Saving Scotty (4 page)

Chapter 6

Nick

I picked up my phone to call Nate. It was in the middle of the day, so I was sure that he was at work, but wanted to try him anyhow. If he didn’t pick up for whatever reason, I would go down to his place of business.

“Nate Hitchins, please,” I said to the receptionist who answered the phone. I also tried Nate’s cell number, but it went straight to voice mail.

“Just a second, please
,” she said.

I hung on the line, and soon realized that I was holding my breath, waiting for Nate to come to the phone.

My heart sunk when the receptionist came back on to tell me that Nate was in a meeting with some clients, and that he would give me a call back as soon as possible.

Do I tell her it’s an emergency?
No, I finally decided that I needed to just go down there. So, I left the hospital, found Charlie, who was waiting for me, and asked him to drive me to the Goldman building. Nate was working in the new Goldman building in lower Manhattan, on West Street. So, it was going to take awhile to get there, with the traffic being the typically heavy mid-day slog.

I looked out the window, trying hard to stay calm. I couldn’t lose my composure or my cool, because, if I did, I wouldn’t be able to think clearly. Right now, I had to have nothing but a clear head.

But I couldn’t help it. I started to think about Scotty being virtually kidnapped by that man, although, apparently, the hospital let it happen, and my blood pressure started to skyrocket. I could feel it. I tried not to think about the horrors that my Scotty was going through, being alone with that monster. I tried not to, but my mind went there. I could feel tears coming to my eyes, and I took out some tissue, which was in the limo, and blew my nose.

Come on, now, Nick, you can’t fall apart. Scotty needs you to be level-headed and unemotional. You can be as emotional as you want once you find her, but, for right now, you have to keep your wits about you. So, calm down.

And my mind also drifted to Abrianna. I never got over that, and hearing about Scotty being hit by a car brought it all flooding back to me.

∞

Abrianna was 7 years old. She was really the light of my life, along with my other two girls, Charlotte and April. Unfortunately for them, the house was full of chaos and instability. My marriage with Rielle was never a stable one. Looking back now, I wondered why I was even married to her at all. Or, rather, why I took up with her in the first place. All that I can think now was that she had an inherent fascination to me, because she was such my polar opposite. Where I was hot, she was cool. But, it turned out that she was too cool, as she was soon shown to be cold. Buttoned up. Kept her emotions completely hidden behind an exterior that was always threatening to break.

Our marriage was marked by infidelity and mistrust. I was completely untamed, and not getting what I needed from her. Emotionally or sexually. We rarely
spoke about anything, except for about the children, and I was always gone on one business trip or another.

The day that it happened was the day that Rielle’s emotional dam finally burst, and the fight that occurred was one for the ages. I had just gotten back from a month-long trip to China. I was involved in designing some
buildings in Beijing for some major clients there. When I got back, Rielle was itching for a fight that had been a long time coming.

“Well, Nick, how was your trip to China?” she asked with a sneer. I had come home with a bag full of souvenirs and goodies for my girls, and had also brought her a saltwater pearl necklace that had set me back a bundle. I guess I was going to try to buy my way out of trouble.

“Great,” I said, but I was on the defensive, as I noticed her offensive posture and demeanor. “How are things here?”

“Why do you want to know? You’re never around. I don’t think that you give a shit.”

“Listen, Rielle. You’re the one who wants things, all the fucking time. Whatever I give you, it’s never enough. I have to work my ass off just to keep you in the manner to which you have been accustomed,” I said, sarcastically stressing that last part. “So, if you expect me to provide this mansion and our vacation home in Lake Como, and all the cars, furs and jewelry you seem to demand every time I turn around, I best be working. I seem to remember that it’s you who demands that we go to Switzerland every year to ski. It’s you who demanded this multi-million dollar home. It’s you who demanded that I buy that palace in Italy. It’s you who wants all this shit, not me. Yet, when I work to try to provide it, you get all pissed off.”

“Oh, no. You’re not going to put this on me. I have never asked you to never come home for months at a time. Never. You know that I want you to stay around here.”

“Oh, sure, sure. Sure. I’ll just tell my firm that I can’t travel anymore. Let’s see how well that goes over. Travel is required for my job. You’ve always known that. If you want a goddamned stay at home husband, then you married the wrong man.”

And things just went downhill from there.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind as much if it weren’t for your extracurricular activities.”

Ironically, I wasn’t cheating on her at that time. She was cheating on me, though, and I knew this. “Projecting again, are you?” I said.
“You wanna tell me about Joe?”

“Fuck you for bringing that up. Fuck you.”

“Oh, sorry for bringing up the man you’ve been fucking while I’ve been gone. I’m surprised you’re so hot on having me here, considering how much fucking you get done while I’m not at home.”

During the heated exchange, neither of us was paying much attention to anything around us. Abrianna was home
because she was still recovering from the chicken pox. Usually there was a nanny watching her, but, on this day, the nanny was sick. Charlotte and April were at school. Rielle was watching her that day, but, needless to say, she wasn’t keeping a careful eye on her at that precise moment. She was too busy tearing into me, and I into her.

Rielle opened her mouth to say something back to me, when we heard the sounds of a car screeching in front of our gates. My old ho
me was set behind a large stone wall with an iron gate, and it sat on several acres of land.

Both of us just looked at each other, our mouths opened, and then we both ran out to see what
had happened.

Rielle screamed at the sight of our daughter lying in the street. There was a man who was leaning down next to her,
and a woman who was talking on the phone. The woman hung up and announced that the ambulance was on the way.

