Gap Year - 105. Final Chapter: 105

May 3, 2004

Malibu, CA

Will

“I have a question for you,” I said to Jake. We were in the Escalade limo, heading up to see Travis’s mother and Big. He’d been gazing out the window, so my words had refocused his attention on me, Travis and my father. “Were the cameras and sound equipment operating in Curtis Buck’s office when you were there and when he was killed?”

“No,” Jake said firmly. “I disabled the security systems.”

“I guess that means Big doesn’t know you were there, and he doesn’t know that Taylor shot Curtis,” Travis mused.

“Has he been throwing that at you?” Jake asked.

“He’s hinted,” Travis said. “He’s probably trying to fuck with my mind to get me to tell him something.”

Jake looked worried, but Dad and I weren’t. Big was a tool. “Good thing you’re smarter than him,” Dad joked.

Travis rolled his eyes. “That’s not a very high bar,” he said, making me laugh.

“True that,” I said.

“What happened to Zach?” Travis asked, as we pulled up to his mother’s house. Even though we’d come up with a potential solution to this whole thing, he’d been totally uninvolved with Zach and his legal issues. I found that really strange, because it was important for everyone to get on the same page if this was going to work.

“He met with his attorney, who arranged for him to meet with the police today,” I said.

“They didn’t arrest him?” Travis asked, trying not to sound disappointed.

“What would they arrest him for?” I challenged. “They have no proof that he did anything. He’s just a person of interest.”

“Then why did they search the house yesterday?” he asked in a smarmy way.

“Once he had a lawyer representing him and negotiating with the cops, they mellowed out,” Jake said. “They probably thought he was in hiding, and that made him seem guiltier.”

“Or maybe they were getting pressure from someone else to go after him,” I said, looking at Travis.

“You mean from Big,” Travis accused.

“Or your mother,” I suggested, getting a dirty look from him. “I don’t know.”

“Regardless, we need to approach this as a team,” my father said firmly, which made it seem like he was talking down to the rest of us, and that irritated me even more.

“You mean we have to stop bitching at each other,” I snapped.

“Yes,” he said succinctly. I rolled my eyes at him, but got my attitude together as we got out of the SUV. We walked up to Travis’s mother’s home, which was this really cool but trippy house designed by Harry Gesner. She’d built it after the divorce, and it was awesomely unique. The style was modern gothic, and it had huge windows, all of which seemed to come to a point just like the windows in Westminster Abbey. We went through an archway, then Travis opened the door, leading us into a huge great room with massive windows that opened up to the backyard, which contained a pool. Beyond that the entire Malibu coastline was visible.

“Welcome,” Miranda Buck said, and got up to greet us.

“Good to see you, Mom,” Travis said, and gave her a hug that wasn’t as warm as he used to give her, but was probably better than she expected. I gave her a typical European greeting, with a demi-hug and air kisses.

“Thank you for coming up here to meet with us,” she said to all of us, even as she gave Jake and my father more formal greetings, especially since the tension from Jake soared at being in the same room with her.

“It’s not a problem,” Dad said.

“Do have a seat,” she said, gesturing at the furniture in the great room.

“If you don’t mind, it’s such a beautiful day, I’d kind of like to be outside,” Jake said in a casual way, but he was so uptight it was obviously faked.

She raised an eyebrow at his presumptuousness, but smiled like a good hostess. “That is a wonderful idea. Cecilia!” she called.

“Si, Ms. Buck,” said a nice Latina lady as she came into the room. “Hello Mr. Will!” she exclaimed when she saw me. She’d worked for the Bucks for years, so I knew her well.

“Cecilia,” I said, and gave her a warm hug.

“Can you bring us drinks and some snacks out onto the patio, please?” Miranda asked smoothly, while simultaneously truncating our reunion.

“But of course,” Cecilia said, and asked us what our drink choices were. Since it was after 4, I went with a vodka tonic. Travis got a beer.

“Hopefully they don’t roofie you,” he whispered in my ear, making me chuckle, and reminding me how much I loved his sense of humor, and how much I loved him.

