by Michael Todd
He’d needed to find a shop where he could get a tailor-made suit in time for the service. The flight, as loud and uncomfortable as it had been, had landed them in California in record time and allowed them a couple of days to settle in before they had a funeral to attend.
It was nice to have the money to be able to buy your own tailor-made suit. They weren’t rolling in dough, of course, so it wouldn’t be the most expensive suit ever. Still, it was more expensive than anything else he wore that wasn’t armor specifically designed for the Zoo.
The service was, as expected, something of a somber occasion, with more than a hundred people in attendance. Most were academics like the man had been himself, but there were more business executives and lawyers than Sal had expected. Apparently, he hadn’t only been a scientist but something of a businessman as well.
Courtney found herself engulfed in the logistics of the funeral and businesses. She was the only daughter, so while her mother had taken care of most of the service, Courtney was still required to sign off on many of the papers for businesses in the family.
Which meant that Sal and Madigan didn’t see much of her during the couple of days that they were in Los Angeles.
Once the funeral was over, he noted that she looked exhausted. More so than any time he’d seen her when they came back from the Zoo, which said a lot. Maybe his mind had exaggerated, but it still concerned him.
He hated that he could only stand on the sidelines. He had changed and become a take-action kind of guy. When there was someone in trouble, he’d grown accustomed to being the one who could help. Instead, he had to stand back and watch everything grind his friend down and there wasn’t anything he could do but provide moral support. It frustrated him beyond anything.
Kennedy looked as though she felt the same way, and after the funeral was over and everyone headed off to the reception, she took the time to give Courtney a long, tight hug.
“Will you go to the reception?” Madigan asked when they drew apart. “Or do you think you can get some rest? No offense, but you look like you need it.”
“None taken,” the other woman said softly. “I do feel like I could sleep for about a week now. But we still have the will reading to attend.”
“We?” Sal asked. “That’s not a family-only sort of thing?”
“Of course,” she said with a small, sad smile. “And you two are family. If I have to sit through an hour of legal paperwork, you know that I’ll need both of you to help me through it.”
“That’s emotional blackmail,” he said with a smile and tugged her into his arms to hold her close for a moment. “But we’ll forgive it this time.”
“Thanks,” she said, pressed her face into Sal’s chest, and remained there for a few seconds before a limo pulled up to drive them to her dad’s lawyer’s office.
Sure enough, it was a long session, stuffed to overflowing with lawyers, Courtney’s mother, and a few other family members. The woman didn’t seem happy to see her daughter there and barely even gave her two friends a glance. She seemed like the kind of woman who had enjoyed a somewhat comfortable life over the years. Sal didn’t know enough about her to know what kind of person she was, but her cool treatment of his friend was enough to make him dislike her.
As it turned out, Courtney’s father had fought cancer for the past few months and kept it a secret from everyone but his doctors until the very end. Even so, he had enough presence of mind to write a will and have it notarized before his last days.
The lawyer had gradually explained the full extent of the estate owned by the deceased, which came as a real surprise to Sal. Most academics were the kind of people who had their brains in the clouds and who needed research grants and other, more business-minded people to keep them from going broke. This wasn’t one of those cases. Sal only knew the man’s name from a couple of papers that he’d published in his field, and yet it seemed that he had somehow inherited a significant amount of old money. He’d had investments across the board, which included a couple of companies that Sal recognized as having ties to the Zoo. All had paid out handsome dividends once his shares had been liquidated.
Most of it went to Courtney. It explained the cold shoulder that she received from her mother, even if it still caused him to bristle protectively. Anyone who wanted money more than they loved their children were trashy, to begin with. He’d heard of the kind of family disputes that ended in feuds that lasted years. Even so, the old woman was left with enough to continue living a relatively comfortable life as well as a house and some other investments that she could use.
Sal shook his head, draped an arm over Courtney’s shoulders, and rubbed her neck gently. She turned to him and smiled, leaned her head into his chest for a moment, then straightened once more.
Once all the details were clarified, most of the family and lawyers began to take their leave but her father’s lawyer came over to them and placed a hand on Courtney’s arm.
“Excuse me, Miss Monroe?” he said and tilted his head to show as much sympathy as he could without explicitly voicing it.
“Yes?” Courtney said and turned.
“There is one more item we need to discuss, but I was instructed to deliver it to you personally and in private, away from prying ears,” he said in a soft voice to ensure that he wouldn’t be overheard.
Monroe shrugged. Sal and Madigan stood back to give her some space with the lawyer, who withdrew a handwritten letter from his desk and handed it to her.
She got through the first few lines before her hand came up to her mouth and tears ran down her cheeks. Her head lowered and her shoulders sagged, and her friends both stepped beside her.
“Do you want me to read it for you, sweetie?” Madigan asked softly.
Courtney nodded as Sal stroked her hair.
Madigan nodded. “Okay…” She cleared her throat. “Dear Ceecee, I know that things haven’t been as good between us as we would have liked. Either way, since I don’t think I’ll have the chance to say this to you in person, I want to make sure that you know that you have been in my thoughts these last few months.”
