by Laura Day
Where the hell was she going to go? Her house was a ridiculous suggestion, just the thought of it made her guts clench and her eyes water. Jack and Missy— she couldn’t bring any more of this crap to their doorstep than she already had. Mason’s apartment— sure, he’d given her a key, but there was a difference between “Lock up when you leave” and “Come over whenever you want.” And besides, if the cop was watching her, wouldn’t he be looking for her to flee to Mason’s, or something like that? Was that the action of a guilty party? Would that be the proof he was looking for, somehow? Would it be the thing that tipped them over the line from “suspect” to “guilty?”
She put her face in her hands and tried to find a way to breathe. It was too much, all too much. She’d led an exceedingly boring life before Mason had walked through her office door, and yes, the past two months had been the best months of her life. But at the same time, the stress of it all, the constant fear that something was going to go horribly wrong, was wearing on her.
She didn’t know what to do, and turning to Mason somehow seemed like a failure. Like giving in, like admitting that she couldn’t be strong on her own. And that was a horrifying thought, one she didn’t want to even entertain. She didn’t ever want to be one of those women who needed someone else to be strong.
But at the same time, she was totally out of her league. She needed to talk to someone who didn’t have a vested interest in protecting their own ass, but would have some fucking clue what she should do.
There was only one person on her speed dial who would fit that description at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Thanks for seeing me, Teddy,” Caroline said as her cousin walked into the park in front of the City Hall building.
He laughed and sat down on the bench beside her, putting his feet up on the stone wall surrounding the fountain. “Yeah, my busy social calendar. Having fun with my bro, Caro?”
She made herself smile and nod. Teddy was older than her, and he’d been the cool cousin when they were growing up, but they had lived in such different worlds by the time they were adults; she still made a point to talk to him, and keep the connection active, but they hadn’t seen each other in years.
He’d gone a little soft around the middle, and his hair was starting to thin on the sides, but his eyes still had that same sparkle and he was still wearing the same god-awful pornstar ‘stache he’d grown back in the early 80s. “I guess Mason has told you about— well, everything?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah. He was pretty stressed this morning. It took some doing, but he admitted you had a visitor yesterday, and that he was concerned that someone was even bothering to dig in this particular garden.” He waited for a while. “I assume something more happened?”
She passed him the red folder. Just getting it out of her hands made her body feel a little bit lighter, a little less— agonized.
He opened it up and paged through, whistling through his teeth. She listened to the patter of the water falling back into the fountain and waited. “Where did this come from?” he asked after a bit.
“Turned up in my office this morning. Inside my desk. Which, of course, no one should have had access to either last night or this morning.”
Teddy nodded. “You want me to tell you what you already know, or what I think?”
“Both,” she said. Anything to keep from putting that folder back in her hands one second earlier than it was absolutely necessary.
He nodded. “If there was something solid to connect Mason to everything, he’d be in for questioning. They’re harassing you because they know that he won’t crack for himself, and they’re hoping he’ll crack for you. You need to not crack. This will die off quick enough.”
She forced a smile. “That’s how it works on TV shows anyway. But if they have all of this—” She gestured at the folder. “—Why aren’t they looking into it already? It can’t be hard to tie him to that name, and then the frame kicks in.”
Teddy was quiet for a bit as he paged through the folder again. “I think this comes from someone’s personal records,” he said. “I think this comes from the dirty cop’s stash. I think this guy may even be the cop that our mutual friend was working with. And I think that he’s maybe under some scrutiny himself? And so he’s got this info, but if he brings it forward, he’s going to have to answer some questions about how he got it in the first place, and that’s not a thing he wants to do. So he’s trying to scare you into rabbiting, or scare you enough that Mason comes in just to take the heat off you— which would also take the heat off him, somehow, I bet.”
“That makes a crazy kind of sense,” she said, impressed.
He grinned, sideways and gentle, the way she remembered. “I always kicked your ass at Clue, kid,” he said. “What’s the cop’s name?”
“I don’t— If we go digging at him back, isn’t that just going to get us into more trouble? Make us look more guilty?”
He waved her concerns away. “Let me worry about that, all right? Name.”
“Teddy— I don’t want Mason to know about all this, okay? He’s got enough that he’s dealing with right now.”
Teddy scoffed this time. “Mason’s a big boy, and if you’re getting harassed, especially about something that has to do with him, he’ll want to know. You can trust him.”
“And if I’d asked you if I could trust Declan, six months ago, would you have said he was trustworthy too? Since he’s one of your brothers?”
