Sleight of Hand [Show 'em Who's Boss #1]

10: Pantophobia

Immediately the next day I was planning a way to get into my father's office. It wasn't going to be easy because he spends so much time in there. I knew that it was be best to sneak in there when I knew that he wasn't in the house and so I started to work on a way to get him to go out. So far I'd come up with nothing though. The only plan I had was to wait until he leaves the house for a meeting.

When the doorbell rang no one ran to answer it. I guessed my father and Uncle Steve were busy working. They probably can't even hear the doorbell in the office. I knew it was going to be Jakob at the door though. He'd told me that he'd be coming around today.

As soon as I opened the front door Jakob told me to get my coat.

"Why?" I asked. "I'd rather we just sit and talk." There was so much I wanted to talk to Jakob about. I was going to tell him everything that I knew about my father's business and then I was going to see if I could get any more information out of him. I knew that he knew more than he was letting on. It's always obvious when he's lying to me.

"We're going to talk, just not here." Jakob walked into the hallway and grabbed my coat off of the stand, knocking the coat stand over in the process. It fell over and scraped the wall but neither of us made any attempt to hide the damage. I was sure my dad would notice and pay someone to fix it.

Jakob took hold of my hand to led me outside to his car but I snatched my hand out of his grasp. I then felt a little guilty once I saw him frowning but didn't do anything about it even though I was supposed to be making things better between us. We both walked to the car in silence.

I didn't understand why we couldn't just talk inside but I followed Jakob anyway because I was so desperate to discover the truth and if making up with him was going to help then that's what I was going to do.

We went to a park nearby that was mostly empty except for a man walking his dog. This park was the place where I first met Jakob. Back then, we hated each other. I couldn't stand him. He was friends with a bunch of absolute dicks who liked to harass my group of friends. That's a story for another day, though. It's not important to this story; the one that leads up to the deadly game.

As Jakob sat on one of the old rusty swings it made a horrible groaning noise and protested further when he began to swing a little. I carefully sat down on the swing beside him, hoping that my swing wouldn't make the same horrible noise as Jakob's had. It didn't.

Neither of us said anything for a while. I watched my breath in the cold winter's air for a moment as we swung gently back and forth on the swings and then turned to watch Jakob's. We were both breathing in time; the two of us perfectly in sync with each other. I reached over and took hold of Jakob's hand. Despite the feud between us I felt like this was a perfect moment. Looking back now, I wish that I could've frozen this scene and lived in it forever.

After a few minutes I decided that one of us needed to say something. That's what we came here to do: talk. It didn't seem like Jakob was going to say anything anytime soon. He appeared to be wrapped up in his own little world; staring ahead in a daze, glancing down at our fingers entwined for a brief moment and then turning his face away so that I couldn't read his expression. He seemed to be locked in some internal debate with himself.

"Look Jakob, I'm sorry for yelling at you in the car the other day. It's just that I know everyone's lying to me at the moment, including you, and I can't stand it. I didn't really mean it when I said that we shouldn't see each other anymore. I was angry at everyone and it was just unfortunate that I lashed out at you."

I'm not the type to say sorry constantly. So an apology from me is generally worth something. Jakob turned to face me. He smiled and that was it; apology accepted. The smile had given me hope that I wasn't alone and that Jakob was here for me but then he turned away from me again. I realised in that moment I'd never felt quite so alone. It's as though Jakob is trying to be there for me, but at the same time he's somewhere else. Then Jakob spoke up and the feeling of isolation was partially erased.

"I understand, Ebony. I just wish that you'd understand that we're all lying to you to protect you. It's better if you don't know about your father's business for your own safety. I know that you're stubborn though and you probably won't stop snooping until you find out the whole truth. I just don't want you to get hurt."

"Why would I get hurt Jakob? What's so dangerous about my father's business?"

"I want to tell you, I really do, but you'll hate him for it and I refuse to ruin your relationship with your only remaining family member. Plus the knowledge of your father's business could put you at risk. I can't let that happen."

I felt like screaming and shouting at him to just tell me. I'm not a pathetic little girl. I can look after myself. Don't I deserve to know about my father's business, especially if it's as dangerous as everyone is making it out to be? I was trying my hardest not to storm off away from Jakob because I knew I was meant to be fixing things between us. I began to take deep breaths to calm myself down.

"Convince me, Jakob. Convince me that it really is dangerous for me to find out about my father's business. Then perhaps I won't try to discover his secret anymore."

"That seems a little pointless, Ebony. You're too stubborn."

"Convince me," I insisted.

There was a moments silence as Jakob thought desperately.

"You remember when you dragged me to that nightclub the other night and your bag got stolen. That bag contained a camera with evidence on it."

"Wait a second," I interrupted, "How did you know about the camera?"

Jakob didn't answer my question. He just rolled his eyes and continued.

"That man stole your bag because the information captured on your camera was important to him too. If you had resisted more he would have done anything to get that bag off of you. He had a gun in his pocket. He could have killed you."

"You know exactly who that man was. Just how much do you know about my father's business? Why are you allowed to know but I'm not?"

He didn't respond.

"You also know what happened to James Morrisby."

"I don't know much. Only that he's currently still alive."

"I know that his disappearance is linked to my father's business." It was a bluff of course. The only link there is that James Morrisby worked for my father. I just wanted to see how Jakob reacted.

He didn't answer me but he didn't say that I was wrong. Jakob let go of my hand and begun to swing a little higher. He was running from the conversation. I wasn't going to get the information out of him I'd hoped for.

"Let's just get back to normality, Jakob. I'll stop investigating my father's business. I'll carry on at school. We'll get back together. I promise I'll forget everything I've discovered over the last few days."

I tried to swing harder to catch up with him.

"What's with the sudden change in heart?" he asked.

"You said that finding out the truth will make me hate my dad. I don't want to tear my family completely apart. It was bad enough when I lost my mum. I can't lose him too. And I don't want to lose you either."

My argument was so good I almost convinced myself that I should stop investigating my father's business. I only needed to convince Jakob that I would stop though. I had to fix things between us. Jakob suddenly stopped swinging and I hastily dragged my feet on the ground to get myself to stop too. He got up and pulled me into a hug.

When we returned home, I found that my father had left a note in the bowl of keys and miscellaneous rubbish that sits on a table by the front door. It explained that he and Uncle Steve had to rush off to a meeting. He ordered me to tell Jakob to stay over, regardless of whether we had made up or not. They won't be back for a few days, possibly a week.

I couldn't keep the smile off of my face. This would give me the perfect opportunity to sneak into my father's office.

★★★

Pantophobia: Fear of everything.