Bound

9:

Jules fastened the last button on his shirt as he stared down at the box occupying his kitchen counter. He had walked past it several times that morning, never looking at its contents, but its presence weighed on him more now than it did the night before when he had left it there. Severine thought he would rid her of the box without a thought; a box filled with her brother's things - someone he had no attachment to, someone he had never met. She didn't know Jules had spent weeks trying to uncover everything there was to know about her brother. She had no idea that he had spent nearly every waking moment thinking about his murder. When she had asked him to take care of the box, she didn't know he would walk circles around it all morning, and then reach inside.

His throat went dry as he thumbed through photographs, worn paperback book covers, and a stack of CDs. He breathed out, and then shook his head. There was no missing puzzle piece with all the answers inscribed into it. He felt invasive and out of bounds going through the things Lincoln left behind that his sister could not stomach looking at again. He pushed the box away, and pinched at the beginnings of his headache at the bridge of his nose, as if to stop it spreading from spreading up to his forehead.

Just before he stepped back, he squinted, and something stood out to him that he hadn't noticed before. A scratched CD jewel case, partially covered by a yellow post-it note. The corner of the note was bent, covering the writing hastily inked in black. It was a 12-digit number, followed by another shorter sequence of numbers.

Jules re-counted the digits, and quickly ran through a list of possibilities. Passwords. PIN codes. Safe combinations. His forehead creased, and he snatched the post-it from the case when his epiphany came. It was a bank account number, and a routing number. He fished his phone from his pocket, and waited to dial an extension he knew by heart.

"I need an ID on a possible account number," he instructed. "I've got a 12-digit account number, and what looks to be a routing number. How fast can you turn that around?"

He folded the post-it after dictating the numbers twice, and then slipped it into the pocket of his pants. "Call me as soon as you come up with something."

***

"Severine, this is unorthodox. You shouldn't be signing divorce papers over dinner. Or any legal document for that matter," Poppy urged into the phone, hoping to slow Severine's steps.
"It's not dinner. And I just want to get this finalized. He's having a meeting later. I'm just popping in," Severine turned the street corner, and she heard the exasperated sigh on the other end of the line.
"I'm advising against it," Poppy stood her ground.
"As my attorney? Or as my friend?" Severine stopped to look into the windows of the familiar tavern-style eatery. Carter's eyes met hers through the glass, and he seemed to exhale a mass of tension away from his chest.

"As your attorney," Poppy admitted. "As your friend, I think you can handle it."
"I'll call you if I need anything."
Severine said as she pushed through the doors, and shrugged off her pin-striped black blazer to reveal a satin cream blouse underneath. She tossed the blazer over the back of the barstool next to Carter's. "I thought your attorney would be here."
"She was. But, I told her I wanted to handle this alone," he said as he spun in his chair to face her. "I just wanted us to talk. Actually talk."

She glanced at the closed manila folder he'd placed in front of him, and then resigned to meet his eyes again.

"Look, we've only sat in deposition rooms across from each other for the past year, not saying a word to each other directly. It feels so wrong. It feels like the furthest thing from closure. As much as we made an effort to make this surgical and painless, and as much as we... I made this about the semantics - this is the death of our marriage. Can we at least mourn it? Or drink to it?" His voice was low, like he was telling her a secret, forcing her to lean in to hear him.
"We can drink to it," Severine blinked, surprised by the lump rising in her throat.
Carter motioned to the bartender, to double his own drink, and then paused to turn to her again. "Cognac?"
"That hasn't changed," she cracked a smile. Carter pulled his seat an inch closer to hers, and placed her glass in front of her.