Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) by Nicole Williams Page B

could recall, Henry was the one backing away from me. His hands were raised like he was surrendering, his eyes lowered like he was broken. I was about to drop the file, but I found myself stuffing it inside my purse. Without another word from him or me, I slipped through the door, quite certain I’d never see Henry Callahan ever again.

 
     
    THE CONDO WAS quiet as usual, except for the continued ringing of one of my phones. After the sixth call from G, I’d just turned it off. I could have silenced the ringer of course, but turning off the phone was significant to me. That part of my life was behind me. The Eves were a chapter in my life I wouldn’t flip back to, and shutting off the phone was the first big step in the many that would follow.
    I knew when G couldn’t get a hold of me, she would eventually show up at the condo to find out what had happened, so I had to be out of there before that moment came. I didn’t have a clue where she was or how long it would take her to get to Seattle, but I did know that I didn’t want to have to give my notice to her face. I wanted as much distance between us as possible when I told her I was washing my hands of the Eves. She didn’t know her precious Ten had all been a calculated ruse, and I didn’t want her to ever find out. I wasn’t a bad liar, but G could sniff out a lie like it was a sixth sense.
    After packing up my whole life—which sadly fit into one large suitcase and a carry-on—I rolled my bags onto the porch and sat in one of the loungers, determined to listen to the ocean waves until I’d made sense of at least five percent of what I needed to work out.
    From my purse, the file seemed to whisper my name. I did my best to ignore it. Whatever was inside it, I guessed it had something to do with Henry being tucked into bed with some other woman, but no explanation could appease me or erase the scars. No explanation would make me forgive and forget, so what was the use of flipping through the file? All that would do was reopen past hurts, and I was already experiencing enough of that after what had been revealed inside that hotel room.
    So I ignored the file, pretending it wasn’t there and I’d never been given it. At least . . . I ignored it for five minutes. But when the whispers became shouts and my curiosity won over my willpower, I pulled the file from my purse and flipped it open like I was ripping off a bandage.
    What I saw was not what I’d expected to find. Not in a hundred lifetimes. In fact, I was so perplexed, I closed the file to inspect the outside to make sure it was the same one Henry had handed me. It was, but the inside looked identical to the files I was used to reading after meetings with my past Clients.
    My breath hitched when I found two names jotted on the first page. In the Target column was Henry Callahan. In the Client column was . . . Meryl Callahan. His mother. My breath was no longer stuck—it felt out of control. I checked the date—it was only a month or so prior to when I’d found Henry in bed with that woman . . . Oh my god . . .
    I didn’t need to read the rest to realize what that meant. I didn’t need to check the following pages, where Mrs. Callahan had detailed her son’s likes, preferences, and lifestyle. I didn’t even need to read the reason why she’d contacted the Eves, since she’d never made it a secret that she’d rather relocate to the Projects than have her son marry a girl like me. I didn’t need to read any of it because I understood it all.
    I did, however, flip to the very back pages, the ones we Eves filled out at the completion of an Errand. How Henry had procured these notes was beyond me, but there they were, right in front of me and unable to be ignored.
    The Eve who’d been assigned to him was no one I knew—not a huge surprise since G made it a priority to make sure none of us knew the others too well—but the thing that stuck out most about her notes was the conclusion box. After