Alex
I should throw this fucking computer into the ocean.
Followed by my work phone.
Followed by my personal phone.
There is no such thing as being unreachable when you’re the CEO. I told people to only bug me if something is urgent, but apparently everyone has a different definition of the word. Everything is urgent to everyone.
I slam my laptop shut. I need to make an oath not to open it again for at least the rest of the day. Like it matters… The sun has already dipped below the trees. The world is a bleeding jungle red, but the color fades almost perceptibly fast with purple twilight close behind.
I wonder where Hailee got off to… I’m no idiot. I shouldn’t have told her Lucas made me bring her up here.
She probably feels unwelcome. I doubt a Versace dress will make it up to her this time. I should make an effort to say something to her, if only to make dinner less awkward. I assume we’ll eat together.
Usually, I have Pierre join me here, but the trip was too short notice for him to arrive until Friday. We’ll have to go into town. Or have food brought from there.
I look at my phone to see if she’s texted me. There are no notifications from Hailee. Of course there aren’t. She probably wants nothing to do with me. I essentially got rid of her right as we arrived.
I go downstairs and open the fridge to see that it’s been freshly stocked, but I have no appetite. The sun is completely gone now. It’ll be dark soon. I go out to the guest house. It’s little more than a single bedroom and bathroom that I’ve converted into space for security. Bruce sits cross-legged in an armchair facing a few monitors.
His back is to me, and he stirs when my footsteps creak inside. It looks like I caught him sleeping, but I can’t be sure.
“Have you seen Ms. Barnes?” I nod towards the monitors that show camera feeds from around the property.
“Not since she went to town, no.”
I pull out my phone again and dial her number. I grow a little more annoyed with each ring that goes unanswered. I even scowl when her bright little voice delivers her voicemail greeting.
But behind my irritation is something else I won’t let myself focus on.
“Call me when you see her,” I tell Bruce and head back out to the yard. I take the path to the beach and crest the dune. It’s still bright enough to see for several hundred yards each way down the shore, but my eyes find nothing but driftwood.
I go back inside and decide to have a drink and wait for her in the den, but I find I can’t sit still.
I’m worried . There’s no denying that. My guts feel like they’ve been knotted. It’s just because I don’t want to break a promise to Lucas, that’s all. Hailee Barnes doesn’t mean that much to me. She’s an employee. Employees are like soldiers. Expendable. I try to tell myself this, but recently these little maxims of mine haven’t rung that true.
Hailee, expendable? She’s a brilliant, beautiful person, not a cartridge of fucking printer ink. I grab a flashlight from a drawer in the kitchen and walk outside. I go into the guesthouse again. “Go to town and look for her. I’m going to be searching the property in case she slipped by the cameras.”
Bruce hesitates, like he wants to debate the urgency of Hailee’s absence, but something on my face must stop him, because he stands up quickly. “Yes sir.”
Before he can gather his things, I’m already jogging through the tall grass.
There’s an urge in my throat. It’s lodged there like a rock. I want to call her name. What is she? A lost dog? I’m being absurd.
It’s dark enough now for the flashlight beam to stretch for hundreds of feet. I head from the dunes into sandy oak woods. It’s cool already without the sun. The dry September air holds little warmth. I saw her leave in a T-shirt. It doesn’t make sense for her to not be back by now. She’d be freezing.
Something is wrong.
The nervousness is like needles in my blood.
“Hailee!” I shout, all one syllable. No answers but a few crickets. I start to run through the trees, sweeping the flashlight quickly in front of me. I stop in my tracks as it stops on something white. A T-shirt.
A woman leans against a tree with her head tilted towards her chest. It’s Hailee.
I walk closer slowly, not bothering to call her name. My heart doesn’t pound so much as it aches.
I can’t believe I let her go out by herself.
I can’t believe I thought she was safe.
I kneel in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder. I have to keep myself from jumping backwards as she suddenly bolts upright.
“Who is it!” she shouts. “Get away from me!”
I realize the flashlight is blinding her.
“Hailee.” I move the light and turn my touch soft to try and steady her. “It’s .”
“? What are you doing here?”
“Where do you think you are?”
Hailee leans forward and moves a book off her thighs. “Oh. Oh no. I’m so sorry.” She gulps. Her eyes are wide with embarrassment. “What time is it?
