Chapter 31 Michael
MICHAEL
Stomping my snow-covered boots on the mat, I strode into the office of Wyatt’s shop with Wes close behind me.
“Why did he want me here?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” I said as we walked up to the counter.
When I hit the bell, it only took a minute before Wyatt appeared, followed by Bailey, who had a huge smile on her face. But when our eyes locked, a sadness crept into them that I knew all too well. I saw it every time I looked at Liam.
They were both devastated without one another, and I would give anything to help them out, but you couldn’t fix other people’s relationships. So, I directed my gaze back to Wyatt.
“You called?” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice.
“Yeah, Bailey’s working on Jeff’s truck.” His eyes moved to Wes. “You broke it, you fix it.”
“What?” Wes’s eyes were huge as they flicked between Wes and Bailey.
“I already arranged it with the old man. Until the truck is fixed, you’re working here.”
“Mr. Callahan is alright with that?” Wes asked warily.
“Said you needed to know how to properly fix a truck if you were gonna be of any use.” Wyatt shrugged. “Bailey will get you coveralls. Your time starts now.”
Wes glanced over his shoulder at me, then followed Bailey into the garage. For just a second, I was actually grateful to Wyatt.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” he growled. “You said you could help me. Was that all bullshit?”
For just a moment, I basked in the glory of Wyatt needing my help. After all the shit his family had given mine, it was nice to have the upper hand for once. But then a pang hit me square in the chest—that agonizing feeling of not knowing if the love of your life was alright.
I’d already been through that several times with Blake, and I would give anything not to feel it again.
Wyatt had no clue what happened to his wife, according to local gossip. I always wondered if maybe he got rid of her. His whole family was fucking psychotic. It wouldn’t surprise me if he got annoyed with her and took her out.
But why would he accept my help if that were the case?
“It’s not bullshit,” I answered solemnly. “But if I’m going to help you, I need everything you have on her.”
His eyes narrowed on me. “What are you accusing me of?”
“I’m not—”
“My wife is missing,” he bit out. “She’s been gone for five years. Do you really think I’d hold anything back from you?”
“Fair enough,” I answered, trying to keep things on an even keel. “All I meant was that I need all the information from her past. Anything that might seem insignificant could help me find her.”
That seemed to appease him, but he was still wary as fuck. “What makes you think you can find her when no one else could?”
“Because I have contacts.”
“Those friends of yours,” he sneered. “The ones who blew up your house. You want me to trust them?”
He had a point. “In all fairness, the robot blew up my house. Security is what they do, and they have some of the best researchers I’ve ever seen. Trust me, if anyone can find your wife, it’s them.”
Sighing, he slumped down in his chair. Scrubbing a hand over his face, this was the lowest I had ever seen Wyatt. He didn’t let anyone beyond that tough exterior. But right now, I was seeing a man who was utterly worn out.
“You have a place we can talk?”
Nodding, he stood and motioned for me to follow him.
Heading into the back, he closed the door to his office and offered me a seat across from him.
It was everything you’d expect from a mechanic.
The desk was piled with paperwork and a thick coat of dust touched every surface.
Heap on top of his business, his wife was missing, and you had a man who was hanging on by a thread.
He just did an excellent job of hiding just how badly he was struggling.
“When did she disappear?”
“You don’t know all the facts?” he jeered.
I sat perfectly still, showing him I was here to listen. He was pissed at my family, pissed at the world, and right now, I was the last person he wanted to trust.
Shaking his head, he finally calmed down. “It’s been five years.”
“Were you fighting?”
His eyes narrowed again. “I didn’t fucking kill her.”
“Wyatt, if this is gonna work, you’re gonna have to stop thinking that I’m working against you. I’m asking because I want to know if she ran away because she was unhappy.”
The man was strung tighter than a bow, hardly able to get through a sentence without his anger coming out in full swing. Not that I could blame him. Five years without answers was a long fucking time.
“I’m not sure anyone could fight with Jess. She had an attitude a mile long, but it wasn’t her temper that got to me.” He paused, shifting in his chair. “Jess had issues, but not many knew about them.”
“What kind of issues?”
His lips tightened in a thin line. “Mood swings. One day, she’d be happy and free as a bird. Then she was screaming at me, threatening to kill me if I came any closer to her. It took a long time to figure out there were other issues going on. I didn’t want to see it.”