She drew a deep breath before she continued. “We both know that I’ve never been the best at personal conversations. I’ve tried to come up with something to say to you, but I’ve written this letter in case I chicken out. I want you to know that I admire you. Sure, science in a lab is interesting and judging the academic efforts of others is equally rewarding, but you should know that I really wish I had your grit and determination. And the kind of will that puts you at the forefront of your field, no matter how dangerous it is or how much it wants to kill you. I wish that I’d taken the time to get to know you, not only because I wish that some of that courage could have rubbed off on me but also because the knowledge that I could have been a better father to you hurts worse than these tumors in my lungs. You’re everything I wish I was and more, and the fact that you achieved everything with so little input from me shows how much of your mother you have in you.”
Sal looked up when Kennedy’s voice broke. She’d never struck him as the emotional type, but he realized that it was a touching letter and even he had tears running down his cheeks. He’d had a healthy relationship with his parents, so it hurt him that someone he cared about lacked that something. He also realized that he was the distant one in their present relationship.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought.
“I wish I had the time to get to know you better,” Madigan continued. “To get to know the scientist and the woman you’ve become. I know you’ll do amazing things. With all the love in the world, Dad.”
She folded the letter and took a deep breath. A few tears brimmed in her eyes too, which was another first for him. He wondered if she had the same moment of horrifying introspection as he’d had only seconds before.
“Thank you, Madie,” Courtney whispered as Madigan handed the letter back to her.
“Anytime, sweetie,” she replied and threaded her fingers through her frien
d’s hair. “And anything else you need.”
“I think I need a drink. I know they say that you can’t drown your sorrows, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t give it the old college try, right?”
Sal nodded. It probably wasn’t the healthiest decision right now but drinking your sorrows away for the night seemed like the best of any number of bad options. At least he and Madigan could be there for her if things went off the rails, right?
That was assuming that they weren’t the ones who went off the rails first, he thought with a small smile.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Silverton,” Courtney said and shook the lawyer’s hand.
“It’s Isaac, and you already know that,” the man replied with a warm smile. “And you have my number, so call me any time of the day or night if you need anything, okay?”
“I’ll try to keep all my calls to business hours.” She smiled.
Courtney turned, and Sal wrapped his arms around her. The suit made movement a little stiff but less so than he remembered with his other suits. One of the benefits of putting some money into the process, he supposed.
Madigan hugged them both tightly. “Let’s go drink our body weight. I know a nice little place right next to our hotel.”
Chapter Eleven
It was nothing like the bar at the Staging Area. With Sal’s limited experience in the bar scene, he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. There were more young people and, amazingly, they were even louder than a bunch of soldiers that had either just come out of life-threatening situations or were about to head out into them.
Kennedy brought back three glasses of beer as the other two held their table. A difficult task, considering how full the place was.
The first few seconds felt awkward and he wondered if perhaps a drink in the comfort of their hotel rooms might not have been a better option.
“To Dr. Monroe,” Madigan finally said and broke the silence. “I don’t know much about him, but I do know that he raised one hell of a fantastic daughter.”
“Hear, hear,” Sal said and raised his glass to clink it gently against both Madigan’s and Courtney’s before they all took a long draught from their glasses. It had been that kind of day, and they deserved to be a little tipsy. It wasn’t like they had to drive anywhere.
“I’m still struggling to process it,” Courtney said after a few seconds. “He was always such an academic. I’m not sure if you know what I’m talking about, Madie, but Sal does—all stuffy and judgmental even when they try to be nice. Cold shoulders and silent treatments were all that he knew how to do. And now that I know that he actually liked what I did? Followed it? Admired it? I knew that he got me the job out there in the first place, but I always assumed it was because he wanted me out of his hair.”
“I don’t mean to step all over your moment,” Madigan said, “but…come on, you know I don’t like being called Madie, right?”
Courtney looked at the woman like she was about to break down, but after a few seconds of suspense, she grinned broadly and turned to Sal. “You owe me twenty bucks.”
He laughed and shook his head.
Kennedy looked at the two of them with narrowed eyes. “What…what did I miss just now?”
“I noticed that she called you Madie at the compound,” Sal said, “so while you snoozed on the plane, we made a bet about how long it would be before you called her on it. I had it as a week or longer, and she had it at less. Three days means I owe her twenty bucks.”
She leaned back in her seat and looked annoyed. “You will both go to hell. I tried to be nice to her since her dad just died, and you made bets?”
“Well…just because it’s a sad time doesn’t mean that I can’t make some money,” Courtney said and leaned in to kiss Madigan on the cheek. “Don’t be mad. It’s done wonders to keep my spirits up.”
“You’re still an asshole,” her friend retorted but her features softened, which indicated that she would probably forgive her after a couple more drinks.
It would take her longer to forgive him, though, he realized quickly.
