Next to You (Life) (11 page)

Chapter 20

“
D
id you bring
him?” I ask Nick.

It’s been ten hours since Tyler and I talked about Becca being unaccounted for. Randy found a plane ticket issued under her name to New York City, for today. We have pictures of her from the CCTV arriving at San Francisco International Airport, but she’s not alone. They are trying to enlarge the pictures because the two other figures next to her are wearing a cap and a hoodie. One of Randy’s employees showed the cab driver we believed took her there a picture of Becca. The only thing he remembered was that she paid cash and gave him a hefty tip. He didn’t recall where he dropped her. Tyler, Raj, Drew and I flew to New York and are staying at my penthouse. Nick went to Boston; to fetch Connor.

“Yeah, he’s in the living room,” Nick confirms and we head to where he has him. “I apologize but on our way to the elevator he tripped a couple of times.”

“Patrick,” my gaze meets his as my blood boils at the sight of him. I want to punch him until he tells me what he knows. “Where–”

“Those monkeys brought me against my will.” Nick pushes him to the couch. Connor points at his right eye, which is beginning to change into a shade of deep purple. “My lawyers will contact you tomorrow. Kidnapping is illegal. Not even the best legal team will be able to pull you out of this one, asshole.”

“Life isn’t about following rules and playing it safe. So, you slipped on your way up, nasty accidents happen.” A harsh laugh escapes me. I sink my hands in my front pockets of my jeans to avoid running my fists through his face. “Your vehicle took the wrong turn and ended up in New York City, I think you should enjoy your stay. Now, tell me, where’s Becca?”

With eyes wide open he scans the room where we are holding him. I know the exact moment when his blood drains and he freezes. Fuck, he doesn’t have her and he has no idea where she is. I thought he had lured her to him.

“We haven’t seen her since Thursday night,” I tell him to add some context to my question, though I don’t want to give him time to think. “We know you and your mom have been in contact with her, now I’ll ask again, where is Becca?”

The Patrick family has the motives, resources and intelligence to cook something up to disappear. Not that I’m sure she’s in danger, for now, we want to find her and make sure she’s fine. His worried face pushes me to the edge. He sits and covers his face with both hands.

“Do you know what happened to her?” Still not looking he shakes his head. “But you have a hunch, don’t you?”

“My parents,” he hisses. No one in the room speaks, everyone’s gazes land on him, waiting for some other clue. He uncovers his face. “After you kicked them out of their house… and the entire state of Massachusetts—I still have no idea why you had to go to such length. They swore you would regret it, and so would Becca. I know that telling what happened between Becca and Ian to my parents was stupid, but I did it because listening about Ian’s perfect character—according to my mother—every time I visited them filled me with rage. I thought that if they knew… but it wasn’t like that. Both, not only Mom, but also Dad forbade me to speak ill of my brother and made me swear not to ever repeat what I had said. Becca wrote me about four months ago, perhaps longer than that. She wanted closure, a way to be able to move forward and she contacted Mom too. God knows who else she decided to write to, Becca’s always been too fucking nice and gullible.”

“Tyler, your father,” I say. His father and the threats he made against Becca hit me like a bucket of iced water. Ty doesn’t lose time asking any questions, he’s dialing his phone again and again and he keeps trying but the speaker tells us that the man has his phone off or he’s sending his son to voicemail. “Nick—”

“Working on it.” Nick is tapping the phone. “I’m contacting a friend of mine whose company specializes in search and rescue—kidnappings are one of his specialties and he lives in the New York area.”

From her house, Ash organizes a phone tree and promises to contact anyone who has any links to Becca. When the operation is over we are still wondering where and what happened to my girl. As the minutes run by, my frustration increases. Nick and Tyler go through the log one more time, making sure she never contacted Gregg Sanders. By now a federal agent friend of Nick’s has arrived. Jason Robinson wears a t-shirt and a pair of jeans instead of the usual dark suit, dark tie and crisp white shirt. He has been taking notes and asking each of us questions. The one question that hits me is the one related to the explosion back in Boston; when I set her stuff on fire.

“So you two broke up?” Robinson asks, but before I answer, he continues his monologue. “The first time was the car, this time you decided to get rid of the problem from the root?”

