Obsessed With You (17 page)

“
He seemed to take it in
stride,” Aaron said. “Bob was going to be my best man at my
wedding. I don’t think he harbored bad feelings toward me.”

“
You never know what people are
harboring,” Randy said darkly.

Randy turned back to the
computer. “Aha,” he said after a moment.

“
What?” Aaron asked sharply.

“
Looks like Bob’s got a
second mortgage on his fancy house, to the tune of a hundred and
seventy-five thousand bucks.” Randy whistled. “That’s some
bucks!” he said.

“
That makes no sense to me,”
Aaron said.

“
And looky here,” Randy said
a few minutes later. “Bob’s got three credit card companies that
have filed suit against him for nonpayment. Looks like a total of
over fifty thousand bucks.”

Aaron sat in the leather chair,
stunned. Bob had never let on that he was having financial problems.
Bob always grabbed the check first, often paying for the whole
group’s meal and drinks. Sarah, his wife, always dressed in
expensive clothes and their children attended an exclusive private
school.

“
That’s neither here nor
there,” Randy said. “Unless we can link Bob to knowledge of your
Johnson.”

There was that word again. Aaron
cringed.

Randy turned back to the computer
and punched the keys. Aaron stared blankly into space, wondering what
happened with Bob.

“
Well, I’ve found a Facebook
page on a Marsha Gardner that might be the one. Is she overweight?”

“
Yeah, I guess you’d call her
chubby,” Aaron said.

“
She sure loves that dog of
hers,” Randy said chuckling.

“
That’s Delilah,” Aaron
said. “She keeps several photos of her on her desk.”

Randy scrolled through several
pages of photos. “Bingo!” he said.

Aaron looked at Randy’s screen,
which was filled with squares of photographs.

“
That’s you,” Randy said,
pointing at one of the squares. “At a Christmas party.”

Aaron squinted at the photo. It
was definitely him, in better days when he still worked out at the
gym and kept his hair and beard cut. He couldn’t even remember that
party.

“’
My boss, Christmas 2011’,
the caption says,” Randy said.

“
So?” Aaron said. “She’s
got a ton of others on there, too.”

“
That’s right,” Randy said.
“Is Gardner Marsha’s original name or was she married somewhere
along the way?”

“
She never mentioned an
ex-husband,” Aaron said. “Not that I can remember.”

Randy turned away from his
computer and focused his full attention on Aaron.

“
We can link several people up
three ways but not all four ways,” Randy said. “We’ve got to
have the tie and the Johnson linked; we can forget the rest probably.
The only one that we can link all four ways is Cathy.”

A lightening bolt went through
Aaron. “Cathy?” he croaked.

“
That’s how it’s lookin’,”
Randy said. “She’s the only one that has knowledge of all four
points. Is there any reason she would have it in for you? Maybe
wanted to get out of your engagement and cooked up this scheme.”

“
Hell, no!” Aaron shouted,
surprising Randy and himself. He was enraged.

“
Hey,” Randy said. “I’m
just doing the job you hired me to do.”

“
That’s ridiculous,” Aaron
said. “Cathy would never do something like that.”

“
Don’t be too sure about what
people will do,” Randy said. “I’ve seen the underside in my
line of business.”

“
No way,” Aaron said fuming.

“
Did you ever talk to the woman
yourself?” Randy asked.

“
Well, no. I tried to call the
number back but it was a private number and I couldn’t.”

“
Uh huh,” Randy said
knowingly.

Aaron jumped up so forcefully
that the leather chair pushed out behind him.

“
Send me your bill,” he
barked when he reached the door. “Your services are no longer
required.”

Chapter
Sixteen

Aaron drove angrily through the
city streets and parked in the garage near his old firm. He was still
breathing hard when he hit the pavement and trotted toward his
building. By the time he got off the elevator on the eleventh floor,
he had composed himself. He stopped and spoke to Jeanie, the
receptionist, who insisted on showing him photos of her new
grandchild. He made appropriate oohing sounds about the kid, then
moved straight to Bob’s office. He needed to see his friend. Needed
to feel the situation out. But when he got there, Carolyn, Bob’s
secretary, informed him that Bob had taken his old office and his old
secretary too!

Aaron walked as calmly as
possible down the corridor to his old office. He stepped into
Marsha’s outer office, the place where all guests were greeted.
Marsha looked up from her computer and her face broke into a smile.
She even laughed a little as she jumped up to give him a hug.

“
I almost didn’t recognize
you with the beard,” Marsha said. “It looks good on you.”

“
Thanks,” he mumbled. “I
understand Bob is over here now?” he asked.

“
Yes, but he’s not like you,”
Marsha said under her breath.

“
Is he in?” Aaron asked.

“
No, he’s already gone to
lunch. Do you want to leave him a message?”

Aaron thought about what kind of
message he wanted to leave Bob. Such as, “What the hell do you
think you’re doing in my old office with my secretary?” Or,
“What’s up with all your financial problems?” Or “Were you
really pissed off when Mrs. Davis became my client and hate my guts?”
But he just shook his head no. He had no message.

“
I need to get to my parents
pretty soon. Can I dictate the letter for you and sign it before I
go?”

Marsha sat at her computer and
opened up a new Word document. “Go,” she said. It was a familiar
routine. Aaron often dictated to Marsha as she typed his words. He
sat on the corner of her desk and started the letter. “Quite
simply, Marsha Gardner is the best secretary I’ve ever had.”

She looked up at him, glowing,
waiting for him to continue. He went on to talk about Marsha’s
skills and her overall work demeanor. Hell, anyone would be a fool
not to hire her if his letter meant anything. When he was finished,
Marsha printed the letter and he signed it.

