Tell Me to Stay Page 11

  At a loss as to what to do, he acquiesces and does as he is told.

  He hands me the bag under the table and I count the stacks of one hundred dollar bills.

  When I am satisfied that there is two hundred grand in there, I leave a twenty on the table and get up from the table.

  “Hey, aren’t you forgetting something,” Hawk says, his eyes widening out of fear. I extend my hand for him to shake.

  “It has been a pleasure doing business with you,” I say, pressing the flash drive into his palm. The lines around his eyes relax and he smiles. “You reach out if you have anymore work for me in the future.”

  28

  Nicholas

  When we look for him…

  My phone goes off as soon as I get into the car.

  It’s Olive. Her voice sounds frantic.

  As soon as she calls, I see the string of text messages that she had sent me while I was talking to Hawk.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “He’s gone. I can’t find him anywhere. He won’t return my calls. They took him,” she says.

  She talks fast, running over the last sentence with the next.

  I takes me a moment to realize that she’s talking about Owen.

  “He’s probably fine, Olive,” I say to comfort her. “He probably just went to see a girl.”

  “No, he hasn’t,” she insists. “He wouldn’t do that without telling me. Or texting me.”

  I think about it for a moment.

  I don’t know much about Owen so she may be right.

  But then something occurs to me.

  “Does he even know how to text?” I ask.

  “I showed him how to use the phone.”

  “I know but it’s not exactly the same thing as having one and using one all the time. What if he forgot it somewhere? What if he doesn’t expect that he needs to check in with you like a ten year old.”

  I regret the last sentence even before the words escape my lips.

  “If you don’t want to help then you don’t have to but I thought you would at least try to be a little more compassionate,” she snaps back and hangs up.

  I call her back immediately and luckily, she does pick up.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  I pick her up a few minutes later. When I pull up to the curb, I see her pacing back and forth with her arms crossed at her chest, holding on to herself.

  She has a faraway look in her eyes and there are lines on her forehead that I have not seen before, worry lines.

  Climbing into the car, she lets out a big sigh of relief as if now she is not going to be the only one carrying the burden.

  “I don’t know where he is. He didn’t come home last night,” she starts to rattle off as soon as she clicks her seat belt buckle in. “I thought that maybe he went to see that woman he met in prison but she’s not replying to my calls either. He didn’t come home this morning and then he didn’t call all day. It’s just not really like him. I mean, I know that he’s a grown up but he’s living with me and he just got out of prison and he doesn’t have any money.”

  She lets out a big sigh, probably realizing that she has not taken a breath since she started on her rant.

  I am not entirely sure what to do. If Owen is just out having a good time, the last thing he wants is to have us crashing that for him.

  Or maybe he’s doing this because he’s mad at her. Perhaps he’s angry with her for spending time with me. Maybe he just wants to make her pay for going against him.

  If it were up to me, I’d do nothing.

  A guy who has spent that much time in prison is due for some rest and relaxation and that typically doesn’t involve spending twelve hours a day cooped up with his sister.

  “You don’t think it’s a big deal, do you?” Olive asks.

  I shrug a little. She turns to me and shakes her head. Her eyes have a look in them filled with disappointment, it’s as if I had just run over her new puppy.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I finally say.

  “Where?”

  “We are going to find Owen.”

  Her face immediately lights up. This is what she had wanted the whole time.

  She’d come to see me for a shrug, or for me to tell her that he is probably fine. She came to me for an answer, whatever it may be.

  So, I’ll give her one. Or at least, do my best to find her one.

  We drive back to her apartment, the last place where Owen was seen. I am not entirely sure if the fact that his stuff is still there is a good sign or not but I ask her to help me go through it to find out anything that we can about who he might have gone to see. The first person on my list is the teacher.

  “Do you know her name?” I ask, walking over to his stacks of stuff in the living room by the couch.

  They were once packed neatly into two duffel bags but are now scattered in piles underneath the windowsill.

  “I don’t think we should be touching his stuff,” Olive says.

  “It’s the only thing we have to go on.”

  She nods and sits down next to me to look through his papers.

  “She came to work there a year or two ago, but he never told me her name. I think she also lives in Boston.”

  “So, she drove all the way out to the prison for that job?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “She worked in a few community colleges so her commute between classes was pretty bad. But her schedule changed every semester. I don’t know exactly how long she worked at the prison.”

  Leafing through the fifth notebook of his poems and diary entries, trying to find some relevant information without too much invasion of privacy, I see a name scribbled sideways at the end of the last one.

  There’s a number and email address written underneath. The email is an official one issued from Roxbury Community College.

  I grab my phone and look it up. She’s listed on the bottom of the English department roster of teachers: Gabrielle Aston Moore, adjunct

  “That’s her. That’s Gabby,” she says, pointing to the name in the back of his notebook.

  29

  Nicholas

  When we find her…

  It doesn’t take long to find her home address and discover that she lives about twenty minutes away.

