by Zoey Derrick
THIRTY-THREE
******
Tristan
******
“Do we know what time Cami is taking off?”
“Not sure. She said she was going to the airport when she was done.” Tyson is reassuring me. The last time I checked my phone was this morning before we started filming, more than eight hours ago, and she was getting to the office.
“Tristan.” I turn around and it is one of the student directors. “We need to do one more scene.”
I roll my eyes. “All right, but then I’m done.” It’s already after ten and Cami should be in the air by now. I turn back toward the set and get ready to reshoot one of the scenes. Pyrotechnics are not my strong suit, and they’ve been the cause of so many of our retakes today.
Another hour and a half goes by and I’m finally back in my trailer. “Let me wash up and change and we’ll get out of here.”
“Sure thing,” Tyson says as I head into the bedroom and close the door.
Once I’m showered, the makeup’s gone, and the clothes changed, Tyson and I walk out of the trailer. We’re about fifty feet away when I go searching for my phone. “Shit. I’ll be right back.” I turn around and run back into the trailer, grab my phone off of the bed and press the button, lighting up the screen.
1 Missed Call
I slide the button; it’s Cami. From one this afternoon. I roll my eyes at not checking it sooner. She’s left me a voicemail. I click the button and press play.
“Tristan, I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore. If you want to blame someone, blame Bobby. I’m sorry, I love you.”
The call ends and I can tell that she’s out of breath, like she’s running.
I sink onto the bed and it is probably not three minutes before Tyson is pounding on the door. “Come on, man. I wanna see Jo.” I feel the trailer shake as he climbs inside. “Shit, what’s wrong with you?”
I don’t say anything; I just replay the voicemail.
“Tristan, I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore. If you want to blame someone, blame Bobby. I’m sorry, I love you.”
“She’s gone.”
“Dammit, get up. She ain’t either.” He grabs his phone, presses a button. “Jo, have you heard from Cami about her flight?” He listens. “Okay, we’ll be back soon.... Oh, I’ll let him know. Thanks, babe.”
He clicks a couple buttons on his phone. “Hi, Scott, I need Cameron Enders’s room, please.” Pause. “What? When? Okay, thanks.” He turns to me. “She checked out of the hotel around eleven this morning. Where’s Bobby’s information?”
“Wha—?”
“The information he gave you that day?”
“Back at the hotel, on my laptop. Why? What’s going on?”
“Nothing yet. Give me a minute.” I watch as he clicks a few more buttons on his phone.
“Mick, we need to put a tracer on Cami. Find out what flight to New York she was on.” There is a pause as he listens to Mick. “All right, thanks, we’ll be at the hotel shortly.”
“Hotel?” I ask, trying to follow his thought process with who he’s calling, but my world has stopped spinning.
“Beau and Mick showed up at the hotel a few hours ago, but Mick knows nothing of Cami buying a ticket. He’s looking into it.”
“Fuck! She’s gone. I fucking know it. That son of bitch did or said something to her and it’s freaked her out.”
I stand up, and Tyson and I go running out of the trailer and to the car. I climb into the driver’s seat and drive toward the hotel. Tyson doesn’t say anything, which is a good thing because— Damn it all to hell. “I’ll kill him.”
“No you won’t.”
“Why not? He wouldn’t be missed, he’s already ‘dead.’”
Tyson doesn’t say anything the rest of the drive.
“What’s my schedule look like?” I ask him when we’re in the elevator.
“Um, you’re on set tomorrow morning, then you’re supposed to be off until Friday afternoon. What are you thinking?”
“I want to go to Montana. I want to kick his ass.”
I try calling Cami, over and over again, and all I get is voicemail. We got stuck in traffic trying to get to the hotel. Fucking New York.
I call Mick. He answers on the first ring. “Tristan, I’m tracking her cell phone, it’s at the house in Phoenix. I called Naomi and told her to go and check on the house. I’m waiting for her to call back.”
“Will she stay in Phoenix?”
“I doubt it. I am trying her financials. Tristan, she pulled out a hundred grand in cash, cashier’s and traveler’s checks from her account. She’s going off the grid completely. I don’t have much hope that we will find her in the house in Phoe— ix.”
“What was that?”
“Naomi, she’s at the house.”
“We’ll be at the hotel in a few minutes.” I hit end and try Cami’s cell again. This time no voicemail. “Cami.”
“Jeez, Tristan, no, it’s Naomi. Her phone is here, and the house is trashed. She left in a big damn hurry.” Damn it.
“Where would she go?”
“I don’t know, Tristan, I’m looking for any sign of where she may have gone. The only thing I see is that her second passport is gone.”
“Thanks, Naomi. Can you stay there, at the house, in case she comes back?”
“Trav is on his way here from San Diego now.”
“Thanks.”
I try to think my way through this. A second passport. I didn’t— “That’s it!”
I grab my phone and call Trinity. She answers on the second ring. “Tristan?”
“What’s on her second passport?”
“Excuse me?”
“Cami’s second passport, the one Bold made for her so she could travel anonymously. What’s the name?”
