Next to You (Life) (10 page)

Chapter 18

S
an Jose has
about everything, including an airport. I don’t need to drive to San Francisco, except when Buddy, who is opening a night club there, drags me with him. It’s not like I have my territory and I let others—Becca—have hers. Except, lately I have stayed on the southern part of the bay since I learned she came home. Tyler mentioned casually that she moved to an executive apartment. A furnished place where she pays on a monthly basis. It is conveniently located—close to the Sanders, close to the sea and foremost, close to her new job.

Becca took a volunteer job to be exact, so far I haven’t learned much about it other than that. I prefer not to ask questions, but listen to whatever they—Tyler and Ashley—mention casually. Right now, I’m more privy about the baby making process; this has been the second month without getting any successful results. Two more weeks and I’ll have to stay away from Sanders office, because according to Ashley, the best time to get pregnant is in the afternoon. They’ll have to name the child Daniel, since I feel like I’m part of the procreating team with all unrequited information they share on a daily basis.

“Great, you’re here,” I hear Buddy, as I approach the night club. “You brought the dog?”

“Yeah, I had to pick him up from the kennel.” Rusty is a great dog, however, there are times I need to fly overnight and he can’t travel with me. “He behaves, I’m sure you can handle him for a couple of hours.”

“You shouldn’t have a dog, with all the traveling it’s—“

“Why am I here?”

“Right,” he says and tilts his head toward the back door of what’ll be the night club. “I have some papers for you to sign, since you’re my partner in crime.”

As we reach what I guess will be his office, his phone rings and he points at me to give him a moment.

“Hey, finally we’re done playing phone tag,” he says. “No I’m in town for a couple of days… if you can’t today… dinner sounds great, but not at Ty’s house. Oh you moved? Then I’m game, and just so you know, I haven’t had anything to eat so far… what? No I’m not going to spoil a big, delicious dinner by having a late lunch; how ridiculous is that?” He rubs his stomach and I wonder what she told him, the menu? “Will Italian include handmade pizza? Then I’m in.”
Lucky bastard. “
You do that, text me your address. Hey, can I bring my brother along?” He lifts his gaze and twists his mouth. “Nope, not Raj… no, yeah, I get it. See you in a couple of hours, you too.”

“Becca?” I ask the obvious because who else lived in Ty’s house, recently moved and would spoil Buddy with handmade pizza. Buddy nods taking his attention back to the paperwork on top of a shelf. “She’s still not wanting to talk to me?”

“It’s not like she doesn’t want to, it’s that it pains her that you two are no longer together or even friends.” He hands me the paperwork and a pen. “Sign and initial all the highlighted areas.”

“She—”

“Started it,” Buddy interrupts. “I know, one of you had to pull the plug at the end.” He doesn’t have to tell me it was me, we both know it, though, it doesn’t make it any less painful. “Ask yourself why you want to talk to her? If it’s only out of habit, try to break it and move on, D.”

I shake my head, because thinking about it ends up with me taking a fucking hit right through the chest because I can’t shake her out of my heart.

“Anything else?” I finish signing the paperwork. “I need to head home, Rusty and I are tired.”

“Thought we were going to go through the blue prints and… you’re scowling.” He points at my face. “She’s scared that you’ll be doing exactly that; rejecting her while forcing some kind of relationship. The girl knows you best, go home, burn some of that anger—and not with alcohol. Am I still allowed to stay at your place?”

“When are you going to furnish yours?” I ask, walking toward the exit. He bought a townhome a few houses down from mine and so far he hasn’t done anything with it.

“When this baby is ready, Dan, by then I’ll start the Pub down in San Jose; or the wine bar over in Napa.” If he starts the wine bar in Napa, I doubt he’ll be moving to San Jose. There’s no point to tell him what to do with the property or his life. “If anything, I might rent it out. I’ll see you tonight.”

I wave before I leave, he’s right, I need to burn off the anger.

*

“Honey, I’m home.” Rusty wags his tale as Buddy arrives. When he walks into the TV room, I notice he holds a container and surprisingly, he hands it to me. That’s when I notice it is a tower of three individual containers and on top there’s an envelope. “Here, a peace offering.”

Hi,

Buddy mentioned you’re in one of those grumpy moods—he called it different though. It doesn’t matter, I know what he refers to. Eat some lasagna, enjoy some prosciutto and olive oil pizza and have tiramisu for desert. Tomorrow everything will look better.

