Chapter 37 #2
On Monday, he’d completed his debrief for the Monroe case and filled out the accompanying stack of paperwork to officially close things up.
He’d gotten a couple of pats on the back for a job well done, but there was also plenty of suspicion about the timing of the Richard Russo and Michael Giordano arrests by the Boston branch of the DEA instead of the FBI-led task force.
He’d been way out of line when he shared his information with Mason. He’d risked his career and his reputation as a solid agent, but no one would ever be able to convince him that what he’d done was wrong.
Moving to his bedroom, he set his beer on the dresser and tugged at his tie, sighing as he stared at the travel-size bottle of Lydia’s shampoo that he’d found in his shower when he got home on Sunday afternoon.
He’d been stupid enough to pick it up and smell it, which had been pure torture, but missing everything about Lydia was turning out to be an agony that he hadn’t seen coming.
Sighing again, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, staring at the last text that she’d sent him—like he’d done dozens of times over the last few days.
Let’s leave things the way that we left them. We can always say that we knew each other one summer.
He wanted to leave it. He wanted to forget, but he pressed on his camera roll, scrolling through the pictures he hadn’t been able to delete, studying the snapshots of a blink in time that had been the very best moments of his life.
Before he could stop himself, he pressed on the video of Lydia lighting her new grill for the first time and couldn’t help but grin as he listened to himself teasing her—as they both laughed while he’d recorded the entire event. She was so gorgeous and sweet, and he’d been happy and relaxed.
He startled when his phone started to ring in his hand, sighing as he realized that it was his mom. Every ounce of him wanted to avoid her call, but it was better to get this over with. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. Are you still in Massachusetts?”
“No.”
“Is Lydia with you right now?”
He closed his eyes as he clenched his jaw. “No.”
“I guess you can’t be attached at the hip all the time.” She chuckled. “So, I know you guys just went on vacation, but I want you to plan a trip down here to Austin, even if it’s just for a long weekend. Zoey wants to meet Lydia, and I want to spend some time with the two of you.”
He stared at the bottle of shampoo, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Mom, we broke up.”
The line stayed silent. “What? Why? Oh, honey, what happened?”
He felt his jaw clench again as he turned away from the damn bottle. “It didn’t work out.”
“But you two were so happy on your date the other night.”
He raked his fingers through his hair now because she was right. “It didn’t work out, Mom.”
“Okay. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“All right. Let me just say that there are few things in this life that are so broken that they can’t be fixed.”
He puffed out a breath because things between him and Lydia felt pretty damn broken. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Well, I’ll let you go, but you know where I am if you need me.”
“I do. Thanks, Mom.”
“I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too.”
“Bye, hon.”
“Bye.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket as someone knocked on his door. He huffed out a bad-tempered breath as his mood continued to sour. “Now what?”
Moving down the hall, he yanked open the door, blinking in shock as he stared at James and Marietta standing in front of him. And then he closed his eyes as he let his head hang when reality dawned—when he realized that they knew who he was.
“Special Agent Tyler Corddry,” James said, gesturing to Ty’s badge on his belt and his sidearm still settled on his hip.
“Yeah, that’s me.” He opened the door wider to let them in.
Marietta immediately wrapped her arm through his, wearing slacks and a blouse that she’d dressed up with her trademark jewelry and lipstick, smelling like jasmine. “And now I know why you sent me a text, trying to pass me off to one of your personal trainer friends.”
He shut the door behind them. “I’m sorry about that—for the short notice.”
Marietta shrugged as they moved down the short hall. “You certainly look quite a bit different, all fancied up—and with a gun on your hip.”
He sighed. “I hope you’ll let me explain.”
“I found out plenty,” James said as he stood in the living room, dressed in an expensive suit and tie after a day on Capitol Hill.
“My son shared some troubling news with Cindy and me on Sunday afternoon, but then he told us that Ty, Lydia’s now ex-boyfriend, happened to know several of the right people to make all of his problems go away. Or at least, the potential legal ones.”
“Yes—”
“So, naturally, I was intrigued,” James interrupted as he held up his hand, not quite the friendly man that Ty had spent time with in the gym or chatting with at family dinners.
“I did a little digging—or my people did, anyway—and it turns out that my son and I were under investigation for the last several weeks.”
Ty nodded, not at all surprised that James had found his answers. He was a powerful man in DC. “Yeah, a quiet inquiry.”
“Did Lydia know?”
Ah, shit. It was tempting to tell him that she didn’t, but lying tended to cause more problems than it solved. Honesty was always the best policy when he wasn’t undercover. “It’s important to understand that I forced her hand.”
Marietta’s brow rose as she stood with her arm still locked through his. “She certainly didn’t look forced to me.”
“We developed a friendship.”
Marietta’s brow rose again. “So, that’s what a friendship looks like.”
He sighed because no one was buying that he and Lydia were anything as simple as friends.
“Lydia wanted nothing to do with the investigation when I first approached her. Her only concern was looking out for all of you. I told her that if she helped me, we could control the narrative together. I promised her that I would do everything that I could to protect her family.”
“And you did,” James said.
Ty nodded. “I certainly tried.”
“From the sounds of it, you risked your career to help my son.”
Ty shrugged now. “I promised Lyd.”
“And now you and my granddaughter have parted ways?” Marietta asked as she patted his hand.
He nodded. “It was time for us both to move on.”