“What’s the opposite of yours, Tristan?”
“Dammit, I don’t have time for games, Trinity.” Then it hits me. “Velma Kelley.”
“You got it,” she says, and I hang up the phone.
We’re pulling up in front of the hotel and I go running up the walk to the door and throw it wide. I bypass the elevator and take the stairs; Tyson is right behind me and we enter the room. “Search for passengers leaving Phoenix or L.A. under the name of Velma Kelley.”
“What?” Mick and Beau say in unison.
“It’s the name on her other passport. Velma Kelley. Just because she used cash to pay for her ticket doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to give them her name.”
Mick turns to his laptop and punches in a few things on the keyboard.
I can hear the sound of an internet search. It’s so cliché, and it feels like I am suddenly in a movie. Then after a minute, the laptop beeps. “Where?”
“New York. But she’s already here, flight landed over an hour ago.”
“Search New York, all airports. She won’t stay here,” I say, anxiety taking over. While the computer searches, Beau tries to calm me down.
“You don’t know she won’t stay. She may have changed her mind.”
“She came into New York on cash and with her anonymous passport, Beau, she won’t stay.” I just want to break down, to scream, to cry, to...I don’t know what, but dammit, I’ve got to find her.
The search of all the New York airports for all possible names yields nothing, and she doesn’t show up at the hotel. Tyson convinces me that I have to go to work the next day. He calls in reinforcements to help keep an eye on me. The only reason I stay to finish filming is because I know that if I don’t, it will end up costing me far more than I can afford. Complements of Mick’s mad legal skills and knowledge of the business, they are making some adjustments to the filming schedule so that I can be done faster.
Mick is running airport searches on all nearby and surrounding airports, looking for flights out of Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C., hoping that she will turn up flying out of one of those airports.
Beau has become the tabloid scanner. If Cam
i is in New York, she’s been around me enough to be recognized and there is a chance that the paparazzi will catch her somewhere.
Days go by, and all hope seems to be slipping through our fingers. Mick continues to check through her bank account, looking for additional withdrawals, but even with what little we could tell she took from Phoenix, a hundred grand is a lot for her to live on for a long time. I didn’t believe Mick about that — at least not until he explained some of Cami’s financial history to me.
A week goes by, then ten days turns into two weeks, then three, then finally four and I’m done filming. As soon as I’m released from filming duty, Mick, Jo, and Beau go back to Phoenix; I go to Billings, Montana. I have a score to settle with an asshole. All of my attempts to contact Bobby have yielded nothing. No return phone calls or emails. When I went to Billings the first time, he wasn’t there.
I’m hoping we can find something, anything that will lead us to Cami. We’ve even gone so far as to put Tarah on speed dial. I’m hoping and praying that she will show up there again. But she hasn’t, not yet.
THIRTY-FOUR
When Tyson and I pull up in front of Bobby’s house, the lights are on inside, and before I even turn off the car I go running and start banging on the door. “Open the door, you son of a bitch.” The door opens, and the old man from the other day is standing on the other side of the door. “Where’s Bobby?”
“I’m right here,” a voice calls from inside the house, and the old man steps out of the way, letting me and Tyson into the house.
“What the fuck did you do?” I say, charging into the room before I can take in the scene before me. Sitting on the couch is Bobby, and next to him is Trinity, and sitting on her lap is her son. “Jesus Christ, how much more damage are you going to cause along your path to come back from the dead?”
“Tristan, what’s going on?” Trinity asks.
“What do you think? She’s gone. No sign of her anywhere. She went back to Phoenix and never showed up in New York.” I cock my head in Trinity’s direction. “You knew he was alive too.”
“No, I found out the day Cami came to the office. When Cami dragged me into Vinnie’s office, Bobby was there, on the couch. After that I went on leave and came up here.”
“What the fuck are you doing here now?” My brain doesn’t operate as fast as Cami’s does, but it is finally starting to register. I point to Bobby. “You—” Then Trinity. “—her and—” I charge toward Bobby, but Tyson is faster than I am, and he wraps his arms around me, holding me back.
“You can’t find her if you’re in jail, brother. Come on, let’s go.”
Bobby stands up. “I had no idea, Tristan, believe me. I tried to tell her, but she left before anyone could explain everything. I couldn’t chase after her without exposing myself and ruining everything for her.”
“You already have.” I turn toward Tyson. “Let me go.” He doesn’t release his grip. “Fine, then carry me out of here. We need to get back to Phoenix.” I turn back toward Bobby. “Stay away from her. Never contact her again. I will not put up with your shit on her plate any longer. She put herself out there when she came that day to try and start forgiving you. She took the steps she needed to take in order to try and move on from all that you’ve done to her, then this happens. She will never forgive you for this.”
Tyson drags me out of the house and throws me into the passenger seat of the car. As he leaves he peels some rubber, kicking up gravel and dirt in his haste to pull away and get back to the airport.
It’s been six weeks, countless trips to New York and endless hours of searching, trying to find her, trying to find Cami.
