“Just trying to give him some perspective,” Bailey said as he followed after.
The door shut behind them.
And Ethan never felt more alone.
CHAPTER 7
Ethan spent that Saturday searching the bungalow from top to bottom—every closet, drawer, nook and cranny—hoping to find a trace of something left behind, a crumb of a clue, something he might have missed. He tried to go to bed early but despair engulfed him, and he just stared at the ceiling, mind racing. He reread Brooke’s letter and examined the canvases she had left piled neatly in the corner, really seeing them for the first time. Ethan appreciated art, but not in the way an artist appreciates people. He had considered himself a big-picture guy, one who saw things from a bird’s-eye view, but as they say, the devil is in the details, and he still couldn’t help wondering if he could have prevented Brooke from leaving if he had paid more attention.
Brooke’s specialties were portraits and landscapes. The faces she painted were of people she found interesting or familiar. Her landscapes were scenic views of places she loved, most often a particular area in Napa Valley with an enormous country house beset on a sprawling vineyard and a church in the background. Ethan once asked her about the location, and she told him that it was where her family had spent summers when she was young. She also told him that she hoped to get married there one day, as if she wanted Ethan to make a mental note. At the time, he had assumed it was because that’s where she wanted to marry him.
As Ethan sorted through the paintings she left behind, he noticed that some of the portraits shared a resemblance to her and wondered if they were her family members. Then he noticed that mixed in with the landscapes of Napa were some scenes of Dancing Rabbit in Big Sur, where he met her, and he wondered if it was a way to let him know where she had fled. But why? Why wouldn’t she just tell him or let him know in her note? He decided that he was grasping irrationally, full of self-abnegation.
And isn’t denial the first phase of grief? Or is it anger…?
He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t matter; he had plenty of both, as well as a shortage of answers, evidence, and consolation.
He called Bailey, his loquacious confidant.
Bailey answered as if he were expecting the call. “Can’t sleep, Gov?”
“Can’t sleep,” Ethan admitted. “Any chance you’d take a drive up north with me?”
“What for?”
“Maybe she’s back there, at that place in Big Sur—”
“What if she is?”
Ethan didn’t have an answer.
“You’ll make an ass of yourself if you barge in on them,” Bailey said, “like a…for lack of a better word, stalker.”
“You really think it’s true,” Ethan swallowed, “that they ran off together?”
“I really don’t know, but there’s nothing you can do about it if they did.”
“I could find out why.”
“I think you know the reason, Gov.”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry to be blunt.”
“That’s what you call it?”
Bailey chuckled. “Despite knowing how much you hate being alone, that’s exactly how they left you.”
Ethan went silent, now fully aware of the difference between alone and lonely.
“You’re a big personality, and you’re big, like seven feet tall, I figure you can handle it.”
Ethan said, “I’m six five,” as if it made a difference.
“A handsome giant who expects everyone to do things his way, on his terms, works well in business. You’re a great boss. But people have free choice when it comes to matters of the heart. Some things you can’t force, change, or control.”
“I’m not controlling.”
“I didn’t say that you were. But you are a force. Don’t let it go to your head.”
Something must have gone to Ethan’s head because it ached. He wondered if the two people closest to him were so afraid to tell him that he was too controlling and they were unhappy. “Are you saying that I’m more cult than innovation? More David Koresh than Jeff Bezos?”
Bailey laughed. “If you want to grab a drink, I’ll indulge you. Drinking is the appropriate response to your situation. No one will blame you if you go on a binge all weekend and stumble into work Monday morning with a horrendous hangover, but they may question your decision-making ability if Brooke has to get a restraining order against you. Uber over to Father’s Office. First six rounds are on me.”
“That’s okay,” Ethan said. “I should keep a clear head.”
“That’s probably good form,” Bailey said, sounding relieved that he didn’t have to wake up on Sunday morning with a hangover himself. “Call me if you just want to chat, or if you’re about to do something stupid, okay?”
After they hung up, Ethan dosed off and awoke ten minutes later. It was futile to try to sleep. It was quiet, unusually so, which made the thoughts in his head grow louder. It wasn’t only that Brooke had left, but also the way she left, that she didn’t tell him in person.
Seriously, who leaves a Dear John letter on the bed when they move out? Was it an English thing? Was she too polite to utter such words to my face?
It made perfect sense to Ethan why Bailey and Emily assumed that Brooke and Jack ran off together—bad timing and all—but he still maintained that Brooke’s departure was completely out of character; it wasn’t the girl he knew, or thought he knew, and he couldn’t accept that his compass was that far off.
Ethan thought of something Jack used to say in all his glum wisdom: Imagination is responsible for love, not the other person.
Could that be the reason it was so different with Brooke? Had he invented who he wanted her to be? Had he confused good manners for respect, great sex for love, a free spirit for his kindred soul?
