Paint the town red

Chapter XLVI

The alarm clock was ringing, and I woke up only on the third attempt. It was terribly difficult for me to open my eyes in the morning, and I don't know what was the reason for this - either excessive moral fatigue or too much sedation. Still, drinking more than one pill at a time is not a good idea, and the fucking great idea of "I'll drink more to make it work faster" doesn't work here at all.

I was lying in bed and looking at the ceiling in the darkness of the room. "Some kind of déjà vu" flashed through my mind and I smiled bitterly, remembering the harsh reality. I have to get up and get ready for work, and there I'll have a visit to Esteban and work in the same office with Max.

Previously, his name caused me joy and awe, but now I am anxious, perhaps scared and somewhat disgusted to be near him. What if I wind myself up and he's innocent? But the evidences suggests otherwise. Damn!

Getting out of bed, the first thing I did was go to the shower to wake up from sleep and somehow prepare for playing my role so that Max wouldn't feel any changes in me. After I showered, I decided to look for my glasses to wear to work, so I opened the desk drawer and saw an envelope from George in it. I never opened it to see the contents.

After twirling the envelope a little in my hands, I nevertheless opened it and was right - there was a memory stick there. Without thinking twice, I opened my laptop and inserted it into it just to see what George wanted to give me. There was one video recording and an archive of data. I decided to take a look at the video first, so I turned down the volume and pressed "Play". George appeared on the screen in his house in Monaco - its interior hasn't changed since our childhood, so I always recognize his place. In the video, he looked worried, but still tried not to show that he wasn't doing very well.

"Hello, Charles. Well, if you're watching this video, then I'm already dead. It's funny, because we probably talked live with you recently, and now... but come on, I won't waste your time, which I have plenty of now, but you don't have much. You've probably already talked to Lewis, because I asked him to back you up in case of something. I hope you didn't need his help, but it's always better to have backup options in advance."

In the video, George mentioned that we have known each other for a long time and know each other well, but gradually his speech turned from a positive key into a more alarming one. He looked at the camera with a smile and said that he was glad to spend at least some of his remaining time with me, and I couldn't help but smile in response to his words.

"Charles, I know you're a smart guy, but your feelings... they messed with your mind. You are so deeply immersed in your feelings for Max that you absolutely don't listen to warnings from me, Liam, or anyone else. But you have to, again, you have to be careful with him. I hope that by the time you watch the video, you'll already understand that there is clearly something wrong with him, and the documents that I left in the archive on the same memory stick will help you figure it out. And don't even try to find out exactly how I got all the papers, no one will tell you anyway. Speaking of the archive, the password for it is the numbers of our karts from childhood. You remember them, don't you? You and I used to ride them when my family and I came to visit you in Monaco. I guess I'm talking too much. Well, Charles, I hope that the documents I found will help you find out who Max really is before it's too late. And... I love you, buddy. Take care of yourself."

This video ended, and I remained sitting on the chair, not knowing what to think. I was glad to see George again, but it hurt me to realize that this was almost his suicide video, because he was killed shortly after recording. Didn't he say something about the documents on the memory stick?

I closed the record player and clicked on the archive of documents, but there was a window for the password. Our kart numbers...I rubbed my temples, hoping it would help me remember them, but my attempts were in vain. Getting up from my chair, I took out my children's photo album from the closet and among the old photos with Pierre and Oscar, I found photos with George. Having found exactly the one on which our karts were, I quickly entered the necessary numbers into the window on the computer - 1663. Putting the album aside, I began to study the archive files. There were only a few documents, but they were all about Max.