I really, really did not want to look that far into the future.
But here in the present, I now had AC, free HBO and wi-fi, room service that consisted of a McDonald’s two blocks away and a snack machine down the hall, and all the free time in the world.
That night, I spent my free time curled up in my cold, rented bed, listening to my phone go off.
Dave’s incoming texts buzzed, his emails chimed, and his calls were announced by the main theme from Star Wars. I couldn’t bring myself to answer, and I also couldn’t bear to turn the phone off and ignore it – so I pulled the sheets over my head and just listened, hour after hour.
Every so often, when I felt like some real torture, I pulled up his voicemails and listened to them, and read a few of the texts and emails – and once I was crying too hard to read or hear straight any longer, I deleted everything and hid under the covers again.
At four in the morning, I decided this was insane. Without giving myself time to think about it, I grabbed my phone, deleted every last message of any kind, and turned the damn thing off.
Cassie, you love him. He loves you. The rest can work itself out. Get some sleep.
I woke up with sun glaring into my eyes through the cheap curtains. The bedside clock-radio announced it was 11:03 a.m. My rumbling stomach declared it was half-past breakfast and then some, and when was I going to haul my lazy ass out of bed and shift myself down the street to Grease Heaven, aka McDonald’s?
I forgot about the glory of empty calories when I rubbed sleep out of my eyes, yawned, and spotted my phone sitting on the nightstand.
Reality crashed in for a visit. How many hundreds of messages were waiting for me to cry over now? Cassie, would you like some heartbreak for breakfast? After all, it made a great midnight snack, didn’t it?
But I discovered no new voicemails. No more emails had arrived. Instead, a single text was waiting for me, with a timestamp of 10:28 a.m. that morning.
Working on how to fix things and kill monsters, will be in touch once I figure it out. Please wait, I love you.
Before I could change my mind, I punched in one quick text and hit ‘send.’
I love you too, cook. I’ll wait. Now go make it right.
I wanted to call him too – but I didn’t. Calling would mean talking and more crying, I’d end up running back to him, and no. He had to know this was real. I had to be strong.
Be patient, Cassie. Wait.
One week went by. I caught up on Game of Thrones thanks to my free HBO, I realized the show had long since outrun the novels, and what was the deal with George R.R. Martin, anyway? Was he ever going to finish writing a book again in his life, ever? I ate way more McDonald’s than any decent human being should who didn’t want to get colon cancer. I wandered the wilds of the internet far into the night, and I slept late every morning. If I didn’t think about why I was enjoying the cut-rate hospitality of the Days Inn, it was almost like a weird sort of vacation.
I paid for another week. I spent that second week binge-watching other shows, downloading fresh books for my Kindle, and maybe I did take a look online to see what a studio apartment in a cheap-ish part of town would run me – but just as a theoretical exercise, since surely this situation would resolve itself before I needed to worry about stuff like that.
I didn’t hear from Dave. But he was working on justice and monster-slaying, and those things take time, right?
I renewed for Week Three. I was now on a first-name basis with the front desk clerk and knew the names and birthdays of all her kids. Bars are always hiring, should I maybe start putting in some applications?
The day before I’d have to either pay up for a fourth week or clear out, I paced my room until two in the morning. I stared at the walls, I thought it all over. What was the deal with Dave? What was he doing, what was his plan? Cut ties with the dark side, hire more bodyguards, and hope for the best? Was he digging up evidence to tie Hungary’s leading asshole to Kristen’s death? Was he holed up in Eastern Somewhere with Sergei and Anton?
Was he moving on without me?
Three weeks, and not one more text after the one asking me to wait. No calls, no emails, no knocking on the door of Room 314. I hadn’t gone to any particular trouble to hide where I was, so if he wanted to – if – he should be able to find me.
Two days into Week Four, UPS found me.
The front desk called with the news that Big Brown had delivered a package for me, and I almost ruptured something running down there to pick it up. I signed for the bubble-padded yellow envelope, I hustled back upstairs with it, I kicked my room’s door shut behind me, and I sat down on the bed with my mystery delivery.
The bubble mailer was the size of a smallish paperback book. It was light in my hands, the return address was Dave’s office downtown, and I teared up at the sight of his scrawled, erratic handwriting on the back, right next to the flap:
Take care of this stuff for me. I love you. Forgive me.
I tore open the envelope and dumped its contents onto the bed.
Pictures from Dave’s wallet of his mom and Kristen. The crumpled old shot of Carson he’d shown me in London.
And my dad’s pocket watch.
Jesus, Dave, what are you doing?
I snatched up my phone to call him because fuck waiting.
No answer.
No answer again and again and again.
No response to texts or emails.
I threw the phone onto the bed and paced around the walls of the room, moving faster with every step, almost running.
Think, Cassie, don’t freak out, THINK.
I would have gone back to his penthouse apartment, but I had a sick feeling he wouldn’t be there. Or at his office. Or anywhere in Chicago.
Or anywhere?
Dave?
I yelped and lunged for my phone when it buzzed with a text. The time was 10:30 a.m.
