On the news, they kept talking about how unusual that was, how typically it only rains in the afternoons, if that. We went to the beach, but we couldn't go into the water. And the bedbugs made staying at the hotel unbearable. Mom didn't have enough money for us to eat out anywhere but fast food restaurants.
But that didn't faze Michael at all. He was so happy. No matter how down I got, he always brought me up. He was the one who stayed positive. He was the one who talked about how great it was that we were finally here, how thankful he was to Mom for making this happen. That kind of attitude was infectious, and now I look back on that trip with fond memories.
So, maybe I need to take an example from that. Maybe I need to believe in him, just like he would believe in me if the situation were flipped.
What would Michael do in this kind of case? One thing is for certain.
He'd believe I was alive.
He'd believe it with all of his heart.
And it wasn't until they found some other body of mine that he could identify that he would ever stop believing it.
Maybe I should have done that for him, and we wouldn't have wasted all of this time. But I didn't.
One dentist sent over dental records and I was convinced. I was like, "Okay, fine. He died in the accident."
But what would have happened if I had asked them to double-check? To confirm with another practice just in case? I should have believed in him the way that he had always believed in me.
Tears start to stream down my face. I feel so many pangs of regret that I get sick to my stomach. How could I just believe them? Why didn’t I make sure that they were telling me the truth? People make mistakes all the time.
But he was my brother, and he deserved better, and I should have done the work. I know that he would have done that for me.
I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath before grabbing the door handle. I know that I'm not going to be able to hide any of this from Mom. I know that she's been waiting for me to get home, and I have so much to tell her, but for some reason, I just hesitate.
Maybe it's because I don't want her to feel the regret that I feel now. Maybe it's because I just wish that none of this had ever happened. But on the other hand, I know that this is our second chance.
Michael might be alive. Michael might be out there somewhere, hurt, injured, lost, or maybe perfectly fine and hiding out.
I know that whatever happens now will require very careful navigation and a lot of effort.
Before talking to Allison, I was going to call Dante and call him on all the lies. But now, I know that it's best for me to take my time. And then another thought pops into my head, sending a shiver down my spine.
What if Dante and Lincoln were involved in his disappearance? What if they were the ones responsible for it?
5
Dante
The sound of the traffic outside is deafening. Darkness envelops the city, and I walk along at five a.m. just as twilight is beginning to break through the dawn. The traffic is ever-present. There's the sound of cars going over potholes, others coming to a stop at lights. I walk carefully, looking down at my feet, heading nowhere in particular.
I can't sleep. I can't eat. My mouth is parched, but I was barely able to force myself to have some water.
I don't know where any of this is going, what I'm doing here, except that I haven't been able to relax ever since I met with my father back in that suite, and he told me that there was a bounty out on my head. I've had a long history of fighting with my father, disagreeing about all sorts of things, being disappointed in him, but this is different. He actually did something to endanger me and not just me, but Marguerite, and of course, Jacqueline as well.
Life is full of darkness and light. When I was with her, everything seemed to make sense. There seemed to be a reason for me to go through everything and better yet, there was a reason to plan for a better future, but I had no idea that any of this was going on.
Lincoln had paid my debt to Mom, putting the money that I took from the trust fund back and he’d paid off my other debts as well for the rest of what I owed for Jacqueline's mother's treatment. This is somewhat of a relief, but it's a small consolation prize because the truth is that there's something bigger that we have to contend with.
My father's terrible actions have gotten him in trouble over the years plenty of times and this is no exception. There was a time when he cleaned up his messes himself, but when his sons got bigger, when we grew into our own, he started to rely on us more and more to get him out of these jams. I thought that cutting him out of my life would change that somehow. I thought that I could make amends or perhaps live life on my own terms, but he seems to constantly pull me back toward his misdeeds.
That murder for hire in Salt Lake City, that was a job for him. He found it. He organized it. He told Lincoln about it only after we had successfully executed it.
That's why the pay was so big. I have been out of the game for a long time and so has Lincoln, to some degree, so there's no way that either of us would get this kind of contract right from the get-go, but our father did.
He was always good at finding solutions to impossible problems.
What about now? What about when one of the princes from Saudi Arabia wants him dead for what he did to one of his brothers? The details are still a little murky, but I've never seen my father so terrified.
He got paid for that job, but the victim's friends and family found out who was responsible, and not only did they put a bounty out on my father, but also on his entire family.
It's so early in the morning, the only places that are open are twenty-four-hour convenience stores and bakeries that are pulling up their shutters. I walk past one that has a door open, and I inhale the sweet aroma of French bread, toasting, baking in the oven.
My mouth starts to water, and I knock on the door. A bleary-eyed woman in her fifties answers, welcomes me inside, and tells me that it's still going to be another twenty minutes and to come back soon.
For a moment, I'm tempted to satisfy my craving by going to the 7/11, but I decide against it.
No, I'm going to wait. It's going to be better this way.
Something occurs to me suddenly and makes me wonder whether any of us will get out of this at all. If the hit is on my father, but it includes our entire family, does it also include my mother? They've been divorced for years, but she's somebody that is clearly a part of the family. There's no way in hell she's going to want to go on the run, especially given what her ex-husband put her through.
I look at the phone and the time, and I don't have much of it to decide. Do I even have a way to make a decision? Dad wants to know by six a.m. whether I'm going to help him steal the Shakespeare folio. He sees it as his one way out. It's worth over ten million dollars, and he plans on selling it to the highest bidder for however much he can get. That's going to be his retirement money, or so he says, and I guess ours, too, since he expects me to go on the run. We haven't talked about that bit yet, not at all. The way out of this, I’m still a little bit lost on it.
Technically, I don't have to help him at all. Lincoln has paid me the money and that's fine by me. I appreciate the gesture. Before he was keeping it hostage, pushing it over my head as a way to keep me quiet, and to keep me interested. But after we left that meeting, he said he'd pay me. He said that the money has already been repaid.