“
I’m sorry I didn’t get
that to you sooner, Marsha,” he said as he stood to leave.

“
Are you doing all right?”
she asked with concern. “Where are you living now?”

“
No need to worry,” he said
with a wave of his hand. He wanted to get out of there before Bob
came back. “I’m fine. Doing some traveling.”

“
Keep in touch,” she called
after him as he went through her door.

Aaron managed to get through the
office and out the door without running into anyone. It was still the
lunch hour, so most people were away from their desks, including
Jeanie. A young woman sat at her desk, an intern no doubt. She gave
Aaron a little wave as he went past her and out the door.

On the way out of the city, Aaron
passed by many familiar places. His first firm, on a busy corner,
rose above him. He looked up at it, envisioning himself as a young
financial advisor on the fourteenth floor. A couple of blocks down,
he glanced over at Deccio’s, a bar he and his coworkers frequented
often, especially on Tuesday nights when the drinks were half price
until eight. That was where they all congregated at the end of his
last day at his first firm. Drinks had been plentiful, and he
remembered, as best he could, that he had had quite a bit. Too much
to drink. He was only twenty-four at the time and still full of
himself.

Finally, the city was left behind
him and he drove another forty minutes to the farm country where he
had grown up. He passed through the little town near his house. The
feed and seed store was front and center, right across from the post
office, as it always had been. February pansies bloomed in a colorful
profusion of purples and pinks and yellows in big half barrels
outside the general store and all along the street. The City Diner
and Miss Marie’s Diner still stood across the street from each
other, constant competitors, still going strong after more than sixty
years. His parents met each other at Miss Marie’s, where his mother
was working, so the place was special to him. He mentally tipped his
hat to the diner as he drove past.

A few minutes later, Aaron turned
off of the main road onto the county road that led to his family
home. The fields on either side of the road were either brown and
fallow or green with cover crops, waiting for the last frost.
Eventually, Aaron passed by his own family’s farmland and turned
into the long winding gravel driveway.

The white two-story farmhouse
came into view, a home that had been in his father’s family since
the late eighteen hundreds when they had first farmed the land. It
was old, but it was sturdy. His parents made sure it was maintained,
and now it looked like it had a fresh coat of white paint. Pansies
spilled out of several pots on the front steps.

As he was getting out of his car,
his mother flew down the front steps, smiling and crying at the same
time. He hugged her hard.

He walked into the house with his
arm around his short mother and she led him right away into the
kitchen.

“
You’re too thin,” she
said. He dropped his bag on the floor beside the kitchen table, a
worn rustic planked wood. He ran his hand across the wood,
remembering his many meals there. His mother put a bowl of homemade
minestrone soup and a baloney sandwich in front of him.

“
I know you love baloney,”
she said. And he did love baloney. Always had loved baloney since he
was old enough to eat sandwiches.

“
I put plenty of mustard on the
way you like it,” she said.

“
Thanks, Mom,” Aaron said
picking up the sandwich for his first bite.

The soup especially reminded him
of his childhood on cool evenings in the fall and winter. His mother
always had a pot of soup going on the stove, no matter the season. It
was her standby, and the minestrone was her best, if you could say
she had a best. There were so many soups in her repertoire to choose
from.

When he had finished eating, his
mother took his dishes to the sink and sat back down. She took
Aaron’s hand in hers.

“
Son, I don’t mind telling
you that we’ve been worried about you.”

Aaron started to protest, to set
his mother’s mind at east, when she held up her hand to shush him.

“
Now don’t tell me I don’t
know what I’m talking about,” she said. “I’m your mother, and
a mother knows if her child is all right.”

Aaron saw no point in arguing
with his mother. He never could fool her, and God knows he’d tried
during his rebellious teenage years.

“
I know your heart is broken,”
she said softly.

His mother always spoke the
truth, and she spoke it now. There was no point in denying it. Aaron
looked into her eyes, the same eyes he saw in the mirror.

“
I’ve got to get her back,”
he said.

“
You’re going to get her
back,” she said assuredly.

“
Really?” Aaron said.

“
Yes, really. I know it.”

“
How do you know?” he asked.

“
Because I’m your mother,”
she said simply. “And I know it. Love like that doesn’t die.”

For the first time since Cathy
left, Aaron felt hopeful. His mother had always told him the truth,
and he decided that this time was no different. It had to be the
truth.

“
Let’s take a walk,” his
mother said patting his hand.

Outside, they wandered through
the vegetable garden with its neat rows of turnips, cabbage, onions,
and newly sown sweet peas—the winter crops. In the spring, summer
vegetables of all types would be planted and either sold at the
farmer’s market or cooked and preserved. It was the way it was on a
farm.

Several chickens pecked around in
the grass beyond the garden. Aaron would likely be gathering their
eggs in the morning, as he always had when he was living there. He
and Sherry and little Allison before she died.

The farm was in a lush valley and
the mountains formed a backdrop in the distance. He’d tried to
paint that mountain vista in middle school when he was taking art.
His mother still had the framed painting, though Aaron knew it wasn’t
very good. Art was not his calling.

He and his mother walked over to
the woods and took the path that would lead them to a lake in the
middle of the forest. As they followed the pathway, surrounded by
bare hardwoods and green pines, Aaron thought about his path to
Cathy’s house. He remembered his desperate hacking at the
underbrush and vines with the dull rusted machete, and then his
standing hidden behind the trees as he spied on Cathy’s house. He
was ashamed as he recalled those events in the presence of his
mother. What would she think if she knew he had done that? But he
knew the answer to that. She would understand. She did understand,
even if she didn’t know all of the sordid facts of the downfall of
his life.