Protecting Melody

by Susan Stoker

  CC_CopyCat: OK

  Tex: Good

  One Month Ago

  CC_CopyCat: Tell me about your friends. You talk about them all the time, and it’s obvious they have some seriously awesome wives and girlfriends.

  Tex: Yeah, they’re all great. You know I was a SEAL. I worked with some of them when I was in the Navy, but after I retired they found themselves in need of my computer abilities. I can usually get them what they need faster than going through proper channels and with the issues their women have had, thank God that I can.

  CC_CopyCat: What are their names again?

  Tex: Wolf, Abe, Cookie, Mozart, Benny, and Dude

  CC_CopyCat: I’m sure there’s some good stories behind those names

  Tex: Of course

  CC_CopyCat: Who do you rely on?

  Tex: What do you mean?

  CC_CopyCat: When you need someone, or something, who do you rely on?

  CC_CopyCat: Tex? Shit, sorry. Did I overstep?

  Tex: No

  CC_CopyCat: Forget I asked. I’m sorry

  Tex: As weird as this might sound. You.

  CC_CopyCat: What?

  Tex: You, Mel. When I’ve had a crap day, I get on here and talk to you. You don’t judge me, you don’t ask me for anything, you just talk to me.

  CC_CopyCat: I won’t be around forever Tex. You need to get out more. Find someone there you can talk to.

  Tex: People don’t “see” me as you do Mel

  CC_CopyCat: Maybe you don’t give them a chance

  Tex: No. I live in a military town. Most can tell by my limp that I’m not whole. They pity me. I can’t stand pity. I was a fucking SEAL. And if I’m wearing shorts? Forget about it.

  CC_CopyCat: Not whole? Tex. Over the last months of me talking to you, I can tell you’re one of the most alpha men I’ve ever met. You’re bossy and you tell me what to do all the time. But at the same time you’re compassionate, you worry about your friends, and you drop everything to help them, even when they don’t ask. Believe me when I say that those people who see the surface that is you aren’t seeing even one tenth of who YOU are. Fuck them. See yourself as I do.

  Tex: Shit Mel

  CC_CopyCat: No, I’m not done

  CC_CopyCat: I think your friends take advantage of you. They’re always calling you to help them. To help their women, but you haven’t talked about them coming out there to see you. To thank you in person.

  Tex: Mel, listen

  CC_CopyCat: No

  CC_CopyCat: You listen

  CC_CopyCat: Tex, If you were my friend I’d never take advantage of you. Ever.

  Tex: You are my friend

  CC_CopyCat: Damn straight

  Tex: Thanks for making me feel better

  CC_CopyCat: Anytime

  Tex: What about you?

  CC_CopyCat: What about me what?

  Tex: What about your friends?

  CC_CopyCat: I’ve got friends

  Tex: Who? You never talk about them.

  CC_CopyCat: Amy. Amy is my friend

  Tex: Just Amy?

  CC_CopyCat: Yeah. I trust her with my life. I miss her though. I’ve been away and I haven’t been able to talk to her as much as I’d like

  Tex: Why?

  CC_CopyCat: It’s complicated

  Tex: You see me going anywhere?

  CC_CopyCat: Amy’s back home. She has a husband and two kids and works for a contractor. She tells me all the time that her company builds stuff that kills people, but her job is to finance it. I have no idea what that means, but I laugh at her anyway.

  Tex: She sounds funny

  CC_CopyCat: She is! Sometimes we have complete conversations using hashtags

  Tex: #likethis?

  CC_CopyCat: #yeah

  Tex: So why don’t you talk to her much?

  CC_CopyCat: Well, she’s home, and has a life to live. And I’m not there, so it’s just hard.

  Tex: I won’t push, but that sounds like a cop out

  Tex: I know you’re not telling me the entire story, and I don’t like it. But as I said, I won’t push. But I AM going to send you my cell phone number. You don’t ever have to use it, but I want you to have it in case you want to ever talk. I think we’re good enough friends now that we can move our online relationship to the next level. I’d love to hear your voice sometime. I feel like your friend too. So, what are you doing today?

