Page 11 of The Hardest Hit

With a sudden decision, he got up and pulled all the papers off the board, and shoved them in the box. He would take the hard drives to the computer guy and then he would be done with it—one way or another. He had to be done torturing himself for things that his family had done. He shoved the box onto a shelf and put the hard drives in a bag.

Evan exited the storage unit and got in his car. He knew that he could have them delivered, but he also knew that the more people involved, the higher the chances for exposure became, and he had no intention of airing more of the Deveraux dirty laundry.

He drove out to New Jersey. The guy Evan had found was ex-military and worked out of a dilapidated storefront. Evan was buzzed in and the owner, Isaiah, who was in his mid-fifties, dressed in sweats, and leaning on a cane, looked him over. Evan produced a non-disclosure agreement and Isaiah took it. He propped his cane against the counter and put his weight fully on his prosthetic foot to read the document. Then he signed it without comment.

“They’re an older model,” Isaiah said, looking the hard drives over. “It might take me a little bit to get the right hardware to access the data. But I can do it.”

“With my luck, there will be nothing but eighties porn on there,” said Evan with a shrug.

Isaiah didn’t laugh. “I don’t look at the data. I just transfer it to something you access. I don’t want to know what’s on there. That’s your problem.”

“That’s perfect,” said Evan. “Thanks.”

But still letting go of the hard drives was harder than the last time he’d held a pill bottle in his hands.

6

Olivia – Good Values

Olivia stared out the lunchroom window at the incredibly boring office building across the street.

“Hey!” said Alia, dropping into the seat next to Olivia, startling her. “How was your Halloween?”

Olivia cocked her head, trying to formulate an answer.

“This isn’t applied physics or anything,” said Alia. “Just pick one, good or bad?”

Olivia hesitated again.

“Come on, was Glen so bland that you can’t even pick?”

“Glen tried to rape me,” said Olivia.

“Holy shit!” Alia clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Are you OK?”

“Um, well, yes,” said Olivia and proceeded to fill Alia in on the rest of her evening. “And then,” she said, bringing the story to a conclusion, “one thing led to another and...”

“Oh my God! You had sex with the gorgeous knight in shining armor!”

“Well, I was going to,” admitted Olivia, “but he wanted to start with um… manual stimulation of… me.”

“And did you...” Alia lowered her voice and glanced around the break room. As one of the only six women at the company, and the only two in the same age bracket, she and Alia had become instant friends. She was one of the few that was aware of Olivia’s problem. “Um... Have a good time?”

“I had a very, extremely, excellent good time,” said Olivia.

“Oh my,” said Alia, grinning. “Well, that is very exciting. Are you going to see him again?”

“Well, I’d like to,” said Olivia. “But there’s a little problem with that.”

“What? It sounds like you two hit it off, and he sounds like a really nice guy.”

“We did and he is, but...”

“But what? What’s the problem?”

Olivia cleared her throat. “I didn’t actually get his last name. Or his phone number. We had just gotten done um...”

“Getting freaky?”