“I’m not worried,” I whispered back, then let my voice get sultry. “You’ll take care of me.” He blushed a bit, which was just adorable.

We went out onto the patio and sat around a dining table. “Where’s Big?” Travis asked.

“There is traffic on the PCH,” she said, shaking her head. There was always traffic on the PCH at this time of day. “He should be here within five to ten minutes. I apologize for the delay.”

“It’s not a problem,” Jake lied. It was obvious to me that he wanted nothing more than to escape from this place. “I wanted to meet outside because it’s harder for listening devices to function. I wasn’t trying to be rude.”

“You think they have bugged my house?” she asked, and was visibly alarmed.

“Someone bugged ours,” my father said, the fury pulsing out of him when he said that. They’d found two devices in our house: one in the kitchen, and one in his office. I’d decided that was yet another good reason to have my important conversations on my bearskin rug.

“I suppose I will have to have it checked,” she said.

“If you want, I can set that up for you,” Jake volunteered.

“I appreciate that!” she said. “Just let us know when they can do it so I can make sure Cecilia or I are here.”

“I’ll do that,” Jake said. Miranda took his gesture as being an olive branch of sorts, and seemed ebullient that Jake might actually be willing to forgive her for raping him when he was a teenager, but I thought it was more likely he’d done it to make sure they didn’t shoot off their mouths and blow up this whole scheme.

“Sorry I’m late,” Big said, bursting out onto the patio with his typical energy. He gave Travis a nice hug, and he actually gave me a hug too, then greeted Dad and Jake more formally.

“At least you are here now,” Miranda said. Cecilia chose that moment to come out onto the patio with food and drinks, so we all settled into our chairs and waited for her to finish setting things down. When she was finally done and back in the house, Miranda focused on us. “You asked to meet with us?”

“We did,” Dad said, taking charge like I knew he would. In this situation, that was probably best. “Have you seen Zach’s statement, the one he gave to the LAPD?”

“Bunch of lies,” Big grumbled. “I know he did it.”

“How do you know that?” I challenged.

“Because Dad was going to out him as a, uh, a gay dude,” he said, luckily remembering not to use the word ‘fag’.

“So you have no proof, only your own brilliant deduction?” I asked him sarcastically. It was hilarious to watch him get annoyed not only at me, but at the circumstances, because he could do nothing obnoxious to me with Jake and my father here. Travis chuckled.

“Well then what really happened?” Big demanded. “I know for a fact he didn’t kill himself.”

“Taylor shot him,” Travis said, probably a bit too smugly.

“Just because you hate her guts doesn’t mean she killed Dad,” Big countered. “She loved him. Too fucking much, but she loved him.”

“Zach walked into his office and found him beat all to shit. He went to help Curtis up, but Curtis shook him off, went over to his desk, and pulled out his gun,” I said. “He told Zach that it was an ideal opportunity to get rid of him permanently.”

“He didn’t want any competition,” Travis said, glaring at all of them. We all cringed at the whole incest scenario that was so fucking disgusting.

“Taylor came in and pulled her gun on Curtis. When he wouldn’t stop aiming at Zach, and went to pull the trigger, she shot him,” I said.

“It is hard to blame her,” Miranda said.

“What the fuck?” Big asked, all outraged, but I moved on before he could give his poor mother shit for justifiably hating her ex-husband.

“They made it look like he killed himself,” I said.

“Well that’s bullshit, and we know it,” Big said.

“You basically want Zach to take the fall for this, and that’s not going to happen,” I said to Big, who just glared back at me.

“We have an alternative strategy, but it will require that we all get on the same page and stick to the same story,” Dad said, taking charge again. “That means we memorize what happened, and we don’t deviate from it. Ever.” He was in his scary control mode, and that settled everyone down.

“What is your plan?” Miranda asked.

“We go with Zach’s story, that Curtis killed himself,” Dad said. I watched Big almost vomit. He was so conflicted at this point, because he really wanted the insurance money. “He’d just lost the company that supposedly meant everything to him, and he looked to the world like a complete failure. It’s entirely plausible that a narcissistic sociopath would finally break down when things collapsed onto him.”