Were his delusions responsible for this mess?
CHAPTER 8
Ethan went downstairs to the porch and looked out at the ocean. It was a murky night; the gibbous moon was pushing its edges, now glowing behind a dense marine layer, distilling a purple haze.
He stared at the corner of the porch where Brooke had painted a blood-orange sky, just one week ago, and he couldn’t believe that he was now standing there without her, all alone. Everything had seemed so perfect last Saturday night.
But it couldn’t have been.
He tried to replay that evening back in his mind, every detail, looking for something he may have missed.
—
After Jack stormed out, after the romantic dinner, after he and Brooke had finished every drop of the Casa Carneros 1998—they headed upstairs, made love, and she had fallen asleep in his arms. He caressed her soft raven-black hair for a while. It wasn’t even ten yet, and he wasn’t remotely tired. He decided to catch up on his email and social media accounts. He gently set her head on the pillow and accidentally knocked over Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, one of the books she had brought from Big Sur—American authors she wanted to learn about. Luckily Mr. Miller didn’t wake her. Ethan opened his laptop and pored over his daily Facebook newsfeed. (He had over ten thousand “friends,” so there were always a lot of posts, tidbits, and news updates.)
He noticed one blurb about dating sites from one of his brother’s connections. This is when Ethan first wondered if Jack’s mysterious weekends might have been all about looking for love, or as Jack put it when he left—wanting to have a life.
Ethan logged into Stalker and ran a simple search on Jack, just a quick scan of common friends and interests. That didn’t do much so he stepped it up to Linkability Mode, which allowed him to pick up recent credit card transactions.
He learned that Jack had made two stops that evening: a restaurant and a service station. He marked the locations on a map. Ventura and San Simeon. It was clear that Jack was heading north.
&nbs
p; Ethan’s screen pinged, which meant that Jack was making a third purchase just then. Before he could see where it was, he saw that Brooke’s eyes were wide open, and angry; she had been watching him.
“What’s Linkability Mode?”
“It uses metadata to find someone,” Ethan explained.
“Like how?”
“Like what they purchase or when they make a phone call or—”
“Why?”
Ethan knew she was already weary of what Stalker did and how invasive its features could be, if used for the wrong reasons. Now he was proving her right. “Where they’ve been can give clues to where they’re going,” he told her.
Brooke had expressed concern about Stalker ever since they met. And who could blame her? Anyone would worry about a love interest with a history of stalking, let alone someone who owned a company that offered services to stalk. She had always been so protective of her own privacy, insisted on keeping their prior lives private, and talked a lot about protecting the privacy of the people that came to Dancing Rabbit.
There was a clip in her voice. “You’re stalking your brother, aren’t you?”
“I’m concerned about him.”
“Why?”
Ethan hadn’t considered why he was doing it, but the first thing that popped into his head was the consequences of last time Jack kept things from him. “Last time he distanced himself from me and clammed up like this, something really bad happened.”
She sat up as if she weren’t expecting such a penance. Her voice softened. “Tell me what happened.”
“I really don’t want to get into it.”
“I know you had a friend that killed himself,” she said. “Is that what you’re referring to?”
Ethan was taken aback. “My brother told you?”
“He did, yeah,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It had a tremendous effect on him.”
“On him?” Ethan felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten. ”Don’t get me started.”
“I think you should get started. You obviously have feelings about it. Talk to me.”
“I thought we weren’t going to regurgitate everything that happened before we met.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I just thought you might want to—”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Okay, love,” she said as she scooted closer and rubbed his chest. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Which made him want to talk about it. “Barry. His name was Barry. Our friend.”
“You were all quite close.”
“Barry, Jack, and I were best friends in school. But I spent a lot of time with someone else that summer—”
“With a girl, no doubt,” she teased. “Go on.”
“I wasn’t around much,” he admitted, “so I had no idea Barry was in so much pain. Jack must’ve known and never said anything.”
“When people commit suicide, they usually don’t tell anyone that they’re going to do it,” Brooke said. “Not if they really want to do it.”
“Jack had been with Barry every day. He should have picked up on something.”
“Not necessarily. And that’s a silly thing to hold on to. Blaming your brother for something that someone else did to themselves is nuts.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I think I do. Your brother distanced himself from you back then and something horrible happened and you blame him. But why do you think he shut you out then…and now?”
“It’s just the way he is.”
“Go deeper,” she said, seemingly impatient with his lack of pathos. “You had a serious girlfriend then, and you do now. Maybe it’s hard for your brother to share you. Did that ever occur to you?”
Ethan felt his face turn red.
Brooke asked him, “Do you think you could have talked your friend out of going into the woods and shooting himself?”
“I never got the chance to try.”
“Just because you and your brother share the same genetic profile, doesn’t mean you’re the same. It’s those genes that are randomly switched on, or off, that make you different. And those differences are often hidden from the world. “
“You’re saying that I don’t really know him.”
