The Apology Tour
Delaney
The carriage had barely started moving again when the guy caught my eye and said, "I'm sorry, okay?"
He didn't sound sorry.
But he sure looked it.
Or maybe he just looked like someone in a hostage video. The jury was still out on that one, especially since he'd been giving Cal the side-eye from the moment they'd climbed in.
The two of them sat across from us, their backs to the driver, while Maddox and I faced forward.
With a scoff, Maddox told the guy, "You're gonna have to do better than that."
The guy cleared his throat and gave Cal another nervous glance. "What I mean is, I messed up."
Maddox muttered, "No shit, Sherlock."
The guy looked to Maddox and then to me before saying with obvious reluctance, "The thing is…I got the wrong place. It wasn't supposed to be yours."
Every thought in my head screeched to a halt. "Wait…what?"
He spread his hands. "Hey, it was the right address, just the wrong door. That's all."
I stared. "That's all? What exactly are you saying?" But part of me already knew. "You were supposed to threaten Lacy? The girl upstairs?"
The guy shifted in his seat. "Uh, yeah. Basically."
"Basically?" My voice rose. "Are you freaking serious? Does she know?"
The guy frowned. "Know what?"
I didn't even know how to put this. "That she's under threat?"
The guy scratched his cheek. "Um…well, actually, it's no longer a factor."
No longer a factor?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
I felt the blood drain from my face. "Oh, my God. Don't tell me she's dead." The thought was enough to make me sick. I hadn't known Lacy well, but she'd been really friendly. "You didn't kill her, did you?"
The guy looked beyond insulted. "What? No. She's perfectly fine. What kind of guy do you think I am?"
I was glaring now. "Do you seriously expect me to answer that? And who are you, anyway?"
Next to me, Maddox said, "He's Brian Smelter."
I searched my memory banks, but came up empty. I looked to Maddox. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
"Brian Smelter," Maddox repeated. "Security for Greg Wickley."
Whoa. "You don't mean…the congressman?" Not being a news junkie, I normally wouldn't have known. But Greg Wickley had been the congressman for my district in West Haven, and I'd received so many re-election flyers, I could've started my own bonfire.
From what I recalled, Greg Wickley had a lot of money – and not from campaign contributions. Instead, he'd made his fortune in Silicon Valley before coming back home to run for Congress.
Brian gave a jerky nod. "Right. And, uh, the threat was coming from him, not me."
I almost laughed in his face. "But you were perfectly happy to deliver it, weren't you?"
"Hey, I wasn't that happy," he grumbled. "If you want the truth, it pissed me off."
"Oh, so I'm supposed to feel sorry for you?"
"I never said that. I'm just saying, it's not like I woke up on a random Tuesday and decided to threaten some girl I didn't even know."
My voice trembled as I said, "But you still did – and not even the right one."
"Yeah, but—"
I held up a hand. "You know what? Whether you were threatening me or Lacy, it was still wrong. And why would you want to threaten her at all?"
"I didn't want to. It was just part of the job, that's all."
Again? Fine. Two could play at that game. "That's all?"
He gave a derisive snort. "What, you've never done stuff you didn't like because your employer told you to?"
"Oh, come on! You make it sound like you were asked to scrub a toilet, which just for the record, is a perfectly respectable thing to be doing. And you wanna know why?"
He gave me a wary look. "Why?"
I could hardly contain myself. "Because nobody gets hurt or scared when you scrub a freaking toilet!"
Next to him, Cal made a sound. It might've been a laugh, but he clamped it off so fast, I couldn't even be sure.
Brian scowled. "What, you think I never scrubbed a toilet before?"
"Hah! Well, you should be scrubbing it with your face after what you did to me." I sat up straighter. "And Lacy, too."
His eyebrows furrowed. "Wait…you want her to scrub it?"
I muttered, "Oh, forget it." But then, my eyes narrowed. "And what did you mean, she's 'no longer a factor'? And why would you threaten anyone in the first place? You said it was over a court case, but you never said which one."
"Yeah, because I figured you knew."
Oh, for God's sake. "And maybe I would've, except you got the wrong freaking girl!" Dumbass. I didn't say it, but boy, was I thinking it. "And what about the island?"
He looked around. "What about it?"
Through gritted teeth, I said, "On my porch, you told me not to run to my friends on the island. What, exactly, did you mean?"
"Oh, that?" His confusion cleared. "I didn't mean this island. I meant Catalina."
Catalina? "But…I don't even know where that is."
He waved it away. "Eh, it's not important."
"It is to me."
"Fine. It's near California. You happy?"
"Not particularly. And why that island?"
