Walls

09

Jonah Parsons was seated on the itchy polyester covering of one of the booths in Rudy's Coffee. He had been a regular at the tiny coffee shop for what felt like ages. He preferred the worn-out look of Rudy's Coffee and the friendly chuckle of Rudy himself to any large Starbucks out there.

The warmth of the sun settled on his face, warming up his already heated face.

Rudy was a tiny man with a slight limp on his left foot. He walked over to Jonah and placed his regular order on the tiny wooden table in front of him.

"There you go, champ!"

"Thanks, Rudy."

Jonah chugged half of his coffee which was the perfect blend - the right amount of coffee and milk. His heart would have soared with the feeling, on a regular day. But it wasn't a regular day for Jonah.

A little over an hour ago his old friend Suresh Batra had called him with a strange request. The caller ID had thrown Jonah off for a few seconds, his heart beating in his chest before he had answered the call.

The last time that he had talked to his old friend at Acute Inc, three long years ago, it hadn't been good news - with a broken heart, he had listened to Suersh's thick Indian accent seeping into the apology that the latter had been whispering over and over as Jonah had taken in the bad news.

But this time, Suresh had apologized for an entirely different reason. He wanted Jonah to do something that was maybe a little illegal.

He snapped out of his thoughts and ripped open the laptop that sat in front of him. The wallpaper was a blurry shot of himself hugging Ivy from behind her. It was taken just two days before she had killed herself in one of the many luxury suites at Acute Inc rented out for employees working overnight.

Three whole years later, he still felt the familiar pang in his heart when the news of her death had reached him. And having heard Suresh's voice over the phone only an hour ago wasn't helping him push those memories down.

His fingers glided over the keyboard as he tried to forget the past and get on with the favor that Suresh had asked him. A few error messages popped all over the screen.

Jonah took a deep breath - he was way hyped up. He had to calm down.

His fingers gripped around the coffee cup - it was empty. He probably had enough coffee for the day. As soon as Suresh's call had ended, he'd habitually sauntered over to Rudy's Coffee and ordered his usual. Then another. And another.

The memory of Ivy was killing him inside. He had very nearly hanged up on Suresh when he had made the request, had Suresh not mentioned a name that had struck a code in his heart - Abigail Diaz.

He pictured Abbie with her mouse-brown hair and fiery dark eyes. She was the reason for everything. She was the beginning of his ruin.

Jonah was a penetration tester for Acute Inc when they had recruited Abbie as an intern. He had been intrigued with how well she knew about cybersecurity and suggested options for Acute Inc.'s shitty firewall. But what had most captured Jonah was her eyes. The mystery in them.

What was she thinking about every time she furrowed her brows? What was fuelling the fire behind her eyes? What was on her freaking mind? Jonah had always wondered.

But it wasn't until he'd woken up beside her for two long years he had begun to understand that she was never going to let him in.

The little bell over Rudy's coffee dinged as a woman in a blazer marched up to Rudy with the enthusiasm of a regular and demanded her usual. Jonah took a deep breath. His screen was drawing blanks. At the top right corner of the screen, he could see that he was probably overloading the shop's wifi bandwidth.

He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and tried again. The clickety clacking of the keyboard was drowning out the soft buzz of traffic which was pouring in through the thin walls. A fresh wave of coffee was wafting towards him in the air. He inhaled sharply.

He needed as much coffee as he could get.

The keyboard rattled with his frustrated fingers attacking the keys, searching for her - any sign of her.

The image of Abbie's face popped into his mind. The shock and disbelief in her eyes when she had caught him with Ivy. With it came a sudden prick of guilt. He pushed it back. He had a task to complete.

Through the dozen or so of windows that were popped open on his screen his eyes locked with that of Ivy's on the wallpaper. For a split second the thought entered his mind.

Had it been him? Was the Lord punishing him for breaking Abbie so badly? Was Ivy's death his punishment?

No!

He pushed the thought away from his mind. He was not going back there - not after years of paying shrinks to listen to him babble about his messed-up life.

His laptop pinged with a new window popping open. It was a distraction he was thankful for. The name plastered across the screen pulled his lips into a smirk - Elias Castaldo paid for a room at a motel near Weeper's Creek at 07:32 that morning.

He found them.

Jonah pulled his phone out and dialed Suresh Batra.