Chapter 19: It's an Outrage!
Swinging her bags and with a jaunty smile, Chitose Lafferty strolled down Loveless Street, having concluded a successful shopping expedition. She needed some warm weather outfits for the trip to Costa del Sol that Joseph had planned. The newest designer shop had been full of wonderful clothes and she had spent enough to make her a favorite customer. Shopping always gave her a lovely high. She barely remembered her bodyguard, Viktor, who still trailed after her at a discreet distance carrying the rest of her purchases.
At first, she didn't notice the way many of the passersby were engrossed in print newspapers. Not until a couple of oblivious fools bumped into her did she finally emerge from her endorphin haze and take a good look at the foot traffic.
Viktor had moved closer to her, but it was obvious that no one was physically assaulting her. Instead, it seemed like everyone had their noses buried in garish tabloids. When she got a look at the front page of one, she gasped in outrage.
"Which one of them did this?" she shrieked, coming to a dead halt on the sidewalk. Viktor barely managed to stop before running into her back. The foot traffic flowed around her, unconcerned with her rage.
She turned to her bodyguard. "Viktor, we're heading straight home!" Not waiting for his acknowledgement, she took off at a brisk clip, muttering under her breath with every angry step.
"How could they? They knew they were supposed to keep it secret and now it's plastered across the front page of a wretched tabloid. I trusted them! I trusted them!"
She kept up that litany all the way home. Once inside the doors, she snapped out an order to her protective shadow: "Viktor, go back and get me a copy of that tabloid! The Midgar Mirror! Immediately!" There was no way on the Planet that she would lower herself to buy a cheap tabloid, but Viktor? He'd be just fine for that job.
Viktor set the shopping bags on the foyer's marble tile and left without a word. Chitose stomped to the luxuriously appointed parlor, dropped her own bags in the middle of the floor, and flung herself onto the sectional sofa in a fit of rage. She whined and beat on the cushions with both fists until she'd gotten the worst of her furious sense of betrayal out of her system. This took a while and she was at it for a good half hour. The butler stayed well away while she threw her fit.
She wasn't known to the household staff for reasonable self-control.
Viktor returned and wordlessly handed her a copy of The Midgar Mirror. Her temper had settled enough that she was able to civilly thank him. He nodded and disappeared, which suited her just fine.
She smoothed out the tabloid on the couch cushions, scowling at the lurid headlines and equally lurid picture. After a moment of wrestling with a renewed burst of anger, she flipped the newspaper open, glowered at the censored centerfold—she understood why it had been necessary for the tabloid to do it, but it was like defacing a valuable work of art!—and read the article.
"This is absurd," she muttered to herself. She was the President of the Keepers of Honor! She knew fiction about Angeal when she saw it. And that garbage about Sephiroth and Genesis being upset and angry about it?
Well, that might be true, she supposed. She'd be a touch annoyed if she found out that her best friend Katina had posed nude for a girly magazine and never told her.
Speaking of Katina... And those other traitors. She grabbed her phone and fired off a rage-fueled text to the entire group.
How could you break your promises? she furiously typed. Which one of you sent the centerfold to that awful tabloid? I trusted you with something precious to all of us and this is how you repay me?
For a few minutes, no one responded. Then Katina—good, reliable Katina—tentatively replied: I only showed it to Liam. No one else, I swear! I haven't even seen a tabloid lately! Which one is it in?
"You weren't supposed to show it to anyone!" Chitose howled. A few minutes later, Daisy also chimed in, echoing Katina's text with her own denials and promises that she'd only shown it to her husband.
Sharon and Zara remained suspiciously silent.
Maybe they just hadn't seen her text yet, Chitose admitted. They might be out shopping, or at the gym, or even working. Or maybe they were simply too guilt-ridden to respond...
She flung her phone away without replying to her two honest friends. It bounced just once on the thick wool carpet and lay open, silent and accusing. "I can't stand it! I trusted all of them!" Chitose shrieked again. "It was supposed to be our special secret!"
She got off the sofa and headed into the bedroom she shared with Joseph. She could at least sooth herself with the knowledge that she was still the owner of the original, and admiring the glossy pages of the centerfold would put her in a better mood much faster than ogling it on her phone or on cheap newsprint.
Fortunately, she hadn't put it into archival storage yet. It was just in her top dresser drawer in the walk-in closet. She pulled the drawer open, pushed aside some lacy silk lingerie, and...
IT WAS GONE!
Chitose let out a long, despairing wail. Where could it have gone? What happened to it?
She pulled everything out of the drawer and dumped it all on the floor. Nothing. No Barely Legal magazine.
How could this have happened?
She tore apart the room, searching everywhere in the massive walk-in closet including Joseph's dresser. She checked the safe hidden behind the rack of Joseph's designer suits. There was no sign of the magazine. She went back into the bedroom, peered under the bed, and checked all the furniture. She looked in the magazine rack in the master bath and in all the cupboards and linen closets. She checked the theater room safe. She moved on, ransacking the entire townhouse, and came up empty.
She checked everywhere, everywhere, growing more and more frantic, but found nothing. Her special, beloved treasure was not in her home.
Should she call the police? But nothing else had been taken. Not the jewelry in the closet safe. Not the cash in the theater room safe. Not even the diamond and sapphire set she had thoughtlessly left lying on top of her dresser because she'd been too lazy to lock the jewels up the previous night. How could she admit to the police that she was reporting the theft of an old porn magazine? Police reports became public. She'd be a laughingstock!
And then a horrible thought occurred to her. What if Joseph had found the magazine? Oh, she had been such a fool to leave it in her dresser drawer. She should have put it in a bank safe deposit box right away. She'd hidden it by covering it with her lingerie, sure, but if Joseph had been feeling suspicious...
He'd never searched through her things before, had he? There was a first time for everything, though. Had she done something to make him distrust her? Had he taken it to punish her for something? But she hadn't done anything wrong!
No, no, dear Joseph couldn't have taken it. But where could it have gone?
An even more horrid, dark idea settled in her scattered thoughts. What if it had been one of her friends? Or, or, or...someone else. Sharon and Zara hadn't responded to her texts about it! She feared that they had sent the picture to some of their other friends. And those friends might also have forwarded it to even more friends. And more and more and more. By now, that picture could have been sent all over the continent! Anyone could have it! Anyone could have sent it to that awful tabloid! Anyone could have stolen the magazine from her!
Oh, and Joseph was taking her to Costa del Sol tomorrow, too! What was she going to do? She wanted to cry. She'd only had her special prize for a few days. She was so angry she just wanted to hit someone, and so miserable she wanted to curl into a ball and wail and wail and wail.
At least she still had her digital copies. They were better than nothing.
She flopped onto the well-cushioned bed on her back and drummed her heels against the mattress for a few minutes while screeching her anger at the world. When she wearied of her tantrum, she turned over onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillows.