Next to Me

by AnnaLisa Grant

  I pull some long-sleeved shirts from the top of my closet where I keep seasonal clothes and toss them in the bag. When I open my dresser drawer to pull out essentials like pajamas I’m jolted by the two t-shirts of my father’s that I’ve had all these years to keep him close to me. I look at them for a long time before I take them out and throw them away. Those were the shirts of a man I loved dearly and wanted to keep with me forever. The problem is I found out that man never existed.

  I slide the bottom drawer of the dresser open and pull out its contents so I can remove the false bottom and take out the box that’s been hidden in there for six years.

  “Oh, Mom,” I say quietly as I trace my finger over the picture of her and Dad. “Did you know? Did you know he was lying? Did you know what he was doing when he left you so sick all those times? Did you know he hadn’t changed, and loved him anyway?”

  Opening her locket I fight the urge to rip out the picture of my father. I hate the idea of closing it and leaving my little girl picture to stare at his lying face for all eternity. But…I leave it, believing whether she knew my father deceived her all those years or not, in this locket were the pictures of the people she loved more than her own life. And even if it was for just a short time, there were years when my father did try to be the man my mother knew he could be. I suppose, if I’m going to give him anything, I can give him that.

  A knock at the door diverts my attention. I pull the long chain over my neck and let the locket hang. Wearing it brings a small smile to my face and makes me feel a little lighter.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I whisper.

  Opening the door I’m greeted with a huge bouquet of flowers. For a moment I think that it’s Landon and I’m immediately unsure about how I feel. But, within a moment, Jerry’s face is revealed when he lowers vase.

  “Oh, my gosh, Jerry…they’re beautiful, but really unnecessary,” I say, opening the door wider to let him in.

  “They’re not from me. They were sitting here when I walked up.” He sets the vase full of flowers on the table. “There’s a card.”

  My stomach flutters with both excitement and nervousness thinking that the flowers must be from Landon. He hasn’t given up on me after all. The flowers are a beautiful gesture and I love them, but it also continues to make this difficult. He’s supposed to think I’m a total bitch for saying what I said to him, not forgiving me and sending me flowers. How am I supposed to get over him when he’s being so…so…so Landon!

  “Oh, well…thanks for bringing them in. I’ll check the card later,” I tell him. “What’s up? Mercy isn’t here.”

  “I’m not looking for Mercy. I came to ask a favor.” Jerry looks down shyly and actually shuffles his feet like an embarrassed schoolboy.

  “What is it?” I can’t help smiling at this buff guy standing in front of me, red-faced like I just caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “Well…when I told Mercy that you wanted me to get Sharper Image to play at the reception, Mercy told me to make sure I had them play slow songs too so everyone can dance, and, you know…so Demi and Jack can have an official first dance and all. She said it’d be romantic. She said, and I quote, girls love that shit.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like Mercy,” I chuckle. “So what’s the favor?”

  “Can you teach me how to dance more than just swaying from side to side? This is the first semi-fancy thing Mercy and I have ever done together and I really want her to have all that romantic stuff. Will you help me?” Jerry looks at me with hopeful, puppy dog eyes and there’s no way I can say no.

  “Of course I’ll help you! She’s right: we do love that romantic shit.” We both laugh and the tension in Jerry’s body relaxes. “I’ve got the perfect thing to start you off,” I begin. I walk toward the sound system by the TV but Jerry stops me.

  “I can’t start today,” he says.

  “Oh, um…ok.”

  “It’s just…It’s after 5:00 and I’m on my way to the bar. Mercy is coming by soon. We’ll need to do it on a day when she’s working and you’re not. I really want to surprise her.” I can see the look of anticipation in Jerry’s face and it makes me really happy for them both.

  “Sure. We’ve got two days next week like that. Do you think that’s

  enough?” I ask.

  “With you teaching me, I’m sure it’s more than plenty. Thanks, Jenna.” Jerry envelops me in his huge arms. I sigh for a moment, enjoying the embrace of my dear, sweet Jerry. I’m going to miss him.

  “So it sounds like you’re in pretty deep here,” I suggest.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty crazy about her, which is putting it mildly,” he smiles.

  “Any wedding bells in your future?”

  “We’ve talked about it, but, Mercy’s not in any rush.” Jerry clears his throat and looks down for a moment before catching my eyes. “I’m guessing the flowers are from Landon.”

  “Me, too.” I sigh and look at the gorgeous bouquet sitting on my dining table.

  “I don’t know what happened in Paris, but I do know that guy loves you more than I’ve ever seen anyone love another person.” There’s a softness in Jerry’s eyes and his voice that I’ve never seen before. For a tough guy like him to say something so sweet… If only I could change the way things are. If only I could explain to Jerry why things have to be the way they are.

  “Jerry…things just have to be this way,” I tell him.

  “Well…give it time. Maybe you’ll see that they don’t.”

  With that, Jerry gives me another hug and kisses me on the cheek before leaving. I try to restrain myself, but as soon as I’ve closed the door behind him I rush to the dining table and find the card hidden among the flowers. I tear open the 3 x 3 card and my heart stops.

  Disappointed you failed your first assignment.

  7 pm, Thursday at Fronterra for your next.

  HD

  And there it is. I have two days before I find out when I’ll be saying goodbye to everyone I love. I’ll have to stand my ground and tell Dellinger that I’m not leaving until after the wedding on Sunday. After that, I’ll disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

  It’s strange. Now that Dellinger has contacted me, the anxiety I’ve been feeling is gone. The not knowing was killing me, but now I can really formulate a plan. I’ll go back to Paris and find Jace. Once I get there I’ll have to use cash for everything so Dellinger can’t track me. I’ll have to be quick though. My father said that everyone who deals in antiquities knows Jace. I’m sure Dellinger will waste no time in concluding that I might contact him.

  I’m going to need a new identity with new documentation for every aspect of my life. Birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license. And I’ll need identification with connections to various countries. I’m going to need a lot, so I’ll have to make it worth Jace’s while, especially because he’s going to have to promise not to tell Landon anything. It must have been fate for Landon to follow me to Paris. If he hadn’t, I would never have met Jace.

  There’s another knock at the door. Maybe Jerry changed his mind and wants to squeeze in a little dance lesson before he meets up with Mercy today.

  I open the door and a wave of shock rushes through me.

  “Oz! Oh, my God! Oz!” I scream and throw my body into his huge arms. I won’t let go so he has to walk into the apartment with me hanging off him like a monkey.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Angel,” he says as he puts me down.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, wiping the tears of joy that filled my eyes.

  “I heard you were in need of some help,” he answers.

  “What? From who? Did my father contact you?” I’m stunned and confused and filled with elation all at the same time. Oz is here and

  something about that makes me feel like I’m going to be ok.

  “I did,” Spring says, walking through the still open door.

  “So you contacted Oz when I was in Paris?” I feel my face
squish together, trying to get my mind to make sense of what’s going on.

  “Yes, but not because you gave me his information. Once it was official that you and I were going to live together, this big teddy bear told me to call him if I ever thought you were in trouble. Didn’t you, Uncle Oz?” Spring explains.

  “Uncle?”

  “Yep. Spring here is my sister Ester’s daughter. When you said you wanted to move to Chicago, I knew I could keep an eye on you. I don’t know what I would have done if you had chosen to go anywhere else,” Oz says. He puts his arm around Spring and draws her to his side. “I hadn’t heard a peep from her about you in six years, so when she called, I knew it had to be bad.”

  “I wanted to tell you he was my uncle, but he wouldn’t let me. I was sworn to secrecy. But, when you came to me before you went to Paris, I knew I had to call him,” she tells me.

  “Wait. Did you ask if your father had contacted me?” Oz asks, confused.

  “I didn’t tell him anything after that first conversation we had. I figured you’d want to tell him,” Spring says. “I’m going to make dinner. You two talk.” Spring kisses Oz on the cheek and gives me a hug before she leaves Oz and me in the living room.

  “Is your father alive?” Oz asks as we sit on the couch.

  “Yes.”

  “That son of a bitch. Did Dellinger make him do it?” Oz is shaking his head with disappointment.

  “Yes and no,” I say. I spend the next 15 minutes telling Oz everything that’s transpired over the last couple of months. I tell him about Landon and how Dellinger used him to find me. I also scold him over not letting me bring my laptop with me since that turned out to be the main source of the information Landon used to track me.

  I explain what happened in France and how, knowing I would bring the

  V Nickel with me, my father set me up so Dellinger would find me and send me to Paris.

  I also tell him about falling in love with Landon and how I have to say goodbye to him because Dellinger is going to use me the same way he used my father, but that I’ll be dropping off the face of the earth rather than giving in to that slimy politician’s control.

  “I can’t say I’m completely surprised by Bobby’s choices. Your dad tried really hard for a long time to leave the past in the past. He just couldn’t, I guess. That’s what all the bragging was about. He couldn’t stand the idea of hiding his talent from the world.” Oz sighs and smiles softly at me. “I’m sorry you went through all of that, Angel. And I’m sorry that you’ve been alone all these years.”

  “Thanks, but, I haven’t been completely alone. Set up, or not, Spring has become one of my best friends in the whole world, along with Mercy and Demi, and Jack and Jerry,” I say happily. “They became my family…which is why I have to leave. Dellinger has already threatened them. If I even try to refuse him, he’ll come after them.

  “Maybe not. That’s why I’m here.” Oz pulls a folded over, large manila envelope from inside his jacket and hands it to me.

  “Is this the other envelope you took from the house the night we left DC?” I ask.

  “Yes. The important things you need to know now are in here,” he says, echoing his words to me the night we sat at Paulina’s table and ate meat loaf as we discussed the new life I was going to build in Chicago.

  I unclasp the envelope and pull a small stack of papers from the pocket. It’s all hand-written on loose leaf paper. The first pages contain names and dates, along with notes about someone named Ken Cooper with Bouche and

  Renner.

  “What’s Bouche and Renner?” I ask.

  “They’re a private insurance company. They insure rare items…like

  antiques. They are the only insurance agency to have offices in every civilized country in the world,” Oz answers.

  “And who is Ken Cooper?”

  “Ken Cooper is the Bouche and Renner agent that Dellinger has had under his thumb for almost 20 years.”

  I flip through the papers some more and find another few pages with columns titled “Old ID” and “New ID” followed by a column titled “Item.”

  “I’m sorry, Oz. What are you trying to tell me? I don’t understand what any of this means,” I say. I’m trying to find the meaning in it all but keep coming up clueless.

  “I’m trying to tell you that at least for the first little while, your father really didn’t want to work for Dellinger. And neither did Ken Cooper. So, your father struck up an agreement with Ken. They would keep track of all the old insurance ID numbers for the things your father stole for Dellinger, and connect them to the new ID numbers Ken was creating so Dellinger could have his newly acquired artifacts insured.

  “Ken knew that if anything ever happened, he would go down for fraud and spend a long time in prison. He kept the documents as his own insurance, hoping his cooperation would lead to a lesser sentence. Your father always kept his own copy in case he needed something to encourage Dellinger to cut him loose. He must have stopped tracking with Ken when the pay got really good because there’s only about 75 pieces here,” Oz explains.

  He stopped tracking with Ken because that’s when he started working for Ambassador McKay. Once he was on McKay’s payroll, it didn’t matter if he kept anything on Dellinger.

  “So Dellinger only had my father steal collectables from people who also had their things insured with Bouche and Renner? I suppose these are the kind of items that one only insures with Bouche and Renner,” I muse.

  “Yeah. Not just the wealthy either. Christie’s and all the other auction

  houses use them, and every museum from the Smithsonian to the Louvre.” Oz watches me, waiting for me to reveal what the wheels in my head have been turning and creating.