“Plausible for people who didn’t know my father,” Big said.

“The cops didn’t know your father,” I said.

“They’re looking at stories, evidence, and facts,” Jake augmented. “They’re trying to fit them together in a logical way.”

“I recognize that this course of action leaves you out a lot of money,” Dad said to Big. By addressing that, it was like a relief valve went off inside Big and he mellowed a bit. I guess he’d just assumed we’d ignore his issues and he’d get fucked in this deal.

“The extra cash would be nice, especially since Buck Industries is gone, and that was the bulk of what I had in my portfolio,” Big said. There was a subtle accusation there that I’m sure my father got, all but blaming him for making a bunch of money off the bones of Buck Industries while he and Taylor were screwed over.

“We are going to make sure that the insurance company pays your claim, even if it’s ruled a suicide,” Dad said.

“How can you do that?” Big asked. “My attorneys said it was impossible.”

“Travis and Will are going to put up the money; we just have to figure out a way to make sure it looks like the insurance company opted to go ahead and pay out the claim,” Dad said.

“I don’t understand,” Big said, confused.

“You really do not have to understand; you just have to be grateful that it is happening,” Miranda said, getting that my father wasn’t about to explain whatever Byzantine plan he’d come up with to make that deal a reality.

“So I just have to trust you,” Big said to my father.

“Actually, you have to trust Travis and me,” I said, letting him see my annoyance.

“Why are you kicking money into this deal?” Big asked me, but it was more of an accusation.

“Because I don’t want to see Zach framed for killing Curtis, and I don’t think it’s healthy for any of you to have a big protracted battle about this,” I said. “And most of all, I think it would be hardest on Taylor.”

“That makes the plan seem stupid if it makes life easy for Taylor,” Travis said bitterly, getting dirty looks from everyone.

“If she decides to talk about what she went through, that should be up to her,” I said. “The last thing she needs is the whole world, especially her friends, knowing that she was fucking her father.”

“So you’re threatening me with that?” Big demanded. “If I don’t go along with your plan, that’s what you’re going to do to Taylor?”

“God, you are so fucking stupid,” Travis said, finally losing patience with him. “If you pin this on Zach, he has to fight back, and he’s also going to have to explain why he perjured himself. So yeah, he’s going to tell them that Taylor killed him, and then they’re going to want to know why. And then he’s going to have to explain that too.” Everyone paused for a bit and cooled down.

“I see what you’re trying to do here,” Big finally said, mostly to my father. “Thanks. I’m good with it.”

“I am as well,” Miranda said, “but there is a big problem with this plan.”

“What’s that?” Big asked.

“Taylor has to be on board too, and no one can get to her, not even her attorneys,” Miranda said, and wiped a tear from her eye.

“Will can,” my father said, and everyone looked at me.

“What?” I asked, completely surprised by that statement.

“Taylor asked to see you, and your visit has been approved. You’ll go see her tomorrow,” Jake explained. I suddenly felt like I was in some weird soap opera, and the writers had decided that I was the person designated to go meet with the people who’d flipped out and were in the mental ward.

“Why’d she want to talk to you?” Travis asked. “I figured she’d want to talk to my mother, or Big.”

“That’s what I would have thought too,” Big said, and it was possible to see that this had not only pissed him off, it had hurt his feelings, since he’d been his sister’s biggest defender.

“The person she really wants to see is Zach, but they won’t let her,” Jake said.

“So why does she want to talk to you?” Miranda asked me the same question Travis and Big had posed, but she said the words smoothly and with so much more class.

“I think I know,” I said, getting it now. “She wants me to tell her what Zach’s deal is,” I concluded. Travis gave me an evil look, because that just showed how well I knew Zach, but I ignored him, at least for right now.

“I’m assuming that’s exactly what her plan is,” Jake said.

“I did not realize her feelings for Zach were so deep,” Miranda mused.

