Chapter 26
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
“Let me just make sure I’ve got all this straight,” Lydia says as we take our second slow lap with Rufus around the little park by her house. “Drew Forbes quit medicine so he could open a dog training facility to try and help his struggling little brother?”
“That’s how I understand it.” I keep hoping the knot in my chest will loosen each time I rehash this, but so far it’s only pulled tighter. It doesn’t help that Lydia’s face looks like the holding-back-tears emoji.
“Damn,” she says. “That sure makes him less villainous . . .”
“Just hold on to your hormones. He’s still a Forbes,” I say quickly. “He sided with their parents when it counted. There would’ve been some catch.”
But even as I say this, the malice in my voice falls flat.
I wasn’t enough.
Those words could have been pulled from the shards in my chest—but they’d come from Drew. And that’s a problem. Because I’ve spent two years bearing this failure alone, and I am not prepared to share. Especially not with him.
“Kyle and Drew were barely speaking before the wedding. That relationship was dead. There was no sickening sibling bond like those two have going on.” My gaze tracks across the grass to where Lydia’s husband and brother-in-law are currently on their tenth set of push-ups, trying to out-fitness each other.
Anton’s eyes flicker habitually toward us, making clear he thinks I’m overtaxing his pregnant wife.
I use my leash hand to flip him a subtle middle finger.
“I guess you can’t know what happened between them that last year,” Lydia says, maiming me gently. “Either way, this changes things.”
“It doesn’t change anyth—”
Suddenly, she halts and plops down on a bench. I stop abruptly, studying her for imminent signs of distress, grateful Anton will be here in a hot second if she’s not okay. But she just takes a calm sip of water and pats the seat next to her.
“I am not sure who’s more high-strung these days—you, or my husband.”
I exhale, settling next to her and filling a collapsible water bowl for Rufus. “I object to you putting us in a sentence together.”
Lydia rolls her eyes, rubbing Rufus’s neck. “Tell me how it’s going with this guy. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’s turning you into a dog person.”
My lip curls at her hostile choice of words.
But when I look down, I find my hand already resting on Rufus’s head.
“Stockholm syndrome,” I mutter. “The training is making him more tolerable. He hasn’t chewed anything he wasn’t supposed to for a week now.
He seems calmer when we’re home. Drew did this ‘scent work’ thing with him yesterday, and it was kinda crazy to watch. He seemed to love it.”
Lydia watches me carefully while I ignore her obvious satisfaction.
“But Lydia, if I keep him, I’ll have to move, and probably buy a car, and . . .” I grimace. “I don’t know, that just feels like a lot with things so uncertain at work.”
This gets her attention, but only leads to more scrutiny. “I thought you just got a raise?”
I squeeze the leash in my hands. I haven’t spoken to anyone other than Randall about my giant oops with Unmatched, and it’s been killing me.
There was no way to tell Theo. I don’t want to worry my mom.
And while I respect that Lydia doesn’t want to be treated like some fragile flower right now, it seems unfair to burden her with undue stress.
But after the creepy emails I received last week, and the breathy voicemail Saturday, I feel like I’m going a little crazy.
“I’m just behind on deadlines,” I say, dithering. “But since Rufus can come to the office now, I’m catching up.”
Lydia’s eyes narrow. “I call bullshit. What else is going on?”
“Nothing,” I say, dumping out the dog bowl and packing it away.
Rufus sits up and looks back and forth between us, eyes lingering on Lydia as if to say she’s lying. Then he rests his head in my lap. I stroke his ears and attempt to change the subject.
“How many weeks are you now?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, eyes moving from Rufus back to me. Lydia speaks fluent dog, and Rufus might as well be giving a TED Talk on my anxiety.
“What happened?” she asks, and the compassion in her voice gently crumbles what’s left of my walls.
I let out a long breath. “We got an anonymous tip that Colin Vanderpool had a business partner on Unmatched. Or partners—at least one. And I’m pretty sure, whoever they are, they’re not happy I’ve outed him.”
She frowns. “So you’re investigating?”
“Yes.”
There’s a long pause, and while I know Lydia won’t freak the way my family might, I still regret giving her this to worry about. “I know you’ll be smart and as safe as you can.” She reaches out to grasp my hand. “Are you scared?”
