19. Margo
Chapter 19
Margo
I pace in my room, practicing flipping open the knife I found. It’s a folding one. I was lurking in Caleb’s basement room, trying to wait to surprise him, but then I got bored.
And then I found the knife. It would be so much better to be able to protect myself, right? Imagine my stalker came after me, and I had this in my pocket?
I jab the air, slice it, twirl around and pretend to stab it into someone’s eye.
I debate practicing on a pillow but quickly dismiss it.
My actions slow when the garage door rumbles open. Josh and Norah are in the city. Although they’re due back tonight, I doubt they’d come back so soon. Which means Eli and Caleb have returned. The door downstairs slams shut. Voices drift upstairs. More than two.
I flip the knife closed, sliding it into my pocket, and drift into the hall. I was hoping to catch Caleb alone, but now… I smell food.
My stomach growls, and I head downstairs without delay.
Caleb is the first to see me when I walk into the kitchen. They’re raiding the fridge for drinks. There’s a stack of pizza boxes on the kitchen island. Eli is half hidden behind the door, tossing out cans of soda.
Caleb’s eyes narrow, moving up and down my body.
Oh, right.
I should’ve put something on over my tank top, but I’m too heated. Literally . It’s work keeping the frustration off my face. And I was kind of working up a sweat pretending to fight people off like a fencer.
Caleb should’ve told me about my mother.
“I need to tell you something,” he says to me.
“It’s a little late,” I snap.
I march up to him, stopping a foot away. Close enough to touch, but I don’t dare reach out. Neither does he.
“Margo—”
“No. We went to the diner Matt took you to, okay? I saw?—”
“You what ?” Caleb’s face pales.
It’s not often that I catch him by surprise. Almost never, I’d say. But today—today is the exception.
I set my jaw. “You should’ve told me that my mother was there.”
“Oh shit,” Eli whispers.
I ignore it and focus on Caleb. The churning feeling in my stomach, that’s been with me since we left Lucky’s, only worsens.
“I didn’t know.” He reaches for me. “I only saw my mom.”
I keep out of range. It would be too easy to let him placate me with touch. He knew his mom—his high and mighty mother—was working there? Didn’t think to mention it along with the brief mention of the diner.
My stalker frequents that place. She’s got to be a suspect, right?
“She’s working where?” Liam asks.
“Lucky’s Diner,” Caleb and I say together.
My face heats. But then, when no more questions come, I look harder at Caleb. Then his friends. They’re all being a little… cagey.
“What did you do?” I ask.
Eli smirks. “We went to the junkyard.”
“The junkyard,” I repeat. “Why?”
Theo clears his throat. “Maybe we should take this to… anywhere else.”
Eli snaps his fingers. “To the couch!”
Liam and Theo gather the pizza boxes and follow Eli. I start to go, too, but Caleb holds me back.
“How was it?” he asks.
I tilt my head. “Which part?”
“Seeing them. I should’ve known Mother knew where your mom was, but I… believed her when she said she didn’t.” His expression darkens. “I wish you hadn’t gone alone.”
“Riley was with me.”
That doesn’t appease him.
“It was weird to see your mom. She was definitely shocked to see me, too. I think mine is working as a chef there, which makes sense… It’s what she knows, after all.” I look away.
He grips my chin, twisting my head back around. “Don’t hide from me.”
“Seriously? After all your hiding?”
“I can see you leaving as we speak.”
I push at his chest. “And where have you been? Lurking in the shadows. Following me and so-called leads around town.” My voice drops. “We should be doing this together.”
His face softens. “Is that what you want?”
“To work with you on this? To spend time with you actually doing shit instead of avoiding each other?” I roll my eyes. “Of course that’s what I want.”
He smiles, and it lights up his face. The times Caleb Asher truly smiles are few and far between. But when he does , he’s easily the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen.
My heart skips a beat.
Damn you, heart .
“Let’s go solve this thing, then,” he says.
The guys wait for us in the living room, all of them expecting me to have all the answers. Or maybe I’ll just have the most dramatic reaction to whatever they uncovered.
Who knows.
Caleb drops into a spot on the couch.
I take a seat in the armchair closest to him, draping a blanket over my lap. I’m not quite over my anger enough to sit thigh to thigh with him. That would make me too aware of his body heat, and then I’d get distracted by thoughts of his body, and…
Well, see? I don’t even need to be seated beside him to get distracted.
Caleb opens his mouth, and I hold up my hand.
“Is this bad? Like, really bad? I just need to mentally prepare myself.”
“It could be better,” Liam says.
Not super helpful.
“Tell us when you’re ready,” Caleb urges. He grabs a slice of pizza, my favorite kind, and sets it on a plate. Then puts the plate in my lap.
I hold on to it while I struggle to calm myself.
“No time like the present,” I eventually say.
I fold the pizza and shove it into my mouth.
“We went to the junkyard to get our hands on the vehicle. It wasn’t impounded by the police because it wasn’t ever found, which seems kind of like a loose end. The thinking was that the car that hit you ended up there anyway, just not connected to Robert’s car.”
