30. Caleb
Chapter 30
Caleb
Past
I was supposed to be sleeping, but there was a weird noise coming from downstairs. It was like…
Laughter.
There was never laughter around here anymore, not unless it was coming from Margo.
I crept to the first floor, inching down the hallway. It was completely dark except for a light coming from the kitchen.
Giggling.
I twitched, but curiosity drove me all the way to the threshold.
Dad and Margo’s mom were on either side of the counter. She was cutting strawberries. And Dad… he had his sleeves rolled up, stirring something in a bowl. There was white powder caught in his beard.
Mom appeared silently beside me, raising her finger to her lips. When she held out her hand to me, I took it.
She guided me down the hall, into the library.
“You should be in bed,” she said, kneeling in front of me. “Why are you awake?”
“I heard…” I glanced toward the door.
She frowned. “Never you mind them.”
“Why is he happy around her and not us?”
“Because she’s something new.” She rose to her feet. “And because she’s not his. Not yet anyway.”
Present
The memory of witnessing Amber and my father, then what my mother said about it, snaps to the forefront of my mind.
Not yet anyway . What did that mean?
“Caleb?” Margo touches my arm. “You okay?”
I wince. It’s too bright in here, and my eyes sting.
“I do remember,” I say to Margo’s dad. It’s hard to look at him, but I force myself to meet his gaze. “I had just… forgotten.”
“You remember Lydia knowing?” Margo asks.
“I went downstairs because I heard a noise, and Mom pulled me away. She said he laughed around her because…” I pause. I’m an asshole, but not a big enough one to wave Keith’s wife’s infidelity in his face.
Keith clenches his jaw. “Go on and say it, son. You won’t hurt my feelings.”
I let out a sigh. “Because she was new and not his. Not yet.”
He nods. “Your father always did like to have the best toys.”
“She said that? Not yet?” Margo asks, latching on to the important part.
I knew she would. She’s whip-smart when she wants to be.
“Right. Implying…”
“That Lydia knew exactly who her husband was,” her dad finishes sourly. “Shocker. I knew the bastard, too.”
“Dad!”
He presses his lips together. “I’m sorry. I know what you believe and how long you’ve believed it. But I did not kill your father.”
He sounds sincere.
That’s the most dangerous part. He could be telling the truth or he could just be a fantastic liar.
“If you didn’t, who did?”
He drops his head into his hands. “I swore I wouldn’t speak of this, especially not to?—”
Margo leans forward and yanks his hands away, trying to get him to look at her. “Dad. Please.”
“Okay.” He lets out a ragged breath. “Caleb… your mother orchestrated the whole thing.”
My stomach drops into my shoes. I misheard him, I think. The words jumble in my head, and I shake it to clear them out. What he’s saying is ridiculous. She orchestrated the whole thing meaning what? Dad’s death? Or… more?
I let out a laugh. “She’s not capable of that.”
“Time’s up!” the guard yells.
Around us, people rise and say their goodbyes. Margo and her dad do, too. She hugs him while I sit there dumbly.
She knew.
She orchestrated the whole thing.
Not outside the realm of possibilities .
“Caleb,” Keith says, his hand on my shoulder.
I rise automatically and flinch when he hugs me. When’s the last time I was hugged by a man? Certainly not Uncle David.
My eyes burn.
“It’s okay, son,” he whispers. I’m barely taller than him. “And I’m so, so sorry.”
He pulls away, cups my jaw like a father might, and then…
Well, he just walks away. Toward the guard, through the doorway.
I shake off the chills.
Margo takes my hand. “Well, now we both have allegedly murderous parents.”
“That only counts if they commit two separate murders, I think.”
My girl leads me out, to our locker to retrieve our things and then into the cold. I take a deep breath in, the sharpness of the air waking me up a bit. I needed this like a slap in the face.
Wake up .
“I never asked… how did he die?” Margo asks.
I blink. “What?”
She stamps her foot into the snow-dusted road, pausing by the back bumper of Theo’s car. “I didn’t even know he was dead. What was I supposed to ask Dad—‘How did you kill him?’ No thanks.”
“I…” I shake off the memories. Battle them away. In as monotone a voice as possible, I say, “He was stabbed.”
She reaches for me.