I swallow, glancing around the little park and nearby playground. I wasn’t ready for this question, and I’m afraid the answer is blinking like a neon sign on my face.
“I’ve been receiving messages like I did after the first article,” I say, my voice more level than I expected. “I don’t think it was ever Colin Vanderpool sending them.”
“Oh.” To her credit, Lydia just presses her mouth into a line and nods. “Well, I see you’re carrying your Theo arsenal,” she says, gesturing to my belt bag. “And you’ve got Rufus. And the camera on your door.”
I’m not sure if she’s taking inventory of my armaments to reassure me or herself. I still feel like a soldier going to war with a bag over my head.
“I’ll feel better once I know who it is,” I say. “I just need to hurry up and figure that out.”
Lydia opens her mouth to reply, but is interrupted by a shriek coming from the little playground. I follow her gaze over my shoulder and spot a tiny, pigtailed linebacker screaming toward us across the grass.
“Paloma, wait—” A thirty-something Hispanic woman chases after the little girl, coming to an abrupt stop when she throws herself into Lydia’s lap.
“Dia!” the little girl cries in a helium voice. “You have donuts?”
Lydia laughs, giving her a hug and waving at the mother—her friend, Marisol. “It’s so good to see you! I’m afraid I left my donuts at home today.”
Paloma juts out her lower lip like Lydia stepped on her puppy. But then she spots Rufus and nearly lunges off Lydia’s lap. “Doggie!” she cries, hands outstretched.
I tighten my grip on the leash and look at Lydia, who is holding back the squirming toddler. “I don’t actually know how he is with kids.”
Marisol seems to notice me for the first time, and the way her face falls tells me exactly how thrilled she is. We haven’t seen each other since Lydia’s baby shower nearly a month ago, where we mostly pretended not to know one another.
“Careful, bebé,” she says, scooping her daughter out of Lydia’s lap. “We don’t know this doggie.”
I tell Rufus to sit, and he immediately complies with a light tail wag.
“Doggieeeee!” Paloma whines, still reaching for him.
Lydia and Marisol have some sort of nonverbal exchange while I sit there, unsure what to do, but then Marisol steps forward, letting Rufus sniff her outstretched hand and eventually petting his head. When the dog remains calm and engaged, Marisol instructs her daughter to hold her hand out too.
I watch Rufus carefully, not really sure what to look for. I think about the guy with the frisbee the other day and hold tight to the leash. But he just wags his tail a little harder, and when the little girl gets close enough, he starts intently licking her hands.
“Silly doggie!” Paloma gives a delighted squeal, and all of our shoulders relax.
“Doesn’t hurt that her fingers are sticky with popsicle juice,” Marisol says, offering me a thin smile. “Are you dog sitting or something?”
“No, he’s mine . . . long story.”
A dog starts barking from across the grass and Paloma immediately zeros in on Lydia’s Akita mix, Heartthrob, who’s been sitting with the boys watching us circle the park.
“Harbob!” she cries, grabbing Lydia by the hand. “I can pet him!”
Lydia looks at Marisol and shrugs, letting Paloma lead her away across the grass.
Marisol moves to follow them, but I clear my throat and speak. “Hey, I’m glad to run into you. I actually emailed you a couple days ago.”
“Did you?” she asks in a way that tells me she knows I did.
We have zero in common aside from Lydia—and the fact that Marisol was one of my most informative contacts when I wrote the original married cheaters feature about Unmatched.
“Yeah. I’m not trying to beat a dead horse, but I was hoping to ask you some new questions about Unmatched. I wrote a follow-up—”
“Oh, I know.” Her tone is chilly, her eyes focused on Lydia, Paloma, and Heartthrob.
I frown. We’ve never had a warm relationship, but this is frosty even by our standards. “Marisol, what—”
“You need to be careful,” she says, low and matter-of-fact.
“I don’t know how many guys were involved with the app.
I didn’t even know Vanderpool was one of them until I read your feature.
” Her lip curls, but I’m surprised to catch a flash of respect in her eyes.
