Suspiciously Obedient (23 page)

“Hang on a second Krysta,” she said, waving Jeremy over and putting Krysta on mute.

She caught his attention and he popped up quickly, scrambling to hear what she had to say. “I’m afraid that I can’t go to the church,” she said.

He scrunched up his face in consternation. Those brown eyes were intense and deep, yet playfully welcoming. Jeremy’s had a warmth to them, a devil-may-care expression that made her just want to climb right in a settle down for a fun ride. Mike’s, on the other hand, were pure, white-hot intensity. So different, and yet, she found herself attracted to both.

What?
she thought.
What? Where did that thought come from?

Banishing it, she held up one hand as if protesting something that he hadn’t actually said. “There’s no way. I just…my friend has an emergency and I’m going to have to talk her through it.”

“Guy stuff?” he said, nodding. “Not everybody can meet a guy as wonderful as me.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s right, Jeremy. You’re one of a kind.”

He took the hint and lifted an arm in a gesture of goodbye. “I’ll catch you later.”

“I’m sure you will.” Lydia had the feeling that she’d be seeing a lot of Jeremy over the next few weeks. If Mike had actually sent him to watch over her and Jeremy had followed through, complete with plane ride and guest-house rental, then he was going to obey Mike’s wishes.

She had done so, too, taking his transfer and promotion and running with it. Malicious obedience had prevailed.

So, could Jeremy apply the same thing to his orders? Could he maliciously obey and
take care
of Lydia? What, exactly, did that mean? Would the next few weeks tell her?

“Lydia? You there?” Krysta's voice came through the speaker on her phone and she nearly dropped it over the edge, down two stories onto the cobblestone street below. She unmuted the phone.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” she snapped. “I got rid of the guy.”

“You did? I’m sorry. You didn't have to do tha—”

She interrupted Krysta. “It’s okay. Let’s just take an hour and talk. I may be nearly a continent away, in a new job, and in a strange land, but I still have time for the people who are important to me.”

A baseball cap, an old light blue Egyptian cotton V-neck t-shirt and Levi’s, along with a pair of Merrells made him feel more in touch with his roots, and the disguise was closer to Matt Jones than to Michael Bournham. But, really, it wasn’t either of them. He felt renewed, reborn, without the trappings of his wealth. He was just another guy coming to a campground to rent a cabin for a month and just be. Figuring out who Michael Bournham really was without the CEO title, without the driver and limo, without people like Diane trying to broker his fame. Without so much money that he could never spend it in ten lifetimes. That! That was his mission. This was no vacation! This was more of a retreat. A journey inward with a level of self-reflection he had not been able to engage in for far too long.

Of course, it was Lydia who provoked all of this. Every single step. His own stupidity was the driving force behind the house of cards that came crashing down this past few weeks. Entering her world at work, though, had been the most unintended consequence of his entire career. Of all the planning and scheming and manipulating that he’d engaged in to scrape his way to the top. The irony as he pulled into the driveway for Escape Shores Campground, that even in his own escape he was entering another part of her world, was something that he would need to tease out for the next month. She was in Iceland, safely ensconced in one of his final acts as CEO of the company, giving her a promotion, raise, title, and position she richly deserved. He knew, though, that it wouldn’t go smoothly. His plan had been to ramp up European operations to give her enough meat in the new job to make it seem more real. To
be
more real, in fact. He knew she had what it took to engage in the kind of client work, project management, development, and expansion that the push to turn Bournham Industries into a juggernaut required.

Shaking his head, he took the baseball cap off and ran a hand through his nonexistent hair, forgetting that he’d shaved it off. A tiny stubble from a few days’ growth greeted the palm of his hand, and as he scratched one eyebrow and pulled the cap back down, a man in a little red golf cart drove past in the opposite direction. Insanely large and folded over into the tiny vehicle, his face was friendly, framed by overgrown curls, and he waved and smiled. Mike returned the gesture. That had to be one of her brothers.

Here he was searching for authenticity, and once again he had to do it in a disguise. If Matt Jones had been a terrible, horrible pseudonym, so milquetoast it made his teeth hurt, then he needed to come up with something better. Spending a month among Lydia’s family, hiding out in what he presumed to be a small, rustic cabin with acres to wander and shores to walk required some level of social interaction, no matter how sparse.

When he parked in the visitors’ check-in spot, got out of his car, and smelled the ocean, the endless loop of concentration that had consumed his mind, teasing out all the details he needed to be careful to craft into a coherent story, vanished. It was a balm, like being fed medicine for a sickness he didn’t realize had infected him. Three deep breaths later he faced the office, a general store with a counter and a computer, but oddly enough—he watched as a customer ahead of him made a transaction—the cash register wasn’t. It was an iPad propped up with a card reader attached to it.

He looked around the front porch before entering fully. Rocking chairs, window boxes with herb gardens growing in them, the occasional marigold peeking through, a bit limp in this early August weather. The front porch needed to be painted. It had that weathered ocean look, and the building itself was shingled and looked like something you’d find on Nantucket. White trim and sea-faded wood, but inside the store high tech met the 1950s and now his curiosity was piqued. Lydia had seemed so modern, advanced, tapped into the Matrix, and yet smart enough to see corporate life for what it really was. A nonsensical superstructure that placed human interests last and profits first. Here, though, technology was integrated into a very old and very relaxed vacation spot.

“Can I help you?” a friendly voice asked. Mike turned to see a tall, dark-haired older man, about the same age his own father would have been if he were still alive. Maybe this guy was five or ten years younger at most, and the similarity to Lydia was striking. Same coloring, same broad, slightly Nordic look to his cheeks, and yet with a very Irish appearance. His eyes were a greenish blue, like the ocean after its been churned up from a storm, so he assumed she got those sparkling topaz eyes from her mother. Soon enough he’d find out, because he intended to meet her as well.

