Vanished Without A Trace (11 page)

"Get you something to eat?"

"Something to eat." She looked at him. He was more attractive and manly than what she remembered.

He laid his eyes on her peaceful face. He stroked them with his fingers. "Come live with me in Romania. I have a beautiful house near the beach. I have a beautiful dog. You’re the only one missing there."

"I have a boyfriend, I told you. How could you ever expect me to agree to come with you somewhere after you turned your back on me three years ago?"

"You have a boyfriend and yet you allow yourself to be here, does it mean something?"

"I just ..." She wanted to tell him she agreed to come in order to reject him just as he rejected her, but there was a knock at the door and dinner was on a stroller. Daniel sipped his coffee and looked at Neta with a smile as she ate with evident pleasure. "How are your parents, are they still shouting?"

"Oh, you can’t even begin to imagine.

He kept looking at her, busy eating all the while.

"Don’t you want to eat?" she asked.

Daniel shook his head.

"What are you doing in Romania? It looks like you're living a good life if you are staying in hotels."

"Yes, but I'm not even sure if I have the money to pay for this."

"In short, typical Israeli… dreams and show off."

Daniel smiled. He recognized the Israeli audacity, that he miss so much. Although he was educated in Israel, he was not able to become a typical Israeli. He always showed something strange and distant.

"You know, eventually you still need to pay the bills." Neta continued.

Daniel sipped his coffee, not taking his eyes off her. "Don’t worry about me."

Neta's cell phone rang. Her boyfriend was on the line. Daniel looked at her as she spoke, "I can’t meet you now, I'm busy ... maybe in the next two hours ... Okay, pick me up at home in two hours." She closed the phone, informing Daniel they have one more hour to be together.

"Yes, I heard," he replied.

His short answer puzzled her. She couldn’t understand how he acquired his behavior... the silence no matter what was happening around him, he always remained confident. "I'd better go, so I won’t be pressured by time." She went to the door and opened it.

"Neta, I need to talk to you. I have been through a lot over the past three years."

"Me too."

"Let me talk. I know you're upset with me, but you need to know I never did anything with bad intentions. I did what I thought was best for you." His voice was soft and she wanted to sit and listen to him all night long. "You have to understand I couldn’t take you with me three years ago, but what kind of life could I promise you? I understand you ran out of time. But I have to talk to you. I want you to know that I never made a plan for the last three years without you in it." He went on recounting his life story for the past three years. He saw how she melted in front of him. He took her body close to him and kissed her lips gently, feeling her responsiveness.

"Come, live with me in Romania. I can’t think of anyone but you."

"We can’t," she said painfully. "I’ve have a boyfriend for two years now, he’s serious. Besides, you will be going back to Romania anyway, there’s no future for us."

"Why do you say there is no future for us? You can come with me to Romania. You'll be the happiest woman in the whole world."

"I do not want to live in Romania."

"Not even with me?"

Neta thought she would like to wake up every morning beside him and see his face, even if it meant they lived in a tent in the north pole. But on the other hand, she couldn’t just give up the security her boyfriend gave her. On the very first day they met, he managed to get along with her parents, something no one had ever done before, and she appreciated him for it. She was not in love with him, but she preferred a secure life over love.

"I love you Daniel, but my boyfriend is the right choice. Sorry, I need to be reasonable. We can’t….I just can’t dump everything I’ve built over two years just because of someone I knew when I was ten years old. I am scared to gamble my life. You know my life was not easy, but since I met my boyfriend my life became better. I don’t have the courage to change this now."

They were busy with themselves and didn’t notice the presence of Karina who was standing near them, watching them hugging each other. She wanted to go back on her trail, but it was too late. "I'm sorry," Karina said, expressing embarrassment. Daniel released Neta, who quickly left.

"Sorry to disturb you," Karina said.

"You absolutely disturbed us," he said, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed.