The question came out a thousand times harsher than she meant it to, and she flinched away from her own words. All the sparkle was gone from Teddy’s eyes, and he glared at her with more anger than she’d ever seen on his face before. “Declan was a snake. I never trusted him, and when Mason took over as treasurer, I told him so. I warned him, and I sent him to you to figure out what was going on, because I didn’t want my family corrupted from the inside out by a snake. So chill out, would you?”
She forced herself to breathe. “Sorry, Teddy. It’s been a long twenty-four hours.”
His smile returned as quickly as it had faded. “I hear you. But can you do me a favor? Well, two.”
“What?”
“Talk to Mason. He’ll help. He wants to help. He wants to help keep his own safe. I mean— shit, that’s part of his genetic makeup.”
“I—” It really came down to something simple: did she love him, or did she not? If she could look him in the eyes and say she loved him, then on some level, she was saying she trusted him. And if she didn’t trust him, he deserved to know that. He deserved honesty. “I want to. But I need to at least try and sort this out for myself first. Does that make any sense at all?”
He sighed, rubbing his hand over his thinning hair. “I think you’re making the wrong choice, Caro. It’s gonna hurt him, that you’re shutting him out.”
“And if it does, so be it. I need you to not tell him what’s going on.”
Teddy held her eyes for a long time, his fingers tapping on the folder. Finally he sighed and nodded. “I’m not going to directly tell him. But I’m not gonna lie to him, Caro, not even for you. He asks me if I know anything, I’m gonna spill. Are we clear?”
She nodded.
“Let me take this. I want to look into this guy. Tell me his name.”
There was a long moment of considering pros and cons, trustworthiness versus just taking care of everything herself until she’d dug a hole in the ground, and she could climb in and pull it in after herself. And then she nodded. “Mike Randall,” she said. “Be careful.”
He gave her a sideways grin as he stood. “Always am.”
“Hey, Teddy?”
He looked back at her, his eyebrows raised.
“What was the second favor?”
He laughed. “Cut it out with the Teddy thing. No one calls me that anymore.”
Her turn to raise an eyebrow. “I refuse to call you Munch. Not after that disgusting story you told me about your high school girlfriend.”
He did an eyebrow waggle that had her in stitches when she was a kid. “She was not complaining.” He blew her a kiss. “You stay safe, too, cuz. You haven’t had forever to get used to this life like me and Mase. You’re not used to staring around corners, wondering what’s about to jump out at you.”
“I’m getting better every day.” She squeezed his hand, and he left her there in the park.
CHAPTER NINE
She needed a way to feel safe. A way to feel like she had a home base. That was the big problem right now. She was at loose ends, and every direction she turned in had a different challenge. She had to pick one and face it.
The easiest thing would be selling the house. The market hadn’t ever crashed here, not anywhere near as badly as it had in the rest of the country. It was an up-to-date little cottage, with a new roof and a great kitchen. She’d been approached by realtors about it before; selling it should be simple. She could afford to rent for a bit while she decided her next step. Stay here, stay with Mason, leave, start over somewhere else— All sorts of options. Hell, she could move near Emily and set up shop down there as an independent financial consultant. Work with the local small business association. She didn’t have to stay here.
She didn’t have to feel powerless.
The house looked like it had been through a whirlwind, though. She’d torn through it, first in her attempt to flee town, and then in her random trips to grab what she needed and get back out as soon as possible.
Missy had cleaned out the kitchen of perishables at some point for her, and most of her clothes were gone, but the house had an “unlived in” feel the last few times she’d been there. She needed to get it cleaned and staged if she was going to approach a realtor about it. She could start that now. She could take a leave of absence from work, get her shit together, and then see where she was when the cards flipped over.
With the folder out of her hands, and a plan for the next few weeks at least, she straightened her back and walked toward her parked car.
***
Afterwards, she hated herself. Because as she pulled up to the house, she thought that something seemed different. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but her guts were screaming at her to run. And she didn’t. She parked in the garage, like she had a thousand times after work, and walked in the door, telling her guts that they were overreacting, and to stop being such wusses.
She didn’t pay attention to how the house didn’t have the deathly silence of a place that is completely empty, and that the air was fresher than it should have been if no one had opened a door or a window in a week, or that the papers on the kitchen counter—still left there from when Mason had brought them to her, still lying where Declan had strewn them as he screamed at her, tied to a chair in her own kitchen—had been neatened, piled in careful stacks.
By the time her brain managed to notice all of those little things that her guts had been trying to tell her since she’d pulled up to the garage, by the time her brain gave her feet the command to run and she tried to listen, it was far too late. He came out of the shadows, his hand going over her mouth, an arm wrapping around her waist. She kicked at him, but his legs were spread wide; she tried to bite at his hand, but his hand was cupped, and she couldn’t get any flesh between her teeth. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him over the muffled sound of her own scream.
