Chapter 21 #2
Too long, in fact. Tate should have dealt with his mother’s disappearance, but instead, he’d simply stayed away from the house because then he could pretend that his mom wasn’t gone.
Not the most healthy way to deal with death.
But in the beginning, he’d held out hope that she was alive. He didn’t have that hope anymore.
“I’m sorry.”
Cat’s hand was on his arm, the fingers warm even through his suit jacket.
“I’m sorry, too,” he sighed, forcing a smile. “What a day. I hate being maudlin.”
“You’re a person who likes to be happy,” Cat remarked. “It’s one of the things I love about you. You’re always looking for the rainbow. I want to be like that.”
“I’m not sure I fit that description, but I am more of an optimist than, say…Cooper.”
“That’s not a high hurdle to jump.”
“He’s more optimistic these last few years,” Tate said. “Even more now that he’s with Jane.”
Tate placed the wallet and the phones on the coffee table and the suitcase on the floor next to it.
“There’s no time like the present,” he said. “Alexa wants the blue cashmere sweater and the photos from his personal phone.”
Tate and Cat sat down on the rug and unzipped the suitcase, flipping it open. Despite the piece of luggage having been bouncing around airports for the last few days, the contents appeared to be fairly undisturbed.
“Tyler is a neat packer,” Cat observed. “I guess he would be since he traveled so much.”
“You traveled all the time. How are you at packing?”
“I was a last-minute packer,” Cat laughed. “I just threw an armful of clothes into the suitcase a few minutes before leaving for the airport. If anything was folded, it was because that’s how I took it from the drawer. Let’s just say I went with the chaos theory.”
“I bet no matter what you were wearing, you always looked beautiful.”
Cat could be dressed in a burlap bag and still be the most gorgeous woman on the planet, as far as he was concerned.
“Other people might argue that statement.”
“Other people can go fuck themselves,” Tate stated firmly. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“Are you saying that so you’ll get lucky? Because if you are, you’re on the right track.”
Cat was giving him that look that he loved so much. The kind that promised all sorts of dirty, sweaty debauchery. He was a lucky man.
“Hold that thought, baby. Let’s get this done, and then I’m all yours.”
Had he ever belonged to anyone else since she’d left? He didn’t think so. She’d held his heart even when he’d denied still feeling anything. He’d only been fooling himself.
The suitcase was well-organized. Tyler had placed an extra pair of shoes in a plastic bag so any dirt wouldn’t get on the clean clothes.
Pants in one section, shirts in another, socks and underwear in a third, along with a small leather bag with toiletries.
There was also a spiral notebook tucked between a pair of jeans and the blue cashmere sweater.
“That must be the sweater that Alexa wants,” Cat said, picking it up from the stack. “Wait, there’s something stuck to it. I think it’s a piece of jewelry.”
Cat’s fingers disentangled a shiny object and then held it up. A gold and opal teardrop earring.
“I’ll get a plastic bag for that,” Tate said. “It probably belongs to Alexa. I bet she thinks she’s lost it.”
“It’s pretty,” Cat observed, holding it up to the light. “It’s a nice opal, too. Some are so milky, but this has some fire to it. She’ll be glad to get it back. Maybe we should look for the other one. It might be stuck to another piece of clothing.”
They placed the earring on the coffee table until it could be wrapped up safely later, along with the sweater.
Tate ran his hands into the side pockets of the suitcase, searching for the match to the earring, but he pulled out a hotel keycard instead.
“He didn’t leave it in the hotel room,” Cat said. “I’ve done that a few times.”
Tate stared at the keycard and then held it up for Cat’s perusal.
“It’s for a local inn just one town over. Why on earth would Tyler be staying at a hotel when he could stay with his parents?”
“They were renovating,” Cat explained. “That’s why he was staying with Josh and Rachel.”
“His parents just started renovating. When he was here a few months ago, he was staying with them. I know because he stopped into the tavern for pizza and beer. We sat for a couple of hours and talked.”
“He specifically said he was staying with his parents?”
“He did. He said he couldn’t eat too much because his mom was making his favorite dinner. He talked about how he always ate too much of his mother’s cooking when he was staying with them and how he couldn’t stay more than a few days or he’d gain weight.”
“Maybe…maybe it’s a borrowed suitcase,” Cat suggested. “Or maybe he stayed there on a different trip. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for it.”
“You’re right,” Tate replied, tucking the keycard back in the side pocket of the suitcase. “Let’s get to work on those photos for Alexa. I have to say I feel a bit strange about going through Tyler’s phone and photos. That feels a hell of a lot more personal than a cashmere sweater.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Cat said, with a visible shudder. “What if there are nudes? I don’t want to see them.”
“I sure as hell don’t,” Tate declared. “Of my friend or any of his girlfriends. I’m not a prude, but I don’t like digging into Tyler’s life any more than I need to.
It feels wrong about ten different ways.
If there are any, I guess we should ask Alexa what she wants done with them. If they’re of her, of course.”
“I’m not looking forward to that conversation. Hey, we were looking through Tyler’s phone, and we saw your breasts, so like, what do you want us to do with them? Holy shit, that’s going to be awkward as hell.”
“I’m hoping since she asked for the pictures, that she knows there won’t be any,” Tate suggested.
“Poor innocent, naive girl,” Cat said with a shake of her head. “She may know that there aren’t any pictures of her, but…”
“Other women from the past,” Tate finished for her. “Shit, why did I agree to this?”
