Chapter Twenty-Five
Christian poked his head out the sliding glass door and found Letty in her favorite spot: laying on the chaise lounge in the Florida room, gazing out into the garden. It had only grown more colorful and profuse in the intervening months, as the two of them worked together to plant and grow as many different kinds of tropical flowers as they could find – although Letty's contributions were getting harder to accomplish around her growing eight-month belly. He frequently waved her off to her lounge while he did the dirty work himself these days.
"Are you ready to go?" he asked, startling her out of whatever reverie world she had been wandering in.
"Where are we going?" she asked, confused and concerned. What had she forgotten now?
"Crib shopping? Can't put it off too much longer, or that kid's going to be sleeping on the floor." She had postponed acquiring anything for the baby, from clothes to diapers to furniture, until every single possible test had been done to rule out birth defects – and then kept postponing it out of some weird fear of jinxing things. At least, that's what she said. But at last, she had agreed to go out today to begin with the big things. She was determined to go minimalist, however, and only acquire the bare necessities – no mountain of baby paraphernalia would clutter up this house past livability. A crib, however, was definitely one of said necessities.
"Oh. Right. Sorry, I drifted off. Give me five minutes." She didn't sound very enthusiastic, however, nor did she begin maneuvering her bulk off the lounge very fast.
Christian sat on one of the chairs at the table. "Letty... don't lie to me."
"What?" Now she was really confused.
"If you really don't want to go – today or any other day – just tell me. It's okay. You don't need to put on an act, or pretend – not with me."
"That's a bit rich, coming from you." Her voice was unexpectedly bitter.
"What do you mean?"
"You're the one who said 'fake it till you make it'. So... I'm faking it," she said with an eloquent shrug.
"What are you faking?" he asked quietly, and she laughed. Definitely bitter.
"Living. Having a normal life. Moving on. Getting over him." At the last word, her voice cracked and her face clouded over, as if he needed any more clues.
"But you're not, are you?"
"I can't!" Suddenly all the pain she'd been holding back all this time was there in her voice. "And I don't want to!" She covered her face with one hand for a moment, before going on in a raw whisper. "He's the only man... who ever loved me. And the only man I ever loved. I don't want to get over that. I can't let go of it." Another pause, then she waved her arm down. "My head knows he's dead – I saw his body, for god's sake. I identified it. But my heart... keeps expecting him to walk through that door, like he did at my Mom's. 'Thank god you're still here.' " The wistful, loving light in her eyes when she said that made his own heart break all over again. Finally, she shook her head back to reality. "Maybe when this baby is born, and I'm holding his daughter in my arms, and I know she's all right... maybe then I can start moving on. But for right now... I just can't." She gave a huge sniff, and wrenched her voice back to something approaching normal by sheer will. "So I'm faking it. Every day. And just hoping that some day I stop feeling like a fraud."
"Is that why you stopped going to the widow's group?" She'd only attended Sandy's regular gathering for bereaved women a few times before stopping, although she did still see Sandy at times, at AA meetings or just meeting for lunch or shopping. The two women had become good friends. Doctor John would be proud of me, she often thought.
Now Letty nodded. "Yeah. Oh, they were all about 'everybody mourns at their own pace, and in their own way, and you'll move on when you're ready', but... they kept expecting me to do something. I don't know, maybe it means I'm just stuck in the denial phase, but well, so be it. I didn't even want to share him with them. Or listen to them sharing memories. I just couldn't do it."
"That's okay. Everybody's different," Christian said mildly. He'd been a bit surprised she'd given it as many chances as she had. "But I mean it," he added, getting back to the first topic. "If you really don't want to go anywhere, just tell me. We can stay home."
"And do what? Cry? I do enough of that every night. This baby's not swimming in amniotic fluid, she's swimming in tears."
"That's poetic," he commented thoughtfully, and she glared at him.
"I'm not laughing."
"I didn't say 'funny', I said 'poetic'. Poetry can be tragic, too."
"Mmm," she agreed, still a bit skeptical. Then she skewered him with a finger. "But if you put that in your next book, I want royalties."
He laughed. "If I write another book about you, I promise, I will share all the royalties on it with you, like I am this one."
"Speaking of which," she said, truly puzzled. "I haven't seen any yet."
"It's not even published yet. Patience! It's a virtue!" he reminded her cheekily, eyebrows raised, and she raised her brows back, mocking his annoying perkiness.
"I've heard of those!" Confession time over, she began the laborious process of standing up. "No, you're right, we can't put it off any longer. Just let me go fix my face – put on my mask for the day."
Smiling, he stood himself, took her hands, and heaved her to her feet.
"Thanks! Pfew!" Heaving a sigh, she stretched her back out, then gave him a determined smile. "The SS Letty has set sail!"
When she arrived at Red Lobster for her shift that afternoon, Letty was greeted by an envelope stuck into her locker. She was almost afraid to open it, but it turned out neutral. Someone had at last discovered that the wrong Social Security Number had been input into their system for her at hiring, and so her contributions had been getting credited to the wrong account all these months. "But don't worry!" the note from Corporate HR continued, "we're working to get it fixed. By the end of the year when you do your taxes, your account should be correct!" Wonderful, she thought sourly. I get to do taxes. Another first. Hooray for normalcy.
The hours flew by, as they always did – one of the things she liked best about her job was how quickly the time passed – it kept her busy. As things were winding down towards closing, Miranda started getting a group together to go out for an after-work party. One of the head servers, Miranda was a few years older than Letty, a stereotypical fiery redhead and a guaranteed ringleader in whatever was going on, good or bad.
When she came to the bar, Letty gave her a polite smile and begged off, saying she needed to get home and to bed. She wasn't prepared for the mini explosion that came zinging her way in response.