Becca

How the hell did she know I haven’t eaten anything yet? I raise from the couch and head to the kitchen. Rusty isn’t a good sport when I eat on the couch. Both, Buddy and Rusty follow me, I hope neither one of them expects to have a piece of my dinner. It’s been six hours since I came home from San Francisco. Three since Rusty and I arrived back from the trails and two since I finished working. Not to forget the essential, it’s been about eight months since I tasted her food. As I hit the kitchen, I grab a fork and open the lid of what appears to be the lasagna. The smell of tomato, spices and authentic Italian food attacks my nostrils. Heaven. I bury my fork deep and take a piece of the pasta. It’s perfect, not too hot or cold and it dissolves inside my mouth. Another reason why I wanted to marry that woman, she knows her kitchen. The portion she sent isn’t big enough, because I finish it after only taking a few bites of it.

“That good, huh?” Buddy asks when he looks at the empty container, I nod and head to the toaster-oven to heat up the slice of pizza that’s in the second container. “Sorry about the pizza, she had to physically remove that piece from the plate. I can’t believe she won the battle.”

“What did she use to bribe you?” I ask as he grins. “The tiramisu?”

Buddy nods.

“How’s her new job?”

“She said fun,” he shrugs, “but they need a lot of funding which is frustrating to Becca. She’s organizing fundraisers and trying to get big grants from large companies and the government.”

Becca is good at that, helping smaller non-profits with their needs, either by granting some of the money we have set aside or finding grants from other places.

“With one call she can solve her issues,” I say out loud. “Hell, with a few simple clicks; she can transfer money from the Foundation to wherever she wants. Why isn’t she doing it?”

“I don’t know. She said she applied for the grant the Foundation has,” Buddy responds. “They haven’t replied to her yet, and she also pointed out your new website is infuriating—her words. The hassle of navigating it makes her want to withdraw more money from her savings account.”

“The synopsis of that visit tells me you two only talk about the poor job we’re doing at the Foundation.” I take the pizza out as the buzzer tells me it’s ready. “She can certainly go back and handle her Foundation and stop criticizing us.”

“She didn’t complain, I asked questions, she answered honestly.” Buddy opens the tiramisu and grabs a fork. “I’m just telling you what I heard, those weren’t her exact words. Let me finish half of this baby and then I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

Becca:

Let me know if this is enough, thank you for the food. You’re right, everything looks better today. Hope all is well with you.

D

Dan:

I’m glad all is better.

Is it enough?

More than enough. That hefty check is going to make a huge difference. I should send you food more often. Chances are you might even buy a new building for the women’s shelter… now I’m pushing my luck, aren’t I?

Becca

P. S. I hope the cookies are enough to cover the courier fee. I’m sure I’d have to send several truck loads to cover the check amount.

“Hello,” she answers at the first ring, surprisingly, since I have my phone on private mode and she never answers when there’s no caller ID. I swallow the cookie I tossed in my mouth before I dialed her number.

“Hey, it’s me.”
That’s smooth, and childish.
“What kind of building are you looking for?”

“Uhmm,” is the first response I hear after a long pause. “Are you exchanging food for buildings now? That might break some business rule, or at least the world conqueror’s code.”

“It might, but I’ll take the risk. How are you Ba…Bex?” I close my eyes and try to fight the conflicting emotions that threaten to spoil this conversation.

“I’m good, Dan,” she responds with a whisper. “And you? Other than trying to exchange food for a building…we need it for housing. We need something that can give shelter to at least twenty families. Most are women who are trying to start their lives over after leaving their abusive relationships.”

“I’ll see what I can do, you keep sending those cookies on a daily basis—including weekends—and by next year maybe you’ll be done with the down payment.”

“That’s a bit expensive.” She laughs. “An entire year will only cover the down payment. How about a tin of cookies twice a week and a cake?”

“Chocolate chip marble cake?”

“Deal.” I can feel her smile through the phone, as well as I can hear someone calling her on the other side of the line. “I need to run, Dan, there are a bunch of things I have to get done before tomorrow. Thank you, Dan, for the check and looking into donating a building. It’s a big deal to everyone here. Talk to you later.”

“My pleasure, let me know if you need anything else, Becca.”

I only hear a non-committal u-huh and the line goes silent.

Chapter 19

A
fter hanging up
with the real estate agent in San Francisco, I call Becca, but there’s no answer. Feeling uncomfortable leaving a message, I hang up the phone and text her to call me when she’s available. I hope she’ll do it soon, since I plan to leave early and head to Boston. I want to be there when they pack all the cars from the warehouse and transport them to the new garage I had built in Napa Valley. There’s a one hundred and fifty acre lot that Buddy and I bought where we’ll start our own wine brand and build our homes on.

“Sir,” Betsy enters the room. “While you were on the phone, Mr. Sanders called, he wants you to contact him at your earliest convenience. His words were that it might be nothing, but he needs your help.”