  At first, Olive wants to call her and to ask but I insist that we go there and, if at all possible, see for ourselves if Owen is there.

  “He may just be hiding out there and making you worry on purpose,” I explain. She isn’t too sure about this but agrees anyway.

  When we get to Gabby’s door, Olive can’t bring herself to knock so I step in. A woman in pajamas holding a slice of pizza answers the door. Her hair, cropped short to the ear, keeps falling in her face.

  “I got it!” she yells back into the living room. “Can I help you?”

  The rain turns from a drizzle to pouring down sheets and we inch closer to her on her non-existent porch to get under the awning.

  I wait for Olive to start talking but she doesn’t.

  “This is Olive Kernes, her brother is Owen Kernes. We believe you taught him in prison,” I say.

  Before I can ask her about his whereabouts, she shuts the front door behind her and steps out into the rain.

  “What do you want?” she asks, glancing back to make sure that noone inside hears us.

  “My brother is missing. I haven’t seen him for almost twenty-four hours,” Olive says. “I know that you two were…are in a relationship.”

  “We are not!” she snaps.

  Her pants flap in the wind and she pulls her pajamas tightly around her body as she crosses her arms.

  “I'm sorry, I’m not here to make any accusations…I just don’t know where he is. I thought that he might be here with you.”

  “Well, he’s not. I haven’t seen him since he was inside.”

  I can’t tell if she’s lying about that or is just very nervous about whoever is inside finding out what she is talking about here.

  “Ga
bby, you can trust us. We won’t tell anyone about your relationship,” I say. “We just want to find Owen.”

  “Our relationship? Are you crazy?” she says, pursing her lips. “I was his teacher and he was my student. Nothing else.”

  I try to read her but she’s a closed book.

  “I’d like you to leave now,” she says, opening the door to sneak back inside.

  “Hey, Gabby!” a man says, walking past the foyer. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

  He is right in front of us before she can stop him. “Why are you talking out there? Oh my god, you’re soaked!”

  The man is about her age, in his thirties, also dressed in sweats.

  “They were just leaving,” Gabby says, with her eyes pleading with mine to go away.

  “Hi, I’m Mike, Gabby’s husband.” The man extends his hand to me.

  He has the friendly and outgoing demeanor of a middle school gym teacher, the exact opposite of his wife.

  As my mind races to decide whether we should go with our real names or another identity, Olive shakes his hand and introduces herself.

  “Your wife taught my brother when she worked in the prison system. He always had the best things to say about her…as a teacher. She was a real inspiration.”

  “Oh, wow, is that so, honey? That’s wonderful.”

  “Anyway, he got out on parole just a bit ago and he has been staying with me…and now, unfortunately, I haven’t heard from him since last night. It’s really not like him to just take off. I’m worried that something terrible has happened. I found Ms. Moore’s, Gabby’s, email address in the back of his notebooks and I thought I would come by and see if you had heard from him.”

  Gabby clenches her jaw and forces a compassionate nod when she really wants to tear Olive’s throat out. “Like I said, I haven’t heard from him for a while now.”

  Back in the car, Olive asks me if I believe her. I think about it for a moment. Gabby was definitely not happy to see us.

  She wanted nothing more than to make us go away and that makes me think that if she had known where Owen was then she would have told us.

  I don’t know where Olive stands on this because she just buries her head in her hands and begins to cry.

  “Okay, it seems like she was telling us the truth.” I finally reach a decision. Olive is distraught. She doesn’t know what to do (or think) and someone has to. “Now, let’s try to think of where else he could be or who would know where he could have gone.”

  “His parole officer?” Olive asks. I shake my head no.

  “He’s the last person who should know anything about this.”

  “Why?” she asks in a meek tone.

  “I don’t want to get him in trouble. If he’s doing something illegal or hanging out with someone he shouldn’t be, we can’t let the parole officer know that. He’ll just send him back to prison.”

  Olive begins to shake, beginning at her shoulders and quickly spreading throughout her body.

  I’ve never seen her this worried. I know that it has been over twenty-four hours but he’s a grown man. He’s not a child. Adults are free to come and go as they please, especially ones that have been cooped up in a tiny room for most of their lives. She has to know this, right?

  And it hits me.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” I ask, turning to face her. She shakes her head no, but then bites her lower lip and looks away.

  “What is it?” I ask. “I can’t help if I don’t know everything, Olive. What’s going on?”

  Looking out of the passenger seat’s window, she stares at the massive trunk of an old tree whose roots have split the cement slabs in quarters, raising them into the air.

  “They said that they would only do it if you hadn’t given them the hard drive,” she finally says with a whimper. “It hasn’t been that long. Why would they do it so…quickly?”

  My blood runs cold. The tips of my hands go numb. What is she talking about?

  “You gave them the flash drive, right?” she asks, snapping her body back into its seat to face me. I furrow my brow and open my mouth to speak. But nothing comes out.

  “I gave it to my client, yes,” I confirm.

