There’s a long stretch of patchy air, and then: “I’m not… I don’t remember what I said.”
But it’s a lie. Cam does remember, I can tell from the pause, the way his voice went wobbly. He knows exactly what Sebastian is talking about. He just doesn’t want to say it with me and Beatrix listening.
“Look, I’ll call the contractor and explain,” Cam says, dropping back into businessman mode. Problem solver, go-getter, get-’er-done achiever. “I’ll tell him this whole thing was my fault. I’ll get him a check first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll deliver it to him personally.”
“Don’t bother, he already got his cut from my bankruptcy attorney, and it was a hell of a lot less than the hundred grand you and I were supposed to pay him. But let’s get back to the subject at hand. We still haven’t heard the last words you said to me.”
Sebastian’s brows disappear behind the mask, expectant, and he’s got my full attention. My eyes stay trained on the phone, and I lean forward on the recliner, waiting, barely breathing. I hear Beatrix licking her lips, the creak as she shifts on the leather chair. Otherwise the room is silent.
“I…” Cam pauses to puff a frustrated breath, to clear his throat. “You have to understand. Two of my shops were bleeding cash. I had to pump every cent I owned into keeping them afloat. And it was your name on the deed, your name on the contract. I wasn’t legally bound to pay either of you a penny.”
“Let’s ask Jade what she thinks, shall we?” Sebastian stretches his arm, holding the phone between us like an offering. “Let’s say a man shakes on a business deal and assumes his partner is operating with the same honor, so he dives into an expensive renovation, fronting the costs out of his own pocket. Only the partner isn’t honorable, and he’s a no-show when it comes time to sign the partnership agreement, leaving the man with a half-finished building and a stack of unpaid bills. Shouldn’t that partner have to share the burden of the costs?”
Cam’s voice fills the room. “Not according to the law, he—”
“Shut up, Cam. I’m not talking to you. Jade?”
I inhale. Nod. “Yes. Yes, I think he should.”
I know this is what Sebastian wants to hear, but it’s also the truth. If that’s indeed what Cam did, walking away after promises were made and costs accrued, abandoning ship might be legally sound, but morally? Ethically? There’s a reason I haven’t heard any of this from Cam.
“See? Jade agrees. She thinks you’re in the wrong, too. So what do you think she’ll say when she hears about the rest—”
“Sebastian, I don’t—”
“—how I came to you on my knees and with tears in my eyes, begging you to honor the verbal agreement because for my daughter it was a matter of life or death. Do you remember what you said to me then?”
Silence.
Sebastian steps closer, stopping directly under one of the nanny cams nestled in what looks like a fire alarm. He looks at me, but his words are for Cam. “I’m going to need an answer. What did you tell me?”
“I…” A pause. A frustrated groan. “I said it wasn’t my problem.”
“Not it. She. You said she wasn’t your problem. My daughter, dying in her bed because I couldn’t afford her medicine, was not your problem.”
My stomach turns. Cam’s words hit me hard, and I think I might vomit. I tell myself it’s not true, that Sebastian is stretching the truth. Cam is a man who takes care of his mother. Who passes dollar bills out the window to the homeless people begging at stoplights. Who volunteers at soup kitchens and donates his extra food to the food bank. Not someone who would tell another father—a potential business partner—his sick and dying daughter wasn’t his problem.
With a victorious grin, Sebastian flips his cell around, holds it high in the air like a trophy. “Say it again so everybody hears. Louder, this time.” On either side of the fake fire alarm, twin ceiling fans cast eerie shadows on his mask and clothes, as menacing as any monster.
“I said she wasn’t my problem.”
“Right. Just like how what happens next to your wife and daughter isn’t mine.”
“Please, Sebastian.” Cam’s voice is pleading, thick with fear. “Just…let Jade and Beatrix go, and I will make sure your daughter gets her lungs, I swear to you. I’ll pay for them myself if I have to, and we won’t involve the police. You don’t have to go to jail for this. We can work this out. Please.”