Conspiracies

7. After the strom.

I don't know how long I slept. But it was enough that my mind had cleared. I got up with difficulty. My back hurt. I went to the bathroom to take a shower and woke up completely. I looked at my reflection in the mirror, I was completely disheveled, and my hair was disheveled.

I quickly showered and got dressed. I went downstairs to the kitchen and had a light breakfast. I looked out the window to see what the weather was like. It was completely cloudy. I left home and went to work. Sadness and guilt still weighed on my shoulders. In moments of sadness, I always focused on the positive that was in my life and thus eliminated the sadness that I felt with a stroke of the pen. But this was not the case. It was all handicaps, but it still put a fake smile on my face and gave my voice the friendly tone it always had. I walked into my office and saw someone sitting in my chair, it was Jannik. I was fiddling with my post-it pad. When I entered, he didn't look up to look at me.

"Did you want something?" I asked.

"Brita asked me for a favor."

"What?"

"Put out the news about Congressman Larsen," he said in a rather serious tone, still looking at the post-its notes.

"And what did you tell him?"

"I said no, logically. It would hurt you and your husband a lot" when he decided to look at me.

"Thank you very much indeed, because I'm going through a moment where..."

"But you said you're not going to stop until you get it. Until the whole world knows it" he said, cutting me off.

"What does she intend to do?"

"Take it to the police."

My eyes widened. I was completely speechless. The first thing that came to my mind was the enormous problems that my husband would have. He would not be secretary general of the party. I sat up and stared at him. He searched his eyes for an answer, something to say to him. I avoided putting my hands to my head. Instead, I let out a nervous laugh. It was either that or start crying. Jannik started laughing too.

"But wait, there is something better," He said between laughter and laughter, "She says that he is going to make us accomplices of the crime."

He started laughing louder. I, however, stopped laughing and looked at him. The words piled up in my mouth, and I tried to sort them out in my mind.

"How is she going to make us accomplices? If we haven't done anything" I finally said.

'She says it's because we covered up the murder because we didn't tell the police."

"She has no proof."

"The other day, she came to my house. It was very late, about eleven at night or so. First, she carefully told me everything she knew about the congressman's murder. How they had managed to cover their absence at the conference with a cheap excuse. Then she asked me to publish the news, but when I refused, she showed me a tape recorder. She had recorded everything I had said and showed me a copy of when she recorded you, and you said you didn't want to either." He finished and gave a happy smile.

I couldn't believe what Brita had just done to us. She was going to sell us out completely. Only because we didn't want to end my husband's dream. With a person in jail, a family, and a town hating him for the rest of his life. After years of friendship with her, she was going to dig like this, this way. Jannik remained the same, a forced smile plastered on his face. Or maybe hiding scared to death behind that mask of carefree happiness.

"Why are you so happy?"

"Because I prefer to be like this than to be crying all over the place, even though inside I'm scared to death."