  CC_CopyCat: Well, you know I work from wherever I am, so I’ve got two jobs today and otherwise I’m just hanging out. You?

  Tex: I’m going to check in with my friends and make sure all is calm there, then I think I’m going to do something crazy today.

  CC_CopyCat: What’s that?

  Tex: There’s a new thriller out I’ve been meaning to read

  CC_CopyCat: LOL. Crazy day for you

  Tex: You know it

  CC_CopyCat: Seriously Tex, you need to get out and interact with people more

  Tex: Pot meet kettle

  CC_CopyCat: Yeah, but you’re you. I haven’t seen a picture of you, but I bet you’re beautiful. You’re probably tall and built. Your hair is probably a bit too long and there’s not one woman who passes you who doesn’t take a second look.

  Tex: Men aren’t beautiful

  CC_CopyCat: The hell they aren’t

  Tex: Well, I’m not. I don’t think my hair is too long, but the only reason women take a second glance at me is to pity me because of my injuries

  CC_CopyCat: You’re wrong. I’m 100% sure you’re wrong. Next time you’re out, look. REALLY look. I bet you’d be surprised.

  CC_CopyCat: Hey, I hate to do this, but I gotta go. I have a thing in twenty minutes and I have to get ready.

  Tex: OK Melody. As usual I’ve enjoyed talking to you

  CC_CopyCat: Yeah, me too. You have no idea how much. I was serious about what I said Tex. You need to get out more. Find that woman who’s meant to be yours. You deserve it just as much as your friends and I’m sure they’d say the same thing.

  Tex: I’ll try. Talk later?

  CC_CopyCat: Yeah

  Tex: OK, bye. Have a good day

  CC_CopyCat: You too. Bye

  Chapter One

  Tex paced his apartment. He wasn’t happy. He couldn’t get hold of Melody. It wasn’t unusual for them to go a couple days without talking, but it had been a week. Ever since he’d first messaged her all those months ago, they hadn’t gone that long without touching base. Tex looked down at his computer screen. The words there mocked him.

  Tex: Mel? Are you there? Haven’t heard from you in awhile

  Tex: I’m worried about you. Please. Talk to me. I miss your sarcasm

  Tex: If you don’t answer me, I’m going to have to make sure you’re all right. I know you never wanted to talk on the phone, or exchange photos, but I have to know you’re okay. I’ve already given you my cell number, please call or text me.

  Tex had no idea when Melody had become so important to him. There were many nights he’d stayed up late talking with her online. She was funny and sarcastic, but she got him in a way his Navy SEAL friends never would. Tex had opened up to Mel about how insecure he felt around women after his operation and how he hadn’t taken off his prosthetic in front of anyone other than his doctors.

  Tex knew it was the security of typing rather than talking face-to-face or even on the phone that made him open up to Melody. There was some safety in the anonymity of the Internet and writing what he felt rather than talking about it. Even the Navy shrinks had tried to get him to open up and he couldn’t.

  But with Melody he was able to, and had. She knew everything about him. And now that he hadn’t talked to her in seven long days, Tex was realizing how little he actually knew about her. He’d blown it off in the past, not really thinking too much about it. He knew Mel got very defensive every time he tried to get her to talk about herself, so he’d dropped it. Tex didn’t want to scare her off, he enjoyed talking to her too much.

  But now, he was kick
ing himself. He knew almost nothing about her, and he was worried.

  Tex looked back down at his computer screen. He clicked some buttons, then just stared at the chat box he’d just been using to talk to Mel.

  User unknown.

  Tex sat up abruptly in his chair and frantically clicked more buttons. He swore long, using some of the more inventive words he’d learned during his time on the teams. Melody had deleted her account. She wasn’t just logged off; she’d severed the only connection they had with each other.

  Something was more than wrong. While Tex didn’t know the specifics of her life, he knew enough to know she wouldn’t just up and disappear without a word to him . . . unless something was really wrong.

  Tex tried to remember every piece of information she’d let slip over the last few months. He opened a new document and started typing.

  Pink

  Mexican food

  Disney?

