by Claire Raye
“I know, Reid,” I whisper as he pulls me into another quick hug.
This time I wrap my free arm around his shoulder, trying to tell him that I understand, that I know, and I believe him. He practically sags against me, as though he’s carrying the full weight of everything his father has done to us and it’s killing him.
“They’re probably wondering where we are,” I finally say, trying to lighten the mood a little. Reid’s anguish hangs heavy over the two of us, reminding me of exactly why I didn’t want to tell him this shit. It’s too much for him to carry. And it’s not fair that he should have to.
We finally reach the house, the lights coming from inside a reminder of everything we both have waiting for us. I want to tell Reid not to tell Sie about any of this, but before I get a chance to, I see a dark shadow by the back door.
“What the fuck?” I half shout, picking up the pace as I quietly jog around to the side of the house that backs onto the alleyway.
“Caleb?” Reid whisper-shouts from behind me.
As I get closer, I see a man in the shadows and before I even realize what I’m doing, I’ve got him bailed up against the side of the house, my arm under his chin as I spit out, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
And then everything comes crashing down.
Hard.
My heart is pounding inside my chest, my body covered in sweat as I’m instantly overcome with a sense of déjà vu.
Dropping the bag of takeout, I step back, nausea crashing through me as my vision blurs and my head starts to pound, a weird screaming noise filling my ears and making it impossible to focus.
“Caleb?”
I shake my head, trying to clear it, but that only makes everything worse and before I know it, I can feel myself falling, my body collapsing beneath me.
“Caleb?”
I close my eyes, try to remember, try to understand, try to focus on where I am now. Try to make sense of what’s happening to me.
“Caleb.”
The voice is familiar, just like the firm grip on my arm, the heavy weight across my shoulders. When I finally lift my head, I see a face I’d recognize anywhere staring back at me.
“You okay?” Reid asks, his brow narrowed in concern.
I swallow hard, nodding once even though I’m far from okay right now. I focus on taking long slow deep breaths, remembering Liz’s advice. “Someone was here,” I force out, my voice husky and raw.
“Yeah,” Reid says. “He’s still here.”
My head snaps up at his words, a wave of dizziness nearly making me throw up. “Who the hell are you?” I ask, trying to make out the man in the darkness.
An older man steps forward now into the light cast from the mudroom. There’s fear on his face as he holds out something small to us. “I, I um…I’m your neighbor,” he stutters. “The girl who lives here asked about my security cameras.”
“You found something?” Reid says quickly.
“I’m not sure,” he says, holding out what I now realize is a USB drive. “Thought you might want to look though.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ruby
Caleb and Reid walk into the house, both of them moving quickly with Reid barking an order at Sienna to grab her laptop. We’re both caught off guard, scrambling from the couch where we were both sitting watching TV and waiting for the boys to come back with dinner.
“What’s going on?” I ask, my eyes immediately moving to Caleb’s face, checking his expression for any signs of fear, but all I’m met with is a nervous urgency, his eyes wide and his movement appear almost desperate as he stalks over to the kitchen table in long, weighted strides. My eyes move to his hands as they fidget with something small and he shakes his head slightly, almost in disbelief.
“That guy you talked to, the one with the security camera came through,” Caleb announces, holding up a small USB drive. He moves it back and forth, smiling at me now. I know what he’s thinking, because it’s the same exact thought running through my own head.
This could fix everything.
This small little piece of plastic and metal could hold the key to ending all of this. If this video shows Professor Keller outside my bedroom window it will prove Caleb didn’t attack him for no reason. It will prove he’s the creepy motherfucker we all think he is. It will also add a whole other level to the rape and assault claim Meagan hit me with just the other day.
This one little USB drive could validate it all.
Sienna and Reid return from her bedroom, laptop in hand, as the four of us gather around the kitchen table and Caleb hands the drive to Reid. The wait and the anticipation blooms all around us, our collective hearts racing at a speed that feels almost immeasurable.
“How far back did he give us?” I now ask, breaking the tension-filled silence with my question, a question I know all of us are asking ourselves.
I wasn’t specific when I knocked on the guy’s door unannounced. It was a vague date range, telling him I needed the footage from a few weeks ago and nothing more. It never felt like it would ever matter because who just hands over their security camera footage?
“I don’t know,” Reid answers. “He didn’t say much of anything.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t want to be involved in this mess,” Caleb says, once again worrying about how this will affect everyone around him.
“If he gave you the footage then he obviously found something,” Sie adds, a lilt of hopefulness hanging on her words.
She speaks the words I can’t bring myself to say, finding hope in this situation too many times, only to be shot down. I hate to put it out there in the world again. Caleb can only take so much.
The icon appears on the screen and Sienna opens it, finding it filled with separate folders, each with a date on them. There are five folders, five different dates, seemingly selected on purpose, but in no particular order.
I scan the dates quickly, the date of the assault, seared into my brain and find myself letting out a held breath when I find it’s tagged on one of the folders.