Eli growls. “Because Masters was after Caleb like a hound after a fox.”
My eyes go wide. “So, wait a minute. You’re saying you were able to stroll right into the junkyard and find the vehicle that hit us?”
Caleb shifts. “Right. Well, we have a suspicion.”
“And whoever owns the vehicle probably had something to do with it,” Eli adds.
“Supposedly,” Liam says. “Assuming it wasn’t stolen.”
Ugh. I focus on Caleb. “And was it stolen?”
Eli perks up. “We didn’t check.”
I facepalm. “You didn’t check.”
“It’s a quick search in the public records,” Eli mumbles. “Don’t you ever look at those?”
I shake my head, not bothering to ask why the hell I’d do that. Instead, I turn back to Caleb. “And? Who did it belong to?”
“Listen, Margo, before I say it?—”
“Aha!” Eli yells. He lifts his phone. “It was reported stolen about three hours before the accident.”
“Why are you cheering?” Theo shakes his head. “That’s not a good thing.”
Caleb clears his throat. “Margo, I’m just gonna blurt this out.”
I wave him to proceed, my throat suddenly tight. It’s better if someone would just tell me the damn truth, right? I don’t think I can do this any longer. The suspense, the mystery.
“The car belonged to Tobias Hutchins.”
I blink. And then… blink again.
My mouth gapes open and closed.
What?
“He was your dad’s?—”
“I know who he is,” I snap. “I… Riley and I…”
Caleb narrows his eyes. “You what ?”
I take a deep breath. All my sleuthing is about to come out into the light.
“We ran into him in New York City,” I remind him, “and you told me who he was later.”
Caleb’s eyes narrow. “I told you his name was Tobias, and that he was your dad’s lawyer.”
“Right.”
“And I know for a fact that there aren’t any online articles about it?—”
“Correct,” I interrupt. “I know. But , there can only be so many Tobiases in New York City. And a lot of law firms actually list their lawyers on their websites with nice headshots, so…”
“You found him, I take it,” Caleb says drily.
“Went and visited him,” I admit.
His hand curls into a fist. “You did what ?”
Eli laughs, waving the vodka at Caleb. “Want this? Might make the bad news easier to swallow. Pun totally intended.”
“Shut up,” Theo hisses.
“ Anyway ,” I continue, “he was pretty fucking shady.”
He doesn’t really seem mad , just irritated. And appalled. And… stumped. I, Margo Wolfe, have rendered Caleb Asher speechless. It’s about damn time I’ve had the upper hand.
“Obviously you didn’t just stop at finding the car’s registration or whatever?—”
Caleb winces. “Tobias might not know a teenage stalker, but he certainly knows my mother.”
I go still. “From seeing her in court?”
“From before that,” he admits. “He and my mother have been friendly over the years. I think they went to undergrad together.”
“That had to have been a conflict of interest.”
Caleb sighs. “I think my mom paid him off.”
It takes a second for his words to register. He thinks his mother paid off my dad’s lawyer? Why the hell would he keep that to himself? That should be proof enough of Dad’s innocence. Even if it’s not enough for him, it’s something .
Horror courses through me, and I shoot to my feet. “How long have you known?”
His expression is open. Sincere, even.
“I overheard them,” he says. “They often had conversations in my parents’ bedroom, just the two of them.”
He waits for my realization to dawn.
The Ashers are wicked, wicked people.
How we ever got caught in their web is almost inconceivable. Dad should’ve known Ben wasn’t the same person he went to school with—that money had corrupted him. But it seems to stand that Lydia Asher is just as bad.
A memory filters back to me. I was looking for Caleb—another game of hide and seek in his huge house—and overheard them. I didn’t recognize him at the time, didn’t have any idea who he was except that he wasn’t Caleb’s dad. But they were in the bedroom…
What kind of conspiracy were they discussing? That was before Caleb’s dad was murdered.
“Were they planning something?” I ask woodenly.
Caleb’s expression closes.
If they were planning, would it be horrible to blame them?
For Ben’s murder.
Dad’s arrest.
Mom’s addiction.
And Lydia… well, she became an outcast. That couldn’t have been part of the plan.
“Did your dad cut your mom out of the will?” I ask.
Caleb stops short. “How do you know that?”
I hum. So the rumor Lenora heard was true. It made sense, what with everything we’re learning. “Lydia and Tobias were in bed together—figuratively and literally. She left you with your uncle and went where, to work in a shitty diner for the rest of her life?”
Theo whistles. “She’s finally asking the right questions.”
“Assuming Tobias and Lydia are still relatively close… how is Matt related?”
Caleb pauses. “What do you mean?”
“You went to him,” I say slowly. “He knew the diner. Did he see your mom? Did he figure out who my stalker is?”
Liam and Theo are standing now, too, creeping closer. Our voices are getting softer. This type of thing, it’s too big to talk about loudly.
I look over my shoulder, toward the front door. I closed it, but… maybe I should’ve locked it, too.
“Mom knew Matt,” Caleb says. “He was my friend, she had seen him around.”
