There were pages of secrets, ideas, and plans. From what I could gather, Lex was going to need further assistance.

Maybe I could help.