Buddy pushes my body seconds before I use my left hook on a Federal Agent. Who the fuck does he thinks he is? The girl means everything to me and the asshole dares to blame me for her disappearance. Becca is the most compassionate, kind soul. It kills me knowing we are over, but I’d never do anything to hurt her. The last two words resonate in my head, hurt her. We need to find her before something happens to her. For the first time I understand what a panic attack is, the lack of enough oxygen going into my lungs, even when I’m inhaling more than I can exhale—or because I inhale without exhaling. All I know is that I can’t control anything and it’s because my gut tells me she’s in danger and I have no idea how to reach her. I took away her bodyguard and now the possibilities of ever having that awkward meal ten years from now are minimal. I slide toward the floor and place my head between my folded legs trying to recover from this episode. I rub the ring I’ve been holding onto since we began to search for Becca’s whereabouts. Someday I’ll stop this fetish of having to touch it to try to feel her close to me and let the memories of our time together go.

This huge rock had been a mistake, I knew better, she liked classy, simple and small. Not over the top shining objects that a satellite can detect. She never said yes, yet I remember the day as one of the happiest. How stupid am I? Almost a year later I have nothing left; not even my friend. My pride of knowing we had finished the relationship made me pull my bodyguard and if we didn’t find her fast, I fear we might never find her again—ever.

“I know the husband, boyfriend or significant other is your main suspect,” I lift my gaze and tell Robinson now that I’m in control. “Our relationship ended on the best terms, and we remained friends. I’ll take a polygraph test, go to jail until you find her or… you decide. I’m desperate here; I’ll cooperate but somebody find her fast.”

Chapter 21

T
wenty four hours,
one thousand and forty minutes, almost ninety thousand seconds without any news. Nick’s friend, who could track anyone anywhere hasn’t been able to trace her. He is searching all the CCTV’s of New York and Boston. I cancel her cards—all of them, though there hasn’t been any activity since Thursday, when she withdrew five hundred dollars from the ATM—which is the maximum amount of money she can withdraw on a daily basis. She paid a hundred dollars to the driver of the cab who doesn’t remember where he dropped her.

The house where the Patricks live in Connecticut is empty, that’s the same address Becca had used to correspond with Mrs. Patrick while she lived in Geneva. Tony has a detailed log of each letter he received from Becca or he handed to her. There’s no physical evidence that there’s been any correspondence between her and Gregg Sanders, who we discover left Arizona more than two months ago. Tyler guaranteed not long ago to keep an eye on him, though apparently the man outsmarted his son, or my good friend forgot his promise to keep the man away from Becca.

“Did you believe Becca?” I ask Connor as he reads the letter he had sent to Becca a couple of weeks ago; the one I read yesterday. “You think your Mom had a change of heart?”

“No, that’s why I told Becca to let me know.” He drops the letter on top of the coffee table. The New York penthouse is the center of Becca’s search and rescue and no one has left the place since yesterday. Connor takes a deep breath. “Stop trying to find me guilty, the last thing I want is to hurt her or see… Shit, Brightmore, I have known her since she was little. I met her before you and cared for her up until my brother isolated her from everyone else. I fucked up several times, but it has never been my intention to damage her in any way.”

“Brightmore, I have a set of new pictures from the airport,” Nick holds a stack of papers, “and Penn station. As we already know, she wasn’t alone. The man I told you about came up with these new images. They interviewed the cab driver in San Francisco again and he confessed there was an older man and a petite blond woman with her. Becca looked sick and they paid him well to keep his mouth shut.”

A picture taken at Penn Station shows Mrs. Patrick’s profile perfectly. The time stamp on the picture coincides to with the time when the cashier in front of her sold three one way tickets to Greensboro, North Carolina with cash.

“That’s where my grandfather’s farm is,” Connor says as Nick mentions the tickets. “We haven’t visited the place, since he died. Two years after Ian died. I remember because Mom sent me to take care of his affairs and I couldn’t because I was dealing with Ryan’s mom at that time. No one has even set a foot there since then, Mom had grandpa’s body cremated and shipped to her because she didn’t want to deal with another funeral.”

Without waiting for Connor to give us more gory details or explanation about his fucked up family, I interrupt him. He gives us the name of the farm and address he has on his phone. Nick sends the information to the man that has been tracking Becca. He responds back saying they are already on a plane heading to Greensboro and that they’ll be at the premises in less than an hour. Raj contacts the best hospital that is in that city, a precaution in case Becca is hurt. Nick arranges for the plane that will take us hopefully to her, and then sends the information about the hospital to the people that are rescuing her.

Ty and Connor stay behind; Nick, Raj and Drew come along and we lose the Federal Agent, who insists on following procedures and disregards all the information our private agencies have gathered so far. As we leave my office, he reminds us that if any civilian dies, he’d make sure to arrest us until proven innocent.

We arrive at the airport almost at the same time as the captain. The airplane is ready for takeoff.

“How are you?” Raj asks, as we board the plane.

