Gap Year - 83. Chapter 83

March 22, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

We’d ended up getting home late last night, and it was my fault, just one more thing to feel guilty about. Today was the day that Travis planned to vanish into invisibility, and I’d wanted to spend some extra time with him. We’d spent time in the bedroom on Stef’s plane, just the two of us, while the plane was parked on the tarmac at Burbank. The only person who had been annoyed by the delay was Brittany, but that was just too fucking bad. I pulled out my phone and saw that it was 10am, and decided to see if Travis was off the grid yet or not. I hit ‘call’ and it rang five times, so I hung up and sighed.

We’d made love so many times I almost had no fluids left in my body, and we’d talked forever. I’d begged him to reconsider leaving, but he’d been adamant that he had to go. I’d pleaded with him to take me, but he’d been just as firm in saying ‘no’ as he had the first time I’d asked him. I felt completely powerless, and was gripped with fear for what might happen to him.

He had refused to tell me anything about his plans, which I found incredibly irritating. His reasoning was that if I didn’t know, they wouldn’t be able to get anything out of me. That was even more offensive, since it implied that I was weak, and that I wouldn’t be able to say ‘fuck off’ to whoever managed to get past my walls and talk to me. I’d lain there with him in Stef’s big bed, on the verge of ripping him a new asshole for not having faith in me and not trusting me, when instead I’d taken a deep breath and let it go. He had developed a plan, he had worked it out with his team of attorneys and advisors, and nothing I said was going to change his mind, or his course of action.

I thought back to the big issue that had been plaguing me when we’d first gone to Hawaii: whether I should be in a monogamous or more open relationship, with guys in general, and him in particular. That seemed so irrelevant now, but the fact that he’d planned and strategized this whole thing out without talking to me about it did a lot to convince me I’d made the right call on not promising to be with only him. Being that tight with him, being his partner, would have required, at least as far as I could see it, a level of trust in me that he wasn’t exhibiting. I grimaced when I thought about it from his perspective. In his mind, his life was on the line. Any slip up could mean he ended up dead. I personally thought he was being a little dramatic about it, but it was his decision, his call on how to handle it. In the end, he hadn’t been willing to trust me with his life. Was that such an unreasonable thing?

I sighed, rolled out of bed, then grabbed my phone and headed to my bathroom. I’d just finished peeing when the phone rang, and I saw that it was Travis. “Morning,” I said, as I answered.

“Morning,” he said, and sounded out of breath. “Sorry I missed your call.”

“I probably shouldn’t have bugged you. I know you’re stressed and busy,” I said.

“It’s alright,” he said, his deep melodic voice reverberating through my phone.

“When do you go dark?” I asked.

“Thirty minutes,” he said softly.

“I already told you that I love you, and you already know how much I’m going to miss you,” I said, and couldn’t hide the fact that I was biting back sobs. “I guess I just wanted to talk to you, to connect with you one more time before you vanished.”

“I love you just as much, and I’ll probably miss you more than you miss me,” he said, and sounded as upset as I was. “I’m going to be back on my birthday, and then this nightmare will be over.”

“I think you’ll still have a shitshow to deal with when you get back, but I’ll be there for you,” I said.

“And that’s why the nightmare will be over,” he said. “It would be really cool if you could work it into your schedule to be here in Malibu on April 20^th.”

“I will be there,” I pledged. “Are you going to meet me at my place?”

“That’s the first place I’m going,” he promised. “There’s one other thing I want to ask.”

“What?” I asked urgently. “If you need anything, I’ll do it. I can even work it out so we can set up some money offshore to help you out.”

“I have that handled,” he said calmly. “Please don’t try to come find me.”

“What makes you think I’d do that?” I demanded. “I mean, you’ve made it very clear that I’m dangerous, and you have to stay the fuck away from me.”

“Come on, Will,” he said, recognizing that I was a total basket case.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I am not dealing with this well at all.”

“I understand, and I am so sorry that I’m putting you through this,” he said, and I could hear him crying as he said it. “My parents and the idiots they hire to find me, I’m really not worried about them, but you are way smarter than they are, and you know how I think. That’s why I’m asking you not to try to track me down.”

