129. Squeaky Cheese
SQUEAKY CHEESE
LAYTON
“I did as you asked.”
“And?”
“And it’s not good. Layton, he’s not right in the head.”
“I could’ve told you that.” I did tell you that, I think, but no point in beating a dead horse. “Did he give you any info?”
“Give me?” Exton scoffs through the phone. “Not the phrase I’d use, but I learned a few things. But I got as much by following Gerald Tustin as I did by questioning him. He goes to her house every night. He goes to the facility every day. He’s agitated he can’t find her.”
“Why is he obsessed with Livy?”
“He didn’t say, but it’s like he latched onto her in his mind, and she’s a ghost he can’t find.
I’d usually recommend a restraining order, but he didn’t seem to grasp that she’s not in Florida and an order of protection would reveal her whereabouts.
That would court more trouble in my estimation.
There’s no reason for that. Leave the rat in the wheel chasing the cheese. ”
“My brother just compared my woman to cheese,” I mutter, like there’s someone in the conversation aside from the two of us.
“But a Brie or a nice Gouda. Not the squeaky cheese that separates into clumps and oil.”
“Fondue. I’ll add that to the menu.”
He makes a choking sound just as Willa says from behind me, “Fondue sounds so good.”
“Your wife wants cheese,” I say into the phone. “I do too.”
“Shut up. My flight is boarding. May I speak to Willa?”
“Have a safe flight. See you soon. Here’s your baby mama.” I pass the phone to Willa and head out into the sunshine to my fondue.
Livy is on a raft in the pool and turns her sunglass-covered eyes my way.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I reach for my phone and realize Willa’s still using it until she makes her way back outside and down the pool steps.
“You don’t have to suffer with babysitting me much longer.” She walks into the water, turns and floats, her vividly tattooed bump buoyed out of the water.
“Good. Two whole days… It’s been torture.” I wink as I head into the house for my phone. It’s been a long time since I wanted to have it with me this much.
I slide my phone off the counter and send a text before heading back into the sunshine.
Me: Sending along my new address. I haven’t seen a package in nearly a month. You’ve been a lifesaver.
I tap out my home address, which I’m sure he has somewhere in his files, and hit send.
I’m outside when the response comes.
George: Been longer than that since I’ve sent anything. You know I’ll always be here for you. Any word on Excel? Or do you want me to handle that with Emberleigh?
Me: I’m going to cancel Excel with my regrets. I’ll pay whatever penalties I must for breach of contract.
Me: Emberleigh’s strategy was a good one, but I’m good not being under the microscope or in the public eye for now.
George: I get that.
Me: You’ll have to come out to Texas soon.
George: I’d like that.
George: I sent home some things with your brother. Not all of your effects, but the personal ones. I thought you’d want them with you instead of in storage here.
Me: Thanks.
My first thought is what things, but the second thought is louder. It roars. My brother. Why was Exton meeting with George in Florida?
The last thought, which flits through my head, is the wildest. It’s been longer than that since I’ve sent you anything.
A month ago—and two weeks before that—a box of my best friends showed up at Pop’s right on time, just as they did at my Florida condo every two weeks.
I could’ve set my watch by the prompt delivery.
The delivery from George that saved my ass over and over again from the time I left the hospital, amber bottle in hand, through today.
But nothing since. Nothing here. And I need what those packages contain.
“You’re fidgeting.” Livy peers over her shades, holding my eyes in a way that I swear sees through me.
“Flax McCoy is always cool under pressure,” Willa jokes as she floats.
“Flax McCoy?”
“My news anchor cohost’s name.” I shrug.
“That makes as much sense as saying. ‘The walrus bubblegums his purple seven.’”
“When I met Layton, his name was familiar, but I couldn’t place him, so I guessed he was a news anchor.
He made some smart-ass comment about his co-anchor, Flax McCoy.
” Willa drops her butt so she’s sitting rather than floating and turns from Livy to address me.
“I don’t think I’ve thought about that since that night. ”
Livy looks back and forth between us. “How long did it take you to figure it out?”
“Too long,” Willa puts in.
“I maintained my anonymity for several days.”
“How long before she knew who you were?” Willa asks me.
“Day one. And I didn’t get any reverence from her like I did from you.”
“In all fairness, I had a head injury.”
Livy practically snorts and rolls off her raft, swimming to cling to the side where I sit, but she speaks to Willa. “You and Exton are the definition of opposites attract.”
“Truth. Straightlaced, military Exton.” She waves a tattooed arm from the water. “And me.”
