Dark Sins

by Charlotte Byrd

  I thought that he would owe me that much, but I guess not. Tears start to well up in my eyes again, but this time I manage to hold them back.

  I take a few deep breaths and pull out my makeup bag, trying to make it go away. When my phone goes off, I watch it ring a few times before I answer.

  It’s not Noah and it's not Dante and it's not my mother or Allison. The number is coming from Seattle. I don’t want to answer but then I do. It turns out to be the receptionist from Vasko’s office.

  “Please hold for Mr. Vasko,” she says in a somewhat robotic voice, and before I can even tell her to stop, he gets on.

  “I would like to offer you the position. You were one of the best candidates we've ever had apply. And I wanted to give you the call myself, what do you think?”

  “Oh, wow,” I say, stunned. "Yes, of course. That would be wonderful.”

  “Great. I'll send over the employment package with all the details about the salary, benefits, that kind of thing. And if you have any questions whatsoever, just let me know.”

  The conversation is quick and straight to the point. It puts me a little bit off guard.

  As soon as he hangs up, I have a pang of regret. Should I still take this position? What am I even doing here if Dante and I aren't together?

  I have to call him. I have to talk to him. I dial his number and my hand shakes.

  He doesn't respond. He lets it go to voice mail.

  “Dante, it's me," I say, clearing my throat right after saying his name and immediately regretting it. “I just wanted to call you to tell you that I got the job with Vasko. I'm going to take it, okay? I still want to help. I still want to get to the bottom of what's going on regardless of what happened between us, but I need to talk to you. I want to apologize.”

  I wait for him to answer, but he doesn't.

  “I love you," I add, and then hang up.

  This whole situation makes me feel like such a fool. There was nothing going on between Noah and me, except for a few bittersweet memories. Yet I can't help but sympathize with Dante.

  I know what he saw or at least what he thinks he saw. That wasn’t right. It wasn't right of me to do that. It was a mistake, a mistake that I wish more than anything that I could take back, but I'm not sure that I can.

  I spend the day walking around Seattle. I visit the first Starbucks. I walk along the marina. I look out at the dark waters, the day's full of drizzle and rain, even though it's summertime. I realize that this is probably what it's like here all winter.

  I keep waiting for Dante to call me back. But he doesn't.

  I guess there's still so much that I don't know about him. That's the thing that scares me the most.

  The person who does call is Noah. But I don’t call him back. I also don't reply to his messages.

  I listen to his voice mail while I grab lunch at the airport that afternoon.

  “I'm really sorry about everything that happened,” Noah says in his voice mail. “I didn't mean to push you. I'm sorry that your boyfriend saw that. I hope that everything works out and I'll never contact you again…if that's what you want.”

  I stare at the phone and I wonder what it is that I do want. It seemed so clear before I got here; I wanted to be with Dante. I still do.

  But what happens if he doesn't want me?

  The truth is that we don't really know each other that well. We’ve met each other’s families and talked about some previous relationships.

  I can tell that there are secrets that he's keeping, or maybe just stuff that he isn't sharing. I wonder what all of those secrets are and how long he's been keeping them.

  But for now, I just want to make amends.

  I want him back in my life and maybe staying here and working in Seattle will go a long way to helping me make things right.

  28

  Dante

  I don't want to be here. I don't know how I found myself in this space, in this bar in Midtown Manhattan waiting for the arrival of my brother and my long-lost father, but here we are.

  I order a scotch to ease my worries. It's not so much worries as agitation and disappointment and anger all mixed up into one thing.

  It's a fancy enough place, tall ceilings, nice wooden bar top, clients dressed in suits and ties, white tablecloths in the dining area. The bartender is a friendly woman with a no-nonsense attitude in her late thirties. Her hair is pulled up and her shirt is buttoned up, and you can tell that the owners encourage a more professional look to get tips from the wealthy patrons. A drink here costs over $18, and that's for a simple cocktail. If you want something more fancy like an aged scotch, it's going to run you a hefty amount.

  It's funny about rich people, but money doesn't seem to be a bother unless it is. The three of us are all here because to some degree, we are strapped for cash. Lincoln needs to make up for the money in the trust fund. I need him to pay me what's owed to me for doing him a favor. And Dad, well, Dad always needs money. He didn't come from wealth, he married well, but money has always been an issue.

  The thing is, that when wealthy people need money, they need an amount that you can't exactly get by saving and skimping on $18 cocktails or even thousand-dollar suits. It has to be a big grand gesture. And I guess that's why we're here.

  I arrive early, but then head to the restroom to give myself a little bit of a pep talk. I haven't seen my father in years, and I've been angry at him for much longer. I thought Lincoln felt the same way, but now I wonder if he has been maintaining a relationship with him all along and just keeping it a secret. My family has a lot of secrets, and that's putting it lightly. We all appear to be so close on the surface, but I wonder how much of that is actually true.