“I’m only going to do that if you’re in trouble,” I said.

“How will you even know if I’m in trouble?” he challenged.

“Because I have the burner phone you gave me, and you promised that if you needed me, you’d send me a message,” I answered.

“Oh yeah,” he said, remembering our conversation about that.

“There’s one more thing,” I said, sensing that he was about to end our call.

“What?”

“I told you about the time I ran away from home,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, to prod me on.

“I went into that thinking that I could handle it with no problems, and I pretty much did, but it was still pretty freaky,” I said. “I remember that every day I was cut off from my world, I got a little more paranoid.”

“I’m already cut off from damn near everyone, so it’s not the same thing,” he snapped.

“I’m not trying to bust your balls,” I said firmly. “I’m just telling you what happened to me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, finally getting that I was just trying to give him an idea of what could happen. “Thanks.”

“If you get to a place like that, where you start to freak out, I’m here for you,” I said.

“I know that,” he said lovingly. “I have to go.”

“Travis, as much as you can, please at least text me and tell me you’re alright,” I begged.

“I’ll try to pull that off,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you,” I pledged, then he ended the call, and he was gone. I took a shower and let myself cry like a baby, knowing the water would wash my tears away. I put on some casual clothes and headed up to the kitchen, where I found Grand sitting at the table reading an article.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly, then modified his tone when he saw how sad I was.

“It’s morning,” I answered glumly. I put on a happier face to talk to Carmen, because it wasn’t fair for me to take my bad mood out on the staff, then ate the considerable breakfast she made for me in total silence.

“I am of a mind to go for a ride,” Grand said. “You are under no obligation to accompany me, but I wanted to extend the invitation.”

I was going to decline, but remembered that I hadn’t seen Psyche for a while. “Thanks. I’d love to join you.”

Seeing Psyche get all excited when she saw me started to pull me out of the deep depression I’d been falling into. Grand and I rode in silence across Escorial, then onto the Stanford lands, enjoying the pretty hills that were still green from the winter rain. “I am sorry I was not able to write more when I sent that note along with Marie,” he said, finally speaking.

“I thought it was perfect,” I said. “It was very nice: polite, informative, but straight to the point with no bullshit.”

He chuckled. “Truly that is my goal in most of my communications.”

“Then score a big win for you,” I teased, and actually smiled at him. “Dad came over to Maui and we had a good visit. He gave me some insight into all of this.”

“I am glad that he did, and even happier that you had a good visit, as the two of you are sometimes volatile and unpredictable when you get together,” he said. That actually made me laugh.

“And once again, you have condensed things down perfectly,” I joked. “He reminded me that just because I pick a school, that doesn’t mean I have to stay there. I can always transfer if I don’t like it.”

He pondered my words, which I appreciated. “In my experience, most students do not do that. In your case, though, I can see that as an option, one that I did not really consider.”

“Why is it more of an option for me?” I asked.

“Because you are more likely than most people to tackle things that get in the way of your goals,” he said. “Inertia isn’t usually a problem for you.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” I asked.

“It is a good thing,” he said firmly. “I think most undergraduate students tend to get comfortable in their environment. Most of the students I knew who left Stanford did so primarily because they were having problems succeeding. In other words, they only made a move when they were compelled to. I think that you would take action to find a place that was better for you, if such a thing were necessary.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think you’re right.”

“So have you and Marie made up your minds, at last?” he teased, making it sound as if we’d created a bunch of drama.

“We both decided to go ahead and go to Harvard, since we can always flee from the Ivy League if it becomes too stuffy and oppressive,” I said.

“Having an escape plan is most useful,” he said, making me chuckle. Talking to him like this reminded me of how important our relationship was, and that suddenly made being in Boston much less attractive, but I was done revisiting that decision.

“I’m going to have a tough month,” I said. He looked at me curiously, waiting for me to explain. “Travis is going to go into hiding until his birthday on April 20.”