About that time, Livy’s phone buzzes. She doesn’t seem to notice, but I look over. UNKNOWN CALLER blinks on the screen with an area code I don’t recognize.
“Where is area code 617?”
“Again?” Livy’s face goes hard. “Ignore it.”
“Again? Or still?”
“Both.”
“Who is it?”
“If I had to guess? Tommy. He’s not doing a good job of taking no for an answer. I block them as fast as they come in.” She pushes up from the side of the pool and walks to the edge, staring at the screen. She locks it and turns to walk away.
Before she can get too far, I grab her wrist and bring her back to stand between my legs. “Who’s Tommy?”
“My ex.”
“The jackass who left you?”
She nods.
I study her eyes, waiting for her face to reveal something. She bites her lip as if she got busted before straightening her spine and lifting her chin. That’s my Livy.
“Do you want me to handle it?” I slide my hands to the back of her thighs and tug her to me.
“It doesn’t matter to me either way.” She drops a kiss on my mouth.
When she’s done, she whispers there, “He’s inconsequential.
A nuisance for sure, but nothing either of us needs to worry about.
” She gives me another peck. “I promise.” She releases my neck, and I let go of her legs, and she wanders back into the pool.
Something about her answer soothes the jagged edges of my mind. It wasn’t her answer. It was her honesty and her agreeing to let me handle it if I want to. She’s not withholding from me. There aren’t conversations behind my back—good or bad ones. She truly doesn’t care about him.
I recognize I’m agitated, and it’s probably over nothing—or nothing big—but everything today feels like a betrayal.
Tustin’s continued obsession.
Exton’s unplanned visit to my friend.
George’s denial of his helping me. Or scarier… his unwillingness to continue.
Livy still fielding phone calls from her ex-fiancé.
Tustin is a write-off. If he gets close, we’ll handle it. Otherwise, he’s a gnat on cocaine… annoying as fuck, but eventually will meet his own end, with or without my involvement.
But it doesn’t take much to know that none of the last three would willingly deceive me or compromise me. Still the bubbling in my gut remains. It’s the unsettled uncontrollability of so many things.
When Livy’s phone rings again, the same number lights up the screen.
“You sure?” I ask, raising the phone.
“Whatever you want to do.”
Right now, I want to tear his ass out through his throat, but I’ll go for a less violent route. I slide the phone to answer it but say nothing.
“Livylicious?”
I pull the phone back and look at the device. What the fuck? Is he twelve?
“No.” It’s hard to keep the humor out of my voice.
“Who’s this?”
“The better question is who is this?” I offer.
“I was calling for Livy.”
“I know.”
“May I speak with her?”
“No.”
“Tell her Tommy is calling.”
“She knows. She’s not interested.”
“And you would be?”
“The man in her life. The man in her bed. Someone who doesn’t call her what a pre-teen girlfriend would.” My eyes flick up to Livy’s and smile.
“Tell her I’ll try her later.”
“Talk to you then.” I click the button to disconnect, finally having a decent time with this. I wave the phone in the air before setting it down on the table. “That was fun. I want to do that again. He said he’d call us later.”
“Us?” Livy asks as Willa snorts.
“It was implied.” I push up from the table and wade into the water to stretch my muscles, strengthen my core, and touch my woman.
“Dragon slayer? Livy? Will you excuse us?” Exton asks as he heads to the back door. He carries two fingers of whiskey. That’s a rarity for him. He’s a beer guy. Whiskey is for bad days, funerals, and serious talks.
He moves out the doors onto the deck and walks well past the pool to the Adirondack chairs overlooking the lake. They’re low and will be a bitch for me to get in and out of. It wasn’t achievable a month ago. Tonight, it’s an inconvenience, not an impossibility.
I’ll take the small win for what it is—a win, and when it comes time to get up, I’ll accept awkward in lieu of unattainable.
He sits and faces out over the placid lake. Last year’s drought took the water level down a considerable amount, so the lapping at the shore is faint and soft.
“Florida was interesting,” he begins, as if in the middle of a story. His tone is quiet and regulated. He’s in no rush. “I saw George.”
“He mentioned he saw you.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Did he say anything else?” He turns his head to me, holding my gaze in profile as twilight marches across the sky.
“Just some business stuff.”
“Agent stuff or friend stuff?”
“Both.” I turn to face him and hold his eyes. “Why do you ask?”
He takes a deep pull of his whiskey, the ice clinking in the tumbler as he does. He extends the glass, but in a gesture, not an offer. “I’d offer you some, but that’s a bad idea.”