"Because Lacy's got friends there with connections. If she started blabbing, the story would've been everywhere. The boss couldn't let that happen."
I sat back in my seat and muttered, "Unbelievable."
"You're telling me," he said.
I gave him a look. "So? Which court case was it? Was it one of Lenny's?"
He just looked at me.
I turned to Maddox. "Do you know?"
He nodded. "Yup."
"So, why aren't you saying?"
He smiled. "I will if you want me to, but you want the truth?"
I gave a shaky nod.
"You're doing damn fine on your own." He leaned close to whisper, "And you're hot when you're pissed."
What? My mouth started to twitch. And then, in spite of everything, I laughed. It wasn't a normal laugh. It was too high and frantic, but it felt good just the same.
It was incredible, really. Maddox always seemed to know exactly what to say. Or maybe we were just stupidly in sync, because none of this should've been funny.
Still, the distraction was exactly what I'd needed to get a grip. I looked back to Brian and said, "Forget the questions. Just go ahead and explain, okay?"
And so he did.
Long story short, Lacy had been sleeping with the married congressman on the sly, but had broken it off just as the wife had decided to dump the guy's cheating ass for good.
Fast forward to the messy divorce, and Brian had been tapped to warn Lacy to keep her mouth shut until the court case was over – except all he'd been given was Lacy's name and street address.
Apparently, the relationship was so secret that Brian didn't even know about it until he was asked to scare her off.
The whole thing was like something out of a bad movie – the kind where this sort of thing actually worked.
And me? I'd been caught in the crossfire.
When Brian finished, I sat in stunned silence for a long moment before asking, "And when did you know?"
"You mean that I got the wrong girl?" He paused as if thinking. "Maybe a month after it happened."
Holy hell. "And you never told me?"
"Why would I? You looked like you were doing fine."
My jaw dropped. "Fine? Seriously?"
He glanced away. "Well…it's not like you moved to Alaska or anything."
No. I hadn't. But I'd done things just as foolish. Stubbornly, I said, "But I saw you parked outside my apartment. And more than once, too."
"Yeah, because I was watching her, not you."
"But what about that time in the grocery store?"
"It was before I found out." He grimaced. "The boss wasn't happy about that, I can tell you."
I couldn't quite contain my sarcasm. "Funny…I wasn't happy either."
Now that the initial shock had passed, I felt like kicking myself. I'd been such an idiot. I'd lost more than a year of friends and family because one stupid jackass had threatened the wrong person by mistake.
I was still trying to make sense of it. "So, what are you doing now? Watching Lacy?" I paused. "Wait. Never mind. I'm guessing the court case is over, so you're what? Not watching anyone?"
The guy brightened. "Oh, I'm still watching her. But now it's no secret."
"But…why?"
"Because she and the boss got married last month. And I'm still head of security, see? So now I'm watching both of them. But it's on the up-and-up."
I had no idea what to say – well, nothing that didn't include a whole bunch of profanity.
A whole year.
Lost.
I recalled the hurt in Maisie's eyes and all of the trouble with Tessa. Even now, my stuff was still in storage. My clothes. My furniture. My pots and pans. I'd been living like a vagabond for months when I hadn't needed to.
Suddenly, I felt like crying – tears of relief that I could finally put this behind me and tears of frustration that I'd lost so much for such a stupid reason.
I was still processing it when Maddox looked to the guy and asked, "So where's the apology?"
He blinked. "She already got it."
Maddox's voice hardened. "No."
"No, what?"
"You're gonna have to do better than that. A lot better. We've got half a mile left."
The guy turned and glanced at the horses. "So?"
"So if you're smart, you'll be apologizing the rest of the way."
Oddly enough, Brian did – apologizing up and down in so many ways that by the time the carriage stopped, I almost felt bad for the guy.
Almost.
But not quite.
Brian got out first, but Cal stuck around a moment longer, leaning in close to Maddox to say, "Hey, we got a hit on that other thing."
Maddox froze. "Where?"
Cal shot me a glance. "You want me to say now? Or text you later?"
"Screw later," Maddox said. "Tell me now."
With something like a smile, Cal said, "Oak Hollow."
Maddox's mouth tightened. "I knew it."
"Yup. You called it, alright."
I looked from one man to the other. Called what?
I wanted to ask, but it seemed rude and intrusive. And besides, I was still processing too much on my own.
Cal lowered his voice. "So, you want Plan A? Or Plan B?"
Maddox's gaze shifted briefly in my direction. And then he looked back to Cal. "B."
Cal nodded. "Good."
Maddox said, "And Cal?"
"Yeah?"
Maddox's tone was all business. "The sooner the better."