“That one,” Reid announces, pointing at the folder we’re all waiting with bated breath for Sienna to open.
I watch her swallow hard, her hand shaking slightly as she clicks the folder, opening up to an icon of a video. She hovers over it for a few seconds, each one ticking by slower than the last.
What the hell is she waiting for?
“Can I say something?” she asks, a kind regard in her voice that is supposed to ease our collective tension, but all it does is ramp up my anxiety.
“Yeah, what?” Caleb replies, trying not to sound bitter but failing.
“Can we agree not to be devastated if this isn’t the smoking gun we hoped for?” Living with a life of constant disappointment, she and Caleb, and maybe even Reid have become disillusioned that hope still exists. They hold out nothing any longer, living with the realization that they can’t catch a break, but today feels different and Sienna is the voice of reason.
Don’t get too excited.
“I can’t make any promises, Sie,” Caleb tells her, a bite to what he says, but all of us know he isn’t angry with her. “This is my life we’re talking about here. Two million dollars. That’s a fucking insane amount of money. The kind of money we don’t have.”
“We do have it,” Sie asserts. “We have the money from…” She falls quiet, looking back at Reid over her shoulder. He nods almost imperceptibly, as if to tell her it’s okay and she continues. “We have the money from Reid’s dad and Reid’s trust fund. We have it and I understand you don’t want to touch any of that, but if we need it, then that’s what we’ll do. We have an out.”
This is the first I’m hearing about money from Reid’s dad and I don’t want to sound nosy, but what the hell does that mean? I look over at Caleb, not wanting to be obvious, but clearly I am because he takes in a long slow breath and fills me in.
“When everything went down with Reid’s dad, Reid, I guess, essentially
stole a bunch of money from his dad’s safe and gave it to Sienna and me.” He says it matter-of-factly and with little to no remorse, not that I think he should have any. After what he went through he was owed something in return. The money won’t give Caleb his life back, but it will at least help him and Sie start over.
“It was probably all the money my dad stole from Caleb anyway,” Reid adds, attempting to dismiss any doubts that may come from Sienna and Caleb or even me. But I have no doubts, no concern that Reid is a thief. What he did was protect his friends and give them back a small piece of what was lost.
“So you do have an out should you need it,” I add, reaffirming what Sienna said. “But you aren’t going to need it.”
I slip my hand into his, giving it a little squeeze. I’ll be the one who holds out enough hope for all of us.
“Just start the damn video, Sie,” Caleb prompts. “I can’t promise anything anymore.”
His admission weighs heavy on my soul. What he carries with him is more than any of us will ever be able to comprehend, and in this moment, he deserves a pass on committing to controlling his reaction to something this important.
The video begins to play, the camera is motion activated so luckily we aren’t fishing through the entire day, but it’s still a ton of hours. Every time a car drives by, every time someone takes out their garbage or walks out into the alleyway, the camera kicks on.
“It isn’t even angled toward our house,” Reid announces, a hand slamming down on the table. “Fuck, this is a waste of time.” He reaches over Sienna and drags the slider to roughly the time of the assault and unfortunately, he’s right.
The camera catches nothing.
None of it.
Sienna shoves back from the table, the tears already rimming her eyes as she retreats to her room, not wanting to admit she couldn’t even keep true to her own word. I knew she wouldn’t be able to though and that’s okay. She’s been let down so often, but she still glows with the prospect of something falling their way. It’s something I love about her because under all her cynical tendencies, she wears her heart on her sleeve for her little family.
Reid follows her, saying nothing as he leaves the room. He will pick up the pieces. He will be what she needs him to be in this moment.
I look to Caleb, my heart aching immensely for what we all believed would clear his name, and his face gives nothing away. He buries his feelings tightly, letting them eat away at what little sanity and security he has left.
I want to tell him to talk to me, to let it all out, but I know he won’t, and I have come to terms with that. He will come to me when he needs me and I will be here.
He leans down and presses a kiss to the top of my head, his arms wrapping around my shoulders as I sit silently in the kitchen chair next to where Sienna was sitting. I slide my arms around his waist, holding him to me, letting him feel the full weight of my love for him without speaking.
“I need a minute,” he now says, his lips moving against my hair. “I’m going to take a walk.”
I don’t offer to join him or tell him to stay because it’s dark out. I let him go. He needs to gather his thoughts and calm himself.
“Take your phone,” I say. “And I love you.”
“I love you.”
A few minutes later the front door is closing on the silence of the house. It echoes back the painful reminder that tonight wasn’t supposed to go down like this. The door closing sounds like shattered hope.
I slide Sienna’s computer over to where I’m sitting and I hover the cursor over the first video file, the date obscure and meaningless, but whatever hope Caleb lost, I’m keeping it in my back pocket.
I click the video, letting it play while I watch, paying attention to every little detail. Our neighbor selected these videos for a reason. Something about them feels of consequence to him, which means it could be to us too.