Turn on Channel 98 now. I love my wild woman so much. Please forgive me.
I grabbed the remote from the nightstand and snapped on the TV that was bolted to the wall. Channel 98 didn’t sound familiar, but I punched it in and sat cross-legged on the bed as the screen flared to life and displayed … C-SPAN?
Dave, I love you and all, but Congress? In the morning, on a mostly empty stomach?
The upper right of the screen informed me this was “LIVE,” and that the time was now 10:31 a.m. A graphic across the bottom of the image read “Senate Armed Services Committee, Dirksen Office Building,” and the camera currently showed two rows of senators settling into their seats – most of them male and about half as old as God, and all of them looking like it was a struggle to stay awake. Microphones were adjusted, papers were shuffled, water was sipped, aides fluttered here and there, and why –
The view changed. Now a different camera showed the witness table facing the rows of senators, and a close-up view of the one man who sat there.
I knew that face so well. I’d seen it lighting up in a crooked grin and lost in grief, whispering to me in the night and on fire with the joy of describing a dream. Those green eyes could laugh all by themselves, and I knew for a fact that the left one could take a punch from a skinny crazy bitch like a champ.
The bottom of the screen displayed the words “David Dallstrom, CEO Dallstrom Defense Systems.”
What are you up to, cook?
Dave’s wild Viking mane was pulled back into a ponytail. He wore what I recognized as the best of his Benigno Ventali silk suits, ten thousand dollars of bespoke tailoring that shone with charcoal-grey majesty beneath the TV-bright overhead lighting. He’d somehow gotten his pastel blue silk tie into a crisp and stylish knot all by himself, and he’d located another one of those gold tie clips with the Dallstrom Defense Systems logo. He looked like every bit of forty billion entitled dollars, and I ached for the sweet guy I knew, the man behind that mask of power and privilege – because that man was absolutely alone for whatever was about to happen.
All I could do wa
s watch.
Now the view shifted to a different close-up, and the text at the bottom of the screen told me I was looking at “Sen. Luther Clifton, I-Nebraska,” the committee chairman. What I saw was not all that encouraging – the man’s pale eyes peered through granny spectacles balanced atop his narrow arched nose, a few strands of grey hair clung thin and desperate to his mostly bald pink scalp, and all that combined with the yellow bow tie he wore with his severe black suit made him look like a color-blind Presbyterian minister.
Senator Clifton flipped through a few sheets of paper and set them aside. He sighed. Then he leaned over his microphone and looked at Dave with the weary resignation of someone watching their dog take a messy dump on the living room rug for the hundredth time.
“We’re here today to hear testimony regarding proposed budget allocations for defense spending in the upcoming fiscal year, just as we’ve been doing all this week – and Mr. Dallstrom, I’ve been given to understand that you have testimony to offer on this subject?”
Now C-SPAN split the screen, showing both the senator and Dave at the same time. I had no idea what Dave meant to do or say, but he seemed pretty sure of himself, putting on his extra-sincere version of the Public Dave smile.
“That’s correct, sir – I’m here to give detailed testimony that is directly relevant to defense spending, defense issues generally, and this country’s national security. I’d also like to say at this time that I’m honored to be here, and grateful that I’m being given the opportunity to share some very important information regarding –”
And Senator Chuckles cut him off, the thin-lipped bastard. “And I would hope you’ll take your appearance here today seriously and use the opportunity you’ve been given for its intended purpose, and not for the kind of showboating for the cameras that you’ve become known for over the past year – I like to run a tight ship in this committee, Mr. Dallstrom, and I have no intention of wasting the Senate’s time on stroking the ego of a celebrity.”
I considered throwing the remote right at the esteemed gentleman from Nebraska’s face, but Dave took the guy’s snippiness in stride. “I understand your concern, Senator Clifton, but a great deal of thought and preparation went into the testimony you’ll from me today, and I assure you that I take this situation very seriously.” He sampled the glass of water at his right elbow and then added, “So will you, once you hear what I have to say.”
The senator settled back into his seat. “Then proceed.”
The camera switched back to a close-up of Dave. “Thank you, sir. I have an opening statement and it will run a bit long, so I appreciate your patience. After that, I’ll answer any and all questions you and your colleagues may have.”
Dave picked up a folder full of paperwork that sat on the table in front of him and set it to one side. I noted that at least a dozen other such folders, stuffed full with who knew what, stretched away down the table on either side of my guy.
Then Dave sat up straight, he folded his hands in front of him on the table, and he spent the next few minutes delivering the standard party line of Dallstrom Defense Systems – Einar Dallstrom had been a visionary, the company he founded was the bedrock of this country’s defense, nothing had meant more to his father than the growing and healthy partnership between Dallstrom Defense Systems and the government of the United States, the American people were the greatest people in the world, blah, blah, blah.
I’m pretty sure committee members aren’t supposed to interrupt an opening statement, but Senator Clifton did anyway. “That sounds like a press release, Mr. Dallstrom. Please tell me you have something more for us today, or I may call an early recess for lunch. I don’t mind telling you, my stomach’s bothering me today and sitting here listening to public relations nonsense masquerading as testimony isn’t helping.” He shook his head as if Dave was a sinner who’d disappointed him.