The fact Daniel hugged another woman hurt her deeply, though she didn’t have a reason to be hurt. She had no ownership over Daniel. "I wanted you to know I had nothing to do with your arrest, Gilad and Kowalski did it."

"They were also the ones who withdrew the money from the account, right?"

"I'm sorry. I will go on with our agreements. Tomorrow the money will be deposited back into the account.

"You can return the money, but you can never get back the trust I had in you."

His words whipped her.

"I know", she replied and waited for some time, but he said nothing. She turned back towards the elevator, feeling sorry she decided to surprise him. She was more surprised than he was. The appearance of the young lady in his arms confronted her with a painful reality she had no chance with him to begin with.

Daniel went back to his room and called Mikhail, who was happy to hear his voice.

"I tried all night and day to call you, but there was no answer. You really had me worried. I thought maybe you ran away and left me with the whole mess."

"It’s quite a mess," Daniel said. "You won’t believe it, the woman put me in jail, she and my fucking grandfather."

"Well, you are used to Israeli prisons. You already spent a few months inside, haven’t you? Mikhail joked.

"I will be back in two days, I hope you're still smiling by then."

Mikhail sounded worried. "What will I tell the contractors?"

"Tell them to come to the office tomorrow. The lawyer will give them all the payments. I hope everything will be okay."

Daniel heard a sigh of relief. "Did you fix everything?"

"It'll be okay, Mikhail." Daniel closed the phone. He could not guarantee everything was in order, just because Karina promised him. This woman was not stable, he concluded to himself.

16

Daniel arrived to the site in Constanza. He was happy to see the contractors came back to work and Karina stood by her word. When he entered the office, he noticed the secretary’s happy face. "Good to see you, sir."

Daniel smiled at her, "Just call me Daniel. I'm too young for ‘sir’. How did you survive the attack of the contractors?"

"I must admit, those were my worst days since I started working."

"Sorry to hear that."

"No," the secretary quickly clarified, "It’s not because I felt bad. I was worried about you. I was afraid things wouldn’t work out."

Daniel looked at her with gratitude. He thought if everything went as planned with Karina, he would increase her salary.

He drove off to Brasov to meet Mikhail and found him running around amongst the workers on the site. The noise of the engines and tools were deafening. Daniel approached Mikhail. "How's it going?"

"I’m coming to the office now," Mikhail told Daniel, who noticed a bruise under his eye.

"What happened to your face?" He asked.

"Believe me, you'll get an explanation and a demonstration at the same time," Mikhail said, with mocking anger, "A punch that I got from one of those freaks, that will cost you a lot."

"Honestly, I am willing to pay all the costs, just to not get something like that in my face."

"And you will pay for it, that’s for sure."

Daniel went to the office. He could not help but think that Israeli prisons were safer than the site in Brasov, at least until Karina was back to herself. On top of the table, he
found the tender
that Mikhail left him, and Karina had to sign for the bank guarantee until all the business arrangements were settled. Daniel had no intention of meeting Karina again. He planned to send Mikhail for two or three days, so he could rest a little bit from what happened to him lately.

Mikhail tried, with partial success, to remove the mud from his shoes before entering the office. "What an asylum
we have here." he said, pulling a chair to sit, "You won’t believe it, I had to promise them something I was not even sure if I'd be able to keep. After all, you can’t build a business based on your beautiful eyes." Mikhail was sure the woman supported Daniel only because she was captured by his appearance.

"It's not just my eyes," Daniel said.

"Why, how many centimeters do you have?"

"Mikhail, your head is always stuck there."

"I must admit that. By the way, did you see the tender on your desk? I thought it might interest you, but I'm not sure we will be able to stand on all the projects."

"If you think so, give it entirely to one of your friends and ask for a percentage," Daniel said, trying to give Mikhail a sense of company decisions.

"Yes, it would be best. I'll give it to Igor. You know him. We will just follow the schedule and check things are done properly."

Daniel shrugged, "Whatever you say."

