FINAL EPISODE - Elsa's Gift

Novella

Chapter Nine

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The morning birds were at work, not chirping as much as usual for they sensed the coming rain and therefore searched twice as fast in their hunt for worms and twigs. Josephine and Maria watching this scavenging through a window, seated at a kitchen table of one of the maternity housing units while eating fresh fruit.

Feet away, a pregnant woman whose stomach was bigger than the both of theirs combined stood at the counter serving herself breakfast. A few feet beyond her Rumiko came out of a walk-in pantry with a handful of medication. As she turned to close its door and put the padlock into place the pregnant woman screamed, ‘MY WATER BROKE!’ Holding her stomach, she almost fell to the floor.

Rumiko yelled out in Japanese, ‘Someone! Someone get in here!’ as she rushed over to help her along with Josephine. A maid came running in, took the side of the pregnant woman Josephine was holding and together with Rumiko helped the woman out of the kitchen.

Josephine noticed that the padlock on the pantry was unlocked. ‘Maria,’ she whispered, ‘you got your cell?’

Maria quickly took her cellphone from the pocket of her maternity dress, handed it off to Josephine and headed to the kitchen door to keep a look out.

Josephine hurriedly removed the open padlock from the pantry’s hasp, opened the door and walked inside, where she found hundreds if not thousands of prescription medications. She started taking pictures.

From the kitchen door Maria could see Rumiko coming back, and in a loud whisper called out to her co-conspirator. ‘Josephine! Josephine!’

Josephine rushed out of the pantry, closed the door and fumbled with its padlock.

Rumiko entered the kitchen just as Josephine hurried away from the pantry, slipping and falling on the pregnant woman’s mess in her haste not to get caught.

One dramatic incident after another Rumiko flustered in Japanese, ‘My God!’ She and Maria cautiously ran over to help. As they got her to her feet Josephine dropped the cellphone, Rumiko picking it up to find the last photo taken on it. That of many medicine bottles shelved inside the pantry.

On the other side of the estate Elsa sat alone on Fujimoto’s computer preparing for yet another project the two were working on together.

She looked to the closed office door then inserted a USB into Fujimoto’s CPU. It was starting to rain outside, worrying Elsa that it might hinder her ability to hear any footsteps on the marble outside the door if someone were to approach.

Anxiously staring at the screen, she watched as the hidden file containing Fujimoto’s scheme copied onto her USB. Ten percent… Twenty percent…

With no warning the office door opened, her eyes snapping up to catch sight of Fujimoto.

‘I thought you were going golfing this morning,’ she said with as much calm in her voice as she can manage.

‘I thought so too. But the weather had other plans.’

He walked over to the desk. With the monitor facing Elsa she looked at it.

Fifty percent copied. She looked back up to him.

‘Have a look in that center drawer,’ he told her. She opened it.

‘Do you see that deposit slip?

Elsa took it out.

‘This one?’

‘How much is it for?’

‘Two hundred thousand. U.S.’

‘And what is the name on the account it was deposited into?’

Elsa’s eyes searched for the word Payee. ‘Elsa Velas…’

She looked up to Fujimoto.

‘You earned it,’ he said.

He turned and left the office, shutting the door behind him. Elsa’s eyes went back to the slip in her hand, staring at it until she remembered the file being copied.

It was complete. With a few more quick clicks of the mouse she erased her tracks, snatched up her USB from the CPU and shoved it into her pocket.

Back at maternity housing Dr. Takamatsu had Josephine’s legs wide open atop an examination table. Withdrawing, he removed his gloves and commented to Rumiko in Japanese, ‘She’s lost it.’

Josephine didn’t need to understand to know what had been said. Half of her felt relief, the other half saddened for the death of her first child.

The rain outside was getting worse, the pounding against Vicki’s window, along with the occasional flicker of the lights causing her concern as she looked over at the outlet her laptop was plugged into. She had just been handed off Elsa’s USB minutes earlier, now looking over the sensitive details of Fujimoto’s dark secret.

Vicki feared that if the electricity were to go out it might affect the file Elsa had risked so much to get ahold of, and so she went for a nearby drawer for a battery.

Dead.

Ignoring her instinct to bring her laptop with her Vicki headed for Rhani’s bedroom and found her engrossed in a book.

‘Rhan, can I use your laptop battery? Mine’s dead, and I think the lights might go out.’

‘Sure,’ Rhani said, pointing but not looking up from her book. ‘It’s in the second drawer over there.’

Vicki had no problem finding it. ‘Good book?’ she asked as she left.

‘Uh-huh. I think things are about to get steamy between Gerard and Annabelle!’

Vicki smiled. Rhani and her erotic lit. Maybe she’d ask to borrow the sensual read later.

Back in her room her heart jumped at the sight of Meg reading from her laptop.

‘Meg-’

Meg looked up to her with a look so scornful that Vicki instantly knew things would never be the same again, which is probably why she didn’t hold back in going for the laptop as Meg went for the USB.

The two struggled with the computer, each pulling to free it from the other until youth won out, Meg losing hold and falling to the floor.