The Agency

LIII. a clue

"How could you do this?" Virginie shouted back. "Leave him alone! He was just trying to help me, and you had to go and ruin him."

To her surprise, he laughed. "So nice to hear from you, my dear. A bit concerning coming from this man's phone but nice nonetheless."

"What did you say to him?"

He laughed again. "Did he pass out? Pathetic. We just had a little man to man chat is all. Nothing extreme. If he thinks that that was tough, he should just kill himself now and be done with it. He would be doing us all a favor, honestly."

She paused, staring at the phone for a moment before replying. "Why are you acting like this? He's a client, and you're trying to chase him away over petty jealousy. You are a grown man, and you are acting like a child."

"The fool is in love with you, my little flower. Do you think I'm just going to let him get away with that? He willingly put you in danger. He doesn't deserve you."

What on earth is he talking about? Alex is not in love with me; that's insane. How could he ever fall in love with someone like me? "What are you blabbering on about? Alex is a client who hired me to do a job for him, just like any other client. He didn't ask to be stalked or shot at. That's just part of my job. You knew what was at stake when you allowed me to take this mission so why are you freaking out now? This obsession with me needs to stop."

"My darling, how could I ever forget about you? How could I not be obsessed? You were my first. My first for almost everything."

"There's no other girl for me," she suddenly remembered him saying, "you're my perfect woman. The only one I'll ever want. Nothing will ever keep me from you."

She involuntarily shuddered, but she put her focus into keeping her voice steady. Calm and professional. That's what she was. "Sir, please. Leave Alex alone. He's actually cool, okay?"

"Are you..." He stopped as a wave of emotions came over him. "Are you in love with him?"

"No! No, I'm not! But that doesn't mean that I can't be concerned for his well being."

There was silence and then, "What is it going to take for you to love me, my little flower? I've done everything that I could for you and you still―"

"I told you to stop calling me that." She hung up promptly and deleted the record of her calling him. She didn't need Alex asking any more questions about her relationship with the boss. He was going to ask enough as it was.

After she deleted the history, she noticed that he had a large number of unread voicemails from Stephanie. Stephanie had called him over 50 times since he had left the restaurant. It would make sense if she was worried about him for her to call, but the number seemed excessive. Virginie decided to listen to one of the voicemails out of curiosity. She knew it was something that Stephanie would do, but she couldn't help it. She wondered what kind of messages lovers left each other.

Stephanie's voice sounded hoarse and full of despair. "Where are you? I know we fought earlier but I miss you, and I need you right now. I don't feel safe with everything that's going on. Please come and see me. I need your strong arms around me. Please, Alex. Please. You don't need that bitch, Virginie, you need me. Forget her. She's not coming back."

"She's not coming back." She said that part with such confidence and that threw Virginie off. How would Stephanie know for sure if I was coming back or not? Virginie was going to have to ask some people in the tech department to look some things up. She had to find out who wanted her dead. Who attempted to drug her at the club. She now had a pretty good idea of who. She just needed to figure out how.