  Friend named Amy - works in contracting - govt?

  Works from home - jobs that start at specific times

  Time difference? Job starting at 10pm my time

  CC_CopyCat - has to mean something, but what?

  Being watched? Scared

  Tex sat back and stared at the list he’d made. It wasn’t a lot of information. Hell, it was shit. But he didn’t like what it was adding up to. His Mel was on the run. He had no idea from what or who, but it was suddenly as clear as if she’d whispered the words across the globe and they’d landed in his ear.

  Mel was cautious, not wanting to tell him anything about her. She didn’t talk to her best friend, even though it was obvious she was longing to. She was scared and felt like she was being watched. Whatever she did to earn money, she was able to do it on the road, she didn’t work a traditional job.

  Melody had his phone number, but Tex didn’t think she’d use it. She was too concerned about taking advantage of people and was too scared of something. And if she wouldn’t call him, and Tex figured if she hadn’t called her friend Amy so far, she wouldn’t break that pattern now. Mel probably wasn’t in contact with her friend because she was afraid whatever situation she was in would blow back on her.

  Tex rolled up his sleeves. Fuck that. He’d never felt like this about anyone in his entire life. He felt like if he didn’t find Melody, a huge piece of his life would be missing. Over the last six months she’d come to mean a lot to him. Tex didn’t know how it happened, but it had. He had no idea what she looked like, but knew it didn’t matter. She could weigh five hundred pounds or be sixty years old, but she was his friend and Tex needed to find and help her.

  It was as if his entire life he’d been leading up to this moment. He’d found his friends’ women, he could find Melody. For one of the first times in his life, Tex was going to concentrate on himself. He wasn’t thinking about his friends, he wasn’t thinking about his leg or the constant pain he felt. He had to find and help Melody.

  * * *

  Tex rubbed his hand over his face. What time was it? What day was it? He had no idea, but he thought he’d finally tracked down Melody’s friend, Amy. He wasn’t sure, but it was worth a shot. He’d combed through contracting agencies throughout the country trying to narrow them down based on what Melody had told him Amy did. Tex hadn’t been surprised at how many Amys worked for the government. He’d called about two hundred so far and while some people would call him crazy for thinking he could find a needle in a haystack, he felt good about this Amy.

  Tex picked up the phone and dialed the number he had for Amy Smith. It was almost cliché with her having the surname of “Smith.” It had made it that much harder to pin her down.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Amy Smith who works for Key Contracting?”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “I’m a friend of Melody’s and . . . hello?” Tex looked down at the phone in his hand when suddenly all he heard was the dial tone. He couldn’t help but be impressed and he felt in his gut this was Melody’s friend. All of the other Amys he’d reached had spoken with him politely and had said they didn’t know anyone with the name of Melody. But this Amy had hung up at the mere mention of Mel’s name.

  If Melody was in as much trouble as Tex thought she was, her friend had done the right thing, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still piss him off. He immediately dialed the number again and wasn’t surprised when Amy didn’t pick up the phone. He left a quick message.

  “My name is Tex. I’m a retired Navy SEAL. I’ve been talking to Mel online for the last six months and she’s told me about you. I’m afraid she’s in trouble. I haven’t talked to her in ten days and I’m worried. Please call me back. Hashtag, your friend needs help.”

  Tex had no idea if what he’d said was enough, but he gambled that Amy hearing he was a SEAL might change her mind toward him. But if that didn’t do it, maybe his last hashtag comment would.

  His phone rang six minutes after he left the message, he’d been counting. Tex picked it up, recognizing the number.

  “What the hell is going on?” Amy didn’t waste any time with niceties.

  “As I said, I’ve been talking to Mel online for a while now. She never told me anything about her personal life, but I’m worried about her. We usually talk at least once a week, but I haven’t heard from her in a week and a half.”

  “Look, no offense, but I don’t know you. How do I know you aren’t the one stalking her?”

  “So she’s being stalked?”

  “Fuck.”

