36. She Heard the Report
She Heard the Report
Gwen
When Toby put his mind to something, no one stopped him.
Once upon a time, he’d dreamed of becoming a carpenter. He’d tossed around the idea of a mechanic, too. His parents had shot back a ferocious “hell no” to both options. Their son would never be a blue-collar worker. Their daughter was studying to be a doctor. They were important people.
Toby had shouldered their rejection by scouring the university course guide. After first choosing veterinary science until I reminded him he’d have to help sick animals as well as adorable ones, he settled on dentistry.
Study wasn’t his thing. He preferred sports.
Using his hands. Doing . But for that last year of high school, he’d knuckled down.
It was sheer determination and grinding through his studies—and maybe a few make-out sessions disguised as tutoring for extra encouragement—that had gotten him accepted in the end.
All that was years ago.
But now, listening to Toby as he walked me through his plan to deal with Kayleigh, I took notice. This wasn’t a knee-jerk offer. He’d thought about it— dental school thought about it.
He wrote a list and ticked off everything he said he would.
He got a new phone. A lot of muttering and swearing confirmed he’d changed his passwords. He downloaded an app that helped him locate the tiny white tag stuck to the bottom of his car. The locksmith came and went.
Tick, tick, tick.
Toby sifted through the secrets in his gym bag. He refused to look at the Polaroids, but he read Kayleigh’s notes, snapped photos, and tucked each scrawled memory in a Ziploc bag. If he remembered a date, he printed it neatly on the front with a marker he’d fished out of his junk drawer.
When he finished, he stalked out of the kitchen and disappeared to the bathroom. I hovered outside. I didn’t hear him puke, but I think he did.
My knock was soft. “Toby.” I cracked the door open and peeked inside. He was hunched over the sink, his face paler than the porcelain tiles. “Are you okay?”
He took a deep breath but didn’t look up. “I should’ve done something sooner.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Later that night, when the bedroom was dark and my legs were tangled in the sheets, Toby whispered a silly new chapter in his never-ending bedtime story, The Adventures of Gwen .
The murmur of his deep voice dulled the whirring in my brain.
And when my eyes closed, the familiar nuzzle of his nose into my temple was almost too good to be true.
“I wish you’d love me again,” he whispered as if he truly was making a wish. “Like you used to. Before we had to grow up.”
Toby had impossible dreams.
That night, I had none. No nightmares. No tossing and turning or needing the white noise of my phone to fall back asleep after I’d woken up for the hundredth time. I slept all night.
I only lifted one eye when a tiny hand patted my cheek. I blinked. A sliver of sunlight and a gummy smile beamed into my blurry eyes. Noah squealed and patted my cheek again.
I wrinkled my nose. “His hands smell like bananas.”
“He ate one for first breakfast.” Toby flopped on the bed beside us. “I let you sleep in as long as I could. NoBo was turning feral. He wanted his mama.” He tickled Noah’s side until a shriek of laughter rang out. “He’s looking good. No fever. No more drippy nose.”
I fluffed my pillows and scooted against the headboard, ready for the chubby baby to tug his way up my T-shirt. “So, Noah can go to daycare?” I smacked a kiss on his cheek. “Today’s the day?”
“Yep. Today’s the day. The laundry’s on. The dishwasher’s on. Your car’s packed and ready to go. All we have to do is shower, get you all dolled up for work, and skedaddle.”
My jaw dropped.
Toby’s smile turned shy. “Sorry. I feel…” He shrugged, and his gaze fell to the spot where his finger traced the stitching on the edge of the pillowcase. “Last night was…” He searched for the right word. “Good. No. More than good. Amazeballs.”
I laughed. Classic Toby . “It was,” I agreed.
He beamed.
All morning, he had a new bounce in his step, and he barely stopped talking long enough to take a breath on the drive across town to Noah’s daycare.
He chatted about catching up with Zach, meeting with the lawyer about the clinic, and his plans to reorganize the garage with a complicated shelving system that would keep him busy for a millennium.
“We’ll be able to store enough laundry detergent for ten families in there!” he proudly declared.
Words finally failed Toby when he hesitated at the doors of the North Shore Police Command. I didn’t stop. I caught his hand as I headed inside, and he stumbled through the door, two steps behind me, his eyes wide as they took in every detail of the busy police station.
“Gwen!”
Wayne sauntered over. His blond hair was shorn closer to his scalp than the last time I’d seen him. A fading sunburn across his nose darkened from the smile stretching wider across his face as he closed the distance between us.
“Wayne,” I said. “Good to see you.” I stuck out my hand.