“Bipolar?”
He nodded. “I tried to get her help. Her parents did, too. She even voluntarily checked herself into a hospital once.”
“What happened?”
“The doctor had concerns. He wanted me to convince her to stay longer. He said she had suicidal thoughts.”
“Could he have made her stay? Committed her?”
Wyatt ground his teeth, his eyes focused on his desk instead of looking at me. “I thought she would hate me, and I was trying to avoid—” He shook his head in defeat. “I worried she would never trust me again.”
“What happened after she came home?”
“Things seemed better for a while. And then the paranoia kicked in. She started seeing signs on the television.”
“What kind of signs?”
“She thought the newscasters were telling her something based on the color ties they were wearing. I found this whole journal after she disappeared. Not much of it made sense, but I realized she was making her life decisions based on these delusions. Of course, it was too late to do anything by then. She was gone, and it was my fault.”
I stayed silent, taking it all in as he collected himself. The man had guilt oozing out of his pores. Maybe he could have helped her. Maybe nothing would have helped. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
“Do you know of any friends she might have gone to?”
“Yeah. I checked in with them a lot over the years. None of them had seen her, or so they said. I even drove out to Texas once. One of her friends moved there. I watched the house for days, but there was no sign of her.”
A mentally unstable woman out there for five years.
What were the chances she was still alive?
Wouldn’t she have come home eventually? The outcome didn’t look very bright, but I wouldn’t say a word about that until I was sure.
Wyatt was still holding out hope. He needed answers if he was ever going to move on.
“I’ll start digging into this right away,” I said, getting to my feet.
“Don’t you need a picture? Her social? Anything like that?”
Shaking my head, I started for the door. “Trust me, these guys will have that before you can find everything. I’ll be in touch.”
“Michael,” he called out, stopping me before I could leave.
Turning, I waited as he turned back into the hardass that would kill me if I looked at him the wrong way. “Yeah?”
“This stays between us. If this gets around town—”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I’m well aware of how gossip can ruin your life.”
Shutting the back door, I strode into the kitchen, nearly getting bowled over by Wes as he grabbed an apple off the counter and headed for the stairs.
“Hey, dinner’s in ten!” I shouted, not sure if that was true.
I sniffed the air, glancing around for any sign that Blake had cooked something, but the counters were disturbingly empty. It was as if she hadn’t even come into the kitchen all day.
“Babe?” I called out, heading for the bedroom.
As I wandered through the living room and past the floating staircase, I glanced up to find Wes’s door shut. I expected to find her in our bedroom, spread out on the bed with her investigation, but that was empty as well.
“Babe!” I called out again, wondering where the hell she was.
“Here!”
I rolled my eyes. That was a rather vague location descriptor. Here could literally be anywhere in this gigantic house. The guys may have gone overboard when they built it, but I wasn’t going to complain, seeing as how they blew up the last one.
I wandered down the still unfamiliar hall to the laundry room, sidetracking at the spare room to the right. Shoving open the door, I found what could only be described as a murder wall, complete with strings pinned from a gigantic hand-drawn map taped to the wall.
And sitting in an office desk chair in front of it all was my tenacious wife. Swiveling back and forth, she studied it like it would give her answers if she waited long enough.
“Is there a reason you moved in here?”
“Um…needed more space,” she muttered, not bothering to look at me.
“To create a murder wall?”
“Timeline,” she answered, again, not turning to face me.
Sighing, I walked around her and rested my hands on the arms of her chair, finally snagging her attention. “Babe, when was the last time you ate anything?”
Little frown lines appeared between her brows as she finally looked out the window and noted the darkness. Shoving to her feet, I stepped back, giving her ample space.
“What time is it?”
“Time for you to stop staring at this creepy layout.”
I grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the room, down the hall, past the living room, and into the kitchen, where I hoisted her up onto the counter. “Stay.”
“Yes, sir,” she mocked.
“Seriously, when was the last time you ate?”
“Jeff brought me food around noon,” she grinned. “Did you think I wasn’t taking care of myself?”
“I think you’re so wrapped up in this case that you forgot basic things like eating, brushing your hair, taking a shower…”