  Tex heard the disgust in Amy’s voice. She hadn’t meant to confirm anything. “Look. . .” Tex paused and thought about what he could say to try to reassure Melody’s friend. “I know she’s scared. She admitted as much to me. She talked about you when I asked about her friends. She said she misses you. Amy, I need your help. I need you to tell me everything you can about where you think she is. She’s obviously in trouble and she needs help. I can help her.”

  “Give me your name. I’ll check you out. If I think you’re legit, I’ll call you back.”

  Tex didn’t hesitate. “John Keegan. I was medically retired a few years ago from the Navy. Do you need a reference?”

  “No. I’ll find you if you’re telling me the truth. I have my own connections.”

  Tex put the phone down. Amy had hung up without saying goodbye once again. He didn’t care. All that mattered was Melody. Now that he knew he had the right Amy, Tex bent over his computer again. He could find out a lot of information now that he verified where Melody was from.

  Thirty minutes later, Tex’s phone rang. Impatiently he picked it up and answered the call, figuring it would be Amy. She obviously did have some good contacts if she was already calling him back and had checked him out this quickly.

  Amy didn’t bother saying hello. “My friend, Melody, was the nicest person you could ever meet. She was the type of person who would come over and watch my kids for free, and, in fact, beg me to be able to do it. She babysat my kids all the time and they loved her. She worked hard at what she did and she was good at it. She didn’t bad mouth others and was way nicer than she should’ve been to people.”

  “Why are you talking about her in the past tense?” It shouldn’t have struck Tex as so wrong to hear Amy talking about Melody as if she was no longer alive, but it did.

  Amy’s voice softened for the first time. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

  “How long has she been gone?” Tex tried to ease up on his take-charge attitude. Amy was obviously hurting too.

  “About seven or so months.”

  “Have you talked to her much since she’s been gone?”

  “Not really, and it sucks. I miss her. My kids miss her. Her parents miss her. Hell, her dog misses her.”

  “Her dog?” Tex didn’t remember Melody ever talking about owning a dog in any of their past conversations.

  “Yeah. She asked if I would dogsit one day because she had to run some errands in Pittsburgh. So I took Baby for the day an
d Melody never came back.”

  “Her dog’s name is Baby?” Tex could hear that Amy was getting emotional and he wanted to have her concentrate on something else for a moment before she continued telling him about Melody.

  “Yeah. Baby is a fifty pound coonhound. Melody adores that dog. Every time I’ve spoken with her since she left, which isn’t very often, she’s asked about her dog. Baby misses her too. It’s uncanny. She lays on the floor each night and keeps her eyes on the door. She knows. Even after all these months, Baby knows her mom is missing and is still waiting for her to walk back through the door.”

  “What happened? Why did Melody go? What’s she told you?” Tex knew he sounded gruff, but he couldn’t help it. He needed all the information he could get from Amy to help him find Melody. And the thought of Mel’s dog pining for her made his stomach clench and hurt him more than if Amy had described how much she herself missed her friend.

  “I don’t know all the details because Melody won’t tell me, but from what I can gather, she’d been receiving weird notes for a while. Not necessarily threatening, but not friendly either. Then they changed. The messages got mean. Melody didn’t tell me exactly what they said, but I think they started threatening her parents and even Baby. She told me once that if it was just her, she never would’ve left. And I believe that with all my heart.”

  “Because if it was just her, she wouldn’t care, but threaten someone or something she loves, and all bets are off.” Tex could see Melody being that way. Again, he’d only been acquainted with her for a short while, but with the way she supported him and stood up for him when she didn’t really even know him, Tex knew she’d be horrified by the thought of someone getting hurt because of her.

  “Yeah.” Amy’s voice was low. “You do know her.”

  “Yeah. I know her.”

  “I’m worried, Tex. I haven’t talked to her in about three months, and the last time I spoke with her she didn’t sound good.”

  “In what way?”

  “Usually she tries to be happy and cheerful when she talks to me, but last time she didn’t try to hide her feelings. She was scared and depressed. She told me over and over how much she loved me and the kids and told me to give Baby extra pets for her.” Amy took a deep breath. “When she said good-bye, it sounded different than any other time.”