Chapter 16
16
I ris couldn't sleep.
She'd been in bed for two hours, but she was too wound up to relax.
She'd thought she'd found the answer by holding her dance class again. Something had loosened up inside her when she'd been doing pliés and Rond de Jambes with the children. She'd felt free.
Until the moment she'd registered Callum's terror and seen Maude in the park. He'd honestly been worried that the boys’ grandmother was going to grab the twins and take off.
Maude had approached Iris after her little dance class had dispersed. She’d apologized for surprising Callum and asked if Iris would pass on the apology.
Iris had been forced to tell her that she likely wouldn't be seeing Callum or the boys anytime soon.
Iris had wanted to help. She'd naively thought she could help Maude without it hurting Callum. She'd been wrong.
She couldn't fix that, but she could at least try to help him by finding proof that he wasn't at fault in the crash.
She pushed aside the quilt that covered her and got out of bed to find her laptop. She brought it with her and climbed back underneath the covers.
It took her a few minutes to figure out how to play a video from the flash drive she'd picked up at Melody's store.
She scrubbed her hands over her face, closing her eyes against the bright screen in the darkness. She'd cracked the window earlier, and a light breeze rifled the curtains, sending them swaying.
The video played for several minutes, just the normal pedestrian and occasional vehicle traffic. The shot wasn't great, showing part of the intersection and the town hall.
And then she saw it. Callum's black truck entered the screen, and a red truck with custom raised wheels ran through the stoplight and smashed into him.
Her breath caught in her throat as she watched in horror all over again. The splintering glass and the way his body was flung against the airbag like a rag doll. It was a wonder he wasn't injured worse. A miracle the boys came out unscathed.
She paused the footage and grabbed a scratch pad from her bedside table, then quickly made a note of the exact time in the footage.
She ran the video back a few seconds and expanded it to full screen on the laptop. Watching it closely, she could see the stoplight was red as the red truck ran through it, pushing Callum's truck up onto the sidewalk and into the building. The driver of the red truck wasn't visible, but surely there weren't many trucks in the county of that make and with tires that big. That was something for the police to go on, right?
She didn't know whether Mike would even want to see the video. But it exonerated Callum, and that's what she'd hoped for.
Now for the rest.
She powered down her computer and grabbed her phone from the bedside table. Her father was a notorious night owl. Unfortunately, he also had a bad habit of leaving his cell phone at the office.
She dialed his number knowing she might get his voicemail.
But he answered on the first ring.
"I need to talk to you," she said.
She heard movement on the other end of the line, and the muffled sound of the TV went mute. "Of course. Anything for my girl. You all right?"
She took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders. She'd started this. She had to finish it. "How come you didn't want me to date Callum back when I was a teenager?"
"A kid like that wasn't good enough for my baby girl."
"A kid like what?" She had to hear it from him.
"A kid with no parents. Grew up in the foster system. Why, he had a record by the time he was thirteen."
That was true, but Callum had worked hard at making good choices for the entire time she'd known him. He had worked hard for Uncle Joe. He did his best on his schoolwork. He treated her with respect.
"Why did Uncle Joe run Callum off on the night that Noah Miller lost his eyesight in that accident?" She held her breath, unsure whether she should hope Callum had told the truth and Joe had betrayed her, or the opposite.
There was a slight pause. "Your uncle felt the same way about that boy as I did. He wasn't good enough to lick your boots."
She blinked as hot tears burned her eyes. So Joe had had a hand in Callum's disappearance.
Callum wasn't mistaken. He wasn't lying.
She was the one in the wrong. She was the one who hadn't wanted to admit that the uncle she loved could do what Callum had claimed.
She swallowed hard and clasped her hands together as she tried to keep her emotions under control.
"Daddy, can I ask you for a favor?" If he was going to use a nickname to try to get in her good graces, she could do the same. She hadn't called him Daddy in years. "Will you drop the lawsuit against Callum?"
There was a longer pause this time. "I've got to do what's best for my town. People are depending on me."
She glanced at the now-dark laptop screen and then away.
She'd thought she was prepared to have this conversation, but she hadn't thought it would hurt this much. She let her head fall so that her chin rested on her chest. "Daddy, it's important. He's important to me."
"I gotta go."
He rang off without giving her an answer.
Or had he?