"Oh, for chrissakes! I am so fucking sick of your whining about your old man and your baby. He's dead! Get over it! At least try to act professional on the job! Jesus, you bring the whole damn restaurant down with your constant crying jag! You won't have any fun, so you won't let anybody else have any, either!" The few customers still at the bar were staring at Miranda along with the nearby crew.
The whole tirade was both untrue and unfair – ludicrously so. Letty stared at Miranda, jaw hanging open. Then suddenly, her own temper flared at the outrageous charges. "How dare you! How dare you tell me how to feel! I'm not stopping anyone from having fun, I'm just not joining in! And I have never cried at work – unlike you, blubbering into your beer last week over your breakup!" Abruptly, she snapped back to awareness of her surroundings, with everyone staring at them both. Whipping around, she marched the few steps to the other woman and hissed at her from inches away, "Don't you ever say anything like that to me again, especially in front of customers, or we'll see who is the professional around here!" And with that, she flung her cleaning rag down on the counter and walked as quickly as she could through the kitchen and out the back door, before anyone – especially Miranda – could see the tears starting.
She went around the corner to the fence enclosing the dumpsters and leaned against the cold brick wall, stifling sobs with the back of one hand, her mind whirling from the unjust attack. She had been trying so hard just to get along with everyone, even that bitch Miranda. She hadn't made any close friends at work, but at least she thought she had made some casual friends – the second circle Doctor John had mentioned. She knew her reaction here was hormone-driven and overblown, but she couldn't help it.
The bricks at her back warmed suddenly to body temperature, and there he was, his arms snaking around her middle between her breasts and the baby bump. "Don't cry, baby," Javier whispered in her ear. "That bitch doesn't matter. I'm here."
"But you're not real," she sniffled, and he stilled. She could see him cocking his head at her out of the corner of her eye, just like he used to do.
"Do you want me to go away?" he asked quietly.
"No! Never! Don't ever leave me – I can't make it without you. Even if you're not real. I just can't."
His arms tightened around her waist again, and he began nuzzling her neck. "Don't worry, baby. I swear – I will never leave you. Never."
She was just relaxing into his caress when Richard's voice came from the doorway. "Letty?" She straightened up hurriedly as he walked over to her, glad that her clothes hadn't really been getting moved around like that.
"I'm sorry, Richard," she began apologizing. "That scene was totally uncalled for and unprofessional – "
He held up a hand to stop her. "And it wasn't your fault in the least. I saw the whole thing. And I've talked to Miranda already, told her not to do it again. I don't know what got into her."
She's a troublemaker; that's what she lives for, Letty thought, but didn't share it. She'd never been a snitch, on anyone. Except once. "Richard, am I a downer? Do I cause problems in the restaurant? I really want to know if I am." She didn't want to lose this job, but...
But he was shaking his head determinedly. "No, you are not. Get that out of your head right now. You're one of my best employees." A rueful smile claimed his lips. "As a matter of fact, I've been wanting to talk to you about something, although I didn't intend for it to be here with the garbage." He shrugged, and satisfied her curiosity. "There's an opening coming up for assistant manager. I want to put you in for it."
Letty's was flabbergasted. "Assistant manager? Seriously? But I don't have any training or experience!"
"I know. We need to fix that, and we will. I'm promoting you to bar shift manager as of tonight – "
"But Tony's that!"
"He's quitting. Handed in his notice this afternoon. Moving back to Miami, he said. So that leaves me short a shift manager. I want you to take over. He'll train you before he leaves. And then after you get back from maternity leave – you are still planning to come back, aren't you?"
Speechless, all she could do was nod.
"Good. After then, we'll send you to the company manager training class in Orlando. It's only three weeks, and you get paid for it. And when you come back, assistant store manager it is!" He grinned at her expression, waiting for her to say something, but she couldn't manage a coherent sentence. He went on. "Letty, you're one of the best employees I've had these recent years. And I know you're wanting to start some kind of career, something more stable with better pay and more opportunities than bartender. This will slide you into that track. Plus, it's a whole lot of office and desk work – that'll get you off your feet! – and more stable hours, as well." He paused. "Well, what do you say?"
"Thank you?" she asked tentatively. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely," he beamed back.
Twenty-two hundred miles south, Javier was jolted abruptly out of deep sleep by a crack of thunder directly over the penthouse, as a lightning bolt hit the building's rods. He jerked upright in his narrow bed, staring around wildly and gasping for air, until he remembered where he was and realized what had happened – the thunderclap was still rolling deafeningly.
As it faded, he flung back the blanket and swung his feet out onto the floor, propping himself up with both hands and trying to get his breath back under control. What had he been dreaming? Suddenly, it flooded back, and he hunched over in pain, his head wilting onto his hands.
He'd been standing close behind Letty in the kitchen of the house he had bought for her, teaching her to chop vegetables. She'd been crying from the onions, and irritated at him for laughing at her about it, so he asked – only half serious – if she wanted him to leave.
"No! Never!" she'd cried, startling him with her intensity. So he'd held her even more tightly, nuzzling her neck, and promising he'd never leave. And that's when the thunder had crashed.
Reaching for his watch, he saw it was still before midnight – he'd only been asleep less than an hour. Nevertheless, there would be no more sleep for him that night, he knew. Standing up, ignoring by sheer force of will his body's automatic reaction to the dream Letty's warm backside held so tight against his hips, he walked over to the little table holding his new laptop, which he'd left open, running the interminable updates. Miraculously, they had finished while he slept.
Going online, he first checked his bank balance. More than thirty thousand. He nodded. That's enough to start. He made his way onto the dark web, found the two best US-based trackers he knew of, and started shoveling his money at them.
Letitia "Letty" Raines Pereira. Here's a file with everything I know. Anything you can find within the last year. Anything about her current whereabouts. Thank you.