“Because you’re a nice man, and those parents are going through some hell losing their only son. You’re a good person, Tate Winslow. They trust you because of that. There aren’t many people they could ask to do this who wouldn’t gossip about whatever they found the minute they had the opportunity.”
“I’m not sure there would be anything to gossip about,” Tate replied. “At least, let’s hope not.”
Tate reached for one of the phones on the coffee table. He didn’t know which was which, so he might need to look at both of them.
“Is there a password?” Cat asked, her brows pinched together. “I always keep my phone locked.”
Tyler’s phone was open, the main screen popping up with a press of the button.
“Doesn’t look like it. If the phones we find at the bar every single night are any indication, there’s a huge swath of the population that doesn’t lock their phones. Only a small percentage are protected.”
“They forget their phones?”
“So many phones,” Tate said with an exaggerated sigh. “I have a box in my office filled with phones that were lost and never claimed. Really expensive ones, too. In fact, the cheaper the phone, the more likely it is that someone comes to look for it.”
“Amazing,” Cat said. “My whole life is in my phone. Or at least, it used to be. I don’t have as many things to keep track of these days.”
It was on the tip of Tate’s tongue to bring up the skin care contract, but he quelled the urge immediately. This simply wasn’t the moment, and he didn’t need to put on any extra pressure. When she made her decision, she’d let him know. Until then, he’d stay away from the topic.
Somehow, they’d make it work. They were motivated this time to stay together. When they were young, they hadn’t valued what they had. They’d thought that life was endless, and there would be something bigger and better down the road.
“I-I don’t think this is a work phone,” Tate said slowly as he thumbed through the photo gallery.
Women. Several of them. Nothing X-rated, or at least not yet, but these females clearly were close to Tyler. They had their arms around each other, and in some, they were kissing. There were dinner out pictures, beach pictures, bedtime pictures, and fun days in the city pictures.
These were not casual buddy photos. These were clearly “couple” pictures. And there were a hell of a lot of them.
None of them were Alexa, however.
“What do you mean? If it’s not work, it’s personal, right?”
“It’s personal,” Tate agreed. “Take a look.”
He watched as she looked through the pictures, her eyes widening more with each one.
“Oh. Is this what I’m thinking it is? That’s a lot of different women unless he’s starting his own sorority.”
“I don’t want to jump the gun here,” Tate said. “Let me take a look at his other phone.”
Pictures of Alexa. Others with what looked to be friends or co-workers. Hell, there was even one of Tyler, Tate, Josh, and Rachel at the tavern from about eighteen months ago.
It was clearly the “main” phone. Tyler had messages from his parents, Tate, Josh, Rachel, Alexa, and a plethora of other people, including his dentist and internet provider.
He picked up the first phone, pondering the open question as to what in the hell this phone was used for.
Did it matter? It wasn’t his business, after all. It didn’t appear that there was anything on that phone that Alexa wanted, since he doubted she even knew of its existence. He could simply retrieve the photos from the main phone and move on with his life. Never think about this moment again.
The phone buzzed with an incoming text, and Tate almost dropped it in surprise. He hadn’t expected a dead man to receive a message from anyone, but then it occurred to him that these women might not know Tyler had passed.
A message popped up on the screen asking what was going on and why they hadn’t heard from Tyler. That they’d been researching cruises, and they had so much to talk about.
“It looks like Tyler was planning to take a cruise,” Tate said. “She doesn’t know he’s dead.”
“What’s her name? Maybe we should let her know? It seems cruel to let her think he’s ghosted her.”
“Frankly, that’s the least of what Tyler has done to these women. As for her name, she doesn’t seem to have an actual name. And I’m assuming it’s a she. He named her in his contact list by some initials plus the city, not by name.”
“We should tell them,” Cat said firmly. “Otherwise, they’ll blame themselves. I’ve been ghosted, and it’s a shitty thing to do.”
Tate had also been ghosted, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to take on the responsibility of letting these people know that Tyler wasn’t going to call them back. Ever.
Tate thumbed through the contact list. All of the contacts were there by city, sometimes preceded by two or three letters. Perhaps a code of some kind? No one had names.
Was it so his friend could keep track of them? Was it some sort of code? Sweet Jesus. Tate was sorry he’d ever opened these phones, but he was also glad because no parent should have to find out that their son was a creepy womanizer.
He abruptly stopped when he reached the W’s.
WinHeights.
“You’re being awfully quiet. Is everything okay?”
“No, not really,” he finally answered. “There’s a contact named Winslow Heights.”
“Tyler had a woman here in town? That might explain the keycard.”
“I didn’t recognize any of the women in the photos,” Tate said. “If he was seeing someone here, he didn’t take any pictures with her.”
“Maybe he didn’t have time,” Cat replied tartly. “He’s obviously been a busy boy. Who was the woman, I wonder? It might have been someone at the service today, and no one has a clue.”
Tate had been wondering the same thing.
The phone buzzed with another text arriving. This time from another contact titled Denver. Tate tried to swipe the text away, but accidentally opened the message app on the phone instead. His gaze zeroed in on the latest text from WinHeights.
If you ignore me, you’ll fucking regret it. No one makes a fool out of me. I know you’re already in town, so don’t pretend.
The text was dated the day before Tyler was shot.
Tyler had a local woman threatening him less than twenty-four hours before he was fatally gunned down.
That was one hell of a coincidence.