Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was late when I pulled in front of Liza’s hotel to drop her off.
A day that should’ve been easy—checking in with Allyson, talking to her in a place where she felt comfortable in hopes she’d give us more intel—had turned into a four-hour visit. The first hour of that had been eaten up by Liza having to calm Allyson down. Not only was she freaked, she was mourning the loss of a friend. The next hour had been consumed by Allyson ranting and lamenting her guilt about not knowing what was going on around her. Liza had deftly guided Allyson beyond that, whereupon we spent the last two hours learning everything we could from Allyson, with Jessica sitting next to her sister offering quiet support. By the time we wrapped up the visit, Jessica’s support had morphed into relief when Allyson declared she was moving back to Georgia.
Before we left TC, Liza and Nick worked on Liza’s cover. After some back and forth with a man named Sammy who worked with Liza, (a man I and the rest of my team called “Sam.” No man who was no longer in grade school, and had a voice as deep as Sam’s wanted to be called Sammy. But if he did, he didn’t correct any of us when we didn’t use the name, and actually sounded relieved to be addressed as Sam) it was decided Sam would craft the cover with Dylan’s help. That call had lasted forty-five minutes.
After our visit we returned to TC and put in another five hours briefing the team and getting a brief from them. Jason’s contacts had come through and confirmed the colored baggies had hit the streets of the Tri-Cities area north of Rogersville. The influx had started in Kingsport, then Bristol, and finally Johnson City where two college kids from East Tennessee State had overdosed with red baggies in their possession. Dylan had also tapped into Beatrice’s emails. Weekly communication with his sister didn’t get us anything helpful—Bea loved her life, she was doing great, Tennessee was beautiful, and Mackenzie was amazing. The only thing those emails brought into question was where Bea was getting money to send to her sister. Every three months, there was an email reminding her sister to go to Western Union to pick up money. Which meant Bea had sent cash. Not something most people do in this day and age. According to Bea’s bank records there were no large cash withdrawals. Hell, the woman didn’t have the bank balance to support sending her sister money. The rent and HOA dues living on the Nu Dawn compound weren’t cheap. Bea’s songwriting wasn’t paying the bills, her job as a checkout clerk at the local grocery store that only paid a few bucks over minimum wage did. The cash was a question mark we needed to answer.
Now I was dropping Liza off at her hotel. As suspected, neither car rental company in Hollow Point had cars available. She’d have to go to Savannah to get a rental from the airport or wait a few days until a car could be transferred for local pickup. This meant she was stuck with me, since she’d stubbornly refused to take my Yukon.
“Do you…” Liza began with a hint of nervousness I didn’t understand. “Uh, do you have time to come in for a drink?”
I didn’t get the nervousness so I really didn’t understand the uncertainty. Liza didn’t get nervous and she was rarely uncertain. Further from that, she’d never been either of those with me until yesterday.
Instead of answering I changed course from the front door to the parking area and swung into a space, killed the engine, and didn’t delay throwing open the door to exit. Whatever made Liza uncertain and nervous had her moving much slower than me to haul her ass out of my SUV.
After what felt like an eternity, she met me around the back of the Yukon. The silence as we walked into the hotel didn’t have me feeling good thoughts about what Liza wanted to talk about. Though I could guess it was time we’d started the groundwork laying out our cover. She hadn’t said the words, but she’d fully participated. In two weeks we’d be posing as husband and wife. Before that, we’d be spending time together. Some of that would be spent getting comfortable around each other, which wouldn’t have been an issue seeing as we knew each other well, had a bond that I knew—even if she’d repeatedly tried to deny it—was deep and meaningful. Now she was going to use this talk as a way to draw a few lines in cement. Lines that I had no intention of abiding by. Meaning this conversation was going to go to shit. She likely knew it, but that still didn’t explain her nervousness. Liza never had a problem going toe-to-toe with anyone, including me.
I followed her as she skirted some tables before she wound her way to a corner booth and slid in. I debated sliding in next to her or sitting opposite. Sitting on the same side was where a man would sit to be close to his woman. Which was precisely where I wanted to be. However, for this conversation I needed to be opposite from her, not have her face in profile. So that’s what I did.
My ass had barely hit the vinyl before she launched in. “I need to apologize to you.”
That was not the lead-in I’d expected.
“For?”
“Being difficult.” She shrugged. “For blowing off your attempts to clear the air. You’re right, we need to put all of that behind us so we can move on. We need to be in a place where we can work together. And me making snide remarks for no reason other than to be bitchy isn’t helping.”
She was totally off-base. I didn’t want to clear the air so we could move on . I wanted to clear the air so we could move on together .
I was smart enough not to correct her.
“Are you talking about Crystal?”
She flinched before she covered it with what was supposed to be a smile but in reality was a grimace.