“But I will tell you, if my ex was involved, you don’t want to look at this any closer. ”
I frown. Before I wrote the piece that put Unmatched in the public eye, Marisol had been unhappily married to a tech executive named Erik Schneider, who was an obvious ass but seemed about as threatening as a mosquito.
I shift, trying to look her directly in the eye. “Has something changed? Are you okay?”
She pulls her eyes away from her daughter and meets my gaze.
“I am fine. Actually, never been better.”
“Good. Glad to hear it. All I wanted—” I stop as something slips from the back of my mind. “Did you call the Observer and speak to Randall Jones about this?”
Her eyes flicker away, and that’s all the answer I need.
“Marisol, what the hell? You know you can just contact me directly.”
She shakes her head and glances around. “Look, I don’t know if he’s really involved, and I’m not even that interested in finding out. I just wanted you to know he’s not someone you should provoke.”
“But why—”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” We both look up to see Anton cantering toward us with Paloma perched on his shoulders, pulling his hair like she’s a tiny jockey. “Dia said she’d give me a puppy!”
Lydia trails behind them at a much slower pace, holding Heartthrob’s leash, clearly trying her best not to full-on waddle. “Um, I did not!” she shouts.
Anton raises the little girl over his head and flies her around like an airplane in a clear effort to impress the whole park with his biceps and forearms and daddy vibes before setting her down, giggling.
“I don’t think that’s what she said either, peanut.
” He presses a thumb to her nose. “But I know she’ll let you visit The Pooch Park anytime you want. ”
“And have donuts?” Paloma says with eyes like an anime character.
Anton glances at his wife and shrugs. “We could get donuts.”
Marisol rolls her eyes as Lydia catches up, taking her husband’s arm. “You two have about a year and a half to work on setting some boundaries.”
“I’ll say,” I mutter, too low for anyone to hear.
“Paloma, it’s time to go,” Marisol says, scooping up the toddler. “Say bye to Lydia.”
“Buh-bye, Dia!” The little girl waves, then turns to Rufus and blows a kiss. “Bye, new doggie!”
Marisol spares me one last fully loaded glance, which makes clear she has nothing left to say to me, and then she’s gone. Lydia waves, then hands Heartthrob’s leash to Anton and gives me a light hug.
“You want to join us for Sunday dinner?” she asks.
“With you guys and Seth?” I ask, looking over her shoulder at her husband and brother-in-law, whose combined dimples are so sharp they could put an eye out. “Uh, actually, I have plans.”
Lydia catches my hand and squeezes. “I know you’re never going to forgive Anton. I’m . . . still working on that myself.” She frowns, resting her other hand on her belly. “But your walls are high, Caprice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rufus nuzzles against her and she strokes his ear. “I’ve just been thinking about what you told me about Drew and Kyle.”
I step back, but she doesn’t let go of my hand. “What about them?”
“You’ve spent so long beating yourself up about what went wrong. What you could’ve done differently. But maybe you were never the problem—and maybe Drew wasn’t either.” She shakes her head. “Maybe it was all Kyle.”
Something sears through my chest at her words, burning all the way to the backs of my eyes. But it stops there. Because I know in some alternate timeline, where we might’ve gone through a different series of events, Kyle would still be alive.
I pull my hand out of hers. “You know, I don’t really have time to think about that. I’ve got research to do and articles to write.”
Lydia gives me an apologetic smile and nods. “Okay. Well, you’re still invited to dinner—any Sunday. If career demands ever let up.”
She rejoins her husband across the grass, and as they walk away holding hands, I’m left holding my leash, looking down at Rufus.
“What do you say we order Chinese and go on a research deep dive? I’ve got a secret bully stick I’ve been hiding from you.”
The dog cocks his head, staring at me with his honey-gold eyes, and for just a moment, I allow myself to feel guilty. Because I know he’d prefer to run obstacle courses and play hide and seek. And see Drew. Even I sort of wish we were doing that tonight.
Monday, March 28, 20__, 4:17 AM
To: Kyle.Forbes@
From: Caprice_Phipps@
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: no subject
Dear Kyle,
I’m starting to wonder if you had any idea how much you were loved.
I guess that isn’t fair. You’d still be here if you knew. It just kills me that you couldn’t see it through the darkness while you were here. I’m sorry we couldn’t help you—we just didn’t know how.
C