She bucked against him, finding her feet in the air as he kept his grip on her; she was close enough to the counter to get some purchase, and she planted her feet and pushed back as hard as she could. He hadn’t expected her to have that much coordination; he kept from going over, but it was a near thing, and he had to let go of her to keep his balance as he stumbled back, crashing into the wall. The same place Gloria had hit. She hoped he broke a rib, too, the stupid fuck.
She was too off balance to keep her feet, but she didn’t waste time; she hauled herself up and bolted for the garage door; he got there first and blocked her, so she spun and headed for the living room and the front door. He caught her wrist, grabbed her, and turned her against the wall, his hand over her mouth again.
It was the cop; of course it was the cop. Detective Mike Randall. She felt tears welling up in her eyes, but the screams tapered off, somehow. Her throat was too tight, too afraid.
“You dumb bitch,” he said, his tone more irritated than actually angry. “I’m just trying to talk to you.”
“You can’t just come into someone’s house,” she said, trying to gather herself together. Could she get her hand into her pocket, dial 911 without him seeing? Stupid smartphones, she could have pulled it off with an old school flip phone. “You need a warrant. Do you have a warrant, Detective?”
He shrugged. “We got a call that someone heard screams. Welfare check. Simple as that.” He grinned, and in a moment, he went from lizardly and evil to boyish and charming. Even though she’d seen those cold eyes and what lay beneath them, she felt something in her relaxing at the warmth in them now. Her guts twisted into a knot, thinking about what he could accomplish if he was able to turn that on and off so easily. “I just want to talk to you without your lug of a boyfriend around. Is that so difficult? I could drag you down to the station, if you’d prefer.”
She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think you can, is the thing. I think you’re harassing me, and I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”
He shrugged. “Prove it. Meanwhile, I can prove that your boyfriend is running drugs, guns, and underage girls under cover of that garage of his.”
“If you can prove it, then why are you talking to me?” Teddy’s comments had given her some strength, and she saw the anger flash through Randall’s eyes at her words. Score one for the lady.
“I hate to see a beautiful woman tangled up with a dirtbag like him,” he said, but he’d played his hand way too far. It came out false, and he knew it, didn’t even wait for her response. “I think you know what happened to Declan McDermott. I think he’s not just a missing person. And I think you know where I can find him. Or whatever’s left of him. And if you think drugs and prostitution are rough charges for a guy, you should see what they do for cold-blooded murder.” He smiled a cold, mean little grin.
Once, in college, she’d taken an acting class. She didn’t want to. She’d been a STEM girl all the way, enjoying making numbers and figures and formulas bend to her will, but she’d needed the arts credit to round out her transcript. She’d nearly failed the class because she improved so badly. She hadn’t even known you could fail an acting class. But if her teacher had seen her in that moment, she would have aced the class, no question.
She gave Randall a confused look and shrugged. “I have no idea who that is, detective. If I could help you, I certainly would. You see, I’m an upstanding citizen—some might say, a pillar of the community. Now, you were here to check on my welfare, and as you can see, I’m completely fine. Thank you for your concern. But if I see you in my home, or my place of work again, I will consider it harassment, and I will file a report.” Her heart was beating a mile a minute, slamming against her ribs so hard that she expected it to show through her T-shirt. She forced a small smile, just as cold and mean as his, to bend her lips. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
It wasn’t exactly a surprise what came next. She’d learned the hard way, a long time ago, how bullies responded to be bullied in return. He got in her face again, but he didn’t lay hands on her this time. She forced herself to keep her expression neutral, to meet his eyes. “I will find him.” Randall spat the words out violently. “I will find him, and I will put an end to you and your boyfriend. Are we clear?”
It was the last bit that would have gotten her the A. She raised an eyebrow, completely unflustered, and smiled, as if she were amused. “You have a lovely day, detective. I hope you find your missing person.”
She was actually surprised that he left without hitting her. She’d expected a slap at the least. She was almost hoping for it; sh
e really would have been able to file harassment charges then, and get this dick off her ass.
But he just narrowed his eyes and stalked out, leaving the garage door open behind him.
She forced herself to count to 100 before she let her knees give out, let herself slide down the wall, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her head on them. Letting herself shake to pieces for just a little while.
She dropped her phone three times before she was even able to get it out of her pocket, much less dial a number.
“Jack?” She said, when he answered. “I need your help.”
CHAPTER TEN
“I’m— not sure how to phrase this,” Missy said. “I’m not upset that you called us—I said we’d do anything we could to help, and I meant that, and I know Jack did too. But I’m not sure why you called us, and not Mason. It seems like— He’s the guy to help in a situation like this?”