“Seriously?” Big asked, because he’d obviously believed all the bullshit that Curtis had fed him about Zach. I paused to ponder that it probably wasn’t actually all bullshit; some of it was true, but in any event the way Curtis would have presented it would be pretty awful. “He’s just a plaything for her.”

“She killed Curtis rather than let him kill Zach, and she’s so into what he’s thinking right now she wants to meet with me,” I pointed out. “I’d say she’s pretty fucking into him.”

“Well, gentlemen, I am impressed with your strategy,” Miranda pronounced, truncating our speculation on Taylor’s feelings for Zach. “There are certainly risks, but it seems that this is the best way to minimize damage to everyone.”

“You’re right,” Big agreed, almost reluctantly. “What could go wrong?”

“The cops may not buy the story, or they may find a piece of evidence that exposes it as a lie,” Jake said.

“That is why we have to be on the same page,” Dad stated firmly. “Otherwise, this thing will blow up and destroy your reputations, and you’ll end up without any money from the insurance settlement.”

“I mean, if Curtis was killed instead of committing suicide, we’d still get the money,” Big said.

“No, you’d end up on trial for perjury,” Dad said. “And when it came out that Taylor killed him, that would most likely void the policy.”

“I’ll give you a butt plug so you can get ready for prison,” I taunted.

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” he said acidly, then focused on my dad. “Alright, I get it.”

“Good,” Dad said. We all shook hands and left, uttering just the basic goodbye platitudes and saying nothing else until we were back in the Escalade.

As soon as we were driving away, I launched into him and Jake. “You could have told me I was supposed to go see Taylor before we got there!”

“Your reaction was genuine,” Dad said. “It worked out better this way.”

“I’ll remember that next time there’s a secret no one told you about,” I snapped, and got a dirty look from him. In the end, I let it go. I’d called him on it, he got why I was pissed off, and now it was over.

May 4, 2004

Malibu, CA

Will

My phone rang and I saw that it was Zach so I answered it. “You decided to call me back?” I asked, letting him hear how annoyed I was. I’d been trying to get ahold of him all morning.

“Sorry,” he said. “I had practice and classes. This is the first free moment I’ve had.”

“It’s fine,” I said, mellowing out. It dawned on me that he knew me and how my mind worked as well as I knew him, which kind of freaked me out. “I need to meet up with you at 11:30. I’m buying lunch.”

“That’s in an hour,” he said. “I have a class until noon.”

“This is pretty important, but we can push it back until noon if the class is that vital,” I said. I mean, if he had a test or some shit like that, I didn’t want to totally jack up his grade.

“Can you tell me what it’s about?” he asked.

“I’m going to see Taylor at two, and I want to talk to you first,” I said.

“You’re going to see Taylor? How the fuck…” he was warming up to go on a tirade, so I cut him off.

“I’ll explain it to you at lunch,” I said. “Why don’t you do this? Meet me at the In-N-Out; we’ll grab some food and talk in the car.”

“I’ll see you there at 11:30. I’ll text you if I get delayed,” he said, then ended our call.

I finished getting ready, then went downstairs and found Dad and Jake in Dad’s office. “You leaving?” Dad asked.

“I’m meeting Zach for lunch, then I’m going to see Taylor,” I said.

“You have that paper?” Jake asked. He’d printed a copy of Zach’s statement to the police for me to take along. I just stared at him and didn’t answer him, my way of pointing out that I didn’t need stupid-ass nagging reminders.

“Let us know how it goes,” Dad said. I went out to find Steve waiting for me, and he led me out to our Escalade limo. I wasn’t really in the mood to try to find parking in Westwood, and I was also planning to meet up with Travis after school, so this way he could drive me home.

“Where to?” he asked.

“In-N-Out in Westwood,” I told him.

“Double cheeseburger animal style,” he said as if he were ordering, making me chuckle.

“I’ll get food for you too,” I promised. I decided it was stupid for Zach to drive there, so instead I texted him and told him we’d pick him up. I had to relay that change of plans to Steve, and then I could kick back and relax.

