Bad Reputation

Bad Reputation (31)

Chapter 31

After Sofia left, I was all alone. And now I couldn’t stop the emotional overflow inside me. I had said what I needed to say to the people I needed to speak to and now I could let myself cry it all out. I no longer felt numb, only sad. My head was on the pillow face down and my tears were soaking it. I didn’t care. It felt good to let it all out.

Once the tears had stopped falling, the grief also left. Instead it was replaced by anger. But now the anger was directed towards someone else. Right now I only felt indifference to the people who really hurt me and anger towards the people who were the reason behind it all.

With the rage came a need for confrontation. I needed to hear it from the source. I needed them to know I knew what kind of people they were.

For some reason I wasn’t surprised about my father. This fall I had realized he was incapable of feeling something for others. He wanted to reach the top and he’d step on anyone that got in his way. That’s the way he operated. He didn’t even care about me and mother. We were just there so he could portray a picture perfect family.

But mother… I knew she was known for her cold behavior in court. I always got the same icy personality in this house. But to get an innocent man thrown in prison…I would never had believed she was capable of that. Maybe I never wanted to believe it. Maybe I was holding onto that small slimmer of hope that we could fix everything that had gone wrong with us. Now I was certain that would never happen.

At the same time I knew they would deny anything I might accuse them off it I had no evidence. With that thought I jumped up from bed.

Once I was in the hall I listened intently, hoping neither of my parents was home. It was still early, at least two hours until they would normally be home. But mother had been working more unregularly and father had longer hours at the office.

It was quiet, except for some sound coming from the kitchen. It was the maids, I knew, as no one else would spend time in there in their spare time.

I walked down the stairs quietly, avoiding the one creaky step.  Mother’s office was on the end of a long hallway on the second floor. I walked down in, looking over my shoulder the whole time in case she came home now.

Her office was quite plain and simple really. A large, mahogany desk was standing in the middle of the room and a large, leather chair behind it. The walls were painted white and several of her diplomas were hanging to the left. Behind the desk was a small window, and underneath it was a large filing cabinet. A matching cabinet was on the right side of the room, covering the entire wall. I knew that all of her case files were archived in those drawers. They were, of course, alphabetized by the last name of the client. My mother’s career stretched over 15 years at least and over those years she had had a lot of cases,

A was right by the door, so I walked a few drawers over and found the one where the C’s started.

Jayden’s last name was Carter, and I assumed he had taken that from his father. I briefed through the names as quick as I could.

Cabanes, Cabble, Cabon.

Neither the first nor the second drawer had a Carter case. I took a moment to stare at the two drawers, a little surprised that she had worked with so many people. Some of the files were bigger than others and took more space though. I kept looking.

Cadlet, Caiozzo, Calverly.

There was no Carter in those drawers either. I kept flipping through them, a sizzling fear growing in my chest. What if she had removed it? The drawers were dwindling down, until there were no more C drawers. No Carter in the C’s. I sat down on the floor, staring right in front of me in despair. Where was that case file? She never placed them anywhere else. And then, with a groan, I realized that my mother had never represented Jayden’s dad. She had represented the other part, the person who accused Mr. Carter of the murder. And I didn’t know that name. I sighed, looking around the room and hoping for a sign. It was an old case though, almost eight years, so I didn’t think there actually would be a sign anywhere in this room. I was certain mother had a mild case of OCD and she always cleaned up her office after she was finished with a case. The proof I had wanted was somewhere in this room, but I didn’t know where.