Mick and Beau don’t come around much anymore, mainly because they don’t have anything new to tell me other than that she will come back around when she’s ready. But dammit, I miss her. I miss her like fucking crazy, and it’s killing me.
I convinced Vinnie to get me out of my next movie contract. Guilted him might be a better word for it; I told him that he was partially to blame for her running off, and I didn’t feel one bit of guilt about doing so.
I took over dealing with the builders on the house in L.A., hoping that she will be back before it’s finished, but I am beginning to lose faith that she is ever going to return. I slowly start to pack my things, a little at a time. Everyone has asked that I at least stay through this weekend. Give it a few more days and don’t give up yet. Those seem to be their lines lately, and I’d like to believe them, but it’s getting harder every single day.
THIRTY-FIVE
“Under a lover’s sky... Gonna be with you...” I stir. “And no one’s gonna be...” My eyes shoot open; that’s Cami’s ring tone. That’s Cami’s phone. I scramble up off of the couch and grab the phone from the coffee table. I don’t look at the number; I don’t care who it is.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
Silence.
I pull the phone away from my head and it’s cleared off. The call has gone dead. I pull up her recent call log. It’s a six-two-three number, which is Phoenix.
Suddenly my phone starts to ring. The same number is popping up. I answer it immediately. “Cami.”
“Mr. Michaels?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“Mr. Michaels, this is Doctor Tolleson from John C. Lincoln Hospital.” Oh, God. “We have a patient here by the name of Cameron Ende—”
“What happened?”
“She is being admitted, but you’re listed as her emergency contact. Can you please come down to the hospital?”
“I’m on my way.” I hang up the phone.
“Shit!” I scream, and Tyson comes running down the stairs.
“What’s up?”
“She’s here, in Phoenix. She’s in the hospital.”
“What are we standing around here for, let’s go,” Tyson says as he grabs his keys off of the table.
I follow him down the stairs and out the front door. Luckily his brain is functioning because I don’t even think about my keys or locking the door. I’m fumbling through my phone, trying to find Beau’s number.
I climb into the car and Tyson is on the phone. “Hi, baby, we found her.” He pauses to listen. “She’s at the hospital.” He pauses then looks over at me. “Which hospital?”
“John C. Lincoln.”
“You get that? Okay, see you there.”
I finally manage to dial Beau’s number. It rings once, twice, three— “Hi, Tristan.”
“She’s here, in Phoenix.”
“Holy shit, where?”
“John C. Lincoln.”
“Fuck. We’re on our way.” And the phone goes dead.
******
Cami
******
Knock, knock...
“Hello, Ms. Enders, I’m Doctor Tolleson.”
“Hello.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Scared.”
“Are you in any pain?” I shake my head; the pain stopped shortly after I got here. I hadn’t been feeling good all day, and then I get here and I suddenly feel better and wish I hadn’t come, but there was so much blood. “That’s good. I have some good news for you.”
“Everything is all right?”
“It is, for now. We were able to detect a strong heartbeat during the ultrasound, but we’re going to keep you overnight for observation and at least one — if not two more — ultrasounds, just to be safe. You came in here alone, is there anyone we can call for you?”
Tristan. “No.”
“Okay, the nurse will be along shortly to take you up to a room. Have you sought medical care for your pregnancy?”
I nod. “My second appointment is next week.”
“Okay, good. You’ll want to follow up with your doctor in less than a week. For now, I just want you to rest and we will keep an eye on you. If you have any pain at all—” He reaches over the bed. “—press that button there.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
>
He leaves the room and I put my head back. I should’ve called Tristan the minute I found out, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I promised him that I wouldn’t run away, but I did. Then again, I didn’t. I never left Phoenix and have been staying in my old apartment. I’m surprised no one managed to look there. But I think everyone thought I’d gotten rid of it. I was going to, but it just kept slipping my mind with everything else that was going on at the time. Regardless, this whole thing has become a huge damn mess, and I highly doubt that there is much I can do about it now.
They move me upstairs. I freak out when I see the Labor and Delivery sign as we passed by it, but the nurse tells me that this is where all pregnant women go when they have complications. Once I’m in the room, she puts a microphone to my belly, and there is a strange whooshing sound that comes piping through the speaker in her hand. She seems satisfied with what she’s hearing. “Sounds great. Try and get some rest and I’ll be back in a little bit. Press the call button if you experience any pain.”
“Thank you.”
She smiles at me and leaves the room. I put my head in my hands.
What am I gonna tell Tristan? He is going to be so mad. We’ve never discussed kids; we’ve never even talked about anything beyond what we’ve been doing right now. I’ve been such a bitch to him. I can’t imagine him forgiving me now. God, he will never forgive me for what I’ve done. I haven’t slept for days, except little tiny cat naps here and there. Every time I close my eyes I start to panic. Panic about what I’ve done and the decision I’ve made. Sure, financially I can do this, but every single time I start thinking about being a mom, I see the look of disgust on Evelyn’s face in those videos Bobby sent me — all the resentment she felt about Mark and me — and since I ran away from Tristan, that’s what I’m afraid I’ll do. I’ll end up resenting this child because I pushed its father away.