“But does she know him currently?” I prod. “Did she recognize him?”
He stares at the ceiling, blowing out a breath. “Fuck.”
“That’s not an answer,” Eli calls from the couch. He’s still got the vodka in his hand, and his cheeks are red.
Besides Eli, they’re all focusing on me. Caleb seems to be concentrating. Maybe trying to read my mind. I take in his expression: slightly furrowed brows, searing blue eyes, his lips pursed.
Then he says, “I don’t know if he kept digging. Matt took me to the diner, and my mother recognized him. Greeted him by name.”
“The plot thickens,” Eli sings. “You think that means he’s involved?”
Liam stomps over and snatches the bottle from Eli’s grip. “Let’s take this seriously.”
Eli tsks. “I could punch you for that. And I am taking it seriously. But this is all conspiracy shit. We’ve got no proof except that car, which is circumstantial at best.”
“You’ve been hanging around your dad too much,” Theo mutters.
“You explain to me how the car of the lawyer who talked my dad into accepting a shitty plea deal ends up in the same junkyard as Robert’s?” I scowl. “It doesn’t matter. Matt’s a dead end.”
“He could give us answers,” Liam suggests. “If we pay him a visit.”
Great.
I raise my eyebrows at Caleb, who only seems intrigued by that idea. He kisses the top of my head, then smirks. He likes the idea of confronting Matt.
Eli’s sudden snore rips through the room.
We’re falling apart here. But besides the unanswered questions, no one is in immediate danger. Well, I might be, but that’s another matter.
Theo slaps his hand over his face, while Liam snickers. They both go to Eli and hoist him up. Liam slaps his cheek, but Eli barely cracks an eye.
He nearly finished the bottle of vodka on his own.
“Gonna put him to bed,” Liam says.
They guide him out of the room. The muffled thumps of them trying to get Eli up the stairs together reaches us, and I giggle.
Caleb faces me. You leave tomorrow. Which means…”
Last night together .
“We should make it count,” I manage.
Theo and Liam come thundering back down the stairs. “Boy’s passed out.”
“Good,” Caleb says. “We’ll see you guys at school tomorrow.”
It’s a dismissal, and everyone knows it.
They leave, closing the door behind them, and Caleb smiles at me.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I laugh.
“You’re not mad at me?”
I take a closer look at his face, surprised when I discover that he’s being vulnerable. Open, for once in our lives. Well, recent lives. I used to be able to read him like a book.
“I’m not.” I run my hand up his arm, to his neck. “And I’ll be less inclined to get mad if you kiss me.”
He leans down. “I think I can oblige.”
His lips touch mine softly. Butterflies erupt in my chest. We’re used to being greedy with our kisses, always demanding more of each other. Now, it stays honey-sweet. His tongue runs along my lower lip, but it isn’t demanding. It’s slow, and I feel it so much more, down to my toes.
Whoever said kisses could be toe-curling was clearly talking about this kind.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull back just enough to look at it, and Riley’s name scrolling across the screen.
“I should get this.”
Caleb moves down to kiss my neck. He hovers over my throat, expectant.
“Are you?—?”
His teeth nip my skin.
I laugh, but it’s more of a breathless sigh, then hit accept on the call.
“Hey! You okay?”
“Why do you think something is wrong?”
“I don’t think you’ve ever called me.”
She pauses, then laughs. “Yeah. Fuck. No, I’m not okay. Mom’s having… issues. My brother is having separate issues. I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin with worry for both of them.”
“Do you want me to come over?”
Caleb resumes his attack on my neck, and I bite my lip to keep from moaning into the phone.
“I’ll be okay.” Her voice is hoarse, and it tugs at my heart. “You have a lot going on, and I just wanted to hear some sanity.”
“I’m sane,” I assure her. “Tomorrow. My house. Ice cream and action movies.”
Caleb’s tongue touches my neck, and I jump. I try pushing him away, but he just latches on with his teeth. Evil man . Each touch is an electric zap bouncing through my body. I’m ready to tear his clothes off right here in the living room, in front of the windows?—
“Sounds good,” Riley says.
My mind is already a mile away.
“I’ll see you in school? Unless you’re skipping… in which case, tell me so I can skip, too.
She manages to laugh, which I consider a win. “You got it.”
As soon as she’s off the phone, I push Caleb away. “Stop, stop.”
He smirks at me, but it slides off his face when he sees my expression. “What’s wrong?”
He follows my gaze to the window.
“Margo. Do you…?”
I get goosebumps.
And I swear, it isn’t because Caleb most likely gave me a giant hickey on my neck.
I race to the front door, flinging it open and bounding out onto the porch.
A car screeches down the street.
“What was that ?”
“I keep feeling like someone is watching me,” I say. I hate, hate the fear in my voice. I thread my fingers with Caleb’s and hold on tight. “And that?—”
“Unknown. You’re sleeping in my bed tonight,” he says firmly. “I don’t give a fuck if the Blacks have an objection, or if they find out. You’ll be safe with me.”
I blink back tears. “Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary.” He holds me close. “We’ll find them. I promise.”