15. Cale #2
“Marcy’s not exactly a credible witness,” Logan mutters sourly.
We’ve all heard plenty of stories about the shit she put Levi’s brother through in the lead-up to the divorce, and the continued drama over co-parenting their daughter.
“That bitch wouldn’t know honesty even if she suddenly grew a ten-inch nose. ”
“Might be an improvement.” Knox pulls out his phone, thumbs flying over the screen. “A nose like that would distract from the fact she’s a raging hemorrhoid.”
Levi bites back a laugh, but still says, “She’s my niece’s mother.
Ease up.” He looks back at me. “You’re friendly with Melanie, so talk to her.
Get her take on it. She might know something and not even realize it.
Maybe she had a run-in with someone, an altercation, or a road rage incident that she never thought twice about.
It doesn’t take much to become a target for someone’s anger. ”
I stare back at him, the argument dying a quick death on my lips. If I tell him I can’t do it, he’ll ask me why, and it’s not something I want to admit to anyone.
“She’s patient zero,” Nathan agrees. “We need to know whether her place was a crime of opportunity or something more sinister.”
Logan looks at me, his expression concerned. “You got cameras on her place, right?”
“Yeah. Installed them myself.”
“Okay. Let’s move on.” Levi rubs a palm over his clean-shaven jaw. “Any other updates to discuss?”
The rest of the meeting passes quickly, each of us giving a report on our current jobs, before Levi hands out any new assignments, including a cybersecurity consultation for Knox, where he’ll need to hack into the company’s server and give them the lowdown on all their vulnerabilities.
After the meeting draws to a close, I follow the others out, drawing up short when Levi calls my name. I glance over my shoulder, finding him still sitting at the table. I sigh, closing the door after Nathan.
“What’s up?” I face Levi, crossing my arms over my chest.
“You’ve been a moody asshole.” He drops it casually, his lips twitching at the annoyed glare I level him with. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“What is this, therapy hour?” I grouse. “Is it tit for tat? Maybe you want to talk about all the trouble you’re having with Ryan.”
Levi’s expression darkens, and remorse swells in my chest. That was low—even for me. Acting like the asshole he was calling me out as. Levi’s wife died four years ago, and his fourteen-year-old has been struggling ever since. It was a shitty move to use that as a weapon against him.
Apparently, that was something I did now—using pain like a weapon—and shame hits me like a punch to the gut, stealing my breath when my mind immediately conjures Melanie’s broken expression and the betrayal shining in Oakley’s eyes.
When Levi speaks, his tone is deliberately even. “If you need some time off, I have a guy who can fill in for you temporarily. Gage has been considering relocating from Boston. He hasn’t made the call yet, so this could be a trial run for him.”
I run a hand through my hair, my hand trembling. “I’m fine, okay? I don’t need time off. If anything, I was thinking of picking up some extra shifts. I know that Knox wanted to spend some time with Jamie, so I offered to take his next weekend shift for him.”
The corners of his mouth tighten. “If you don’t wanna talk, I won’t push. But you’re not just an employee. You get that, right?”
My eyes slip away from the sincerity shining in his. “I know, man.” It’s a croak, and I clear my throat. “I appreciate it. I’d better get on. Got a client consultation in fifteen minutes. You know what Tansley’s like if we start running late.”
She is our administrator on the front desk and is the heart of Onyx.
She is in her fifties and rules over all of us with an iron fist. We wouldn’t survive without her, although I’m sure she doesn’t get paid enough to wrangle a bunch of ex-military grunts.
And I know for a fact that Levi is generous.
“She cracks the whip more than anyone else around here.” Levi’s lips tip up with amusement. “Alright. Well, if you change your mind about that talk, you know where I am.”
“Thanks.” I don’t hesitate to take the out. I look back when I’m halfway out the door. Levi’s still seated, a thoughtful look on his face. “Levi?”
He looks up. “Hm?”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “For what I said about Ryan.”
He waves me off. “It’s all good, man.”
Taking him at his word, I head to the break room to grab a coffee, grimacing as the bitter black liquid hits my tongue. It’s tempting to head to Frothy Cakes to get something decent, but the idea of running into Melanie has me swallowing back the drink in my hand.
It’s not that I don’t want to see her, but I know she isn’t ready to see me. She deserves to feel safe enough to venture out to grab her coffee from her favorite shop, as well as Oakley’s lemon bars, and I won’t take that away from her.
As I venture back to my small office, the regret that’s been haunting me settles impossibly deeper, swirling through my bloodstream and embedding itself in my bones.
As Melanie slammed that door shut in my face, the anger I’d felt dissipated like it had never been there.
I sobered up real fucking fast as I stood there in the dark, wondering what the hell I’d done and feeling a loss like I had never felt before.
I need to make things right, but I also don’t have any idea of where to start.
Tansley looks up as I pass her desk. “Cale, Elizabeth Paulson is here for her appointment. She’s early, but…
” She glances over to the waiting area, and I follow her stare, finding a woman sitting in one of the chairs.
Her arms are clutched around her middle, and her shoulders are hunched, like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible.
Her dark hair is hiding her face, but there’s a purplish mark peeking out from under her sleeve on her wrist.
“She might need a soft touch,” Tansley continues.
I close my eyes, pulling a deep breath into my lungs, feeling like the worst kind of impostor as I tell her, “Don’t worry, Tans. I got it.”
When I get home, I kill the engine to the truck and sit in the silence, staring over at Melanie’s place. Her car is in the driveway, and the lights are on in the house, and I can’t help but wonder what she and Oakley are doing right now.
Eating dinner? Doing his homework? Watching a movie?
No matter how much I wish things were different, there’s not a single scenario where I’d be able to go over there and knock, and she’d welcome me inside.
In one fucking day, just by reacting badly and then overreacting even worse, I’d killed any kind of friendship between us.
I’d hurt two people who have come to mean something important to me.
It kills me knowing that she won’t open up to me anymore.
Not about her day or whether her fucker of an ex is bothering her.
Not even just to sit outside and have a beer with me, neither of us saying a word.
It feels like they’ve left a smoking crater in my life. I didn’t even realize how much I’d gotten used to spending my evenings with them until it was taken away from me.
Not that I blamed Melanie for that.
Not after what I’d done, and what I’d said.
It hurts just as badly, if not worse, that Oakley hasn’t been coming out to help with the yard work or sharing his weird facts about animals that kill things and drag the corpses into trees.
I never went back to tell her how much the window repair cost, but I’d found a check in the mailbox two days after the window was broken, neatly written for $200.
I hadn’t even hesitated as I’d slid the damn thing back into her own mailbox.
The next day, she nailed the fucking thing to my back door.
I had to get pliers to yank the nail out of the wood—she’d hammered it in so deeply.
I didn’t bother to give that one back, ripping it into tiny pieces and tossing it instead.
I get out of the truck and head inside just as my phone starts buzzing. I pull it out as I drop my keys on the kitchen counter, letting out a soft sigh at the name flashing across the screen.
“Hey, Jaz. What do you need?”
“Why would you assume that I need something?” she retorts huffily, a tremor in her voice that catches my attention.
“Of course you need something,” I tease gently. “What’s going on?”
There’s a long pause, the silence only broken by a muffled sniff, like she’s desperately trying to hold herself together. “Wyatt called. Said he wanted to talk to Lanie,” she admits. “It’s been weeks. Months. She was…excited, but”—Jaz exhales heavily—“it didn’t go well, and now Lanie…She—”