“Are you sure?” asked Karl uncertainly. “I mean, it’s expensive to use these suckers.”
“Fuck the expense,” Ben replied flatly. “And considering how worried everyone here has been about you guys, nobody will have the balls to bitch about the cost.”
“Okay. Thanks, Ben. Look, I’d better sign off then so we can all make those calls. This has been a real ordeal, I must say. Though I feel guilty for even thinking about complaining, given the circumstances. I’d much rather be sweaty, tired, and hungry than dead.”
Ben closed his eyes for a few seconds, offering up a silent thanks that his prayers had been answered. “You got that right. And let’s plan on having a party when you guys get back here – dinner and drinks on me. Karl - ” he hesitated before asking his next question. “How – how is she?”
Karl’s voice was reassuringly gentle. “She’s fine, Ben. Physically, at least, though she’s about ready to drop just like the rest of us. Emotionally, well – it shook her up bad. I think that’s why she’s been fussing over George so much, as a way to keep her mind off of what could have happened.”
“I get it. I’ll let you go now, Karl, so you can get started on those phone calls. And I’ll contact everyone’s family, too, just in case you don’t get through. And Karl - ” Ben’s voice cracked a little, despite his best efforts to remain strong. “Take care of her for me, okay? Just don’t let her know you’re doing it or she’ll be pissed.”
Karl chuckled. “I’ve been doing just that for five years now, and she’s never caught on yet. I’m not going to stop now.”
Ben was grinning broadly as he set his phone down, feeling like a huge weight had just been lifted off his chest. Not to mention the hunger pains that he was feeling for the first time all day. Hoping that Nadine and the others would be back any minute, he was relieved to notice a handful of cookies still sitting on one of the platters. He devoured three of them before calling the first name on his list.
“Robert? It’s Ben Rafferty. And I’ve got some very good news for you.”
***
It was close to eleven p.m. by the time he arrived at the brownstone, both mentally and physically exhausted. Today had definitely been one in which he’d experienced both the lowest lows – fearful that his beloved Lauren and the rest of the crew had perished in the plane crash – and also the highest highs – after hearing from Karl that everyone was all right and would be home again in a couple of days.
Nadine and the others had been overjoyed upon their return to hear the good news, and there had been a lot of hugs, tears, and cheers as they’d consumed the burgers and shakes, this time with a real appetite.
Each of the crew’s families that Ben had called had been incredibly grateful to hear from him, none more so than Robert and Natalie. Both of Lauren’s parents had come on the line, thanking him profusely for the good news.
Robert had told him just before hanging up, “You need to come out here to the coast very soon, young man. I think we all have a great deal to talk about. And I have one of Lauren’s photos to show you, one that I think will be of great interest to you. Take good care of my girl when you see her, Ben, and send her back home to us as soon as possible, you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” Ben had replied rather meekly. He’d been too emotionally spent, and had had too many other things to get done, to be able to quiz Robert further on his somewhat cryptic comments.
Nadine hadn’t been able to find a flight from London to New York for the crew until the day after they arrived in from India, so Ben had given her the go-ahead to book them into a hotel for the night. She had also reserved a flight for him to London, as well as a room at the same hotel. There was no possible way he could wait even one extra day to hold Lauren in his arms again, and he planned to be waiting for her and the others at Heathrow. And if Nadine had thought his request a bit unusual, she’d been too wrung out from the day’s events to question him.
He had sent Elle a text to let her know that the crew was safe and well, but that he wasn’t sure when he would be able to leave the office. He walked up the stairs of the brownstone quietly to the second floor, not wanting to wake her if she was already asleep. Elle lived by the old adage “early to bed, early to rise”, and he knew she usually attended a early morning Pilates class.
Her rooms were dark when he reached the landing, so he took extra care to be quiet as he entered his own rooms. Despite his exhaustion, he was still too wound up to even think of falling asleep just yet, so he set his alarm, grabbed a duffle bag from the closet, and began to gather up the clothing and shoes he’d need for the quick trip across the Atlantic.
It was only when he walked inside his bathroom to assemble a few toiletries for the trip that he noticed a dim light coming from his office. Ben frowned, because he hadn’t even been inside that room for over a week. He poked his head around the doorway and almost recoiled in surprise.
“Elle. What are you doing in here?”
She was sitting at his desk and staring blankly at his computer monitor, which he sure as hell hadn’t left on this morning. And she looked as though a ghost had just flown through the room – pale and clearly upset. Her eyes were wide with some unnamed emotion as she slowly lifted her gaze to his.
“You lied to me, Ben,” she whispered. “Over and over again. She lied, too. Both of you have done nothing but lie to me from the very beginning.”
He walked into the room, momentarily ignoring the fact that she had chosen to invade his privacy by using his computer – an agreement that she had actually been the one to instigate right after he’d moved in. Elle was intensely private about her work, had both her laptop and desktop password protected, and they had both agreed never to use the other’s computers unless specifically agreed to by the other party.
And yet here she was, having rather flagrantly ignored that agreement, staring at something she’d found on his PC.
“What are you talking about, Elle?” he asked impatiently, definitely not in the mood tonight for one of her scenes. “And why are you using my computer? I thought we agreed - ”
Ben stopped in mid-stride and in mid-sentence as Elle abruptly turned the monitor around so he could see exactly what she’d been staring at in near-horror – row upon row upon row of photos of Lauren. His very personal, very private collection – the one he had quite intentionally placed into a folder with a very cryptic file name. The vast majority of the photos had been taken six years ago in Big Sur, but there were others that had been added far more recently – last December’s holiday party, the photos he’d copied from her Facebook page of Julia’s wedding, another of Lauren on her motorcycle, a candid shot that Chris had taken of her in profile on one of their recent trips.
“How could you?” asked Elle brokenly, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “How could you lie to me that way, Ben, cheat on me - ”
“I haven’t cheated on you,” he interrupted. “I told you more than once that I wasn’t having an affair with Lauren and that’s the truth. Those photos – most of them, anyway – are six years old. I knew her back then, met her one summer in Big Sur. But I left and we didn’t see or hear from each other again until I took the job at National Geographic Travel.”
“That’s why you took the job, isn’t it?” she accused. “So you could be near her again. So you could start your dirty little affair back up.”
“No.” Ben shook his head firmly. “When I accepted the job I had no idea she already worked there. I hadn’t looked her up at all over the years, had no idea where she was living or working at the time. And what we had, Elle, was about as far from a dirty little affair as you could possibly imagine, so stop calling it that.”
Elle gasped, a hand flying to her throat. “My God,” she breathed. “It’s her, isn’t it? Lauren is the girl you were so crazy about when I met you, the one you were so broken up over. Oh, God, how did I never see that, never guess?”