Coming Undone (16 page)

A soft knock on the door yanked Ben’s hand up to his face to stop the words. This was embarrassing enough with his brother right here. He sure didn’t want the world to see him like this.

“
Hey,” Kelly’s voice drifted into the room. “Maria said you guys were up here.”

Squeezing his eyes closed with his back still to them, Ben arched his head forward and then back, fighting to get the emotions to stand back down. It wasn’t working.

“
I’m Jason.” Standing from the couch, Jason shook hands with Ben’s best friend while Ben prayed to wake up from this nightmare. He would sell everything he owned just to wake up.

“
Kelly Zandoval. I’m Ben’s friend.”

“
Nice to meet you.”

“
You too.”

How could they act so incredibly normal? How could anyone act normal? The world was spinning out from under their feet. Couldn’t they feel it?

“
What’s… what’s going on?” Kelly asked softly.

Jason let out a long breath, and Ben felt them looking at him. He didn’t care. He couldn’t face them or the absolute chaos of his life.

“
We just got here,” Jason finally said. The sound of papers moving dug into Ben. Did they have to look? Did Kelly have to find out? “I don’t know, but it looks like Dad’s behind on some of his bills.”

The papers fluttered again as Ben forced his blood pressure to descend slowly. He was regaining control. It was a good feeling. Numbness overtook him in a wash, and slowly he turned to rejoin humanity.

“
It looks like things just got too much for him,” Ben said, testing his voice with each word as the two gazes from across the room came up to him. Each of the two men held a fistful of papers. How many could there be? Ben didn’t want to know, but he also wasn’t going to let them see any more cracks in his armor. This was his problem, and he would deal with it.

“
How many are there?” Kelly asked, looking from Ben to the papers in his hands.

“
I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to look yet.” Ben stepped back over to the desk. Sitting down in that chair was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. It felt like death itself. It was strange how dark it was in this room. He had never noticed that. There was no outside light at all, only a couple of dim reading lights. He pushed that thought away as he picked up four envelopes. “The electric bill was three months past due. The lady said they only let it on that long because Dad was such a long and loyal customer.”

He selected one envelope and tore into it. “This is the water bill. Past due.” Picking up another, he opened it. “Trash bill. Past due.” He shook his head as he flipped the papers onto the desk, gripping numbness for all he was worth. “I’m guessing they are all past due. The question is where to start and how to pay for it all.”

“
We may have to tap into some of Dad’s stocks,” Jason said, “if there’s not enough in the bank accounts to cover it.”

Overwhelm started its slow creep onto Ben once again. Where was he supposed to start? He didn’t even know where his dad banked. There could be any number of accounts at any number of institutions, and he’d never even considered asking that question until this moment.

“
Well,” Kelly said, holding up one envelope, “here’s a bank statement. I guess we could start there.”

“
How was lunch?” Misty asked when Kathryn made it back ten minutes late. She and Dr. Martin had shared salads and laughs for a solid thirty minutes. In fact, she hadn’t even realized that much time had passed.

“
Wonderful,” she sing-songed back.

“
Oh, really?” Misty’s eyebrows reached for the ceiling. “Are you going to share some details, or do I get to make them up in my head?”

Kathryn demurred, but the truth was, she was dying to tell someone. “Well, if you must know, Dr. Martin showed up.”

“
Ooo!” Misty squealed, leaning forward on the counter. “This is good. Tell me everything.”

“
He’s great. Single. Just finished medical school, this is his first job.” Kathryn ran through the list she had been painstakingly making in her mind. “He’s from somewhere in Ohio I think. Always wanted to be a doctor.”

“
Sounds promising.”

“
I know. And here’s the thing. He came and sat by me! I didn’t even know he was there until he showed up.”

“
Ooo, very promising.”

Kathryn managed to hold onto her excitement. “But don’t tell anybody. It’s nothing… yet.”

The smile on Misty’s face told her she heard and fully understood “yet.”

Kelly was on his cell phone down the hall with the companies attached to the overdue bills, Jason was on his cell phone across the room with the bank, and Ben was sorting through statement after statement trying to get a handle on where money might be and how to go about transferring it so they could make some sense out of this.

“
The bank needs some Power of Attorney documentation,” Jason said, snagging Ben’s attention. “They won’t give out the info otherwise.”

“
Power of Attorney? Dad gave me those a couple months ago.” Just getting memories pulled up was becoming ever more difficult. “I think I have them in my safe at home.”

“
Great.” Jason transferred the information and hung up. “They said as soon as we can get in there, if it’s all in line, we can probably have control of it by tomorrow.”

Kelly stepped back in. “Hey, I’ve got the gas company on the line. They want credit card info or something to cover this one. It’s scheduled to be shut off tomorrow.”

Ben held his hand up for the little cell phone. He felt the glances between the other two but tried not to let them sink in. “This is Ben Warren. I can give you my credit card if that will work.”

“
Are the Warrens not back yet?” Kathryn set the stack of papers on the counter.

“
Haven’t seen them,” Misty replied. “Is there a problem?”

“
No.” But she didn’t sound very convincing. Quickly she checked her watch and spun through her memory of their leaving. It was after two. Hadn’t they said an hour? “I hope not. I just expected them to be back by now.”

“
Oh. Well, I can call you when they come through.”

Kathryn nodded. “Yeah, do that.”

“
K.”

It was really a good thing Jason and Kelly were there. They had taken Kelly’s Expedition back into the city to find the Powers of Attorney. It was a minor miracle that it was where Ben had thought he put it. For good measure he called the attorney listed and filled him in on what was going on. That set other wheels in motion, like finding the will and readying the estate. Ben didn’t want to think about that, so he thanked the attorney and hung up.