  “That calculated bastard. He would get the inside scoop from this Cooper guy and that’s how he knew how to find what he was looking for. And as long as what he wanted was insured by Bouche and Renner, he could find anything in the world. Cooper would find its original registration and change the ID and ownership. Well this is about to get interesting.” The corners of my mouth involuntarily rise a little.

  “Why is that?”

  “Ambassador McKay is going to insure his fake V Nickel, and so is whoever my father sold, is selling, the real V Nickel. Ken Cooper is going to be sweating when he has to tell Dellinger there are two entries with Bouche and Renner for what is supposed to be the last of the five V Nickel’s Dellinger is searching for.” A giddy feeling wells up inside me, finally feeling like I have the upper hand.

  “Well…you certainly have grown up,” Oz smiles. “Spring tells me you’re a nurse and that you’ve kept up with your dancing.”

  “I’ve just tried to live the life my supposedly dying father wanted me to have. As terrible as what he did was, I’m kind of glad. I ended up living in the city of my dreams, with my dream job, and dream friends. And now that I have this, I’m not going to have to leave it all behind,” I tell him excitedly.

  “Listen now…don’t get ahead of yourself, Angel. You still have no idea what Dellinger is willing to do to get what he wants,” Oz warns. He’s got that stern look on his face that I’ve actually missed. He used to give me that look when I would try to sneak ingredients off the counter when he was baking. “You could show him this and it mean absolutely nothing to him.”

  “Well, if the possibility of being the center of an insurance fraud investigation and being dragged through the political mud in the process doesn’t do anything, I suppose I could always go back to the Ambassador and tell him what we did. I have a feeling he’d be happy to have me take the forged coin back to Dellinger. McKay would raise a toast every night knowing that Dellinger was holding a totally fake V Nickel.” I raise my eyebrows at Oz and smile.

  “You got the best parts of your dad, you know that right?” he smiles back at me and pulls me in for a bear hug. Oh, how I’ve missed him.

  “Hey…dinner will be ready in about half an hour. Anyone up for a drink?” Spring hol
ds up a bottle of wine and spreads a smile on her face.

  “I am so up for a drink!” I tell her as I stand.

  “That’s going to take some getting used to,” Oz says. “You were a 19-year-old kid when I last saw you. You’re a grown woman now and I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

  “You just need to hang out with me more, Oz. I hope you’ll be sticking around for a while.” I take a sip of the red wine Spring just poured and decide to let it sit and open up a bit.

  “Just long enough to meet Landon and give him the once over to see if he’s good enough for you,” Oz says with his mock-dad voice.

  “You’re not going to get to meet him,” I say.

  “What happened?” Oz asks. Spring looks at me with sadness in her eyes, already knowing the whole store.

  “I cut things off with him, totally pushed him away when it seemed I was going to have a life on the run from Dellinger. He wanted to come with me, but I couldn’t let him do that. He deserved better than to be stuck living a lie.” I check on dinner as a way to avoid the conversation further, but Spring won’t have it. She turns my body around and sends me back to the other side of the counter bar.

  “Now that you’ve got the upper hand, why don’t you call Landon? Tell him what’s happening and that things might not be as desperate as you once thought. He loves you, Jenna. He wants to be with you and would coming running if you called,” Springs says.

  “I can’t do that. I pushed him away, and pushed hard. I said some terrible things to him to make it easier for him to cut himself off from me. He’s never going to forgive me,” I tell her. I feel the lump that precedes crying form in my throat.

  “I don’t know a lot about love, Angel, but what I do know is this: when you love someone, you’re willing to forgive a lot. I know your mom forgave more than she should have with your dad. When I asked her about it, she said it was because she loved him, and despite his deception, she knew he truly loved her.” Oz’s eyes are soft as he tells me about my mother. As I got older it was always a difficult subject for me, but it’s nice to hear how strong she was, how much she loved my dad.