“Hiding?” he asked.

“He’s worried that Curtis Buck is going to have him killed,” I said. He was so shocked by that that he reined Charger in so sharply that he stopped, and I followed his lead with Psyche.

“Killed?” he asked, stunned. “His own son?”

“Well, sort of. Travis doesn’t think Curtis is his real father,” I said, dropping that second bombshell on him. He prodded Charger into a walk and turned him around, so we both began meandering back toward Escorial. As we went, I told him all about the financial problems Curtis Buck was supposedly having, along with my various conversations with Travis and Dad.

“I am concerned for Travis, and cannot help but think there was a better way to deal with this than him running away,” Grand concluded when I was done briefing him.

“I know,” I agreed. “It bothers me that he didn’t really tell me what he was planning to do. I’m just hoping that he was getting good advice from his legal team.”

“Why didn’t he share this with you?” Grand asked. “Is your relationship not advanced enough that he trusts you?”

“I thought that, and it bugged me,” I admitted. “On the one hand, at least in his mind, this is a life-or-death situation, so I can see why he’s keeping things close to the vest.”

“Perhaps,” Grand said.

“On the other hand, we’ve opened up to each other on a lot of these things, and he knows me well enough to know that I wouldn’t betray him,” I said.

“I cannot see that you would willingly cause him harm,” Grand said.

“He told me that he didn’t want me to know because that way I wouldn’t have to lie when people ask me about it,” I said, paraphrasing what Travis had told me. “He’s assuming that since we’re tight, and we just spent a week together, his parents are going to come at me to explain why he’s gone and to try and find out where he went.”

“He’s giving you plausible deniability,” Grand concluded. I nodded. “Will you have no contact with him at all until April 20?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He gave me a burner phone and told me he’d try to text me, or maybe even call me, to tell me he was okay.”

“Burner phone?” he asked, so I had to explain that to him. “But you have no way to initiate contact with him?”

“I do not,” I said. We walked the horses into the stables and handed them off to the stable hands. “We cooled them down this time,” I said to them.

“It is no problem either way,” the lead hand responded. We changed out of our tack, and Grand vanished into the house while I took carrots to Charger and Psyche. I was careful to make sure that Psyche didn’t see me give the carrot to Charger, worried that she’d just hate him even more if she did.

I walked back into the house to find Grand waiting for me, holding his car keys. “We have a meeting.”

“Now?” I asked.

“We are going up to the City to meet with Sean,” he announced. I looked down at my jeans and t-shirt, then back at him, raising an eyebrow. “You can have ten minutes to change clothes.” I was going to argue with him about going to see Sean, but realized that would be useless.

“I’ll hurry,” I said. I rushed to my room, tossed on some gray slacks and a blue button-down shirt, changed my shoes, and grabbed a tie and my blue blazer. I’d put those on in the car. I hurried out to the garage to find Grand already in his Porsche, waiting for me. “Five minutes,” I said.

“You were very quick, and you look much more presentable,” he said, as he gunned the car and zipped down the drive.

“Did you call Jake?” I asked. He looked at me oddly. “He might be upset if I dive into this deal with Sean without even telling him.”

“I did not,” he said. I giggled at the annoyed look on his face since he was mad at himself for forgetting that. On legal stuff, we made a habit of involving Jake, so I wanted to keep him in the loop, and hopefully keep his insecurities under control.

“I’ll handle that part,” I said. I called Jake but the call went to voicemail, so I called my father instead. I had a brief conversation with Grace, because he was in a meeting, then hung up the phone. “If they call me back, I’ll update them. If not, at least I get a gold star for trying to keep them in the loop.”

He laughed at that. “I think that’s an excellent approach.”

“I try to make the best of bad situations,” I said.

“Speaking of that, since you are free for a month, I am wondering if you would be amenable to traveling a bit?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Where are we going?”

“I am assuming that, with Travis on the lam, you would prefer to stay in North America or Europe?” he asked.

“I mean, that’s probably a good idea,” I said. “I loved Australia, but that’s pretty far away.”