Going to see Taylor freaked me out for a couple of reasons. First of all, we really weren’t all that close. I decided that in this case, that was probably fine, since I was basically just a glorified messenger. The other thing that bothered me was Travis’s attitude. He’d been bitchy last night and bitchy this morning, and that had soured my mood enough that we’d spent most of the time sniping at each other. I couldn’t figure out why my meeting with Taylor bothered him so much, and he wasn’t talking. I’d labored over his reaction, running it through my mind, and decided that my visiting her probably annoyed him because it showed how closely I was still tied to Zach, and because he truly hated his sister. I was smart enough to realize that he was being so unpleasant so I wouldn’t probe and try to find out, and I’d pretty much let it go for now, but he sure wasn’t making it easy.

We pulled up to the building where Zach had told us to meet him, and we were five minutes early. Zach came ambling out at exactly 11:30, and it was impossible not to appreciate how handsome he was. Steve was there to open the door for him and let him in. “Hey,” he said. He started to initiate a hug, then stopped, which I thought was pretty nice of him to acknowledge our issues in that way.

“Good to see you,” I said, and pulled him into the hug he’d started. We took a few minutes to tell Steve our orders and to give him money, then I put up the privacy screen.

“You look good,” he said, since I was wearing a suit.

“I always look good,” I joked, getting a grin from him. That quickly changed into a frown as he asked me the question that was on the top of his mind.

“Why does Taylor want to see you but not me?” he demanded.

“She wants to see you, but they won’t let her,” I answered. “I’m guessing that she wants to see me because she knows I’ll be able to tell her what’s going on with you.”

“That makes sense,” he said, which reminded us both of how connected we still were. “Here,” he said, and handed me a folded-up note.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Class was boring so I spent it writing a note for Taylor,” he said. “Can you give that to her?”

“I think I can,” I said. His eyes narrowed in anger. “I mean, I don’t know if they’ll let me take it in when I see her.”

“If you can’t, you can’t,” he said fatalistically. “Will you tell her that I love her? Will you tell her that she means everything to me?”

That statement amazed me, and I wondered if it would surprise Taylor. “I didn’t know you two were that tight,” I said.

“We are,” he affirmed.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked. He gave me a look that pointed out how stupid it was to ask that. “I’m curious about something, but I don’t want you to get pissed at me.”

“Go ahead,” he said fatalistically.

“How’s this relationship working for you? I mean, you kind of like dick,” I said cautiously.

“Yeah, I kind of do, but Taylor gets that. That whole thing with her getting a strap-on was a game changer,” he said. “That she’d do something like that to make me happy was amazing, and that she understood me was even better.”

“I think so too,” I said, smiling at him. “I was just curious how this was going to work for you. Are you guys exclusive now?”

“You’re wondering how long until I start chasing a dude with a big dick to supplement my sexual needs?” he asked in a nasty way.

“I was actually wondering if that was even something you worried about, and if you did it, whether Taylor would be okay with it,” I said logically.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Shit, I can’t even see her, much less redefine the terms of our relationship.”

“I get that,” I said. “I was just wondering what you wanted.”

He sighed. “I think I’ll always be tempted to fuck dudes. I think that’s just part of me. What being with Taylor showed me, though, is that she’s enough to keep me happy.” I could read him just as well as I always could, and he’d left off three important words: “for right now.” It was only a matter of time until he fucked around on her.

“Cool,” I said. We ate our food and talked about his statement, then dropped him back off at his dorm. We got to the hospital about fifteen minutes early, so I took that opportunity to stuff the papers I had down my pants, just in case.

It took me half an hour dealing with administrative and psych people before they led me back to see Taylor. They wouldn’t let me take anything with me, and I had to put all of my personal items like my phone and wallet into a lockbox. They led me into what must be her room, and I found her sitting in a chair next to a small table. She looked like absolute shit. I remembered going to see Marie, and how she’d made a point to put herself together. She’d done her hair and her makeup, and looked really good. Taylor didn’t do any of that. Her hair was messed up like she’d slept on it and hadn’t bothered to brush it, and she wore no makeup at all. “Shoots,” she said, not in her enthusiastic way, but in a depressed way.

