JEREMIAH #2
She sniffles. “It is if you get hurt. I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me. I’m supposed to protect you. Not the other way around.”
“You don’t know what Hobbs is capable of. I have to execute this very carefully.”
Execute. She’s really thinking of finishing what her father started. I tread carefully.
“Your dad believed the Friendship Jewel was his to begin with.”
She nods. “The patriarch at the time of the fake loan was my dad’s grandfather. We’re the direct line of descendants. So yes. He wanted it back.”
“But Hobbs set him up for a fall.”
“Exactly.”
“There have to be legal avenues you could take. Proof of lineage. I don’t know… other ways to do this the legal way.”
“Trust me, I looked into that. I know all the legal terms. Chain of Title. Action in Replevin. Writ of Seizure. Blah, blah, blah. I’ve done so much research I could probably pass the bar at this point.”
She could do anything she decided to do. Pass the bar. Run a courtroom. Argue circles around men twice her age. She’s brilliant, and somewhere underneath all of this, she would’ve made a terrifyingly good lawyer.
“But I need the diary and the letters first.”
“So why take the necklace, then? Get your proof first.”
“Ha. You think Hobbs is just going to hand it over if I ask pretty please with a cherry on top? He’s a weasel and a liar, but he’s not dumb. He’s a self-serving social climber, and I have to believe he knows exactly where that proof is.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You don’t get fancy promotions at world-class museums for working hard. He mopped floors six years ago. Now he’s up for a director candidacy? The man has no higher education, no degree, no qualifications. He knows people. And I’m going to find out who they are.”
I stand up and take a step back, like the distance is going to help me think straight. It doesn’t.
“You’re really going to steal that necklace.”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s really not. Try to find the proof some other way.”
“This is the only way.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“It’s already in motion. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.”
That’s when it all lands at once.
She’s not doing this alone. Nobody pulls off a job like this alone. I’ve watched too many movies and documentaries to know that. There’s always a crew. A driver, somebody watching the cameras, somebody else crawling through elevator shafts or evading laser beams.
And it dawns on me. Her friend Zoe, passing me in the hallway, pushing a cart. The way she winked at me. There was something in that cart.
“This girls' trip. Your friends. You told me on your birthday you had six friends with you. This isn't a vacation, is it? You said the other day you had to get to work. Is this what you've been doing all this time in DC? PLANNING A HEIST?”
“Shhhh. Keep your voice down.”
I’m pacing now. I can’t help it. My legs won’t hold still and my brain won’t either.
“This is crazy! Erica, that man is obsessed with you. He’s going to stop at nothing to take you down. He told me so.”
“Yeah well he can try.”
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me, we’ll take the first flight to Mexico in the morning. Right now if there is one. You can stay with my dad until this all blows over.”
She laughs, like I’ve said something ridiculous instead of the only thing I can think of that keeps her safe.
“I’m not going on the lam. I have to finish this.”
“Erica no!”
“But you should go. Get as far away from me as possible. Until, you know… this all blows over.”
“I won’t leave your side.”
“You can’t be around for this next part, Jeremiah. It’s too dangerous.”
“You’re Dangerous.”
“Fitting nickname. I think I’ll keep it.”
I want to argue. I want to pick her up off this bench and carry her onto a plane whether she likes it or not. Instead I ask the only question I have left.
“What are you going to do?”
“You’re not going to be able to find me for a while.” She says it steady. “It’s for the best. It’s for your own good. If somebody comes around asking about me, you have to pretend you don’t know me.”
“We were literally just photographed together on the red carpet.”
She pauses. “Oh yeah. I didn’t think that one through.”
I glance around the garden, checking for anyone close enough to overhear us.
“Come up to my room. We’ll talk there. Maybe I can talk you out of doing something stupid.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “Your room?”
“Yeah. You can come up, put on my bathrobe, touch all my things. You can even steal my watch if you want to.”
“I thought you just said I stole your heart.”
“I didn’t say you stole my heart. I said you stole every piece of me.”
“Including your heart?”
I was trying not to be so blatantly trite about it. “Yeah. Including my heart.”
“You have to forget about me for a little while, Jeremiah. It’s safer that way. If someone asks, you can’t know where I am.”
She pulls me into a hug and holds on longer than she needs to. When she finally lets go, her eyes are wet.
“Go,” she says.
“Is there anything I can say? Anything that changes your mind?”
“No.”
There’s no winning this one tonight. I know it the way I know a puck isn’t going in the net or when we’re down three points in the last ten seconds of a game.
I kiss her once. Slowly… trying to leave something behind for her to think about. Then I make myself walk backward toward the door before I turn around completely.
Tomorrow. I’ll try again in the morning, when she’s slept on it, when I’ve had time to build a better argument than “please.” Tonight, I just go.
I don’t head back up to my room right away. I walk out of the hotel instead, down the street with no destination in mind, and somehow every single thing I pass reminds me of her.