More than twelve years of knowing Tyler were enough to know the cryptic message meant more than it’s not urgent.
‘It’s important to call, there’s a fire but please, don’t worry because I’ll have it under control soon.’ ‘Don’t help me, but if you can give me a hand, we might finish it before the end of the week.’

“What did you do now Sanders?” I ask while checking my unread email messages. They would keep my mind busy while he throws the bomb of some stupid headline that involves me and whatever model is trying to get some media attention. “I’m leaving for Boston soon, so make it fast.”

“Please, tell me you still have a bodyguard shadowing Becca, who can tell me her current location.”

“Bodyguard… location?” I flinch and automatically send a message to Nick to meet me at my office. I hope the five minute walk is shortened. “There’s no bodyguard, Ty. Why are you asking that? Is she okay?”

“I’m not sure.”

I don’t like the answer, I tried to call her number from the office phone one more time, but it goes to her voicemail—again.

“When was the last time you talked to her, Ty?”

“Yesterday, she babysat the kids.” There was a pause and some voices in the background. “Before she left, she promised Mattie that she would come early today. A silly request, he wanted some T-Rex chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. It’s one o’clock and she hasn’t arrived yet, her phone is going directly to voicemail and she hasn’t been at work either. I already called them twice. I went to her apartment and the place is empty. I’ve been trying to find out her whereabouts all day.”

I want to chide him for not contacting me before, but I don’t see the point. Tyler stays on the line, while I call Buddy and Raj to check if they have talked to her, but neither one has spoken to Becca today. Randy puts everything aside on his desk as soon as I tell him we have lost track of her. He promises to have something within an hour. Nick returns as fast as he arrived to his office, the news that we can’t find Becca made him scowl and leave. He texts me saying that he’ll send a couple of guys to her apartment and he’ll have a team combing the CCTV around her place and at the main landscapes of the city.

I woke up this morning with a wrenching feeling, no, I have had it since yesterday and it was similar to the one I felt just before the accident she had in Aspen. Though, I attributed it to our call a couple of days ago, since I had mixed feelings about it. At the moment I question her sanity, if she ran away again, but finally end up blaming myself for taking Tony—her bodyguard—away.

“Brightmore,” I answer my office phone when it rings, then I read the caller ID, it’s Nick. “What do you have, Nick?”

“Not sure,” he says. “Tony has a log of everything he received and sent for Becca while he worked in Geneva; before we pulled him out of that assignment. That includes letters to and from the Patrick family—Connor and Mrs. Patrick to be exact. I remember how things ended up with them, including that threat from Mr. Patrick after you kicked him out of his house.”

“I don’t think—“

“With all due respect to her, I gave my men orders to search for any correspondence between her and that family. Brightmore, any objections?”

What’s there to say? Objecting would be foolish, though I doubt the elderly couple could do any damage to Becca.

*

“Baby, talk to me. Where are you?” I say out loud. At the moment I send a prayer to whoever will listen, begging for her safety. “We’re going to find you and I’m going to read you your rights for worrying me like this.”

“I’ll help you, Brightmore,” Nick says as he stands under the threshold of my office door. He loathed the idea of being assigned to Becca when he started working for us. Not surprisingly, the girl won the heart of a hopeless spy. “We’ll find her, she’s family.” I frown and crossed my arms. “Once a friend of hers called me the help and Becca corrected her. She stated I was family. You might want to read this.” He drops an envelope on my desk.

“That’s my girl.” I place my hands behind my neck and close my eyes. My head throbs, but I don’t want to take Advil. The pain distracts me from thinking the worst. When I pick up the envelope, it’s addressed to Becca and the return address clearly reads Connor Patrick. “Find Connor Patrick, he has motive and…” I pull out the letter inside the envelope disregarding all the mail laws and privacy. He had no right to contact her, I warned him several times. “He knew where Becca was.”

Becca:

I won’t lie to you, entry level has been a hardship, though I’ve moved on to supervisor and who knows, in a year or two I might reach the next level. The work doesn’t matter, as I told you in my last letter, it was losing Ryan that killed me. His Mom has been understanding and has let me see him more times than the agreement stipulates. One day I’ll have the money to fight the custody agreement and win him back, until then I’ll have to take whatever she hands me. There are days I regret not moving with my parents to Connecticut, but leaving Ryan behind and their attitude against you didn’t sit well.

You said they’ve changed, that you and Mom are mending things and you plan to see her when you come back to the States. If that’s the case, let me know and I’ll make sure to start repairing the bridges I burnt between my parents and I, after your Ex destroyed my life. It will be nice to get back what I lost, my family, my son and you. Let me know when you leave the center and you’re ready to face the world. I’ll be happy to be your guide, help you discover all those fun places, like when we were little.

Sincerely,

Connor