"Just don’t forget we have to deposit an amount of money; a bank guarantee for the job implementation." Mikhail said, and left the office.

Daniel thought despite everything he should call Karina to approve the deal, but found himself dialing Neta’s number. A man's voice answered him, and Daniel asked if he could speak with Neta. The guy hung up the phone. Daniel tried again, but it was quickly disconnected. He figured it was probably her boyfriend and promised himself to call some other time.

He was filled with a strange sense of discomfort from the need to call Karina and even thought of delegating the task to Mikhail, but he knew he had no choice but to do it himself. The secretary passed the call to Karina, and Daniel couldn’t feel any sense of solidarity with the words he heard from the other end of the line, "Good to hear from you." Having received no response, she continued, "So what made you call me?"

"Business", he said dryly, "I have here the tender from the municipality. We need to deposit a high amount of the bank guarantee and I wanted to inform you. But beyond that, we need your signature for the tender and for the liabilities. After all, you are a partner here.

"Yes, we need to finish all our paperwork, so it won’t cause any delay on the job," she said.

"Or you come here every time we need your signature."

Karina could not ignore the sarcasm. "Okay, but this time you need to come here, at least until all the details are arranged."

"Okay, I'll see you
in a few days because we need to submit the tender by next week." His words gave Karina a delightful feeling.

Daniel hung up the phone, smiling. He knew that Karina was expecting to see him, but he had other plans. He called Mikhail, but responded quickly that he could not talk at the moment and hung up. Daniel couldn’t wait to get his sweet revenge, and after half an hour, he went out to Mikhail, who was still frantically working on the site. "How about a flight to Israel? I thought to compensate you after the difficult period you went through here."

"Honestly, it’s a positive opinion, but it is not advisable for now. I have a lot of pressure at work."

"Nothing will happen if you are missing for few days. You need to go to the big boss to give her some documents to sign."

"Now it is starting to sound interesting."

"The flight is tomorrow afternoon. I got you a suite at the Hilton because you deserve the best. I want you to enjoy it there." Daniel handed Mikhail a paper with Karina's office address "Be there on Wednesday at ten o'clock, that’s what we agreed upon."

"Did you tell her I’m the one who is arriving?"

"That's exactly the thing, she is expecting me but actually, it’s you."

"I understand you think she will be disappointed to see me and not you."

"Do you have any doubts?"

Mikhail looked at Daniel. "Now you’re leaving me with no choice."

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

"I’ll try to get to her." He smiled. "I’m just kidding. She won’t take me seriously anyway."

"I do not care what you do to her, but please do not talk to me about this woman. Other than that, I don’t think you are her type." 

Karina was not able to sleep all night. The thought she would meet Daniel tomorrow prevented her eyes from closing. She tried to sleep with all her ability. She knew tomorrow she would have swollen eyes, but even
the sleeping pill helped for only two hours. She got out of bed and opened the closet trying to choose an impressive flattering dress, but not something that would reveal her desire to impress him. She threw the clothes on the floor, tried them on
one by one and finally decided it was always good to be pretty and look invested. She put aside a black dress and entered the shower, surveying herself in the mirror. There were black circles around her eyes and her face looked tired. She sat on the edge of the tub thinking that she would do herself a favor if she internalized the fact she was old for a guy like him. She recalled the girl she saw with him at the hotel, young and beautiful. After wearing the dress she felt her confidence was back and believed she would succeed to impress him.

At eight thirty she arrived in the office. The excitement elated her.

"Are you going somewhere today?" The secretary asked, when she noticed the unusual attire.

"No, why?" Karina replied cheerfully.

"You look very groovy," the secretary said.

"You read me right. Please make a breakfast reservation for two, the usual place." Karina said and entered her office.

The minutes that passed were like hours until the secretary informed her someone was waiting outside. "Let him in. " She ran her fingers through her hair trying to straighten her rebellious hair. She was so excited. The door opened. And an unknown man approached her and shook her hand. "I'm Mikhail." Her face fell.