“I was pondering a trip to Spain,” he said. “I would like to visit Gibraltar, and it is warm enough in the spring to enjoy the Mediterranean coast.”

“We can also go to Ibiza,” I suggested, getting a frown from him, which cracked me up.

“The Balearic Isles are steeped in history,” he said in his stuffy way.

“Yeah, that’s why people go to Ibiza: for the history,” I taunted, making him chuckle. “Is Stef going?”

“I don’t know, but perhaps we can convince him to meet us in this place you are so determined to prowl,” he said.

“Stef would like it,” I said. I sat in the Porsche, enjoying the views as we tooled up I-280, pondering that, instead of being a total basket case, I was actually happy and enjoying myself. It dawned on me that this was a really good example of why family was so important to me, how we inevitably propped each other up. It made me sad when I remembered that Travis had no concept of how awesome this was. The only person who had come close to giving him this kind of unconditional support was his grandfather, and while he’d been a great guy, he was nowhere near as cool as Grand.

“I understand that Marie was selected as the Salutatorian for Menlo,” he said. “Did they not recognize you?”

“I got a letter naming me Valedictorian,” I said, trying not to sound too proud. “I’m sorry. I should have told you that. I assumed that the gossip chain would spread that around.”

“It did not,” he said. “I am very proud of both of you.”

“Thanks,” I said humbly, because I was talking to Grand. “I personally think that Marie deserved the Valedictorian slot.”

“Is she unhappy that she didn’t get it?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “She said the Salutatorian is better because you still get to sit on the dais but you don’t have to give a speech.”

He laughed at that. “Indeed, she is wise. What are you going to talk about?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” I said.

“A bit of unsolicited advice,” he said. “Do not be too vitriolic, and do not speak for a long time.”

“Short, sweet, and to the point,” I paraphrased, then laughed when he gave me his typical annoyed look when I did that to him.

“Yes,” he said, and rolled his eyes. My phone rang and it was my father. I explained the situation to him, and he offered to drop everything and rush up to be in this meeting, but I told him Grand was going with me and he shouldn’t worry about it. I was lucky that he was busy today, so he didn’t have time to argue with me. “He wanted to meet us in the City?” Grand asked.

“He did, until I told him you were going with me,” I said. “Pretty amazing that your presence was enough to chill him out.”

“The wonders never cease,” he said, making me laugh again.

“Dad said he’d explain things to Jake for me,” I said. That got me off the hook on that phone call.

“That was very thoughtful of him,” Grand said.

“Speaking of thoughtful, what are we doing for lunch?” I asked. He briefly took his eyes off the road to give me an annoyed look. “What? I’m hungry.”

“I would suggest that you call Sean and ask him to arrange something,” he said.

“Then I will do just that,” I said, mimicking his tone. I ended up talking to his assistant, and managed to figure out our lunch order with enough time left in our drive that I could relax and enjoy the sights of the City as we wound our way into the Financial District.

I’d been to Browne & Hardwicke enough times that their beautiful offices, with stunning views of both the Bay and the City, were nothing new, but they were still impressive. We waited almost no time before Sean came back to get us. “Good to see you,” he said to us enthusiastically. Grand gave him a man hug, while I gave him a much more exuberant embrace. He frowned at me in a playful way, even as he pushed us apart.

“September,” I said, and winked at him, since that was when I turned 18.

“Right,” he said, but smiled at me. “I can’t really be annoyed at you since you arranged for us to have lunch.” He guided us back to a conference room. We’d just gotten situated when Jake came in.

“Hey there!” he said, and just enveloped me in a hug. “I didn’t get to see you last night!”

“We didn’t get back until later,” I said, then he moved on to the other people in the room.

“Sean,” Jake said, prompting the two of them to shake hands. Despite all the work they’d done together, and despite the fact that Jake was married to my father, there was still a bit of tension between them. Jake ignored that and greeted Grand. “What’s so important that you ripped me away from a bunch of meetings?”

“My boyfriend officially went into hiding today, because he’s convinced that his father is going to have him killed,” I said.