“Nobody knows anybody completely.”
—
Is that why they say love is blind, because you lose lucidity and can’t gauge reality? Was our love one-sided? And if she left with Jack—did she know something about my brother that I didn’t know?
Ethan looked out at the view of the ocean from the abandoned bungalow porch considering the possibilities. What other intimacies had Jack shared with her? Did she encourage him to be the man he always wanted to be and to move on? Did he expose a different side of himself to her? Jack had always behaved more uplifting and confident around her. And she treated Jack without censure or condemnation or expectations. Ethan, on the other hand, had always projected expectations onto Jack, or at least that’s what Jack had told him. Maybe Jack resented it. Resented him.
Could this be his way of getting retribution? Ethan wondered. Was Jack capable of such a betrayal?
Ethan remembered the dreaded look on Brooke’s face that night when she caught him stalking Jack. She said something else that night that he never forgot:
—
“Promise you’ll never stalk me if we don’t end up together.”
“I can’t do that,” he had told her, “because we will end up together. I love you—”
“I love you too,” she cut him off, “but you never know how things turn out.”
“—Unconditionally,” he’d added, as if that were all that mattered. “I love you unconditionally.”
—
But she clearly didn’t agree, as she had pointed out in her goodbye letter: “Unconditional love is, unfortunately, always conditional.”
Ethan couldn’t accept that her feelings weren’t true, though; he was so sure that the way he felt when he was with her was real, and mutual. He would know if she didn’t feel the same. That couldn’t have been faked. There had to be something else going on in her life, something she couldn’t share with him for some reason. She went so far as to change her name. Either she was hiding something or running from someone. Maybe she was in trouble. Maybe she needed help.
He needed to know.
The marine layer completely obscured the moon now and there was a sudden chill in the air. Ethan went back inside. The bungalow was tenebrous and still; its emptiness growing more sullen each time he reentered the empty home.
He sat on the couch, in the darkness, and fired up his laptop. The Stalker screen projected on his face and he contemplated entering the site as her voice played in his mind.
Please do not search for me or contact me.
Ethan had created Stalker to be a portal of full exposure, a beacon of truth, where technology could explain deceptions and explain betrayals—for anyone who has been bamboozled, double-crossed, or inexplicably dumped. Now he was one of those people, desperate and dolorous, achingly in the dark.
I have to find her.
Ethan reconsidered the pact he had made with Brooke to keep the details of their pasts in check because all that mattered was the present and the people they had become. Now he knew that she’d likely pushed for that agreement to keep something from him. She had only told him that she was a well-bred English girl who came to America after both of her parents passed away, looking for a fresh start, but she never said anything about changing her name, which had to mean that she was hiding or running. If that were the case, she may be in trouble.
Considering her odd behavior—the way she left, the Dear John note, the paintings left behind—it was likely she was in danger, he rationalized, deciding he would just find out if she was safe. If she was, he promised himself, he wou
ld back off and accept her decision.
He grabbed his phone, took a deep breath, and called her. He got one ring before her voicemail picked up. He hung up, and without hesitation, he phoned Jack. Got his voicemail, too.
Ethan felt a deeper twinge in his gut. He looked down at his glowing computer screen. It was already cued up to the Likability Mode. He gave himself final permission, and said out loud, “Just show me that you’re okay and I’ll leave you alone.”
He plugged in Brooke’s details and ran the search. The pop-ups showed no credit card activity.
He ran Jack’s and it showed a gas station purchase near San Simeon a week ago, last Friday, the day he left.
Then nothing.
San Simeon was just south of Big Sur. Jack had charged thirty-five dollars at the station and hadn’t used his credit card since. If that was the last place Jack used his credit card, over a week ago, then he had to still be in the area, and if he was, then he had to be at Dancing Rabbit. Brooke had made such a big deal about how the resort protected privacy. It would make a perfect hideaway. What if Brooke realized that she had chosen the wrong twin, preferred the one who was more “sensitive,” and ran away?
Ethan swallowed hard. He felt feverish. He had only been thinking about how both of them leaving had affected him. But what if something had happened to them? No one had heard from either one of them all week. Neither had used a credit card. Neither answered their phone. He had no way of getting in touch with them even if he wanted to. He had to find out if they were safe, and he couldn’t wait until morning.
It was starting to rain. And it was getting late. If he left just then, he wouldn’t get to Big Sur until around midnight. But it didn’t matter.
He grabbed a bag, uncertain if his search would take a few days or a few hours, and packed a few changes of clothes, his Dopp kit, laptop, and some energy bars. He set the Stalker app on his iPhone to All Out Search Mode and locked up the house.
His Tesla Model X was fully charged, which meant he could easily make it to Big Sur before needing to plug in.
The Second Son Page 5