“Senator Clifton?”
The committee chairman barely glanced up. “Yes, Mr. Dallstrom?”
“Your stomach will feel a lot worse before we’re through, sir. I apologize for that fact, and for the fact that you and anyone else listening who has a soul may not sleep well tonight. May I proceed?”
The background murmur subsided, spectators back behind the witness table glanced at each other, and a few of the senators now appeared to be fully awake. Senator Clifton raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Go ahead, Mr. Dallstrom.”
The screen had switched from a side view of the entire room to a shot showing the rows of committee members. Now the camera was back on Dave, and he nodded toward the rows of bulging folders stretching away on either side of him.
“Before I proceed, I believe it’s important for the members of the committee to know that I have full and extensive documentation proving everything I am about to say. What you see here is only a fraction of the proof I’ve gathered – on-site inspections, photographs, video footage, call logs, confidential company files, sworn testimony from eyewitnesses, bank records, transcripts of private meetings here and overseas, and more, much more.”
Senator Clifton decided this might be more interesting than the proceedings in his stomach. He pushed his glasses up his nose and he leaned forward. “And what exactly does all this evidence prove, Mr. Dallstrom?”
“That the public relations bullshit I spouted just now is a lie.”
Dave leaned into his microphone and those blazing green eyes belonged to my Dave, the real Dave. “Every public announcement you’ve ever heard from Dallstrom Defense Systems has been a lie. Every statement by my father, every press release, every corporate report in the public record, every bit of testimony ever given before this committee by anyone representing my father’s company – all lies.”
Then Dave stepped off a cliff and he took the monsters with him.
“Dallstrom Defense Systems has shared classified defense technology with foreign governments, including North Korea, China, and Russia. Dallstrom Defense Systems has provided funding and weapons to terrorist groups throughout the world, including ISIS, Al Qaeda, and many others. Dallstrom Defense Systems manufactures and sells illegal chemical and biological weapons to anyone who will pay for them. Dallstrom Defense Systems has used such weapons, including sarin nerve gas, against individuals and organizations that refused to cooperate with company directives. Dallstrom Defense Systems has spied on foreign governments and engineered the deaths of foreign officials and public figures who interfered with company operations, and –”
A senator in the back row – “Sen. Miles Bloxom, R-Indiana,” according to the onscreen graphic – leaned forward and bellowed into his microphone, cutting off both Dave and the rising tide of shocked and confused voices from the rows of spectators behind the witness table.
“Given the bizarre nature of Mr. Dallstrom’s statements and the fact that all of this appears to involve matters of national security, I move that this hearing be closed to the public and –”
The committee chairman barely turned his head in that direction, his voice quiet but sharp. “And anyone who seconds that motion will hear from me in no uncertain terms, and may soon find themselves permanently removed from membership on this committee.”
A whole lot of silence happened, as Senator Bloxom glared at his colleagues behind the committee chairman’s back and they all kept their mouths firmly shut. No seconds here, no sir.
Senator Clifton faced the witness table again. “I think we all need to hear more of what Mr. Dallstrom has to say, and I for one trust the American public to have at least as much sense and intelligence about all this as any senator in the room.”
A small surprised part of me debated moving to Nebraska and voting for this Clifton guy every chance I got – but mostly I was too frozen and lost and blindly terrified to think at all.
Dave’s face filled the screen again. “Closing this hearing to the public would be pointless in any case, sir. This morning, immediately before my appearance here, I released all of this information and complete c
opies of all the documentation to news organizations around the world – CNN, the New York Times, the Times of London, Agence France-Presse, Al Jazeera, they all have it, along with dozens of other media outlets. Copies of every piece of evidence have been turned over to Wikileaks, it’s all been uploaded to multiple file-sharing services, and it’s been posted on the Dallstrom Defense Systems official website and every other blog and website I could get it onto in the limited amount of time available.”
Dave took a swallow of his water. When the glass clinked back down onto the polished wood of the witness table, the sound echoed through the room.
“And last night, I recorded a video in which I summarized everything I’m saying here today, in addition to presenting much of the supporting evidence – I uploaded that video to Youtube shortly before this hearing began, multiple times and under multiple names and accounts, and it’s now freely available to be viewed, copied, and shared by anyone with internet access.”
Whispers circled through the room, as senators and spectators alike furtively peered at their smartphones. Dave left them to it and continued, quiet and determined.
“Senators, I’m here today because this needs to be in the public record, to be part of this country’s official history – but I took these other measures I’ve mentioned because I didn’t dare take a chance on this information being silenced, throttled, and buried. Too many lives have been destroyed, too many lies have been told, too many secrets have been kept. I had to be sure all of this came out into the light and stayed out in the light for everyone to see. This is the only way to end it, to make sure that there is no going back for any of us.”
No Dreams Allowed: A Billionaire Romance Page 30