“Yes.” She all but hissed. “I was totally out of line.”
“You already apologized for that,” I reminded her.
“We were interrupted.”
Right. Jessica had called again, then the rest of our day had been taken over by work. Even so, at no point had I taken the time to correct her assumption Crystal was in my bed.
“Is this why you asked me in? You want to talk about Crystal?”
Another flinch, this one she didn’t try to cover with a fake smile.
“No. I mean, yes, I wanted to make sure you knew I really was sorry for making stupid comments. But also, I need to explain what happened in Tucson.”
I leaned back in the booth, wishing we would’ve stopped at the bar on the way to the table. I had a feeling whatever she was going to say was going to require a stiff drink to swallow down the bullshit she was getting ready to feed me.
There was one flaw in her play… I knew her. Down to her bones, I knew the woman across from me. She was instigating this play not because she was ready to be honest but because she had no choice.
Honesty would require me pulling it out of her and the only way to make that happen would be to push her buttons and piss her off. Something I wouldn’t do in a hotel bar.
Therefore when I settled back with my brow crooked up in invitation, I said not a word.
“The timing was shit.” She led with the truth. Unfortunately, it went south after that. “When you called and asked me where I was, I should’ve told you I’d meet up with you after my case was done. You’d just finished with an assignment, I was in the middle of one, neither of us were in the right headspace. I left the next morning with my team, got caught up with work, then time got away from me until it was too late. I felt like shit for not answering your calls or returning your texts, then I just kinda thought it was for the better.”
That last part felt like a knife to the gut. The rest, well, that was all bullshit to cover her real reason for ghosting me. We knew the drill, knew how our jobs monopolized our time. That was the thing, the part about our friendship that had always worked—time and distance might’ve separated us but when we reconnected, we connected , picking up where we’d left off.
“For the better?”
Her gaze slid away and when she reengaged eye contact she was gone, my Lizzy was closed down. Agent Liza Monroe was now sitting across from me.
And that pissed me off more than the shit she was trying to force me to swallow.
“Let me get this straight, eight fucking years of friendship. Eight fucking years of us both making the effort to keep that friendship solid. Eight fucking years of us sharing our lives with each other any way we could, me making that happen no matter where you were, going to you so we could get face time, you checking in with me while I was under—and, honey, before you bullshit me, that took fucking effort, too. Untraceable email accounts, coded messages so I knew you were good and you could make sure I was the same. Burner phones that were more throwaways since for you they were one-and-dones, and you bought more of those fuckers to keep in contact with me than a member of a cartel. With all of that, all the time we’ve spent together, all the late-night calls, early morning calls, middle of the night calls—some of those lasting hours. Time we’ve spent sharing about our pasts, our lives, confessing our secrets, confiding in each other, you’re telling me none of that meant a goddamn thing to you. You, my Lizzy, my fucking best friend, the one fucking person who knows more about me than anyone else, is telling me it was for the better you walked out of my life then stayed out?”
Her face had paled, her eyes had turned watery, yet for the first time since I’d known her I didn’t give the first fuck she looked gutted. Not when the left side of my chest felt hollowed out. Not just hollow, but she’d been the one to carve my heart right out of my chest.
“Tucker—”
“Nope, don’t give me that placating, ‘I’m an officer of the law’ tone. Say it straight, Liza. Tell me why the fuck you think it was better to throw away our history.”
“Because it was time we both moved on with our lives. And neither of us could do that when we were holding onto something that wasn’t there.”
What the fuck?
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I married a man and a month into that marriage I realized I’d screwed up. Then he proved how badly I’d screwed up when he cheated on me. My life was a disaster, I needed to get back on my feet and I needed to move on and stop the cycle of self-destruction I was on. I needed to stop blaming you for Arnie?—”
Jesus fuck, if my heart was still in my chest that would’ve killed.
“Are you telling me, you blame me for that fucker cheating on you?”
She didn’t say anything. Not a sound came out of her mouth, yet the pain in her eyes said all I needed to know.
None of it good.
All of it total shit.
“Right,” I said instead of calling her out on her bullshit. “Here’s the deal, we’re stuck working together on this case. I’ll do my bit. You do yours. When this is done, you’re right; it’s for the better we end this for good.”
I was on my feet when she called my name.
I glanced down at her, wondering how I’d gotten it so wrong. Ten years I’d loved this woman. Ten years I’d bided my time, waited until we were both in a place to make this work. Ten long fucking years thinking we both understood what we had, thinking we could build on that, thinking deep down she loved me, too.
So goddamned wrong.
I waited, and when she said nothing, I walked out of the hotel.
I’d been wrong about something else. My heart was still in my chest.
When she didn’t follow me out, stop me from driving away, that’s what tore it clean from my chest.