“I can’t, Margo,” I say quietly. I step away from her.
She sets her jaw and comes for me anyway.
I never thought I’d be the one running, but here I am. Backing away from her like she’s fire and I’m ice.
My shoulder hits the car’s side mirror, and she pushes me against the door.
“No running.” Her eyes narrow.
I start to shake my head, but she presses her finger to my lips.
“You can’t run from me—and you definitely can’t run from whatever you're trying not to remember.”
A snowflake lands on her head, and more follow. I follow them with my eyes, contemplating. Her finger is still on my lips.
I talk through it. “If my mom did it, then what does that mean? She helped put an innocent man in prison. Did Uncle David know? And does that explain the conversation I overheard between Tobias and her before my dad’s death? If she was planning it, truly, then she looped in a lawyer. She found a fall guy. And everything I know is a fucking lie.”
“Yeah.” She drops her hand and blows out a breath. “But you know what that means? This is bigger than either of us.”
My head is killing me. “We should get back.”
Robert and Lenora weren’t exactly approving of me whisking Margo off, but they softened when she said where we were going. And they don’t know the half of it… but they’re doing their best.
When I arrived to take Margo to the prison, a cleaning team was dealing with her room. She and Robert were both dozing on the couch in similar poses. It was kind of adorable. But now, all I can think about is getting her back safely. Protecting her.
With all the revelations about our family history, there’s still someone stalking her.
She steps away from me. I immediately miss her body heat. She must, too, because she comes rushing right back. Her arms wrap around my neck. She stands on her tiptoes to reach my lips, but her kiss is forceful. Aggressive and… short-lived.
She pulls away, and there’s blood on her lips. “That’s for trying to run.”
She watches my mouth.
I lick my lips, surprised to taste it, too. The pain makes sense.
“You bit me,” I marvel.
She just grins.
“Little wolf.” I smile.
She just lifts one shoulder. Her smile falls pretty fast once we’re in the car. She stares straight ahead, and I take a moment to realize…
“Oh fuck. Is it because it’s snowing?”
She nods.
“We’ll be okay,” I promise her.
“You shouldn’t even be driving.” She closes her eyes. “God, they could’ve followed us here?—”
“It’s like lightning striking the same spot twice.” I reach over and take her hand. “Improbable.”
“You didn’t say impossible,” she whispers. She clutches my fingers like I’m a lifeline. “Okay, okay. Let’s just go before it gets worse.”
We’re the last car out of the parking lot, and the road is deserted.
“I have excellent reflexes,” I tell her.
Even so, I drive more carefully than I’ve ever driven in my life. I check each intersection three times, barely make the speed limit. The entire way, Margo just holds on to my hand. Her eyes are closed, and she’s pale.
My tongue touches my lower lip again. I’m still shocked that she bit me and I didn’t even feel it until after. It might be bruised.
Bruised like my mind was after I relived walking in to find my dad’s body. And here I go again, about to replay it in my mind for the thousandth time—although this time, maybe I’ll remember something new.
Something to exonerate Margo’s dad.
Past
Mom and I walked into a silent house.
She muttered something and dropped her purse on the side table, striding away from me.
Dad should’ve been home. There was always a hustle and bustle in our home—whether it be Amber in the kitchen or Dad in his study, on the phone, or playing music to cover up the sounds of Amber’s…
We heard that exactly once before Mom put an end to it.
I checked the kitchen, but it was empty. Mom appeared in the doorway of Dad’s study, shaking her head. So he wasn’t in there either.
“Did he go out?” she asked herself. She met my gaze. “Honey, go upstairs.”
“But Margo?—”
“Keith’s car is gone,” she said. “And so is Amber’s. I doubt she’s home.”
I nodded and went to the stairs. I should’ve gone to my room, but I didn’t.
My parents’ door was open, and a lamp was on.
A lamp in the middle of the day.
It drew my eye, and I went toward it like a moth drawn to a flame. Couldn’t help it.
“Dad?” I called.
Nothing.
Up here, I couldn’t even hear Mom moving around downstairs.
I steeled myself and pushed the door open.
It was stupid. He was going to be coming out of the bathroom or dozing in the chair they kept in the corner of the room for reading. A chair neither of them used for anything except not-clean-not-dirty clothes.