“What, what, what happened?” I asked the man, as I sat down on the curb and took ahold of my daughter’s lifeless hand.

The man just shook his head. “I don’t know. I was just driving, and she darted out in front of the car. I couldn’t stop. I’m so sorry.”

The ambulance was screeching in the distance, but I knew that it was no use. Abrianna, my beautiful little girl with the angelic blond curls, was gone. I bowed my head, and tried to block out the sound of Rielle tearing into the man.

“You bastard! You killed my daughter! You’re going to pay for this!”

I stood up and held onto her, trying to stop her from physically striking the man. As she struggled and screamed, I said to her, in a loud voice. “He didn’t
do this. We did. We did this.”

And that was how I felt. We weren’t paying attention to her. Abrianna was such a sensitive child. And I knew, as sure as anything I had ever known, why she was running into the street. She was tryi
ng to get away from Rielle and me screaming at each other. She was trying to get away from the house, and she was probably trying to get to a horse pasture that was down the street from us. I had taken Abrianna there many times, and she always loved it. I knew that was Abrianna’s favorite place to be.

She was probably running to that
horse pasture to get away from our fighting.

I didn’t pick her up. I was still hoping, against hope, that I was wrong about Abrianna already being gone. That maybe there was still a chance for her. So, I didn’t pick her up. I knew
enough to know that you are never to move an injured child. I just sat there, next to her, stroking her hair gently. I didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t stop my tears.

Rielle, by that time, was just standing there. A frozen statue. She didn’t cry or scream anymore. She barely blinked.

The ambulance finally got there, and they gently loaded Abrianna through the doors. They let me ride in the back, which actually was a bad sign, because if there was any hope at all for her, they probably wouldn’t have let me do this. They worked on her, while I sat there, staring at her, willing her to take a breath.

I silently prayed for the first time in years. I hadn’t prayed since I had lost my sister
some 15 years before. After Michelle passed away, in spite of my constant praying for her to get better, I shunned praying and god. I simply felt that it did no good at all, and I was angry. Angry at god, angry at fate.

Just angry.

The paramedics went through the motions with their chest compressions and blood transfusions, but everybody in that ambulance knew. Including myself.

After the funeral, Rielle went back to her cold self. She no longer screamed at me or harangued me. But she didn’t talk to me much, either. There really was nothing much to say.

The worst part was that we didn’t turn to each other. We turned away, more than we ever had before. I needed her to lean on, but she wasn’t there. So, I turned to others. As did she.

Ironically, though, right before we actually got divorced, I thought that we had turned a corner. Our sex life was back on track, and I felt like I loved her again
, even if I wasn’t in love with her. But we were never solid, like a real married couple should be. The final straw was when the story about my relationship with Ryan broke, and Rielle discovered the truth about my bisexuality. Not sure how she never knew it before, or suspected it. I mean, she probably did suspect, but was willfully blind about it.

One thing was for sure, though. I closed myself off, emotionally, after Abrianna’s death. I didn’t want to feel that sense of devastation and loss, ever ag
ain. It almost broke me. Which was why I couldn’t form any real emotional attachment with a woman.

Until Scotty.

∞

So, while I sat in the back of the limo as it drove towards the Goldman building, I thought about Abrianna. I had to keep my mind off of Scotty, and what was happening to her, if I wanted to keep my wits about me.
Because if I really allowed my mind to go there, I thought that I would have gone crazy. And that would have helped nobody.

I drummed my fingers restlessly on the arm rest. Inside, I was going out of my mind. At every red light, I thought that I would get out of the car and run the rest of the way. It would’ve been faster.

Finally, I got to the building. I instructed Charlie to park the car in the Goldman garage, and to pick me up immediately after I called him.

When I got to Nate’s department, I told the receptionist that I was there to see him.

“He’s still in a meeting,” she said.

“Could you please
call him and tell him I’m here? Nick O’Hara. I’m here, and I need to speak with him ASAP.”

The receptionist was going to protest, but she saw the look in my eye, and she obliged. After she talked to Nate, she hung up the phone and looked at me. “He will be right out,” she said.

She flipped through a magazine, and her insouciance almost drove me insane.
Doesn’t she know what kind of crisis is going on here?

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Nate appeared. I hadn’t talked to him since I dumped Ava, his friend, so, at first, he looked pissed. But, he took one look at my face, and
his pissed look immediately disappeared and was replaced by one of concern.

I stood up. “I’m sorry to bother you Nate, but I wouldn’t have come down here if it weren’t important.”

“Sure,” he said. “I have to get back to my meeting, but what do you need?”

“Can we speak privately?”

Nate nodded. “Follow me,” he said.

I followed him back to his enormous office, and he shut the door.

“So, what’s going on?” he asked.

“I, uh, need to know if you know somebody. And, if you don’t know him personally, whether you know somebody who might.”

“Sure,” he said. “What’s his name?”

“Paul Lucas. He’s a
hedge fund manager. He used to be a trader.”

“Paul Lucas, Paul Lucas….” Nate looked thoughtful. His hand was on his chin, and he looked down at the floor. “Where have I heard that name?”

I told him who Paul worked for, and his face lit up. “Oh, yes, yes. Of course. Of course. Yeah, I’ve met him a few times at cocktail parties. What do you need to know about him?”

“Hopefully you know something about him. Do you know his ex-wife, Elle?”

“Yeah, I met her a few times. What do you need to know about her?”

“
I need to know what her last name is. Is it Lucas or something else? Also, do you happen to remember what firm she works for? She’s a lobbyist in DC, and that’s all that I know.”