Chapter Five

Chapter Five

  About a week later, Brian was sticking some paperwork in a file and setting it aside to drop off at his boss’ desk before he left work. Hearing the door open, he looked up and automatically smiled at the newcomer as he had been trained to do. Not that he particularly wanted to smile right now, actually, far from it. It had been an unusually long day, and he was ready to just go home at this point. Still, he smiled.

  The smile soon faded however, as he began to fully take in the young man before him. Dressed in an ominous-looking, long black jacket in order to ward off the pouring rain outside, he had a decidedly foreign air to him that Brian picked up on immediately, having previously gone to school where rich foreign students had abounded. His hair was short and black, styled perfectly. Although he assumed a friendly and casual appearance, it didn’t reach his hard, calculating grey eyes.

  “May I help you sir?” Brian asked. In reality this man didn’t look any older than himself, but the way he carried himself seemed to banish any thought of treating him as an equal, but rather as one to be respected.

  “Yes,” the man smiled almost condescendingly at Brian, “I’m searching for an old family friend that I think may in fact be attending this university. I was wondering if you could check the school records for me for her name, so I can know if she does in fact study here.”

  “We aren’t aloud to give out names, I’m sorry, it’s a school policy,” Brian replied, once again his response having been automatically programmed into him during his training.

  “Well it wouldn’t exactly be giving out any names. Just checking for a name,” the man pointed out persuasively.

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “Please. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her unsuccessfully for some time now,” added the man.

  “Alright, what’s your friend’s name?” Brian conceded as he turned to the filing cabinets nearby that housed the names of every student at the school.

  “Larkin, Britney Larkin,” the man informed him immediately. Brian struggled to keep an indifferent air as the name registered in his mind. He turned to the filing cabinet, not sure what he ought to do. The thought that this guy was looking for Britney made his skin crawl. Something about him just seemed off, though he wasn’t completely sure yet what it was.

  “Could you spell Larkin for me? I just want to be sure it isn’t spelled funny or anything,” he said in way of explanation in order to buy him a bit more time to decide what to do.

  “Just how it sounds,” the man assured him. “L-A-R-K-I-N, Larkin.” Brian nodded as he continued pretending to search through the files. Finally, he turned back to the other man, shaking his head.

  “Sorry, no Larkins,” Brian announced. Later on he could tell Britney about this guy, and if she did know him he could apologize to her, but he didn’t feel comfortable telling this guy anything about her on only his word that he was a friend.

  “I see. Thank you just the same -” the man looked at Brian’s nametag briefly, “-Brian.” He turned around and was half-way to the door before he seemed to have a second thought, and returned to the desk. Snagging a scrap of loose-leaf paper and a nearby pen, he carefully wrote out a phone number and Britney’s name before handing it to Brian.

  “If you happen to hear or see anything about her and where she is, I’d greatly appreciate it if you would call this number. I promise to reward you for your effort,” the man informed him before offering another skin-crawling smile and turning once again to leave.

  “If I do happen to come across her, who should I say is looking for her?” Brian inquired, hoping to get a name from him.

  “No one,” the man replied over his shoulder before leaving.

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  “Britney? Could we talk for a minute?” Brian asked me as I entered the college cafe in search of Jonas, who was soon at my side.

  “Sure, what is it?” I asked in a friendly tone, wondering what he wanted to talk to me about.

  “Last night, a guy came in asking about you, trying to find out if you were enrolled here,” Brian began. “He was about our age,” he said, motioning to Jonas and himself, “and claimed to be an old family friend trying to reconnect with you or something.

  “I really didn’t like this guy, Britney. I’m not really sure what, but something about him just seemed...off, and not just because he wore expensive clothes and was foreign. Anyway, I pretended to look you up in the files for him, but said I couldn’t find you.

  “If you know him, I’m sorry I didn’t tell him the truth about you coming here. He gave me a phone number to call him at if I found anything related to you in any way, but I think it’s a little weird that he didn’t want me telling you that he was looking for you. Not to mention he hinted at rewarding me for information about you. Do you know him?”