He was about to say something to help move the process along when a trio of young, muscular young men stepped in. They looked like they were rather more comfortable with the bar scene than Sal, Kennedy, or Courtney were.
“I forgot how many jocks there are around here,” he said with a grimace of distaste. “There are a bunch of colleges around here that focus more on their football teams than on the academic departments.”
“Aww,” Kennedy said and tilted her head with mock sympathy. “Was young Sal bullied by the big strong jocks?”
Sal snorted. “Please, nobody bullies a teenager in college. That said, I was always a little jealous that these guys got away with so much simply because they could throw or catch a ball well, or…block, or something. I don’t watch much football. Anyway, I had to attend all the classes and keep my scores at the top five percent in every subject to maintain my scholarships. These guys didn’t even have to show up to class, only practice.”
“Well, admitting it’s a problem is the first step,” Courtney said and swallowed the last sip from her glass before she placed it on the table.
“I guess the next round is on me?” he asked and pushed to his feet.
“Don’t think that getting drinks here will count toward repayment of what you owe me, Jacobs,” Monroe called, a little louder than she probably intended, but a broad grin played on her lips. He decided not to call her on it and simply patted her cheek gently before he gathered the empty glasses.
“Three more,” he said once he reached the counter. The bartender nodded.
“Thirty-six dollars,” the man said and left Sal to pay with a card while he slid the three glasses under the taps.
“Fuck.” Drinks were a lot more expensive than they were at the Staging Area, which was bullshit since the supply-demand ratio had to be much sharper there than here. He shook his head, swiped his card quickly, and watched as the taps filled their glasses slowly.
“Hey,” a feminine voice called from his left, “I haven’t seen you around here. Are you new in town?”
He turned to identify the speaker and frowned at a couple of college co-eds who studied him like he was a slab of rare steak.
“Ah…yeah,” Sal replied. “Actually, I’m a local who got back after a long absence.”
“I can tell,” the second girl said. She immediately moved in closer and ran her hand over his arm. He’d left his jacket hanging on his chair and pulled the sleeves of his white shirt up to his elbows. A little surprised, he looked down at the touch. He really wasn’t used to being hit on in a bar. He’d never actually hit on anyone himself, so he was fairly lost as to what the appropriate response should be. His time on the Internet suggested that he should tell them that he had a girlfriend.
“Yeah, that is a pretty sweet tan, even for Cali,” the first woman said and laughed at an annoyingly high pitch. “Where were you?”
“North Africa,” he said and studied the confusion in their faces as they tried to determine if the exotic nature of where he’d acquired his tan was a good or a bad thing. “Look, I’m actually taken, and my party’s waiting for me.”
“Come on, honey,” the second girl said with a giggle. “You can always use more company. Especially when we’re the new company.”
Ah. Gold diggers. They’d seen the suit and assumed he was loaded. They weren’t wrong, but they had to know that he probably had no desire to buy any additional drinks, especially as it seemed they were there with company already.
Madigan looked up from her conversation with Courtney and saw what Sal was tangled with. She kicked the other woman under the table.
“What…oh,” Monroe said with a chuckle when she looked in the direction Madigan in which tilted her head. “Poor guy.”
“He looks about three seconds away from saying something really stupid,” Kennedy said. “And I don’t think I have the energy to fight off a couple of preppy so
rority girls. Do you think you can help him?”
“Come on, Madie,” Courtney said and winked as she stood. She barely avoided a slap to the head. “With that kind of girl, you simply need a bit of subtlety and panache.”
“You know I don’t do subtle, Ceecee,” Madigan retorted.
“Watch and learn.” She chuckled and sashayed to the bar as the tender put their drinks on the counter. Sal hadn’t seen the glasses. He was honestly uncomfortably flushed and too distracted over the brazen conversation with the two coeds.
“Hey, baby,” Monroe murmured, which marked the first time she had ever called him that. “Are these girls bothering you?”
The two younger women backed away when they saw Courtney, who decided to emphasize her point. She leaned in and placed a light kiss on Sal’s neck. Her gaze held the two the whole time.
“No,” Sal said, even more bemused and conscious that he now blushed an even deeper shade of red. “No, they were just leaving.”
They took the hint and backed quickly away as Courtney helped him carry their drinks to the table.
“You owe me, big time,” she said with a laugh. “You looked like you were about to stutter your way into having those two follow you around for the rest of the weekend.”
He chuckled. “I’m not used to getting hit on, especially not here. I think I intended to tell them that I had a boyfriend.”
Madigan, who had taken a sip of her beer at that moment, immediately stopped and snorted loudly. “Oh…fuck, beer out of nose… Totally worth it though.”
Monroe laughed with equal amusement. “Well, I have to say, that would have sent those two running faster than what I did.”
Sal grinned and shook his head. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever be good at this sort of thing.”
“It comes with having a big brain like yours,” Kennedy said while she dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin. “You start overthinking and end up forgetting to actually talk. I mean, I think we have that figured out while you’re in a combat situation—for the most part, anyway—but it still haunts you when talking to the fairer sex.”