“Hey Tay,” I said, trying to be upbeat. That got me a dirty look, so I modified my tone and sat in the other chair, with the small table in between us. “Heard you wanted to see me.”

“I probably should have gotten myself together,” she said, then just shook her head in disgust.

“Dude, you look amazingly hot even with messy hair and no makeup,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back at me weakly. “I need to talk to you about a few things.”

“So talk,” she said.

I got up and leaned in like I was going to kiss her cheek, but whispered in her ear instead. “They might be taping us.”

She got a mischievous look, which was cool because it was the first spark of life I’d seen from her. She stood up, and pointed to the bed. “Lie down.”

“Okay,” I said nervously, making her giggle. I lay down on my left side, and she lay on her right side so we were facing each other. “This was a good idea.”

“I’m an expert at getting dudes into my bed,” she joked, making me chuckle. I moved close to her so my mouth was all but buried in the pillow, with my mouth right next to her ear.

“We worked out a plan to try to settle the legal issues,” I said.

“Legal issues?” she asked, whispering back in my ear.

“This needs to look like a suicide,” I said.

“But that’s not what happened,” she said, and started crying. “I shot my own father. I killed my own father.”

“Shhh,” I said as I hugged her, trying to calm her down. “You did it to save Zach.”

“He probably hates me for all the shit he’s been through with my family,” she said, and cried some more.

“No, he doesn’t. I just had lunch with him, and he told me to tell you that he loved you, and you were everything to him.”

She backed up so she could look in my eyes and see if I was sincere. “He said that?” she asked dubiously.

“He did, and he meant it,” I said. Her expression didn’t change. “I would know if he was lying.”

“You would know,” she agreed. We resumed our whispering positions. “I was in that room, and my father had the gun aimed at him, and that was the moment I realized that I loved Zach. I mean, I thought I did, but when I was forced to choose between the two of them, it wasn’t hard at all.”

“I’m happy for you,” I said.

“Lot of good it does me if I end up in jail,” she said.

“You’re not going to end up in jail,” I said firmly. “This is going to be played out as a suicide.”

“There is no way Big is going to let $50 million slip through his hands. He will throw Zach under the bus before that happens,” she said, being remarkably perceptive.

“Travis and I are pitching in to cover it, so you and Big will still get the money,” I said.

She backed away from me again and looked me squarely in the eye. “I was not expecting that.” We returned to our prior whispering positions.

“It was worth it so that you can recover from this and not have to deal with everyone knowing what was going on with your family,” I said gently.

“I couldn’t do that to Zach anyway,” she said. “So tell me the story.” I laid it out, explaining what Zach had said, then kept quiet after that. “How interesting; that’s exactly how I remember it too.”

“Do they search your room for stuff?” I asked.

“Stuff?” she asked, to clarify.

“Yeah, like papers and shit like that,” I said.

“Why?” she asked cagily.

“If you put your hands down my pants, there’s a couple of things that will make for good reading,” I said.

“Dude, that’s the lamest line I have ever heard,” she said, making both of us laugh. I backed up and looked at her, then raised an eyebrow. She giggled and I felt her hands undoing my belt, then my pants, then her smooth hand was sliding down my abdomen. It was incredibly erotic. She got to the papers and smiled, then got an impish look and went lower and grabbed my dick. I yelped and jumped, while she just laughed and pulled her hands out with the two items I’d stuffed there.

“The small one is a note to you from Zach,” I said. “The other is his statement to the cops.”

“I’m guessing I’m probably not supposed to have either one of these,” she said.

“You know how to break rules,” I said, winking at her.

“I do, and I’m good at it,” she said. We bullshitted for a bit longer, then I noticed that our time was up. “You’re going to meet up with Travis?”

“I am,” I said.

“Tell him that when I get out of here, I’d like to talk to him,” she said. “In the meantime, tell him I said I was sorry for being a twat for the last ten years.”

“Dude, you were a bitch longer than that,” I joked, getting a playful slap in return. “I’ll tell him.” When I left her she was smiling, and so was I.