Chapter Forty-Nine
Parker
I toe off my boots next to Grace’s front door while Belle does her level best to knock me on my ass. “I know, girl. It’s been a whole week. I missed you too.”
Garlic and lime mix with the scent of the roses blooming around the house.
It’s cooler out by the lake, and the windows are thrown open to let in the evening breeze.
At the edge of the property, water laps against the shore, and I’m a world away from burned buildings, a dead inspector, and a court order that’s still theoretical.
Emi’s at the kitchen counter, chopping green chiles with more force than necessary while Isabel frowns at her phone. Soft music plays from the speakers in the living room, and an empty glass waits next to a bottle of Chardonnay chilling in a silver bucket next to the fridge.
“There she is,” Emi says, glancing up and swiping at her eye with the back of her hand. “Get a drink in your hand before Isabel starts up about Veronica’s application again.”
“I’m allowed to be proud of her,” Isabel mutters.
“You’ve read that essay out loud four times.” Emi sets the knife down, reaches for a lime, and points it at our friend. “You do it again, we’re gonna stage an intervention.”
Isabel huffs. “It was a good essay.”
“It was a great essay.” Emi squeezes a tablespoon of juice into the guacamole. “After I had a little chat with her.”
Isabel’s mouth twitches. “You gave her notes.”
“I saved her from writing three pages about why journalism matters without mentioning a single journalist.”
I laugh in the middle of pouring myself a glass of wine, and almost spill it all over the counter. No matter what else is going on in my life, being with these women is easy. Even when my mind is still on burned buildings and a man carrying so much guilt, it’s eating him alive.
“Wait,” I say. “What application?”
Pride has Isabel sitting up a little straighter. “Veronica applied for an internship this fall. A crime intensive with Channel Seven in Chicago. And she got it.”
“Chicago?” I repeat. “That’s huge.”
Isabel’s smile gets bigger, but there’s something underneath it that isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. A little bit of panic.
“She wants Emi’s job,” Grace says, setting a stack of napkins on the coffee table, then sinking down onto the couch.
“Why does it have to be in Chicago?” Isabel’s voice takes on the tone she only uses when we talk about Veronica growing up. “I won’t see her for three months.”
“She’s nineteen,” Emi says. “And you have FaceTime.”
“I know how old my daughter is,” Isabel retorts. “But she’s never lived further than twenty minutes away from me, and dammit…I’m not ready for this.”
I take Isabel by the shoulders, turning her on the stool until she’s forced to meet my gaze. “Honey, that girl is tougher than all of us put together. I’ve taught her enough self-defense to take down a man twice her size. Connor’s got the bruises to prove it.”
A reluctant smile tugs at Isabel’s mouth, but she still looks like she wants to argue.
Emi dumps the last of the chiles into the salsa, gives it a stir, and carries the bowl into the living room. “Bring the chips, Parker. It’s time to get comfortable.”
Grace hooks her arm through Isabel’s. “You’re supposed to be proud of her, hon. Even if you are scared at the same time.”
“Her essay,” Emi says, “was the best writing I’ve seen in a long damn time. And she hasn’t even had her heart properly broken yet. Wait till she has a bad breakup. She’ll win a Pulitzer out of spite.”
We all laugh, but Isabel only manages half a smile before reaching for her wine.
My phone buzzes against my hip, and I glance down to see a text from Nate.
Reliability ratings for vintage Chevy Impalas are through the roof.
I roll my eyes, set the phone face down on my thigh, and reach over to give Isabel’s arm a squeeze. “She’s gonna be fine.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t be a wreck about it.”
With nods of understanding, we settle into the easy rhythm of the evening.
Chips get passed around. Grace regales Emi with the various benefits of adding more chiles to the guacamole.
We all know Emi will eventually relent and up the heat because Grace can’t stomach bland food.
Isabel keeps pretending she isn’t already planning every possible reason to visit Chicago.
As Grace scrolls through a list of movies for us to watch, my phone buzzes again.
I barely manage to stifle my groan.
It’s the second message from Judge Nesbitt’s assistant since I left the station. The judge has been locked in her chambers with opposing counsel for three hours now, and they’re still arguing.
“We’re watching The Life and Times of the World’s First Sentient Plant, right?” Grace asks.
Emi drops the chip she was about to dredge through the bowl of guacamole, her eyebrows lifting in perfect arches. “I suggested that last week as a joke.”
“So? It’ll either be brilliant social commentary, or the strangest movie any of us have ever watched.” Grace scrolls to the film’s description. “Don’t you want to find out?”
Isabel laughs. “There’s no way the plant is the strangest thing we’ve ever watched.”
“Probably not.” Grace pats the space next to her on the couch, and Belle jumps up, turns in a circle three times, and drapes herself over Grace’s legs. “But it might be one of the few where no one gets kidnapped.”
The room goes quiet—so quiet that Belle lifts her head with a little inquisitive whine. Grace rolls her eyes.
“I’m fine,” she says. “Seriously. I’m allowed to make jokes.”
She’s right. Hell, Emi’s the only one of us who hasn’t been kidnapped. And that’s only because first Jasper, then AJ managed to stop the assholes before they got that far.
The conversation drifts from predictions about the movie, to Veronica’s internship, to whether we should all go to therapy for our terrible movie choices.
Halfway through the opening credits, my phone buzzes again.
Judge Nesbitt left for a dinner. She said to try her in the morning between nine and eleven.
I swear under my breath.