  I panicked, trying to figure out what I should tell Brian. The mysterious guy had to be Hayden Terrence, but I couldn’t exactly explain him to Brian.

  “He’s a guy that’s been stalking Britney,” Jonas confided to Brian, stepping in to give an explanation for me. I relaxed, grateful for Jonas’ rather accurate description of what Hayden was.

  “Stalking you?!” Brian exclaimed, wide eyed and alarmed, turning back from Jonas to me. “How long has this been going on? Did you talk to the police about it?” Once again, Jonas stepped in with calm and ready answers to Brian’s questions, and Brian didn’t seem to be annoyed that Jonas was the one answering them as long as they were being answered by someone.

  “Not too long. There isn’t much the police can do without some solid evidence to back our statements up with. It would simply be our word against his,” Jonas explained to Brian.

  “Well, but I could tell them about him coming and asking after her though, shouldn’t that count for something?” Brian demanded.

  “It might if there were any way we could truly prove he’d been there and asked about her. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible,” responded Jonas.

  “Thank you for not telling him that I’m going here Brian, it’s more important then you can guess,” I tossed in, finally finding my voice and feeling extremely grateful that he’d trusted his instincts and hadn’t told Hayden anything about me.

  “This guy was like...evil. I know it sounds weird, but it’s the only way I can describe him,” Brian explained. “Even his presence was unsettling.”

  “Well I cannot thank you enough for keeping quiet and talking to us first,” Jonas thanked him. “We are both very grateful to you.”

  “Yeah, well, if there’s anything I can do to help...just let me know,” Brian replied a little uncertainly, apparently growing uncomfortable as he usually did when he was with both of us. After his “talk” with Jonas, the two of them had become friends in a way, but it was still awkward for him to be around us when we were together.

  “Just don’t tell him anything, that’s all you can do,” I assured him, understanding his discomfort. He nodded and hurriedly left to go join some friends at a table on the other side of the room. I turned and looked at Jonas, who looked more than just a little anxious.

  “He’s getting too close. He was right here,” Jonas worried.

  “I know,” I whispered. “Do you think that he believed Brian?”

  “I don’t think he was sure if Brian was telling the truth or not, that’s probably why he left Brian a number to call him at. He probably hinted at some kind of reward or something in order to get him to change his mind if he was lying and give him a chance to tell him anything he knew,” Jonas replied thoughtfully.

  “Well I am not going to let him scare me away from coming to classes anymore,” I stated firmly.

  “It would be better if you did,” Jonas told me with a look that asked me to reconsider my statement. I shook my head however, refusing to be scared off by Hayden.

  “No way! He isn’t going to stop me from continuing to live my life, and that’s that.”

  “Well, at least you’ll be gone this weekend with Ana, so hopefully if he does do some more poking around you’ll be safe enough,” Jonas reconciled. “Although, I’m going to have a very long weekend with you and Ana gone to Seattle and Steve back off to San Francisco again.”

  “You have that humungous English report to keep you company,” I pointed out to him. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  Jonas checked his cell phone for the time. “Your flight’s at 3:30p.m., right?” he asked, looking back up at me.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed.

  “Then you better head home to finish getting ready,” he advised me. “I’ll be over to pick you both up an hour before that, after class, so you need to be ready to go when I get there.” He gave me a quick kiss, and then we headed our separate ways until later.

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  “Jonas, everything is going to be fine. We’re leaving all the trouble behind here in LA, remember?” I reminded Jonas, exasperated by his admonitions to stay close to Ana and Mac. We were standing just a bit off from the plane terminal, saying our good-byes while Ana stood off to the side, giving them a private moment together.

  “We assume that you’re leaving all the trouble here, but we can’t know for certain. Just promise me to be careful, Britt. It’s hard enough keeping you safe when I’m with you. I won’t be able to stop you, so you’ll have to stay out of trouble on your own, alright?” implored Jonas, his eyes fixing me with an intense gaze, refusing to allow me to look away until I promised.