I say nothing. I’m the bait in this trap. I’m being set up. I just don’t know how. Or why.
“Want to know why?” he asks. His voice is matter-of-fact and conversational, not taunting me.
“I’ll bite. Why’s that?”
He takes another sip and casts his gaze into the distance. “Alcohol and oxy can cause respiratory depression, the inability to breathe, and heart failure.”
My blood runs like ice in my veins. And if my muscles weren’t frozen, I still couldn’t get out of this chair.
“And I just got my brother back. My son is about to enter the world and could never know my baby brother just with this alone.” He shakes the ice in the glass.
“Imagine my worry when I discovered that. Imagine what it’s like to keep that secret from Pop or my wife.
Or, to a lesser degree, from Brax and Bright.
Imagine surviving nearly losing one of your own—one of your only—only to learn they’re slowly killing themselves.
What should I have done? What should I do? ”
I say nothing. I don’t feel played or ridiculed. It’s like he’s really asking me what to do.
“I want to be mad. But honestly, Layton, I’m scared more than anything.
” He turns to look at me, his grief etched into his face.
“Losing Mom brought Willa to me. It was such a hard time. That extreme low combined with the high of falling in love. Willa told me she was pregnant, and within weeks, I thought I’d lost you.
I need this cycle unbound. I can’t bear a world where I hold my son in my arms only to watch you fade. ”
The knot in my throat prevents me from saying anything, and I wish I had his ice just for a distraction.
“That was George’s address on the packages.”
I start to interrupt, but he holds up a hand and levels me with his next statement. “I saw them. I know about them. It was his return address, but he didn’t send them.”
“Then who did?”
“Each box was sent from a pack-and-ship place down the street from his office. The same man dropped them off on schedule. I saw the video evidence since it was within sixty days, and they hadn’t erased the footage. You want the fucked-up part or the really fucked-up part?”
“Hit me,” I say to the wind and the water, wondering where this is going.
“The dude who made the shipments is dead. He’s the one you asked me to research. He was a druggie.”
I cringe at the word, but Exton doesn’t notice. Or he notices but doesn’t stop. “He was paid in meth and was probably stoned out of his mind when he attacked Kyle and Livy.”
I grit my teeth at the reminder and nod like any of this makes sense. “So a random meth head was sending me mail at my Florida house and at Pop’s? No. We’re missing something. My address wasn’t hard to find, but the ranch? A typical stoner isn’t researching that to send me expensive product.”
“Right.”
“So that isn’t the really fucked-up part?”
“Correct. Can you think of no one who would profit from your addiction?”
I shake my head as the light dawns. “But you’re right. This doesn’t lead to George. Me being out of commission hurts him. He even told me he hadn’t sent anything in months.”
Exton nods. “Have you received a package since you retired?”
I turn to my brother, who has somehow managed to have this whole conversation without shame or blame. He’s managed to make me part of the solution, not the victim or the subject of another failed intervention. That’s a gift I’ll never be able to repay. “No.”
“The junkie-turned-stabber-turned-drowning-victim was on the payroll of Charlie Schmidt at Tingle, Schmidt, and Associates.”
Blood pumps in my veins so thick I can feel it. I can hear it in my ears. It thumps in my neck and threatens to explode from my chest. Instead, I release a roar.
As much as I’ve come to love my best friends, to know I was taken out by the competition in an effort to control the market is untenable.
“Are you telling me that I was drugged to hurt my career—or worse, force my retirement—because someone wasn’t allowed to profit off my skill?”
“That’s one way of putting it. It’s far more eloquent than what I would’ve said.”
“Which is?”
“If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.”
I let my mind spin over what I can remember after the accident. I know there were pain meds and sedatives. Hell, I was in a coma at some point. I wasn’t diligent with the “my body is a temple” bullshit, seeing as how my temple was leveled, and I would need to rebuild brick by fucking brick.
But I didn’t deserve to be sabotaged for fun.
For someone’s kicks.
For another person’s profit.
“I want to vomit. Did I bring this down on Livy too?”
“Layton, you were in a car accident. Hear me again… accident. You couldn’t control what someone high on meth would do any more than you could control that oncoming car. You’re good, but you’re no god.”
I’ve been called one on more than one occasion. I think it, but I don’t say it. My brother doesn’t need to be in my bedroom anyway.
“That’s debatable.”
Exton releases a laugh. “I have an idea. I don’t know how it will shake out, but it could be lucrative. At the very least, it could be a shit ton of fun. Want to hear it?”