Mike stepped up to the counter and said, “I’m checking in.”

“And your name?”

Of all the times for his mind to go blank. He’d called in advance to ask about cabins for monthly rentals. And the woman he’d spoken with, he assumed Lydia’s mother, had cheerfully taken his reservation. But he forgot the name he’d used, and then it hit him suddenly just as Lydia’s father gave him a look of consternation.

“Oh, uh, Mike. Mike Davis,” he said.

The man popped into the iPad, tapped the glass a few times, and pulled it up. “Ah, yes, here we go. You are in the cabin we call Balsam.” He eyed Mike up and down and said, “Yankees fan?” with a look that said,
Do you like to eat chocolate-covered shit, dude?

Mike pulled the baseball cap off, turned it around and looked, then laughed. He had been paying absolutely no attention when he was packing, and Jeremy must have played a prank on him.

“You might as well paint a target on yourself that says ‘kick me’—or worse,” the man joked. He reached out and shook Mike’s hand, introducing himself. “I'm Pete, Pete Charles. Nice to meet you, Mike.”

Mike felt the strong, weathered grip in Pete’s hand and met it with as much power and agreeableness as he could. He slipped the hat back on his head and said, “Well, I got it off a dead Yankees fan. Don't ask about the circumstances.”

That did the trick, and Pete’s rumbling, hearty laugh filled the small office and general store, pouring out into the back room and seeming to draw an older woman out, wiping her hands on an apron, her brow furrowed.

“What’s so funny, Pete?” she asked. Neither of them had the flat Mainer accent, which made him curious. But their voices had no affect. Simple, clear, competent, and quite nice.

And there was the source of Lydia’s eyes.

“Mike here is just checking in.”

Her eyes zeroed in on the logo on his baseball cap and she recoiled, her expression transmitting a sense of revulsion, surprise, and amusement. “You here for your own funeral, Mike?” she asked, pointing to the hat.

Pete nudged her in the ribs and leaned over with a stage whisper and said, “He got it off a dead Yankees fan.”

Instead of laughter, she responded with pursed lips, an eye roll, and a head shake. “Men” was all she said.

Mike had come prepared with a wallet full of cash, hoping to keep things simple this month, not wishing to trigger a single note of intrigue, of suspicion, or to trip anyone’s sensors about who he really was. Unfortunately, that plan was thwarted the second Pete told him that the monthly fee would be $1900, and Mike pulled $1900 in hundreds out from his wallet.

Both of the owners’ eyebrows shot up to their hairlines, and Pete stammered a bit, finally needing his wife to speak for him.

“Uh, Mike, we don't get too many cash-payers here.”

Pete seemed to find his voice, his eyes narrowing, weathered wrinkles around his eyes folding in as he got very serious. “What did you say your name was again?”

Oh, shit,
Mike thought. He hadn't planned this out as carefully as he'd thought. “Mike, Mike Davis. It’s fine if you can't do cash, I understand. I just prefer to use it,” he said, keeping his head down and pretending to feel a shame that he didn't actually feel. “I…don't have credit cards. It’s…well, you know, the economy. Four years ago I lost my job—it wiped me out but I’m doing better now, and I’m just…you know, credit is an issue.” The lie rolled off his tongue in the least fluid way possible, but it seemed to do the trick.

Pete’s chest relaxed, his shoulders slumping a bit. But his wife—what was her name? She hadn’t said anything, just peered at him and nodded. “We know all about that up here.”

The transaction complete and Mike’s receipt tucked away in his back pocket, he sighed, looked around, and decided that he would come back and buy whatever he needed later, but for now getting settled in the cabin unobtrusively and just fading out of their attention would be the best approach.

“Let me have Miles walk you to your cabin,” Pete said.

And then his wife stopped him, a tender arm on his forearm, an affectionate gesture that told Mike so much about their relationship. “Miles is busy fixing the railing on one of the walkway to the beach,” she said, shaking her head. “He can’t help. I’ll take him.” Her kindly eyes held a wariness that triggered guilt in Mike. Maybe she should be wary.

Her daughter had trusted him and look at how well that had gone.

On the walk to his cabin he spotted multiple garden sculptures, a few overturned pink bicycles for little girls, countless children running in rag-tag groups, and saw more people relaxing than he'd seen since – well, since he was a kid. The trip to his cabin was short, and Sandy arrived and spread one arm.

“The Ritz-Carlton.”

“Even better,” he said, smiling.

It was simple, no bigger than a garden shed, but with a little proch attached to the front and two plastic chairs for sitting. Inside he had two bunks, a table and two chairs, a fan, and a refrigerator. No bathroom.

“The outhouse is back there,” she said, pointing behind the cabin. “And the larger bathrooms and showers are attached to the rec hall.”

“Thank you,” he said, suddenly exhausted. He still needed to unload his car, unpack his belongings, figure out dinner, and oh – get his hands on some beer. The folks sitting in small groups around campfires, drinking, made him yearn to join in.

“You're welcome. Have fun.” Sandy took a few steps away and then stopped, reconsidering something.

“Yes?” he asked, anticipating it. Did she know about the video? Diane's claim to fame might fool the majority of the world, but if Sandy's daughter told her the truth, then Mike would be found out in a week or two, once his natural hair color grew in. He wasn't exactly inconspicuous. Being on the cover of major magazines for years as a hotshot rising star had given people a general sense of who he was.