Friday at the latest — it was something to be relished.
It was only after she'd unpacked and tidied everything away that she allowed herself a glass of Merlot and started eyeing the phone with intent.
She was feeling nervous as hell at the prospect of talking to Eric again (a little bit excited, too, if she was honest) and hesitated for most of the glass before sending him a short text.
I'm home if you still want to talk.
It couldn't have be more than a minute before her cell rang.
"Hey," she said, picking up, her heartbeat thudding in her chest.
"It's me," Eric said, unnecessarily. "Thank you. I wasn't sure you were going to get in touch."
"I said I'd talk to you. I'm not promising anything,"
"I know. It's just — I'm sorry."
He sighed.
"I know you don't want apologies, Emmy, but I completely fucked this up, and I am so goddamned sorry. You probably should hang up and steer clear of me, actually, if you had any sense of self-preservation."
"I'm inclined to agree," she said, her tone biting, and she heard his intake of breath. "Lucky for you I am feeling reckless. Let's cut the crap, though. Tell me about your brother."
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time,” Emmy said, wedging the phone under her ear as she curled up on the couch.
“When I started looking for Owen, I hired that guy Randall. He’s an ex-Marine and an expert on tracing military personnel. He’s very good, but even then it took him a long while because Owen changed his name a few years ago, and joined the special operations command.”
“Wow. Your brother was special forces?”
“Something like that, yeah — undercover work, unconventional warfare, that kind of stuff. Made him pretty hard to find, and then right about the time Randall managed to track him down to Bagram airbase he went AWOL.”
“Except he wasn’t AWOL, he was kidnapped?” Emmy supplied.
“Exactly. By some splinter Taliban group, along with the rest of his team. We had to go through a specialist hostage negotiator, and we had to do it in secret, because the US government doesn’t pay ransoms, and discourages private citizens from, you know, financing terrorists.”
“I don’t suppose that swayed you.”
Eric snorted.
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel bad, but it was a no-brainer. So when I heard about your friend Mr. Hunter sniffing around, I thought he was chasing a story that would blow the whole thing open. And I had to get the money together quickly — you don’t want to wait for the kidnappers to sell their hostage on to another faction – I needed cash, and lots of it.”
“Fuck,” Emmy breathed out. “That’s why you sold my building?”
“I didn’t have a choice Em. Most of my money is tied up in business properties, condos and generally belongs to the company. I can’t spend it without being accountable. Your brownstone, on the other hand, was a private purchase, and I could move it quickly.”
“I thought you were just being spiteful, taking revenge for your imagined betrayal.”
“I did act like a spoiled brat,” Eric said ruefully. “I was so sure you were in league with Hunter, and that you’d been playing me. Randall had said as much, and I’d had some family members voicing suspicions…”
He paused and she could hear him swallow.
“You know, this is all bullshit. I was freaked out by the thought that my long-lost brother was in danger. I can see now that I was wrong, and stupid, and callous with you. I was fed bullshit and I accepted it unquestioningly, and I let my jealousy and paranoia get the better of me.”
"So where do I fit into all of this, now that we've parted ways?" she said, trying to be as cool and clinical as possible.
He went so quiet that Emmy started to wonder whether the line had dropped.
"You — well, obviously, I have absolutely no claim on you, and there's no reason you should help me. But I don’t think I can do this alone, and you...You're the only one I trust."
"Funny you should say that," she said. "Because that's not the impression I had when we last met. That trusting thing — that was before you told me to my face that you thought I was some manipulative bitch after you for your cash, right? Or did you still trust me then?"
God but it felt good to let that out, even if all she was getting in return was bruised silence.
"So I'm going to have