“That’s the third time,” Isabel says, pausing the movie before it even gets started. “Something with the arson case? Or the boyfriend?”
The word boyfriend catches me off guard. I’ve been largely silent in the group chat the past week. Too much going on with the case—and with Eliot—to do much more than send an emoji or two. But AJ and Grace don’t keep secrets from one another, so she probably knows I kissed Eliot at work. Again.
“Parker?” Isabel asks.
“The case.” I scowl at my phone screen, then shove the device back into my pocket. “We need a judge to sign off on a warrant. Three warrants, actually. And I think she’s getting a little tired of us disrupting her days. So, I get to camp out at her office first thing in the morning.”
“Fun times.” Emi grabs the bottle of Chardonnay and refills my glass. “But if you don’t need to make your argument in front of her tonight, you can have another drink.”
“Thanks.” I take the glass, but set it on the coffee table rather than drown my stress immediately. I still need to drive home at the end of the night. “Every hour we have to wait is another hour someone could get hurt.”
“Parker, hon. You’re carryin’ all of Texas on your shoulders. That’s too much for anyone,” Isabel says.
“AJ’s working the press, Nate’s got spreadsheets inside of spreadsheets inside of spreadsheets, lookin’ for connections hidden in data only his brain understands, and Eliot’s coordinating and conducting inspections across the whole Austin metro area.
The least I can do is get these warrants signed. ”
Emi studies me over the rim of her glass. “You planning on sleeping tonight?”
“Eventually.”
No one looks away. Isabel doesn’t reach for the remote. Even Belle lifts her head again.
“What?” I ask.
Grace's fingers still against Belle's fur. “You said, ‘The least I can do.’”
I shrug, because I don’t understand why we’re still talking about this. “Getting those warrants is the least I can do.”
She studies me for another beat before shaking her head. “No, hon.” Her voice is soft, but she’s got that look in her eyes that tells me she’s serious. “You don’t need to earn your place in someone’s life by being useful.”
The words catch me off guard. My first instinct is to argue. This is how I’ve always loved people. Show up. Fix the problem. Carry the weight.
But Grace isn’t talking about the arson case.
She’s talking about me.
There’s always a fire. Or a murder. Or a kidnapping. Fraud. A cartel making trouble. There’s always something that needs doing or people get hurt.
I pick up my wine glass and stare at the frozen image on the TV screen. A cheerful little cartoon sprout smiles like it doesn’t have a care in the world. It’s ridiculous enough I should be able to turn my brain off for ninety minutes and enjoy this time with my best friends.
I can’t.
I don’t know how to sit still when there’s a problem in front of me. I know how to investigate. I know how to dig until I find what everyone else missed. I know how to put pieces together and carry the parts no one else wants to hold.
But isn’t there a difference between doing my job and believing everything falls apart if I don’t?
“I’m not wrong,” I say finally.
Grace tilts her head. “About what?”
“The case.” I wave my hands at…everything. “About needing those warrants. People are getting hurt.”
“I know,” Grace says, and the words catch me off guard. “I’m not saying stop caring. Parker, that’s one reason why…uh…” Her brows furrow, and she rubs at the scar on her temple from her second craniotomy. After trying again to form the words, she switches to ASL and adds, “I love you. You show up.”
My throat tightens, and I look away.
Belle wriggles onto Grace’s lap, nuzzling her nose under Grace’s chin. Grace laughs, and that’s enough to untangle whatever goes wrong in her brain when she loses her words.
“There’s…a difference between…showing up because you care…and believing you have to be the one who saves everybody.” Grace sinks back against the cushions, her eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment.
I stare down at the wine glass in my hand. “How am I supposed to separate those two?”
Isabel leans over and gives my knee a squeeze. “You don’t have to figure it all out tonight, Parker. There’s no test you have to pass.”
Emi reaches for the remote but doesn’t turn the movie back on. “You’re allowed to sit on a couch with us and not have a crisis to solve.”
I chuckle. “Apparently I’m terrible at that.”
My three closest friends all reply at once. “We know.”
“Start the damn movie.” I reach for my wine, take a healthy sip, and curl my legs under me.
Emi presses play, and I manage to pay attention for a little while.
The main character is a houseplant convinced it was meant for more than simply decorating a windowsill. Within the first few minutes, it’s already plotting its escape from the terracotta pot it insists is “a decorative prison.”
Laughing should make me feel better. Instead, it makes me realize how long I’ve been trying to carry this all alone.
My mind starts to drift. Not to the case this time.
To Eliot.
To the way he looked at me last night after telling me about the fire that killed Zack.
He’s been carrying that guilt for so long, it’s as much part of him now as his scars, the metal pins in his leg, or even the brown of his eyes.
I wanted to tell him he wasn’t responsible. That pinned down on a collapsed catwalk, there was nothing he could have done to save Zack.
Watching him relive those moments, hearing the agony in his voice, seeing the guilt written all over his face… It hurt.
He wasn’t telling me because he expected me to find the right words. He wasn’t waiting for me to tell him how to move on. He wasn’t handing me a problem and asking me to find the solution.
He was telling me because he trusted me enough to let me see him.
“You don’t need to earn your place in someone’s life by being useful.”
I think I’m finally starting to understand what she means. Showing up for someone doesn’t mean their pain becomes my responsibility the second they trust me with it.
Eliot trusted me with Zack. He didn’t ask me to fix anything. He just let me know he’s carrying a weight he can’t put down.
And I stayed.
No answer. No fix. No snapping my fingers to take it all away.
I just…stayed.