But my imagination told me that he’d be in that chair, and there he was.
Except his eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling, and…
“Dad?”
Silence.
So much silence, it reverberated in my ears.
I stared and stared, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
He was covered in blood, but it wasn’t bright red like in the movies. It didn’t pump out of the hole in his neck or abdomen, between his fingers that were over his stomach.
It was dark. Still. Like it had flowed and then stopped when his heart finally gave up.
I couldn’t blink. Couldn’t move from the single step I had taken into the bedroom.
“Honey, did you find—” Mom grabbed me, pulling me backward. “Oh my God.”
She covered my eyes, holding me to her chest.
My body was already wooden.
Dad was dead, or it was a trick. An awful trick.
I tried to get away from her, but I had lost my chance to check him. To shout, Joke’s on you, Dad! I’m not falling for it . She held me fast.
It was ketchup smeared across his face, that had run in rivers down the chair. It was soaked into the carpet, even, around his feet.
So much blood.
A whole body’s worth, spilled out of him.
“Don’t look,” Mom whispered into the top of my head.
My eyes were burning, but I couldn’t not .
“I’m sorry, Caleb.”
A groan worked its way out of my chest. The first noise, but certainly not the last.
She picked me up, grunting with the effort, and carried me downstairs. I was starting to come back alive then, the puppet cutting his strings and becoming a real boy.
My eyes were on fire, but I didn’t cry. I just sat at the breakfast bar, turned toward Margo’s house, and wished on every stupid thing I could think of that she’d be home soon.
She would understand, even if she didn’t go through this kind of thing. She hadn’t lost a parent, but she would know what to say to make it better.
“We have a chef,” Mom told a detective behind me. “She and her family live in our guest house. Her husband and her have always had some marital problems, but we tried to offer support as best we could…”
I glared at Mom. She was forgetting the part where Dad’s version of support was his?—
“Caleb,” Mom warned, like she could read my thoughts.
Maybe the ugly truth was written across my face.
“Can you wait outside, please, honey?” She turned to the detective. “I just don’t want him to hear…”
“Understandable, ma’am.” He was an older man with a full head of gray hair and a mustache to match. “My partner can go sit with him outside, if that’s all right?”
His partner was young, bald, and probably as freaked out as I was. He looked pale, and sweat dotted his brow.
“We could both use the fresh air.” The bald guy motioned for me to hop down, and I led the way to the patio furniture outside. “You know the Wolfes well, son?”
I flinched. “I’m not your son.”
He raised his hands in surrender, settling across the table from me. “I meant no offense.”
I thought about it. “Keith is nice. Margo’s my best friend.” I grinned, forgetting the horrors of the house now that we were in the sunshine. “I’m going to marry her.”
He smiled at me. “And Margo’s mom?”
I paused. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to keep the secret that she and Dad were… more than friends. So I decided on, “She and Dad were close.”
He nodded like he knew what I was saying.
“Where is Margo?”
The older detective slid open the door. “Come on, Masters. We’ve got work to do.”
Mom came outside and knelt beside me. “We’re going to go on a little trip, okay? Just while they figure out what happened to Daddy.”
I hadn’t called him Daddy since I was six, but I kept my mouth shut.
She took my hand and led me around the side of the house, putting me in the car. I hadn’t realized the older detective had followed us, but he stopped Mom in front of the car.
I cranked my window down an inch.
“Caleb mentioned Amber Wolfe and your husband being close,” he said.
“Close? They do talk often.” She blinks. It seemed she was coming apart at the seams at a faster rate than before. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Ma’am—”
“My husband wouldn’t cheat on me,” Mom swore. She covered her mouth just before she burst into tears. “He was just murdered ?—”
The detective shuffled backward. He handed her a handkerchief, and she took it, sparing him a smile. I watched in utter disbelief as she dabbed at her eyes, then offered it to him.
He shook his head. “Keep it. Don’t leave town, all right? We’ll be in touch.”
He extended her a business card, and she shoved it into her purse.
She nodded, standing in front of the car until he turned and went back into our house. Then she got in the car and met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “You told them they were close ?”
I shrugged.
To my surprise, she smiled. “Good. That will set them on the right path.”