Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“We’re gonna have to find another way in.” Carter stated the obvious.
I scowled at my phone on the counter, grateful Carter couldn’t see me, and fought the urge to pick it up and throw it against the wall. He’d just finished telling me an email had been sent out from Nu Dawn, the seminar had been rescheduled. Mackenzie Archer and the whole community was in mourning. They’d lost a member to a tragic act of violence. Out of respect for their fallen member the seminar would be pushed back two months.
We didn’t have two months to wait.
Liza needed in now.
I needed to get this assignment done.
“You and Liza need to talk to Allyson,” Carter went on.
You and Liza.
There was no me and Liza and never would be.
Instead I told him something he knew. “It’s late, I’ll call her in the morning.” Which begged the question, “Why are you checking emails and working?”
“Girls’ night,” Carter explained. “Used to be just my mom and aunts got together once a month. Now, Laney and the others get in on the action. My dad’s on driver duty tonight. She’s on her way home now.”
That explained the late-night call. Carter was dedicated to his job, but more dedicated to his family. No way would he be checking emails, calling me close to eleven, if his wife was home.
Liza’s name appeared on the screen, calling in likely to tell me she’d read the email, too. The account had been set up to purchase the tickets to the seminar, an account she now had access to. Liza working late didn’t surprise me. That was her—dedicated to the job. There had been a time when I’d thought I could give her more, show her there was more than work. Get in there and earn her dedication. A week ago, that died.
A week ago she handed me more bullshit than I was willing to take.
All I’d asked for was honesty and she fed me shit.
Seeing her name on my screen was unwelcomed and not just because I never expected Liza would lie straight to my face, give me some garbage excuse why she stopped taking my calls. And for some asinine reason I couldn’t fathom, she insinuated it was my fault her jackass ex cheated on her. I was hurt, pissed, and seriously unhappy I had to see her every day at TC. And right then standing in my kitchen nearing on eleven o’clock I was putting away groceries because I’d had to drive forty-five minutes to hit a boxing gym since she’d worked late and I needed away from her, so the TC gym wasn’t an option. After that I hit the store and was home two hours later than normal.
Meaning, I was in no mood to talk to her.
“Liza’s calling in,” I told Carter.
“We need to talk about her,” he informed me, and I was surprised it had taken him so long.
“Carter—”
“Not now. Tomorrow.”
He disconnected, Liza’s call rang through, and I debated sending her to voicemail—something I had never done. Something she’d done countless times in the last two years.
Fuck .
I stabbed the green icon on my screen, letting my impatience and displeasure be known.
“It’s late,” I greeted.
“We need to talk.”
Oh no, we didn’t.
“Think you’ve said enough, Liza.”
“I know. That’s why we need to talk.”
Was she slurring?
“Liza—”
“I lied.”
“Are you drunk?”
I quickly scanned my memories, trying to remember if I’d ever seen her drunk. We’d shared drinks plenty of times. I’d seen her a little tipsy, but I couldn’t recall her ever drunk or slurring.
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Where are you?”
“My hotel.”
Thank fuck for that, she sounded sloshed.
“In your room?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Go to sleep.”
The line went quiet. I glanced at my phone hoping she’d hung up. She hadn’t.
“Go to sleep, Liza,” I repeated.
“You hate me,” she whispered.
If it was only that easy.
A week ago, I would’ve told her it would’ve been impossible for me to ever hate her. Now she didn’t get that from me.
“Go to sleep.”
“I lied.” My jaw clenched harder. “Don’t you wanna know what I lied about?”
Christ.
In an effort to end the call, I told her, “I know what you lied about.”
“You do?”
If I wasn’t pissed as shit, her breathy ‘you do’ would’ve been cute.
Now, not so much.
Now, I was pissed and getting angry.
Ten fucking years. Eight of those I considered her one of my closest friends. All of those I’d loved her. And not only had she thrown it away, she’d shit all over it, and turned her back on me. My Liza, loyal to the bone, had turned her back on me. There was a lot I was willing to forgive. I understood her head hadn’t been in the right place and she’d needed time. Two years was long enough for her to pull her shit together about her ex. Two years was long enough for her to lick her wounds and make her approach to fix what she’d broken. She hadn’t reached out and I saw clear—she’d never intended to heal the breach.
The past was the past.
And it was better left there.
“I do,” I confirmed. “And before you ask, I don’t give a fuck why you did. You wanted to leave the past in the past, that past being the last decade as well as the recent past. All of it. There’s nothing to talk about. Nothing to explain.”
“There is.”
Jesus fuck .
“Okay, Liza, then how about this, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to hear your excuses or your bullshit.”
Another pause. Another glance at my phone hoping she ended the call.
“Woman, I got shit to do.”
“This isn’t you.”
Was she for real?
“It’s not?” I asked. “Seems neither of us knew the other as well as we thought we did.”
“Ouch,” she whispered.
Instead of letting the pain in her voice register I focused on the monumental task of keeping the building tension in the back of my skull from exploding.
Then I wondered why the fuck I was waiting for her to end the call.
“Go to sleep, we have shit to do tomorrow.”
I disconnected the call.
After that I finished putting my groceries away.
My shit mood didn’t go away after my shower and sleep didn’t touch it.
