Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
CARLIE
I plop down on the couch once I get the girls down for naps. I need one too, but I can’t bring myself to climb the stairs again to my room here. Scarlett doesn’t normally take a nap, but they had a late night last night. And a rough night. Chad had taken them to Main Event with his sister and her family for dinner and playing. Then, of course, he’d gotten called out. He’d sent me a text, just to keep me up to date, saying that his sister was going to take the girls home to stay at her house. I got a call from his sister two hours later, telling me the girls had gotten upset when Chad left and they still hadn’t calmed down, and could I talk to them? They begged me to bring them home, and by the time we got everything figured out, it was late. I hate thinking about the look on Chad’s sister’s face when I came to get them. She used to be one of their safe places. Taking that from her was never in my plan.
Then Scarlett had told me that if Mommy came home, they needed to be here. I’ve been putting off talking to Chad about this, especially because I’m worried my suspicions will come through, but I can’t avoid it any longer. Unfortunately, Chad only came home to sleep for a couple hours before he got called out again.
Footsteps echoing through the house make me jump, my heart thumping hard. I must have drifted off. I slide my feet off the couch, peering into the hallway, where they’re coming from, and see an exhausted-looking Chad coming into the kitchen.
“Hey,” he says, yawning. He goes right for the coffee maker. “Where are the girls?”
“Taking a nap.” I stand. “Probably what you should do.”
He chuckles. “And you too. Amie said the girls were really upset last night. I’m sure calming them down and getting them to bed wasn’t easy, especially if Scarlett deigned to have a nap today.”
I laugh with him. Scarlett is usually pretty adamant about how grown-up she is. “I can stay so you can get some sleep.”
He shakes his head. “Go get some rest. It’s shaping up to be one of those weeks, and I want you to get your time when you can.”
I nod slowly. “Can I talk to you about something first?” I push away the panicky thoughts that I have to address this, but I need to protect the girls in all ways, and that means knowing what to say when they bring up Shelby. I’ve been able to brush past it so far, but I know in my heart that it’s not right to pretend like she didn’t exist with them. I really want to believe that she just left, for the girls’ sake and for Law. But if Chad is hiding something by refusing to talk about her, I have to get to the bottom of it.
“Of course.” Chad pours his coffee and sits at the island, giving me his full attention.
“I think one of the reasons the girls were so upset last night is that they were worried about Shelby coming home while they were gone.” I say it quickly and then go on in a rush to explain why. “Scarlett told me she needs to be here in case Mommy comes home.”
Chad looks down at his cup, his jaw clenched. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Okay.” I take another deep breath. “I need to know what to say when they talk to me. I can’t pretend like Shelby?—”
“You don’t need to talk to them about Shelby,” Chad snaps. “I’ll remind Scarlett that Shelby’s not coming home, and that will be that.”
I shouldn’t push further, but I’m taken aback by his tone. “And if she does come back? How am I supposed to handle that if I’m the one here?”
“She is not coming back. I’m positive of that.” Chad’s voice is so full of anger that I back up a half step. “Go home and get some rest. I’ll talk to Scarlett when she gets up.” By the end of the last sentence, his voice has mostly calmed.
Sure. I’ll go home, but I’ll be back. That tone—angry and seething—is exactly what I’ve been worried about. I can’t leave Chad with his girls.
My plan to sneak back into the house is waylaid by the fact that I get home to find my brother, in a suit, sprawled across my couch watching the 2007 version of Northanger Abbey. I’m so befuddled by it that I stand in the doorway for a full minute trying to understand the scene before me. His suit coat is flung across the back of the couch, the top buttons of his dress shirt are undone, and his tie hangs loosely around his neck. His shoes are by the door, but he’s lost his socks somewhere.
“Caleb?”
He looks away from the movie. “Oh, hey.”
“What’s going on?” I set my bag down. Why is he watching Northanger Abbey ? He dutifully watches Jane Austen movies with me when I insist, but he’s always called them boring.
Caleb doesn’t look away from the TV. “Nothing really. Ivy and I were going to elope. I came over here to find you to tell you to get dressed up, no matter what you thought, but she just called it off. Like ten minutes ago or something, so perfect timing.”
“You were going to elope .” I know this isn’t the right response, not with my brother looking like I had accidentally jumped on his PlayStation. (It really was an accident!) But I can’t help myself. He’s known her for two weeks! Eloping? Is he crazy?
“We were. But it’s fine, because she saw her ex and realized how stupid we were being and called it off, and now she wants space.” He still hasn’t looked at me.
My sister emotions are warring with my friend-sister emotions. I mean, thank heavens Ivy came to her senses. Thank heavens someone did before they said “I do.”
“Wait.” My brain catches on something weird, which is also probably not what I should be focusing on either, but there you go. That’s my brain, making sure I work out all the details. “Ivy ran into her ex? In Houston? She just moved here.”
Caleb finally turns away from the TV, his brows furrowed. “Ivy’s ex is Law’s older brother, Malcolm. How did he not tell you that? They dated forever. Ivy thought they were getting married, basically begged him, and he wouldn’t commit. It’s part of the whole reason she moved here.” He’s so genuinely confused that the whole thing is hard to compute.
Was that the ex who Law was talking about when he said that his brother pretended like she never existed? Why didn’t he tell me it was Ivy? “Ivy moved to Houston to support Law. Because it was a difficult move.” That’s what she told me.
Caleb’s confusion only increases, and it makes my stomach do weird, twisty things. “Ivy moving with him because he wanted to get traded to the Blues and not the Pumas is what they tell people, sure. But she wanted to get away, and this was the perfect excuse.”
Caleb was about to marry this woman. This woman who he barely knows … except it feels like he knows her way better than I know Law.
“I can tell you need some serious comfort right now—” I tilt my head toward the TV. “—and I’ll be right back. I need to go talk to Law.”
Caleb frowns. “Yeah. I think maybe you do.”
I spin and open the door back up, striding down the steps and toward the gate. Every step makes my stomach twist more. Why wouldn’t Law tell me all this stuff? That he’s disappointed about getting traded to the Pumas, that Ivy dated his brother? These things should have come up in any of the normal conversations we’ve had, but they haven’t. My stomach flips big time. No, this isn’t “oh, by the way, I’m a major drug dealer with ties to a super-dangerous cartel somewhere in South America,” but it almost feels worse.
Because I could have sworn that Law was a good, nice guy, and these are easy things to tell me. So what are the big things?
I’ve googled him enough that I feel pretty confident ruling out major crimes, but the closer I get to his house, the more that confidence falters. For heaven’s sake, his neighbor might have killed his wife.
Why does it feel like two small omissions are cracking me apart?