Eventually Yours

✽ 84

Cartagena, Colombia

~Brie

We arrived in Colombia two days after Claude gave us the information we'd waited months to hear... for Aiden he'd waited ten years.

The day agreed upon to go look for the surrogate became suddenly cloudy.

“C'mon it's this way” Aiden's private detective, Travis Freeman said as he led us down a soggy white-washed alley in the drizzle.

I looked up at Aiden. His nervousness was evident.

Or was it anger?

Anyway, that's not what bothered me. It was how pale he looked the moment we got to Colombia, and now there were dark signs of his sleeplessness beneath his eyes.

The flowers he'd gotten seemed unnecessary to me. But I wasn't going to tell him that. It was a big day for him so whatever he needed to do to feel okay, I was going to support him.

“Arturo?” Travis asked the man who had his back to us.

“Are you the people who called?” Arturo asked, tossing his cigarette away.

“Yes. Detective Travis Freeman and these are my clients, Aiden and Breanna.”

“Hi Arturo, nice to meet you” Aiden and I took turns shaking his hands.

“Shall we?” the man asked. “I hear a storm's coming and I gotta get my kid from the sitter so I don't get charged overtime.”

“Yes, please. After you.”

We stepped out of the alley, following Arturo's lead, and walked about a hundred yards along a small road under the townsfolk’s stare. The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the wasteland, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it and contiguous to absolutely nothing.

One of the three shops it contained was for rent and another was an all-night restaurant approached by a trail of ashes. The third was a garage and we followed Arturo inside.

The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind and that sumptuous and romantic apartments were concealed overhead when a man appeared through the door of an office, wiping his hands on a piece of rag.

He was a blonde, spiritless-looking, and faintly handsome man. When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.

“Hello, Sergio, old man,” said Arturo, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. “How’s business?”

“I can’t complain,” answered Sergio unconvincingly.

“When are you going to sell me that car huh?”

“Next week; I’ve got my man working on it now.”

“Works pretty slow, doesn’t he?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Sergio replied a bit coldly. “And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.”

“Hey, hey, I don’t mean that,” Arturo said quickly with a short laugh. “Anyway, that's not why I'm here. This is Travis, he's a detective. And these are the people he's representing, right?” Arturo looked at Travis.

“Yes, my clients.”

Arturo turned back to Sergio.

“They're looking for Gabby.”