“What’s that? A handshake?” He laughed. “Nah.” He wrapped me in a polite hug and stepped back. “Just couldn’t stay away, huh?”
“Something like that.” I pointed to Toby. He barely paid attention. He was too busy gawking in awe at everything. “Wayne, this is my—”
“Yeah, I know who he is.” The detective folded his arms. No hugs or handshakes for Toby. “Hard to forget the incident that blew up on the internet. What brings you down here?”
“We—Toby—” I bit my lip. I’d never been nervous in a police station in my life. “He needs to report… something .” Evasive. Unhelpful. Why was I acting like this?
“Does he now?” Wayne cocked his head. “You sure you wouldn’t prefer me to take him on a tour of the holding cells?”
Toby didn’t get the memo. The hidden meaning that Wayne’s tour would involve conveniently forgotten keys for a night or two went right over his head. “You have those?” Toby’s mouth fell open. “Here?”
A smile tugged at my lips, but I was quick to hide it. He was so adorably clueless. “He needs to make a statement,” I told Wayne.
“Alright.” Frowning, he gave Toby another once-over, but he didn’t press further. “Let’s go find an interview room.”
With Wayne marching ahead down the corridor, Toby bent his head closer to my ear.
“This is nothing like the cop shows on TV,” he whispered. “It’s kinda disappointing.”
I arched my eyebrow. “What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know. Dirty concrete floors. Mean-looking cops. Perps huddled in corners demanding to see their lawyers.” Unimpressed, he scrunched his nose. “This place has gray carpet and big windows. It looks like our accountant’s office.”
I laughed.
Wayne swiped his entry card for the interview room. “Lucky you got out of the prosecution team when you did,” he said over his shoulder. “You hear what happened?”
I frowned. “No?” It wasn’t like my former colleagues would reach out to me. My old boss had made sure of that.
Wayne held the door open for us to slip past. “It was all hush-hush.” He tapped the side of his sunburnt nose. “The hammer dropped a month or so ago. The boss man was suspended while they run an internal investigation. The shit’s about to hit the fan.”
I carefully schooled my expression to be as blank as possible.
“Don’t tell my wife. I’m supposed to be losing a few”—Wayne patted his stomach—“but I treated myself to a steak with all the trimmings on the way home after I heard the news.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “That asswipe screwed us all over on the Bankstown raids.”
I didn’t need reminding. “Six arrests, and not one case went to trial. I’d say the Morrelli family had a pretty amazing run of good luck. Witnesses disappearing. Missing evidence.” I barked a laugh. “Missing, my ass. What a joke.”
“It was a tough year,” Wayne agreed. “You did good. A lot of other people took the bribes.”
“Virtue did nothing in the long run. Morelli’s men still rule the city.” And the taste in my mouth was as bitter now as it had been the day I’d walked out of the office with my belongings in a box.
“For how long, though?”
Interested in this tidbit, I cocked my head. “Are there still rumors of someone coming up the ranks? Please tell me people aren’t whispering about the imaginary boogeyman lurking in the shadows.”
Wayne threw his head back and laughed. “You were never a fan of the Widowmaker.”
“That’s because he doesn’t exist, Wayne.”
“I dunno. People are shit scared of the guy—real or not. My boys were getting closer to unraveling all the secrets when I was reassigned to a desk. Some reward for being one of the few to keep my nose clean.”
“Sorry you got dragged into the mess.”
“Not your fault. I was pissed as hell about what happened to us, but I’ve decided this new life is growing on me.
I don’t miss hauling ass around Sydney at all hours of the night, tailing some punk-ass teenager dealing shit-quality coke and pretending to be a big mafia boy.
” Wayne grinned. “And there are other perks.”
I doubted that. “Such as?”
Wayne’s grin grew wider. “I took up golf.”
I laughed. Golf sounded worse than the night shifts, but maybe he liked hooning around in the buggy.
Toby stood motionless in the doorway, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open. This was all news to him. I never used to talk about my work. I couldn’t . I certainly hadn’t shared the devastation of wasting months of work on an untouchable organized crime family and the drug busts that had gone wrong.
I laced my fingers through Toby’s. His stunned eyes dropped and grew even wider.
“You okay?” I asked softly.
He nodded, his eyes still on our joined hands. “Yeah.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Gwen, is what he said…? The names…? I’ve read about that Morelli guy in the news.” He swallowed. “He sounds dangerous . ”
“Ancient history.” I waved him off.
Toby didn’t look any less bothered. The crease between his eyes got deeper.