That meant when I walked into work the next day, my mood had significantly deteriorated. Therefore I didn’t stop and talk with Lauren even though she greeted me with a smile. I didn’t find Carter to get to work on another way into Nu Dawn. I went straight to my office. Unfortunately it wasn’t empty. Jason Clark was sitting in one of the two empty chairs in front of my desk.
Jason was an old friend, a throwback from my days with the DEA. We’d met during clandestine laboratory training and had remained friends. That friendship grew when I worked a case in Georgia. I’d met him before his first wife passed away. I’d also met his current wife, Mercy, who was also DEA before she was his wife, from my time spent in Virginia. I liked them both. More, I liked that they’d found each other and with Mercy’s help Jason pulled himself out of the darkness he’d been hellbent on living in. It was a coincidence I’d been undercover in a case that involved a member of TC, Matt Kessler and then-girlfriend, now wife, Chelsea. Since then, Jason had been actively persuading me to quit the DEA and come to work for him and his family. I hadn’t been ready and when I started considering his offer, wondering if it was time to get out of the game and get serious about exploring things with Liza she’d dropped the bomb she was married. With nothing stopping me I stayed with DEA until I could no longer stomach it, until the time came when no matter what I did I could wash off the filth, I couldn’t breathe without smelling the stench of the dregs of society. The foulness of it so extreme I’d found myself mired in it.
Even with our history, Jason taking me on at TC, giving me something good and clean to focus on, didn’t mean I was happy he was in my office.
“No offense, Jason, but unless you’re here with a solution for the Nu Dawn issue I got shit I need to take care of.”
“Does that shit include Liza?”
There it was.
The reason he was sitting in wait.
“Nope.”
My friend, now my boss, sat back, steepled his fingers, and tapped them against his chin.
Fucking hell .
I knew what that meant.
“We’re not having this conversation,” I told him as I made my way around my desk.
“Did you know she had dinner last night with Lenox?”
Jesus fuck me .
“We’re not discussing this.” I repeated my declaration, trying different words in hopes he’d clue in.
He didn’t.
“Had words with him when he dropped off Mercy last night.”
Right, girls’ night out.
“Jason—”
“I didn’t understand what your issue was with her,” he cut me off. “But I wasn’t in a place to offer advice, not with Kayla being sick. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember what you told me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have an opinion, I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind back then to tell you to pull your thumb out before you regretted not going after what you wanted.”
I blew out a breath knowing how much it cost my friend to bring up Kayla and what he was going through during that time. I also knew he’d put two and two together. Way back when, I’d called her Lizzy to Jason when I told him about her. I’d also called her Lizzy in front of him and the others a week ago. I was surprised he hadn’t called me on it earlier. Though, Jason was the kind of man to mind his own business so maybe I wasn’t.
“I know what I told you and I know you remember. That still doesn’t mean it’s up for discussion.”
“The woman of your dreams,” he muttered. “I didn’t get that then. I was married to a woman who was my best friend, but not the one who I knew was meant to be mine. I had no idea what a ‘woman of your dreams’ looked like until I met Mercy. And by the time I had my shit together you were off on a new assignment. Then so much time had passed I’d let it go but I never forgot what you said. More than that, I never forgot the way you looked when you told me about her. Which now begs the question, what the fuck are you doing, brother? She’s here. You got your shot.”
That set my teeth on edge.
Not him reminding me that once upon a time I’d told him Liza was my endgame. At the time, I hadn’t been ready, I had shit I wanted to do before I committed to a woman knowing when the time came, and I made that commitment, I intended for it to be for a lifetime. I knew it would also mean I couldn’t continue taking assignments that would take me away for months at a time. But that didn’t mean I didn’t know down to my soul the woman I wanted to be tied to was Liza.
It was him telling me I had my shot at her when he didn’t have the first clue I’d taken that shot only to be slapped back.
“Things change, Jay. She’s not who she used to be.”
“And you are?”
No, I’d changed plenty in the last decade. If you were smart, you took the lessons life offered and you learned and grew from them.
“To her…for her…yes, I’m the same man I’ve always been. I get you think you’re doing me a favor with this talk, but trust me, you’re not. I thought with her being here, we’d finally have our time. She made it clear she’s of a different mind. So, now, that’s done and she’s still here. You can take from that, I’m not best pleased. I just want this case done so I can be done, and she can be on her way.”
“She made it clear?” Jason inquired, not catching I seriously didn’t want to talk about this.
“Crystal,” I confirmed.
“That doesn’t jibe with what Lenox said last night.”
Obviously, Liza’s late-night call was spurred from whatever conversation she’d had with Lenox. That didn’t bode well for me. Next up would be Lenox for another unpleasant chat I wanted to have only slightly more than I wanted to shove my dick in a meat grinder.
“I don’t know what to say about that, Jason. What I do know is I’d like this conversation to be done. Not only because it’s a waste of time, but being real with you, it fucking kills knowing she’s close, knowing I was holding out for her, thinking one day somehow she’d be my future, to now knowing she’ll never be anything but a memory. And right now, she’s a memory I don’t want.”
“Fuck, Tucker, I didn’t mean?—”
“I know you didn’t. It’s all good or it will be when she’s gone. I can stop hiding in my office and driving out to Jesup to go to the fucking gym.”
The lie rolled off my tongue in a way I hoped would be convincing.
It wasn’t good and I knew damn well it wouldn’t be when she left. It would only get worse. The sting of her being gone, this time with no hope of seeing her again, was going to bleed for a good long while.