This video begins early, the sky still dark and the timestamp is labeled with five a.m. A few cars leave the alleyway, people heading to work or the gym or wherever, but all are cars I recognize. Our alleyway isn’t a through street and since we live on a quiet block with only a small amount of houses, it isn’t a mecca of traffic.
But just as I begin to grow bored with watching people leave for work or class, a car’s headlights in the camera catch my attention. This is the first car to pull into the alley rather than out and I instantly recognize it as the car that ran me down that morning I went out for a run.
I pause the video, zooming in on the license plate, I take a screenshot and hit play again. My eyes are fixed on the screen as the silver Audi drives past the camera and then goes out of view. I rewind it, watching it unfold the same way, but willing myself to see more.
Who is driving the car?
But I get nothing and the camera doesn’t pick up where the car parked or where the person in the car went. The angle isn’t ideal, but I let it continue to play, the camera picking up the motion of someone walking by, and that someone is me.
This is the same morning I was run down by that exact car. This was the same morning I had the conversation with Reid and he swore me to secrecy over the thought that maybe the person in the Audi was connected to his father.
Whoever this person is, we now have part of their license plate number and as I fast-forward the video, we now have this same car practically running me over.
I pause the video and run to grab a piece of paper and a pen. I take down what I can read of the license plate number, the time on the video of when it pulled into our alley and the time when it nearly ran me over. I write down the date, making sure I get everything so when I hand this over to Ed or the police or whoever, I have it all.
And even though I feel somewhat vindicated, I still find the need to watch the other videos. There has to be a reason why our neighbor included each of these, and as I watch each and every one of them, the same thing is present.
A silver Audi.
It showed up almost every single day after it tried to run me over. It pulls into the alley, drives down past the camera and doesn’t appear again until it leaves. Sometimes it’s hours later, sometimes it’s minutes, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it continued to show up.
I’m aware it could mean nothing, but in the back of my mind, a voice screams at me that it isn’t, that it’s so much more than nothing.
It’s not just someone visiting, a babysitter or a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a friend or a parent. This car is connected to what is going on with Caleb and I’m going to make sure we find out how.
It’s late, but I still want to knock on everyone’s door who we share the alley with and ask if they know who this car belongs to. I want to cover all my bases before I decide to go out and accuse someone of trying to run me over, of trying to fuck with my boyfriend’s life.
Because this time, we’re going to have enough to clear Caleb’s name and I’m pretty sure I know who was driving that car.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Caleb
I don’t go out for long, just long enough to get rid of all the shit that’s swirling around inside my head before I take it out on everyone else. The conversation with Reid on the way home was hard enough, but now this, yet another let down. Once again, it feels like I just can’t catch a fucking break, no matter what happens.
I finally get away from Providence, only to be plagued with nightmares and panic attacks because of what happened back there.
I start learning to deal with them and in the process grow closer to Ruby, finding something amazing with her, only to fuck it all up in one single night when I beat the shit out of her asshole professor for being a dirty perv.
Of course no one believes me, but finally, after everything that happened with that asshole, the charges get dropped only for me to be hit with a bullshit lawsuit and no way to defend myself because there’s fuck all on the fucking security video.
“Jesus,” I exhale in exhausted frustration as I take the steps back
up to the front door, knowing I can’t stay out here all night.
When I walk inside, I see Ruby, Sie and Reid all sitting around the table drinking beers. Reid sees me as soon as I walk in and he immediately moves to grab a beer from the fridge and the bag of takeout off the counter.
“You guys didn’t eat?” I ask, looking around at all of them. Sie looks a little happier now, giving me a small smile as I sit down.
“We wanted to wait for you,” Ruby says, squeezing my hand.
Reid puts the containers on the table, handing around some forks before taking a seat. “You okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, no point getting pissed about something that was always a long shot.”
Ruby puts her beer on the table, before leaning back to grab Sie’s laptop off the counter. “It might not be a total waste,” she says, opening the computer and turning it around to face the rest of us.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “You found something?” I turn to Reid and Sie who look just as confused as me, before turning back to Ruby.
She shrugs, her bottom lip between her teeth as though she isn’t sure if it’s something or not. “Nothing from that night,” she says. “But there is something.”
“What,” Sie asks impatiently.
Ruby opens one of the video files and scrolls through until she gets to a time she’s written down on a sheet of paper. “Watch,” she says, motioning to the screen.
The three of us sit in silence, our eyes glued to the screen as we watch Ruby move into frame. It’s early in the morning and she’s alone and dressed in running gear. I glance at the time and date stamp and realize it’s from before the night I beat the shit out of that asshole.
“What is this?” I ask, glancing up at her.
“Just watch.”
My eyes flick back to the screen just in time to see a silver car drive straight toward her, clearly intentionally, as though whoever it is that’s driving wants to hit her.
“Holy fuck!” I practically shout, standing, my chair scraping along the floor as I push it back. “When the fuck did this happen?”