  When I come out, I see Lincoln and our father sitting at a table in front of a big glass window. There are no dark brooding corners in this bar. This is the kind of place where you have a three martini lunch when you try to close a client. This is the kind of place in the open, no matter how dark and devious they may be, so I have to be cautious.

  As soon as I finished my drink, it occurred to me that this might be a set-. And by set-up, I mean the one where the cops or the FBI get involved and record you talking about something that you shouldn't be. If anyone brings up anything that happened in Salt Lake City, I'm just going to pretend that I have no idea what they're talking about. This one thing, I'm certain of. As far as anything else goes, I'm not sure what this whole meeting is about.

  I straighten my jacket before I turn the corner and take a deep breath, putting a light, casual smile on my face and pushing away all thoughts of Jacqueline and everything that has happened between us. I want to say that Salt Lake City is a blur, but it's anything but that. In fact, it's all I can think about. Seeing Lincoln again and then seeing our father, the man who introduced me to that life, to this other way of being in the world where it makes it okay to take someone's life just because someone hired you to do that, well, that's difficult to deal with.

  My father sits across from Lincoln on one side of the window dressed in an immaculate pinstriped suit that gives him an almost whimsical kind of air of arrogance and charm. His hair has grown out a little bit over the years and has a nice salt and pepper-gray tone to it, bringing out the blueness of his eyes and the tan of his skin. From afar, I can tell you why everyone likes him. Not only is he easy on the eyes and generous with his money, he also has this ability to put you at ease, no matter where you are or why you're here.

  "Hello there," I say, walking up to them.

  I sit across from him and the memories of everything that he's ever done and all the hatred that I feel for him come flooding back. On the outside, I'm calm and steady, friendly even.

  We embrace. I give him a warm hug and I smile at him, the same distant but pleasant smile that I have seen my whole life. He's the kind of person you enjoy being with when you don't know anything about him. He's the kind of person who is good to have dinner with, maybe go out on the town with. He's great at a dinner party, fa
st with a joke, even faster with a putdown. But as far as father material, he's not the best.

  I glance over at Lincoln, and even though he's trying to relax, I can sense the tension in his body. He needs this to go well. I still don't know the terms and the rules that are involved. I don't know why we're meeting with him, and I don't know the point of any of this. My brother has kept it a secret.

  "It's nice to see you," Dad says, adjusting his collar just a little bit.

  It hardly matters whether he wears a suit, black tie, tails, or anything else because he always looks comfortable and completely at ease in every single thing.

  I take a seat across from him and order a scotch on the rocks. Dad nods approvingly.

  “How have you been?" he asks. "You look great."

  "Thank you. You do, too."

  The gray hair, the little bit of crow's feet around his eyes, it's all just adding to his charm. He looks like he just walked out of Men's Vogue, like someone without a worry in the world.

  But I know the truth. Not so much about how much he worries, but about everything else. I don't know why we meet here. This is the last place that we can talk about the truth. I tell him a little bit about my life, about my job, and he asks me what it's like to evaluate companies for investment.

  "Well, Dad, it's pretty much like evaluating people. You have to look at their financials. You have to see if they're telling you the truth. Everyone elaborates, but it's about how they elaborate, what lies they tell, because not all lies are the same, right?" I tilt my head.

  We're dancing around this topic that we shouldn't talk about, and that's okay. Actually, I kind of prefer the dance, especially since it's making Lincoln squirm.

  Dad asks about Marguerite and the baby and acts excited to be a grandfather. I wonder how much, if anything, is true. After all of this time, I find it hard to believe anything that he's saying.

  We have a couple of drinks, but when the waiter comes around with a menu, Lincoln suggests that we order some room service instead. We all know that we can't talk about what we really came here to talk about here. It's not that there may be too many people listening.

  It's that there's no way to control the situation. In a room, you can check for bugs. If you go on a walk, you can keep moving, and that makes it hard for a microphone to pick up what you're saying, unless someone is wearing a wire.

  "I rented a suite not far from here, just right across the street," Lincoln says. "I've had it swept for any listening devices, but you're both welcome to check again."

  He says the last bit under his breath. Dad and I exchange looks. This is an unusual family that I find myself in. It's not everyone that gets together and first does a sweep for anyone else that could be listening.

  Lincoln wasn't lying when he said that the hotel was close. It's right around the corner, and none of us bother with getting our cars.

  We don't say much on the walk over or even the elevator ride, and as soon as we get to the hotel room, or rather, the one-bedroom suite overlooking Central Park, we immediately get to work.

  Dad and I initiate the check for any listening devices, but Lincoln participates. I check the lamps and the beds and the couch. He checks the soft furniture and the walls.

  We're thorough. We even go through the bathroom. Parabolic microphones nowadays can pick up sound from very far away, and when we're satisfied that we haven't found any active listening devices in the room, we turn to face one another, probably wondering who is going to be the first one to tell the others to take off their shirts. This is the last piece in the process. This is where we check that no one is wired and no one is talking to the feds, or the police, or anyone else.

  "Let's just get this over with," Dad says, and starts to unbutton his shirt.