A loaded question, I simply rest my forearms over my thighs to support my head with both hands. This is worse than having a guy pointing a gun and a knife at me. Those had been easy to avoid, this situation is out of my hands. The chances of finding Becca alive diminish every minute. A chill travels through my entire body as I realize she might no longer be among us. My head is about to explode, and I look up to where Nick sits.

“It’s been thirty minutes, Sir,” the edge on his voice tightens my heart. He’s been in situations like this one and surely knows more about the outcome than I do. There’s a part of me that wants to tell him to hit me with the truth, but I choose those sprinkles of hope Becca fondly talks about when she’s nervous or wants something that’s close to impossible to occur. “They’ll call to the airplane phone as soon as they reach her.”

As they reach her, if they reach her for that matter. The thoughts of them not finding her or the worst scenarios, play in my mind over and over again, followed by the unsettling sensation of defeat. The apprehension, fear and distress grabbed ahold of me the moment Ty mentioned he hadn’t seen Becca. To keep a sliver of sanity I push away the ‘what if’ with memories of us, Becca and I.

“Sir, she’s unconscious but stable,” Nick’s loud voice pulls me out of the trance. “They’ll take her to the hospital Raj indicated. We should be there in forty five minutes. The paramedics are already working on her.”

My shoulders release part of the tension as I learn she’s alive, but before I can breathe again, I need to see her and know that she’s going to be fine.

*

When we arrive at the hospital, two men approach us and give Nick brotherly hugs. “The doctors doubt she ingested any alcohol, but Mrs. Patrick had plenty of it inside the barn and Miss Trent’s clothes reeked of it. We found some brownies, took a couple and left the rest behind. We sent them to the lab.”

“We found bottles of sleeping pills and GHB—a strong sedative,” the other man continues. “All that stuff could anaesthetize an entire city. They took a blood sample, to check her levels. There was a package of cocaine—about five hundred grams. We found her duct-taped to a chair. I’ll send a copy of the tape to the feds. We’ll make a copy for you before we do. We left a female and two males handcuffed and ready for the police. I made the call after we left the premises.”

I thank both men and we resume our way toward the hospital. The doctors confirm the high amount of GHB in her system, two injured ribs and several bruises around her body. She doesn’t have a skull fracture and her brain activity appears normal, as well as her breathing activity—despite the amount of GHB in her system. The substance induces depressed breathing, amnesia, unconsciousness, and death—among other things, Raj explains to me as we head to her room.

“Bex, baby,” I say as I enter the room. She sleeps, and I can already hear the complaints when she wakes up. There’s a needle in her arm and she hates that, as well as being inside a hospital. As I approach, I see a few scratches on her face and the purple angry bruises on her arms. “Time to wake up, Princess.”

Becca’s eyes flutter open, a weak smile appears but in an instant her body is convulsing. Drew runs to her side and works on her while Raj calls the nurses. I move to the side and from where I stand I hear words like seizure, side effects and permanent damage.

“We can’t lose her,” a voice says, but I don’t know who it is because there are too many doctors and nurses surrounding her.

No, not losing her. God, please don’t take her. You and I, we don’t have a relationship, but I beg you not to cut her life. Not now. I’ll do anything. I’ll give you my life, in exchange for hers. She doesn’t deserve this shit. She’s had it shitty all her life, give her a break.

Drew’s and Raj’s hands rest over my shoulder as a few tears escape from the corner of my eye. After a few seconds or minutes the crew that tends to Becca begins to evacuate the room. The machines seem to give normal signs and I finally let my breath out.

“GHB is a hardcore drug and it was mixed with sleeping pills,” the only doctor that stays behind explains. “Seizures are part of the side effects. We doubt she will have epilepsy –long term seizures. We double-checked her heart and lung functions and they are normal.”

“Since we like to be precise,” Drew tells the doctor, “would you mind ordering a CAT scan, an EEG, a MRI, and a functional MRI.”

They agree and another team of nurses come through the door and haul Becca along with all the tubes, the cables and machines she’s hooked to away.

“My gut tells me they’ll find her brain activity normal—again,” Drew says, as I rub my face with both hands. “The medicine affected her nervous system and while it’s getting out of her body she’ll have a few more of those episodes. We’ll watch her.”

*

Twenty four hours later Becca still hasn’t regained consciousness. After two more seizures, she went into a deep sleep and hasn’t woken since. I’ve been next to her since my arrival and awake most of the time, except for those two hours when I fell asleep. Looking at her breaks my heart, my Princess seems tiny inside the hospital bed. The dark circles under her eyes make her look shattered. Her skin looks colorless–mute.