“And while I am sympathetic to Travis’s issues, I am most concerned at making sure that Will is able to handle any challenges that may come his way as Travis’s parents and the authorities search for Travis,” Grand said.

That comment sparked an hour-long discussion where I explained about the Buck family situation, the deal my father had figured out about his money, and Curtis’s burning jet in New York City. I was proud of myself that I managed to accomplish that while still eating lunch. “What are the chances that Curtis Buck’s financial situation is not as unhealthy as it seems?” Sean asked.

“I talked to Brad about that,” Jake replied. “Based on the information Travis shared with him, along with some information from contacts in the industry, the chance that things are dire is close to one hundred percent.”

“That would make a man desperate,” Grand noted.

“Curtis has evidently been scrambling to line up loans and financing,” Jake said. “From what I can tell, he’s pretty much mortgaged everything he has.”

Sean wanted more details than that, so Jake managed to track down my father and put him on speaker phone. It said a lot about the current state of our relationship that just hearing his voice made me feel safe and secure. “When I got back from Hawaii last week, I pulled together a team of analysts to evaluate Buck Industries,” Dad said.

“And did these analysts provide you with any results?” Grand prompted. I could almost see Dad rolling his eyes on the other end of the phone.

“They did,” he said. “We’re not too sure about Curtis Buck’s personal situation, but he has mortgaged the Buck Mansion. We are almost certain that Buck Industries will have to seek bankruptcy protection within the next thirty days.”

“Bankruptcy?” I asked, completely stunned. I didn’t know things were that bad. I wondered if Travis did.

“That’s what the numbers say,” Dad said. “I guess if Curtis has contacts that are willing to go out on a limb for him, he might be able to pull out of this. If his father had been in this situation, that might have been possible. With Curtis, that’s most likely not happening.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he’s a dick, and people aren’t willing to help out someone who’s down when they’ve been a complete asshole when times were better,” Dad said.

“You seem to be very well informed about his situation,” Grand probed.

“Most of that was due to the research from our analysts, but the other piece is that Curtis put out feelers to see if we’d be willing to bail him out,” Dad said.

“Is that something you’d be willing to do?” Sean asked Dad.

“There is no way I would lift a finger to help that pig,” I interrupted, speaking much too vehemently, primarily because I’d remembered the tape I’d recorded of Curtis raping Sierra. Sean looked at me, shocked by my outburst. “Sorry.”

“There are a few other things you aren’t aware of yet, and that is what has probably caused my grandson to react with such outrage,” Grand said calmly.

“I think what Sean’s asking is if you’d be willing to help Curtis out in order to save Travis,” Jake said. Everyone looked at me, so that, combined with the words, freaked me out.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, even as I pondered the situation.

“It may be worth it,” Dad said.

“I need to think about it,” I said, “but my initial reaction is to say ‘no’.”

“I certainly will respect your judgment, but I am curious as to why you made that decision,” Grand said.

“I’m not in contact with Travis, and I won’t be until and unless he reaches out to me,” I said. “He’s been working with his group of advisors. They have to know what’s going on.”

“Would Travis have asked you to bail out Buck Industries?” Dad asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, but I was just stalling for time to think. When I was done pondering that, I answered him. “I don’t think Travis would have asked me to help. I think he would have considered it if I had offered, but I don’t think he would ask. I think he’s in a situation where he’s going to try and solve the problem on his own.”

“How is he going to do that?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, and was annoyed that I kept having to utter those three words.

“It would be useful to know what his plan was, so that we would know how we could help,” Dad grumbled.

“My thoughts exactly,” I groused. “But he wouldn’t tell me, so I can’t tell you.”

“You said he was planning to vanish,” Sean said. “Maybe he hasn’t done that yet?”

I pulled out my phone, dialed Travis’s number, and let it ring until it went to voicemail. I left him a message, asking him to call me, then hung up. “Nope, he’s gone.” I opened my eyes wide to try and dry the tears that threatened to run down my cheeks, and I was lucky enough to accomplish at least that much.