  29

  Jacqueline

  I arrive in Seattle on a perfectly sunny day and I'm certain that the decision that I have made to take this position is a good one. After going back home, I met with Allison and debated over and over again as to whether or not this is something that I should do.

  I haven't heard back from Dante, and I doubted that I would, but I needed a job and I wanted to show him how sorry I was. And none of this had anything to do with Noah. I made a promise to myself that even though I'll be single and living back in the city, I won't meet up with him again. What happened at that hotel wasn't right and I shouldn't have kissed him or even approximated anything like kissing.

  I have a little bit of money saved up and Allison gives me a small loan to get a studio apartment not too far from work. It doesn't require two months security, but as soon as I move in, I know why. The walls are peeling and haven't been painted in years. The heater is a little iffy and it's stifling hot on a day that barely breaks eighty-five outside.

  It doesn't matter, I say to myself. I'm going to force myself to live here and I'm going to put up with all of it to try to find out what happened and find out more about Vasko and his enterprise.

  My first day at work is uneventful. Everyone seems nice enough and I don't, in fact, even see Vasko because he's out of town. They set me up in a cubicle right above a vent that spews out cold air and a woman in an oversized sweater and fake curls shows me how to answer calls and the computer system. She's quite a bit older than I am, but we get along. I like her vibe. She has a teenage son and a husband who works in the biology department at the University of Washington.

  For lunch, I bring in a tuna sandwich and she grabs a large salad out of the fridge with her name prominently displayed on top. I ask her what she thinks about working here and she tells me that it's a good job and not overly demanding. She's worked at other places where they kept you late without paying you anything extra, and she didn't appreciate that much.

  The rest of the week proceeds pretty much the same way, with Vasko finally showing up on Friday. He goes straight to his office and calls a meeting to update everybody on a new sales angle that we're all going to be pitching to possible investors. Given the fact that the company sells microprocessors, I find it a little bit unusual that there's such a push to bring in new investors.

  Shouldn't we primarily get work from the sales department? But, of course, I keep all of these thoughts to myself.

  Friday afternoon, just as I get into my post-lunch slump with few calls coming in and little to do at my desk, Vasko sees me in the hallway and calls me into his office.

  "How are you adjusting? How's your first week going?"

  "It's great," I say, following him in.

  He closes the door behind me and shows me to the leather couch facing the big floor-to-ceiling window and the beautiful skyline outside.

  "Everyone has been really friendly and nice and I think I'm really going to enjoy my work here."

  "You know, I did a little bit of checking up on you," he says with a smile. I swallow hard. "You hadn't mentioned the fact that you finished your master's degree in journalism on your resume."

  The lump in the back of my throat gets bigger. I'm not sure what to say. I bite my lower lip and then stare at him.

  The last thing that I expected us to do is for him to catch me in a lie.

  I feel lost and discontent. I have to play a game now, a game that I must win.

  I sit across from him on the couch. Our eyes meet. I straighten and broaden my shoulders.

  "Yeah, I'm sorry about that," I say quietly. "I had applied for a number of other positions and it seemed to be more of a negative than a positive, especially if the company wasn't necessarily in the news business. So I thought that I would just keep it to myself."

  My eyes meet his, and he licks his lips, waiting for me to explain further.

  I'm glad that my hair is pulled out of my face in a tight bun. I feel more in control... this way. My clothes are tight, as well, professional. Not at all hip-hugging, but not loose and casual, the way that I usually like them. Normally, I live in my sweats, that's if I can help it, and change into them as soon as I get home from work. It's almost as if I ca
n't relax until I'm swimming in my clothes.

  Vasko sits back. He's dressed in a casual suit, loose-fitting pants, and a shirt with a loosened tie. He looks like a weary salesperson who has made way too many calls, not his usual, perfectly-tailored and put-together type self.

  I look a little closer and notice something else. He's tired now, something else I haven't seen.

  He sits back on the couch, spreading his legs and his arms out in different directions. "So tell me something else about yourself, something true this time." He narrows his eyes and I hold my breath.

  "As I said, this wasn't a journalism job, so the master’s degree could only be something that could hurt me. I mean, who wants a secretary with a graduate degree, right?"

  "You said that already." He takes a sip of his coffee. "Now, unless you want to get fired, I want you to tell me something true. Why are you here?"

  My heart skips a beat, and my breath gets lodged in the back of my throat.

  "Would you like me to leave?"

  "No, I want you to tell me the truth."

  "I'm not sure what else I can say, besides what I already told you. That's why I kept that out of my resume. Everything else is true."

  "So your dream is to be... an administrative assistant? For this company?"

  "It's not just an administrative assistant position, right? I mean, I'd be working directly under you."

  "Yes. So what?"

  "Well, that's something that I'm interested in learning about."

  "What, exactly?"

  I hesitate, trying to think of just the right thing to say.

  "I want to start a company of my own one day. Not microprocessing, but something new that I will need to get investors for. I thought that taking this job would help me figure out how to get an angel investor.”