I lift her weightless upper body and carefully without unhooking any tube or wires, I slide one arm under her. With my free hand I caress her face.

“I miss you,” I whisper. “Open those pretty eyes, please?”

As I’m about to kiss her nose, her eyes open and close several time. I pull my arm from under her and I call the nurse who comes to check her vitals and to extract the tube that was placed inside her mouth after the second seizure—in case she needed help to breath they said.

“How are you?” I ask and she shrugs. “Do you remember anything?” She tips her head and scrunches her face before giving me a single head shake.
Amnesia
, another probable side effect Drew mentioned. “Are you going to speak?” There is another shrug, she turns her palm open and stares at it. I place my hand on top of it and Becca links our hands at the same time she closes her eye. Whatever is going through her head isn’t going to come out any time soon. She had another traumatic experience and we have to be patient with her.

“Mr. Brightmore.” I crank my neck and realize we have company. “I’m Agent Reynolds, with the FBI. I was told by the nurse that Miss Trent is awake and we would like to ask her a few questions.”

A light hand squeeze grabs my attention, I’m guessing Becca saw them and that’s why she decided to shut me down. At least that’s what I hope.

“She was awake earlier.” I pull out my phone and text Nick. We agreed to have a bodyguard outside her room to avoid unexpected visitors—including the police. We know she’ll have to give her statement but not when she’s just waking up. “I thought we arranged that as soon as she’s ready to give her statement, we’ll contact you.”

“That’s the local police, Mr. Brightmore.” Right, we were dealing with two different entities and Henry, my lawyer should be looking into it. My head isn’t processing as usual so I opt to use the fake ignorance stance. “Call us,” he says as he hands me a card. “We’ll be waiting for her statement.”

As he leaves, I raise from my seat and close the door of the room, a move to ensure that I’ll hear the sound of the handle whenever someone tries to come in. Hopefully Nick will have someone guarding soon.

“He’s gone, tricky girl,” I say and one of the corners of her mouth lifts lightly. “Are you going to talk to me?”

“Hi,” she finally says with a raspy voice. I get ahold of her hand again, and she opens her eyes. “Thank you for finding me.”

“You doubted me?” She shakes her head in slow motion. “Exactly, I’m sorry this happened to you. Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.” Becca sighs. “I trusted her, Mrs. Patrick, that’s on me. Not sure how long it’s been but the last time I was conscious I saw Mr. Patrick arriving with a package. He said he had gotten the cocaine, but needed more. By then my hopes shrunk—a lot. From what they said earlier or whenever they disclosed their plans, they were going to drug me and then shoot me, a simulation of how their children died. They tried to make me drink, but I didn’t budge while I was conscious. They injected me with something several times to put me to sleep, so there are a few gaps in-between events.”

“Are you going to be okay?” She lifts an eyebrow and then glances at herself. “Emotionally.”

“I want to think that I will.” She moves to the other side of the bed and pats the now empty space. “Don’t think I’m not shaken, honestly, I’m not sure if I can go back to my apartment. They broke into it that night, I heard some noises but as usual I ignored them. The couple that lives upstairs from me is… loud.” Her cheeks flush some. “Suddenly, they—Gregg—are pointing a gun at me and making me get dressed. They made me ingest something that made me drowsy, but not asleep and they threatened to shoot me. When we boarded the plane, they injected me with a substance the made me sleep. I’m still trying to figure out what happened to the gun since they never stopped Gregg when we passed through airport security…” she sighs. “Yes, it’ll take time but I think I’ll be fine. I have been through worse, right? New home, more therapy, by now I should know the drill. This time though, I’m taking care of it from day one, instead of waiting several years for it to stew.”

She smiles weakly. I abstain from offering my house or help her search for a new place to live. I shouldn’t confuse the fact that we’re talking like old friends with us being back together. When she glances at the empty spot on her bed for a third time, I climb next to her and hug her.

“What’s with the scratches and those bruises?” I ask her.

“There were two times when I felt strong enough to climb outside and escape through one of the broken windows, while they slept. The first time they caught up with me as I came close to the gates of the ranch and the second, I barely made it outside the barn when Mrs. Patrick dragged me back. They didn’t seem amused by my breakout attempts and hit me with something.” My body stiffens, but I don’t say a word. If anything, I’ll have Nick pay someone inside the prison to teach them a lesson. “I can’t recall what. It was dark and they had injected me with whatever they used to dope me with. I’m glad they weren’t professionals, they were a sad copy of a bad thriller movie. Or those cartoons, where the villain usually reveals the evil plan before hand and all fails in the end—which I’m grateful for.”