  I sighed, but nodded. “I promise, I’ll try not to do anything that you would deem too stupid,” I said with a somewhat forced laugh.

  He smiled, not looking fully convinced, but knowing my pledge was the best he could hope for from me.

  “Good girl.” With that, he kissed the top of my head and gently pushed me towards Ana. “Bye sis, enjoy your trip!” he called out to his older sister.

  She smiled widely back. “I will,” she replied, her own sea green eyes, mirrors of Jonas’, sparkling in anticipation of the event.

  “Don’t forget to check in on Cinder while we’re gone,” I called out to him.

  I could see him roll his eyes. “I won’t Britt, you’ve reminded too much to be able to even if I wanted to forget,” he assured me.

  With a final wave, Ana and I showed our tickets to the attendant, and then made our way down the terminal and out of Jonas sight.

  “This is going to be great!” Ana announced cheerfully. “Just wait, I’m betting you’re going to love it in Washington”

  “Ana, have you ever even been there yourself?” I asked her.

  “As a matter of fact,” she began, linking arms with me, her cheerfulness not at all diminished by my doubtful attitude. “I have. Once, when we first moved here, we spent a few months in Seattle, and I loved it there. Of course, Dad moved us to LA instead, much to my disappointment.”

  “If you liked it there so much, why didn’t you move there for college and everything?” I questioned her.

  “Well, I wanted to be near Dad and Jonas, and then, when Dad...died, I knew Jonas needed me here, even if he didn’t know it himself,” she explained. “And besides, I liked LA too, though I actually went to college in San Francisco with Paige and Kate.”

  We found our seats and settled in. Our seats were the middle and window seats, which Ana had paid extra to insure that we would be sitting next to each other. Ana offered me the window seat, but I refused, insisting that I didn’t mind sitting in the middle.

  As the rest of the passengers finished trickling in, I began to think that no one would be sitting on my left, in the isle seat beside me. However, just as I’d decided the seat would go unoccupied, I saw a rather uptight and official-looking man who looked to be in his early thirties, with short black hair, come towards us, taking the seat next to me.

  He didn’t say anything, just sat down, pulled out his laptop, and proceeded to completely ignore our existence. I glanced over at Ana, making a face at his rudeness for not even acknowledging our existence in the slightest. Ana covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smirk, and turned to face the window. A couple minutes later, the plane took off, and we were on our way.   

  Ana snuggled into her chair and soon fell asleep, which didn’t surprise me, since she’d been working especially hard at the hospital to make up for her absence for this extended weekend. I sighed and took out my ipod, putting the earbuds in my ears and leaning back into my own chair and closing my eyes. A moment later, I felt a light but determined tap on my shoulder and, grudgingly, I opened my eyes to see the man next to me looking at me. I turned off my music and removed the earbuds to see what he wanted.

  “Can you keep it down? I can hear your music and it’s rather distracting to say the least,” he informed me in a way that said he fully expected me to comply with his wishes without dispute.

  “It’s practically on the lowest setting,” I responded, irritated. “And seeing as that I can just barely hear it myself, I somehow doubt that you could possibly hear it at all. In fact, I paid extra for these specific earbuds so that I wouldn’t have to worry about that very problem.” It was true too. When I had bought the ipod I had admittedly spared no expense to get the very best earbuds to go with it, and one of their best features was that my ipod would have to be really cranked up to have someone else hear it. My goal had been to be able to use it in order to drown out my boring history teacher during high school. I knew I could wear a hoodie and no one would ever know that I wasn’t really listening to a word he was saying. I’d preferred to read my textbook rather than listen to him drone on and on.

  “Well I can hear it just the same,” argued the man, unwilling to drop the issue. I gave him my most skeptical and annoyed look I could, and then made a point of replacing my earbuds and turning my music back on once again, or at least, pretending to turn my music back on. As I suspected, not even a minute later, he tapped on my shoulder again, and I looked at him with a satisfied smile.

  “It’s not even on,” I told him, showing him the player was on pause. “Nice try.”

