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Chapter 3: Of Phone Calls and Stalkers
Charlie was losing the argument.
He was trying to convince Don that they actually had time to pack, and did not have to leave for the airport right away. He was trying to convince Don to make reservations, first. The two of them stood in the garage, Don's responses to Charlie's proposals becoming more monosyllabic, and angrier. Charlie felt like a koi out of water. He had never seen Don like this.
He sighed in relief when the cell phone lying on top of the desk rang, even though he recognized Amita's ringtone. Usually, their conversations were stilted, painful, brief – and left him wishing he could just find the equipment to end it once and for all. Surely the calls didn't leave her feeling any better. In fact, she was often crying when she hung up on him. So he generally greeted that ringtone with trepidation. Today, however, he welcomed the opportunity to stall Don.
He walked to the desk, picked up the phone and flipped it open. "Hello, Amita. How have you been?" He turned to lean on the desk and saw that the name had the desired effect: Don was staring at him with morbid interest and wide eyes. Charlie dropped his own gaze to the floor, and listened silently for a few seconds. "And are you prepared for finals?", he asked, politely. "I know MIT operates on a slightly different schedule than CalSci."
He listened some more, tracing "figure 8s" on the cement floor of the garage with his toe. His mind was divided – he was still trying to figure out how to talk some sense into Don. Suddenly, Amita commanded his full attention, and he stiffened slightly and frowned. "Excuse me? I'm sorry, I think the connection got fuzzy there for a second."
Charlie listened for another 30 seconds – he kept track with the second hand on his watch – before he pushed off the desk entirely and stood in front of it. "Hang on a moment." He dropped his hand to his side and looked at his brother. "Don. Go inside and call the travel agent Dad and I always use – let her set something up, please. Her business card is on the cork bulletin board in the kitchen – Andrea something. She has my credit card number on file, if you need it."
Don blinked and started to protest automatically, head shaking. "Ch…"
He fell silent when his little brother's eyes shot daggers at him across the room. "Please, Don." His voice cracked a little at the end and he sagged back against the desk.
Don could take a hint.
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Damn, Don thought, as he searched the business cards on the bulletin board for an Andrea something at a travel agency. That's another thing Colleen and the NSA messed up. Charlie and Amita had finally been getting somewhere when they blew it all out of the water.
After over-hearing what Don and Charlie thought was a private conversation in the hospital, in which Charlie expressed his own doubts and pain about the relationship, Amita had accepted a job offer from MIT. She had come by the house only once after Charlie got home from the hospital, to say a brief 'good-bye' to everyone. She had left for Massachusetts two weeks after CalSci's finals last June, as soon as she was finished grading.
Still, Don mused, as he peered at Andrea's card and punched her number into his own cell, the two of them could not let each other go. He knew that there had been other calls in the last six months. Most of the time, Amita called Charlie, but Don suspected that Charlie was the instigator sometimes, himself. They probably e-mailed, too. His brother still wasn't "normal", after his life had literally been blown apart, and Don worried that he never would be. He was quiet, and easily distracted, and sad – especially after one of these phone calls. Don and Dad should have insisted that he do something relaxing this break, even before Colleen re-entered the picture. He was only going now because he was convinced Don was losing it. Don growled lowly into the phone. He was a terrible brother.
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After the arrangements had been made, which took at least 15 minutes, Don sat alone at the kitchen table for another 10, watching the back door. He glanced at his watch again. Surely the phone call was over by now! Maybe he should go back out to the garage. He definitely needed to go home and pack.
He was just starting to stand when the door opened and Charlie entered, his face blank and expressionless, offering no clues. He closed the door behind him and stood at the end of the table. He looked at Don. "Did you call Andrea?"
Don sank back in the chair and nodded. "She got us on a flight at 6 in the morning. There wasn't enough notice to rent a condo, or a house, of course…but she managed a two-bedroom kitchenette suite in a hotel she says is nice."
It was Charlie's turn to nod. "Then it is. We can trust her. How long are we staying?"
"Well, she booked us for six nights, but we can change that when we get there, if we want to stay longer. We might have to change rooms, or something…." Don stopped talking. Charlie was looking at him as if he'd grown another head.
"You think you might want to stay longer than six nights? Away from the job? With me? On vacation?"
Don bristled, and at the same time felt guilty. When Charlie found out that he was making them both run from Colleen, he'd be lucky if Charlie stayed at all. But he had promised to tell him the truth in Maui. "I need to get away," he just mumbled, and tilted his head a little. He hadn't mentioned when in Maui he would tell Charlie.
Charlie nodded again and sighed a little. His eyes flickered around the room, as they were wont to do, these days. Charlie was always on the alert now, looking for danger, and it broke Don's heart. "Well. Let's go grocery shopping, and make Dad a nice dinner. All of his favorites. We can stop by your place so you can get your things – you might as well stay here, tonight."
Charlie didn't sound like a man about to go on a Hawaiian vacation of undetermined length. Don fished for reasons why – besides the obvious one of thinking his brother might have lost his mind. "How's Amita? Seemed like a long phone call."
Charlie's eyes darkened as he looked at Don soberly. "Tell you what," he finally answered. "I'll tell you in Maui. Right after you tell me why the hell we're there."
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She sat in the rented Oldsmobile almost a block away from the Craftsman and watched them through her binoculars. She still didn't understand why the brother was there. She had timed her visit to the States to coincide with Charlie's break from the university – it wasn't that hard to discover when that would be. She had watched his father leave early this morning, watched him disappear into the garage, watched the brother show up almost three hours later.
He had stayed almost an hour, going into the house alone for a while before Charlie had joined him there. Now, the two of them were coming out together, and climbing into the brother's car.
She would continue to watch the house until she had to leave to pick up her son at the airport. They never traveled together – it was a long-standing habit, taught to her by her father. She honored him in his death, as she had honored him all his life.
She also mourned her husband, and knew that to do this properly would take patience. That would be difficult. The American had taken almost everything from her, and she burned to make him pay. She wondered briefly if the brother would leave before she and her son made their move.
Not that it really mattered.
She would gladly kill them both.