11. Casey
11
CASEY
Taking Michelle back to her car has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But when she finally checks her phone, she has over twenty missed calls from Jerry. I drop her outside the gate to Jerry’s house, just to make sure I’m not spotted and things don’t get out of hand.
“I’ll see you soon?” she asks before stepping out of the cab.
“Of course you will.” I pull her to me and kiss her deeply. We’re getting so close. “Soon we’ll be together, and you’ll be free of him. Free of them both.”
She smiles, and my mind is overwhelmed with thoughts of our future together. How can a woman so perfect exist?
“Okay.” She smiles. She grasps the door handle and is just about to step out of the truck when I take her wrist and pull her back. Her eyes widen, and she looks back up at me expectedly, waiting.
Say it .
“Hey, I love you. You know that?”
Tears well in her eyes. A moment later, she nods as her smile broadens. “I love you too, Casey.”
My chest swells with such emotion, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. It’s the greatest rush in the world. No drug could ever compare to what I’m feeling right now.
I pull her to me again and kiss her once more. Deeper this time, longer. I hold her in my arms, not wanting to let her go. But I know I have to. I have to get things done so we can fully be together, or things could collapse around us. Time is critical right now.
As hard as it is to do, nearly impossible, I pull my lips from hers and tell her I have to go. Neither of us wants it, but she understands. I run my fingers through her hair one last time and watch as she steps out of my truck, blows me a kiss, smiles, and shuts the door.
I drive off, trying hard not to think about her going back to the same house that Jerry is in. Focusing only on what I need to do to get her away from him.
When I get back to my apartment, I find my mom there waiting inside for me with an elderly lady in a tangerine colored dress with a lime shawl.
“Honey, this is my friend, Margaret,” she explains. “She works for the church.”
I try not to burst with excitement as I go over to her and shake her hand.
“Nice to meet you. I see my mom has already made you some tea. Can I get you anything else?”
“No thank you, dear,” she replies. Despite her frail appearance, Margaret’s voice sounds like a newscaster’s. “I’m just fine. Don’t need to be waited on. Eighty years old this November.”
“Eighty?” I reply, impressed. “You don’t look a day over sixty!”
Margaret frowns, but I can see she’s also smiling. I take a seat at the table across from them and glance at my mom.
“Honey, I brought Margaret by today because she has some things to show you.”
“Is that right, Margaret?”
Margaret, clearly pleased with herself, nods and reaches into a bag I hadn’t noticed at her feet. She brings out a stack of old-school file folders and sets it on the table.
“Your mom says you were looking for evidence of Reverend Tuttle skimming church funds. Well, here it is.”
“Wow,” I reply, taking the top folder and glancing through it. “Actual hard copies.”
“I have digitized some of them,” she replies. “But it’s not exactly a priority at the church. Or something the Reverend has put money into doing.”
“No, he’d rather buy a boat.”
“Precisely,” Margaret says. “And that’s just it. I’ve been watching Patrick do this for years. Take money that’s come into the church for a good cause, then swipe a taste for himself off the top like it was a nice topping of whipped cream.”
“Nice analogy.” I smile.
“I was afraid to say anything about it, but when your mom told me you were going head to head with the man…well…” Margaret shrugs, her lips twisted gleefully. “I figured now was the time.”
I smile right back at her. “Margaret. You figured right.”
Forty-five minutes later, I’m walking into Shaggy Dog’s Coffee, and I spot my buddy Robert Plank, daily editor for the Holebeck Daily Times. He’s already got his double-shot espresso and is checking his watch as I go over to him.
“I’ve been waiting eight minutes.”
“Eight minutes?” I laugh.
“I’m a busy man, Casey.” He grins. It’s an old joke between us, referencing his old boss who we both hated. “So if you aren’t helping me out—”
“You’re holding me back,” I chuckle, finishing the joke. I set my backpack on the counter and pull out the materials Margaret gave me. Robert slips on his glasses and immediately starts thumbing through them.
“What am I looking at?”
“Patrick Tuttle take-down evidence,” I reply. “Proof that he’s been skimming funds from the church for years to fill his own personal bank accounts.”
“Jesus. And where’d you get these?”
“Anonymous source within the church.”
Unlike me, Robert actually understands the files Margaret has handed over, and as he continues to look through them, I see his normally slumped posture change to upright as he fills with excitement.
He takes off his glasses and turns to stare at me. “This is fucking huge, Casey.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“I mean, if we print this, it goes national. This isn’t just some local story that blows over. You understand?”
My heart is shaking in my chest. I’m flexing my toes nervously inside my boots.
“This is criminal fraud, Casey. We’re talking massive fines, possibly even jail time if he’s convicted.”
Now I’m chewing the inside of my bottom lip.
“Yeah, I know.”
“I gotta ask, Casey. Why are you bringing this to me? No offense, but you work construction. You’re not a reporter. I can’t pay you for it. What’s your stake in all this?”
And just like that, in a flash, I’m back at the construction site, staring Patrick Tuttle in the eyes as he looks down his nose at me like I’m nothing but a bug he can stomp under the sole of his thousand-dollar shoes. I see his mouth forming the words he said to me that day when he told me I was fired. When I told him I would take him down.
“Try it, boy. I dare you.”
My fists grip the edge of the table and squeeze until my fingers are throbbing and my knuckles are white.
Michelle. I have to get her away from him.
“You don’t wanna hear it, Robert,” I say finally. “It’s not important. What is important is that Patrick has been stealing from members of the church. What’s important is that he is exposed and brought to justice!”
Robert eyes me carefully. He knows there’s more I’m not telling him, but he’s not going to press me.
“Now I’m bringing this to you first instead of the police, because I want to get something going quickly. Can you get something going quickly, Robert? Then we can go to the cops with it?”
“Trudy understands this stuff better than I do,” he replies. “I’ll go back to the office. She and I will go over it this afternoon, I’ll type up the story, and it will go live tomorrow morning. That quick enough for you?”