“It just got dark. About 8:30.”
“Oh. That’s not bad.”
“Not bad? Does this happen to you often?”
“Kind of.” She shrugs.
I give her a hand up, and she brushes dead leaves and dirt off her back. A part of me wants to be angry with her for being so careless, but I’m too glad to have found her safe to give a lecture.
Besides, I was the one who had told her she was safe. I don’t have the ability to be sanctimonious.
“It’s freezing,” Hailee says, hugging her arms across her chest.
“Here.” I start unbuttoning my dress shirt.
“You don’t—”
“Take it.” I wrestle out of my shirt and hold it out for Hailee to stick her arms through. It looks ridiculously large on her. Her hands are invisible inside the sleeves, and it drapes almost to her knees.
“Thanks.”
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get you back to the house.”
I’m too agitated to feel cold after thinking something had happened to Hailee. I’m in nothing but a white tank top, but if anything, I’m still warm. I could rip this off, too.
I walk holding the flashlight in front of us. My free hand holds on to Hailee’s. There’s nothing cute about it.
It’s dark out here. The flashlight shows what’s ahead but not what’s directly underfoot, and I don’t want her tripping.
When we get back to the house, I text Bruce that I found her. Hailee sits at the kitchen island, and I get her a vitamin drink from the fridge, but I stop when I feel how cold it is in my hand.
There’s no hired help here, today. If she wants something, it’s me who’s got to make it. I talk slowly. “Would you like something warmer?”
“Do you have tea?”
I nod. “Let me make you some.”
“Are you sure? I’m feeling a lot better. I know you have work.”
I don’t like how polite she’s being around me. She’s treating me like a stranger she’s inconveniencing. But her insecure behavior is my fault.
I look her in the eye. “I’m making you tea. But you’ve got to have it the way I know how to make it.”
She raises a skeptical brow. “Do you make tea often?”
“I used to make tea for my niece. It was her recipe. I’d just put it together for her.”
I grab a bag of chamomile from the cupboard and fill a kettle. After turning on the burner, I lean across the kitchen island. I’m about to bring up dinner when Hailee speaks.
“I didn’t know you had any family.”
“You never asked.”
“I meant in the lore of Blackwell… you’re like an orphan or something. Wow. Sorry, I sound stupid.”
“Well, you’re right. I’m not Batman. I have a brother and a mother.”
“Where are they?”
That’s not the kind of question I like to be asked. Invasive. Personal. What’s the difference? Then there’s the fact that if people knew about what family I have, they could leverage them against me. But there’s a warmth in her dark-brown eyes. She’s staring at me with a curious intensity. Before I realize it, I’m talking.
“My mother is in London. I see her once or twice a year, which is more than she’d like. My brother on the other hand… He got divorced and moved back home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Slovenia. Our parents were born there.”
“Did his wife stay in the States?”
“Yes. She’s in Connecticut.”
“Oh. So, do you still get to see your niece often?”
My throat tightens. I’m suddenly forced to think of things that I haven’t for a long time. To think about how boring and cruel this world can be. Life, happiness, it’s all just a throw of the dice. “No. She died.”
Hailee stutters. “O-Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s how it goes sometimes.” I’m flooded with the memories of bringing a dying girl mugs of tea in bed while her father dealt with his grief at the bar around the block.
I can’t say anything to Hailee. I don’t want to burden her with old grief. I know from Lucas that their father died suddenly, so she’s no stranger to it herself.
But I don’t let myself think of Mila. I don’t need to remember her sad, sick eyes.
“Let me make you something,” I say, leaning back from the counter and changing the subject.
“You’re telling me you cook?”
“Call it being the son of first-generation immigrants, but people who aren’t from America don’t consider frozen pizza dinner.”
“Well, that’s their loss.” She smiles at me, and I think this trip might not be a total loss after all.
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, and I’m getting ready to pull it out just to decline the call, when I see that it’s Bruce. That’s not like him to call back. He got my text already.
“I have to take this,” I say, answering. “Hello?”
Bruce talks fast. Never a good sign. By the time he’s told me the problem, Hailee has sensed there is one. I must be doing a bad job hiding my unease. I hang up the phone.
“What? What is it?”
“We need to go,” I say, grabbing her hand. “Now.”