“
Yeah,” Kelly said, “it was real sudden. I don’t think Ben even knew anything was wrong.”

Jason turned in the front seat slightly to look back at his brother. “Anything?”

“
Yeah.” The word stuck in Ben’s throat. He didn’t like the two of them discussing this. He didn’t want anyone discussing it. “He’s getting some other things ready. I guess we’ll have to go in there as soon as…” The words stopped the second they wound around to his heart. “Soon anyway.”

He hated the looks the two of them exchanged. When did he get to be Pity-Case #1?

“
You know,” Kelly said. “I’m like starving to death. Have you guys eaten anything?”

“
Not since peanuts on the plane,” Jason said. “I could go for a burger.”

The thought of food made Ben want to throw up. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten, and it was looking like a worse and worse idea every minute.

“
We can pull in here,” Kelly said. “It shouldn’t take long. We totally missed the lunch rush.”

“
Sounds good.”

Ben wanted to deck both of them.

Kathryn’s concentration was thinning. She could hardly get five minutes of work done without her mind registering that Misty hadn’t called in yet. Finally at ten-‘til-three, she hit the little button on her phone.

“
Yeeees?” Misty said in that sing-song voice she used when patronizing Kathryn.

“
Hey, did you forget to page me when the Warrens got here?”

“
I don’t… Hang on.” Misty left.

Kathryn flipped through the top three pages on her desk. All forms to fill out. She’d never like the paperwork part of this job, but it was something that had to be done to stay in compliance, so she really didn’t have much of a choice. That still didn’t mean she liked it. If she could just concentrate, maybe she could make a dent in this stack before it was time to go home.

Beep. Her intercom buzzed to life.

Silliness drifted over her as she punched the button. “Yeeees?”

“
They haven’t come back yet.”

All teasing left. “They haven’t? Are you sure?”

“
I went and checked. Brenda said she hasn’t seen them all day.”

Kathryn wanted to argue, but that made no sense. It wasn’t Misty’s fault. “Okay, well, let me know when they show up.”

“
Will do.”

Putting her head down, Kathryn struggled to think of what she could do, but the only thing she could think of was to pray. “God, please be with Ben and Jason wherever they are.”

Ben sat next to the window, looking at his meager cheeseburger and trying to find any desire anywhere in him to eat a bite of it. Truth was it looked cold and brick-hard. When he took a bite, it tasted about as good. He chewed and chewed but couldn’t get himself to swallow it.

“
So I guess we’ll head to the bank next,” Kelly said to Jason who sat next to Ben.

“
Guess so. I hope everything’s in order. I hate being gone so long.” Jason looked over at Ben as he chewed on his chicken sandwich. “They have your number, right? In case something changes?”

“
Wh…? Oh, yeah.” Ben was having a monster of a time following the conversation. He kept looking at his cheeseburger, sitting there in front of him. Rational said he should eat, but emotional just wouldn’t let him. When had he gotten so weak, so pitiful? No wonder they were looking at him with those sad-puppy-dog eyes that he hated. He deserved it. With a ragged breath, he picked up the burger and took a small bite.

It was all he could do not to let the feeble contents of his stomach come roaring back up. This was a bad idea, a thoroughly, unimaginably bad idea. He pitched the burger back to the table and grabbed for his Coke. It wasn’t much better.

His stomach was roiling around the hard fist that was growing by the second. Where was the escape hatch? It had to be here somewhere. If he didn’t get a grip, he’d be gasping for air in no time.

“
You not going to eat that?” Kelly asked as if he’d just noticed his friend hadn’t woofed down three.

“
The bread’s hard,” Ben said, choking the words out. What he wouldn’t have given for a bed and a deadbolt.

“
We could get you another one.” Kelly was looking at him with those eyes again.

“
Nah. I’m not really all that hungry.” Ben tried to slide back in the booth with that air of confident self-assurance that he’d always had, but wow was that hard to pull off.

An awkward silence settled on the table for a moment.

“
So, you think you the bank’s going to know what to do with all that paperwork?” Jason asked.

Ben nodded, afraid to trust his voice. He might either throw up or scream, and he wasn’t sure either wouldn’t feel better than he felt at the moment.

“
Okay then. Well, let’s hit it.” Jason crumpled his wrappers up and slid from the booth.

The long sigh was the only thing that got him moving again.

“
Yes, sir,” the bank representative said as he checked the computer on his desk, “let’s see what we’ve got. Hmm…”

Ben forced himself to stay up straight in the chair. It wasn’t easy, but he knew if he leaned back, he would go to sleep or worse.

“
Yes. Okay…”

If the guy didn’t start saying more than yes and okay, Ben was likely to scream, “WHAT?!” so the whole bank would hear. He held the frustration down with both hands, wondering if he looked as frazzled on the outside as he felt on the inside.

A few more tip-taps on the computer keys, and the man swiped out a pad of paper. “It looks like we’ve been receiving direct deposits of your father’s salary on schedule, but there have been no checks written out on this account in… let’s see… April, January, November… about six months.”

That at least squared somewhat with the bills.

“
But there is money in the account?” Jason asked.

“
Oh, yes.” The man wrote the amount on the paper and pushed it across the desk. “And that’s just the checking. Let’s see, I believe… Yes, there’s a savings and a money market as well.”

At least there was air again. It tasted so sweet, Ben thought he might pass out.

“
Looks like those are around…” He pushed the pad back over, and Ben and Jason each took a look.

“
And how do we go about getting the money out to the creditors?” Jason asked.

Half of Ben wanted to smack him, half of him wanted to hug him. It was a second-by-second see-saw.