17. Cas
17
Cas
G reat. Just fucking great, they were staking out my doctors. At least it sounded like they didn’t know exactly who I saw, which helped a little.
I had been feeling boxed in, and this news didn’t help that in the least. I felt trapped, figuratively and literally. I was trapped in a chair, I couldn’t leave my apartment, I couldn’t do the job I loved anymore, I couldn’t even go for a fucking walk.
Rishi delivered the news with his dark eyes watching me gravely, while Luis paced behind him. Rishi was straddling the line between professional and personal, clearly unsure of which I would prefer.
“So now what?” I asked, and my voice sounded hollow to my own ears.
“So now we need to be stealthy,” Rishi said. “We stagger your appointment times, we stagger our routes, and we make sure we’re watching our surroundings.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said because what else could I say?
One thing that I did have going for me at my appointments was I certainly wasn’t the only person in a wheelchair. It was summer in Southern California, though, so cooking up very much of a disguise was implausible. Even if I didn’t have a heat stroke, it would only draw more attention to me.
We were in the midst of brainstorming for my next required outing, which would happen the following Monday, when my mother called.
“Casimir,” she cooed. “I just got a call for you. I don’t know how they got our number for you, but you know the internet these days. Anyway, it was a nice man by the name of Julio. He said he remembered you from a case you worked and he was hoping to meet up with you and tell you how much he appreciated the help that you gave his daughter.”
I don’t know what my face was doing because all I was aware of was my mother’s voice and the feeling of every corpuscle of blood in my body turning to ice.
“He told me that he contacted your caption and found out you were off work because you were hurt, but he just couldn’t let it go, so he found your daddy’s business, and from there, he found the house number.” She tittered. “I swear we’ve had this number since before you were born.”
I swallowed and tried to sound normal. “Yeah, you have had it a long time. Maybe you should think about switching it though, you know? If it’s that easy to find, that could be dangerous.”
Rishi was watching me like a hawk, and quietly I put the phone on speaker so that Rishi and Luis could also hear what was happening.
“Oh, don’t be silly, sweetheart. Now this nice Julio, he was asking me if I knew your address so he could send you a letter, and I said that you only have a post office box, so I gave that to him.”
“Mom, please don’t give out my personal information,” I said.
“Such a worrywart! He only wants to send you a nice thank-you card and note. Now, I gave him your post office box, and I told him that I wasn’t sure when you’d get back to work because you’re still getting your prosthesis. I told him that I’d tell you that he called, and he said that he would appreciate that.”
Luis’s jaw was hanging open, and Rishi was massaging his temples with his forefingers.
“Thank you, Mom,” I said, praying that she hadn’t given him the name of my doctor, too. “I appreciate that you were helping, but please don’t give out my information without asking. If you want to help, you could ask for their phone number and send it to me, and I could call or text them. Is that okay?”
Mom laughed musically. “That is a good idea. Yes, I can do that next time.” She sighed. “I wanted to let you know, though. He sounded so sweet. He said that his daughter had been in trouble and you helped her find a safe house. You’ve always been such a sweet, caring boy, Casimir.”
Luis still hadn’t ratcheted his jaw back into its rightful place, and Rishi was now up and pacing. The fact that Julio Fernandez had called my mother and told her the truth was possibly the most incredible thing I had heard, maybe ever.
“Oh! I also told him that you moved into a nice apartment without stairs.” She chuckled. “I was telling him about how you were hurt, and then before I knew it, I was just rattling on.” I could picture her shaking her head. “I just wanted to tell you, sweetheart. I should go; we have doubles tennis in half an hour, and I need to change. Bye-bye.”
I held the phone after the call ended, looking at Rishi and Luis.
“How is your mother the singularly most well-meaning yet least helpful person I have ever met?” Rishi asked.
I held up my hands in a shrug.
Luis was gesturing, apparently attempting to conjure words as he opened and closed his mouth and moved his hands around one another in a whirling motion. “What the fuck was that?” he finally asked.
“My mother,” I said. “She talked to the person who wants to torture and kill me, and probably gave him half my medical history.”
Luis began to whirl his hands again.
“Well he already had the post office box,” Rishi pointed out. “He sent the spider picture.”
“If he can forge a court order, he can get my physical address from it,” I said monotone.
“But you didn’t update that yet, did you?” Rishi asked. “Doesn’t it still show your old address?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I haven’t updated my driver's license either.” I took a deep breath. “You’re right. She didn’t give him that much more information on me…”
“Cas, do your parents have a post office box or is their phone number affiliated with their address?” Luis asked once he finally got words to come out.
I looked at him. “Fuck,” I said succinctly.
***
I waited until I was sure that Mom and Dad were home from tennis to call them. “You’re not going to believe this,” I said. “But you need to go on vacation. Now.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Dad asked. “We were just in California to visit you. Your brother is good with the business, yes, but I can’t just run off and leave him to it without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“You need to, Dad, please,” I said, more pleading in my voice than I had used on them since I was a kid. “Just trust me this one time. I can’t give you details because the more you know, the more danger you’re in. I’m so sorry this happened, but you need to go. Get out of the country. Take Mom to Paris. You’ve talked about doing that for years. It’s your anniversary in six weeks, call it an early gift.”
“Casimir, you need to tell us the truth,” Mom said. “What is going on? Is it about the nice man on the phone?”
“Yes!” I burst out. “He found your phone number, and he could find your address. He probably has someone watching your house right now! He’s—” I stopped, breathing hard.
“We’ll go,” Dad said softly.
My eyes pricked. “Thank you, Dad,” I said.
Dad texted me the travel itinerary, showing a flight to Paris the next morning from Harry Reid International Airport leaving at 8:02 a.m. and arriving at Charles de Gaulle almost fourteen hours later.
I texted back with a request for them to tell me when they were leaving and when they landed, and Dad promised he would do that.
When the Landed safely, mon fils text came from Mom, I could breathe again.
“They arrived,” I told Rishi, and let him hold me. I hadn’t slept the entire night before, sure that there would be a phone call at any moment from either one of my parents or Julio himself, saying that he had them and if I wanted them to live, I would give myself over.
I would have.
“They’re safe, sweetheart,” Rishi murmured into my hair, and the endearment, brand new, felt like a caress all its own. “And we’ll keep you safe here.”