  She lets out a sigh of relief, but that only makes my chest tighten further.

  She shouldn’t know anything about him and what does this have to do with Owen?

  “So, why is he gone then?” she asks.

  “Hawk has nothing to do with Owen,” I say, catching myself saying his name when it is already too late.

  “Hawk?” Olive looks up at me, shaking her head. “No, Janet Bailey. Wasn’t that who you were supposed to give the flash drive to?”

  Now, it’s my turn to sink back in my seat and give her a blank stare. “I have no idea who that is,” I say under my breath. “Who is she?”

  “No, you have to know her,” Olive insists. “That’s probably not her real name. But she works for the same person you and your partner were working for when you did the Martha’s Vineyard job.”

  Beads of cold sweat run down my sides. How does she know anything about that? And why?

  “Janet came to see me,” Olive explains, reading my mind. “She said that her boss was upset by you taking off like that and that you owe him a debt. But if I help you get that flash drive then it’ll go a long way to paying it off.”

  My ears start to buzz and I can barely hear a word coming out of her mouth. I focus on her lips to try to understand what she is saying.

  “She said I had to help you because if you didn’t get the drive, then they’d do something to Owen. She told me there’s a bounty on his head. You were right. He flipped on some bad guys in prison and gave evidence to the state. That’s why he got out early. But if you got that flash drive then they wouldn’t hurt him.”

  I try to focus but my vision is blurry. It takes ten minutes for each second to pass as I lose myself in a trance, with my body here but my mind somewhere far away.

  “Are you listening to me, Nicholas?” Olive grabs my thigh.

  I focus my eyes on her grip, her left hand on my right thigh, and finally it comes into focus.

  She doesn’t wait for me to respond before continuing to talk. “I don’t know why they would’ve hurt him so early. I mean, you just delivered the flash drive. No, it can’t be them. Something else must have happened. Maybe you’re right, maybe he’s just getting drunk with some of his old buddies and I’m worried about everything for no reason.”

  30

  Olive

  When the puzzle pieces don’t fit…

  Talking to Nicholas always makes me feel better. He isn’t the type to cut in and suggest solutions.

  Sometimes when you are having a shitty day, the last thing you want is a to-do list of how you should fix it.

  No, Nicholas isn’t like that.

  He gives me exactly what I don’t know I need.

  He listens. He nods and holds me and tells me that everything is going to be okay.

  As we talk in the parked car outside of Gabby’s house, I am still not sure whether she’s telling us the truth. She was a little too eager to get us away, but then again, she’s married.

  I don’t know if Owen knew that or not or perhaps he just didn’t care. The person that didn’t know for sure was her friendly and helpful husband and she wanted to do everything in her power to keep it that way.

  So, what does that mean exactly? Would it make her lie about Owen’s whereabouts?

  The more I think about it, the less sure I am.

  If she actually knew where he was then it would’ve taken her a lot less time to convey that than to convince us that she hadn’t seen him in months.

  Then again, the truth can be somewhere in between. She has seen him.

  She doesn’t want to tell us this because she’s hiding her affair from her husband.

  She doesn’t want to talk about her infidelity to complete strangers because that’s two more people who know about the secret.
That’s two more people who can tell her husband the truth.

  I convey most of these thoughts in a long-winded stream of consciousness that pretty much goes in circles.

  Nicholas listens carefully, nods occasionally but is generally absent, lost in his own thoughts. He stares at my hand on his thigh for a long time before finally meeting my eyes.

  He takes a deep breath before saying, “I didn’t give the flash drive to Janet Bailey,” he says, choosing each word with caution.

  My forehead tenses as I lean closer to him to make sure that I heard him right.

  “I don’t know who she is but Hawk does not work for my old boss,” he adds.

  “Who’s Hawk?” I whisper, suddenly very well aware of how dry my mouth is.

  “A client,” he says. “He paid me two hundred grand to do this job and that’s what I did.”

  One of his eyelashes is curled under the others. He rubs his eye but it doesn’t straighten out.

  “Olive, did you hear me?”

  When he touches his palm to the back of my hand, a jolt of electricity rushes through me and pulls me out of this trance.

  “No, no, no,” I say. “They must work for the same person. You just don’t know.”

  This reminds me of being ten years old and putting together one of those thousand-piece puzzles that I got at the thrift store. Unlike the other ones, there are no pieces missing and I get excited that I’m finally going to finish this one all the way to the end.

  And then something else happens. The pieces don’t fit.

  I rotate them and try them any which way but they still don’t snap into place.

  It’s only after I look a little closer do I realize that this piece belongs to the New York skyline not San Francisco’s.

  “Olive, this job has nothing to do with repaying any debt for that Harry Winston necklace. I didn’t have a debt. Our so-called boss was talking to the FBI and recording all of his jobs to turn us in. He’s gone now. In the witness protection program with a new identity, living in some suburb of Tucson or Portland or Orlando. I have no idea where he is but he’s out of commission now.”