  “But I swear I can hear...” suddenly, he swiveled in his seat and looked back behind him, hesitating only a second, I followed suit.

  Sitting directly behind the man, was a boy that looked to be about fifteen. Next to him sat an elderly woman, who I assumed was his grandmother, talking to him and an elderly man beside her. Apparently, she had no idea that her audience was completely oblivious to her, the man being fast asleep, and the teen playing his music loudly as he nodded his head to the rock music blaring from his ipod.

  We both turned back around in our seats and looked at each other, and then burst into quiet laughter.

  “I’m sorry,” the man apologized with true penitence.

  “It’s alright. I’m sorry that I just assumed you were trying to cause trouble,” I answered.

  “My name’s Caleb Matthews,” the man offered, holding out his hand to me.

  My throat constricted and I struggled not to gasp for breath. “Um, Britney,” I answered, shaking his proffered hand. In a flash, I saw another hand reach out as soon as I pulled my own away.

  “I’m Ana,” Ana announced, introducing herself. “Nice name, where are you from?” she probed. I looked at Ana questioningly. Surely it just had to be a coincidence of name, didn’t it? There was no way there was any connection.

  “Seattle,” he answered. “I do freelance work in contracting there.”

  “Did you grow up there?” she asked in a rather demanding voice. I looked at her with surprise and a bit of reproach, wondering if she realized that some might call her rude for the questions she was asking.

  “No,” he replied. “I was born and raised in Minnesota,” he informed her rather stiffly, suddenly less-eager to befriend either of us.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ana apologized. “How rude of me, please forgive me,” she said, looking away from him suddenly.

  “It’s alright,” he laughed, relaxing once again. “That is, as long as I can inquire the same of you. Your accent is intriguing.”

  “Australia,” Ana mumbled reluctantly.

  “Anywhere else? I’ve never heard such an unusual accent before. It sounds more like a mix then just Australian,” he pressed.

  “Only Australian,” Ana told him, suddenly appearing to desire to end the conversation now herself. “Other than that, right here in LA.”

  “I see,” said the man, catching on to Ana’s sudden coldness and guard towards him. “And what about you?” he asked, turning his attention back to me once again.

  “Born and raised in LA,” I informed him, seeing no harm in telling him. He nodded and then turned his attention back to his computer, apparently finished talking to us, and more than ready to return to his work, though I did see him glance our way more than once throughout the remainder of our trip. His greatest interest appeared to rest in Ana, judging by the fact his gaze turned to her the most often.

  When we landed, Ana was quick to usher me off the plane, completely ignoring Caleb as he attempted to say good-bye to us. As we walked through the airport lobby, I turned on Ana.

  “I can’t believe you! That was so rude of you Ana!” I told her, upset with how she’d acted on the plane.

  “I didn’t like him,” Ana replied in way of defense, continuing on to the baggage claim.

  “So? That doesn’t mean you ought to treat him like a leper,” I countered, matching her step. “Why were you so interested in him one minute, and then cold towards him the next?” I demanded from her.

  “I don’t know, I guess it was the name,” she answered lamely. I studied Ana a moment. For once, it wasn’t Jonas that was keeping something from me, it was Ana. I was about to press the matter, when Mac materialized nearby and kissed Ana on the cheek quickly, surprising her and causing her to start.

  “Mac!” she scowled. “Don’t do that, you scared me and I almost hit you.”

  He laughed. “Glad to see you too. Come on ladies, let’s go get your bags and get out of here. We have a long weekend ahead of us. So much to do, so little time to do it in,” he announced cheerfully as he led us the rest of the way to the baggage claim.

  By the time we got our bags and we were on our way to the hotel that he’d arranged for us to stay at, I’d forgotten about the man on the plane and was caught up in Ana and Mac’s excitement.

  Soon, we were busy planning out house hunting trips and various visits to see things while Ana and I were there.

 

Reviews

[Zachary_James]

Such a great chapter, what happened to the family firend? Hmmmm LOVE it.