by Claire Raye
“Hi!” I call out, waving manically and I can’t believe this guy hasn’t slammed the door in my face and called the police. Luckily I’m tiny and look far less threatening than sending Reid or Caleb over here to talk to him.
“Can I help you?” he asks hesitantly, still leaving the screen door closed, a skeptical look on his face. I’m sure he thinks I’m some kid out here trying to sell him a magazine subscription or whatever crap people are peddling these days.
“I live on the street behind you and I noticed your security camera.” I motion over his head toward the back of his house. “Is there any chance I could take a look at your footage from a few weeks ago?” It’s a bold move to come right out and ask.
“Um...” the guy starts, giving me a good once over. “What do you need it for?” Of course he’s skeptical. I’d be floored if he decided to just hand it over without asking me any questions.
I debate my approach to this carefully, realizing I need to appeal to him as more of a damsel in distress rather than an angry girlfriend. If I tell this guy I need his camera footage because my boyfriend beat the shit out of someone, he’ll definitely look at the situation differently.
“A few weeks ago,” I say, looking down at the ground, trying to really drive home the fact that this has affected me. “A few weeks ago, a man was in our alleyway watching me through my bedroom window and it would really help if I could turn your camera footage over to the police.” I now look up at him, swallowing hard and hoping he takes pity on me. “I’m not the first person it’s happened to and the police don’t really believe me.”
He doesn’t say anything, standing at the door looking at me and I’m silently pleading with him to say yes.
“Where did you say you live?” he now asks.
“Just behind you in the little Craftsman with the blue siding.” I again motion behind him. “I can show you.”
The man nods, opening the front door and following me out of the house. We walk side by side until we reach the alleyway and his garage.
“Right there,” I say, pointing to my house. “I live in that house and my bedroom is right there.” My bedroom window and the back door are the only parts of the house you can see.
“I don’t think my camera picks up that angle, but I can check the videos,” he says, basically placating me.
“I’d appreciate that. Thanks.”
“If I notice anything, I’ll let you know,” he says flippantly and I realize it’s probably a dead end. It was worth a shot, but now it means I have to work harder to find something else to tie Professor Keller to this mess.
“How’d it go with Ed?” I ask as I walk in and see Caleb sitting at the kitchen table. Reid and Sie are there too, which makes me think he filled them in.
“I told him everything you said and I gave him the girl’s name. He said he’s going to look into a few things and get back to us.”
“That’s it?” Sienna asks, annoyed. “You’d think he’d be more...I don’t know. That he’d do more?” She lets out a huff, crossing her arms over her chest and Reid rests a comforting hand on her back.
“He’s working on it,” Caleb defends, because as much as we want instant gratification, we’ve learned all of this takes time. “Where were you?” he now asks, changing the subject and turning his attention to me.
I pause, wondering if I should even tell them since nothing will ever come of it, but I decide to let them know.
“I noticed a security camera on one of the garages in the alleyway, so I went to the guy’s house and asked him for the footage.”
“Seriously?” Both Reid and Caleb respond in unison, clearly shocked by my boldness.
“Yes, but he said it probably didn’t pick up anything—”
“Fuck that,” Reid yells out, shoving back from the table. “I’m getting that fucking footage.”
“Reid!” Sienna calls, grabbing for him before he runs out the door and ruins any chance we might still have left of getting those videos.
“Let it go, man,” Caleb now says. “We aren’t harassing our neighbors over this. Like me beating the shit out of someone in our alleyway wasn’t enough on its own?”
Reid now nods, conceding quickly, but still looking pissed off and rightfully so. We all are. But flying off the handle isn’t going to make things any better. At this point, we have to put our efforts into Ed and what he can find.
“Maybe the guy will find something on the video,” Sienna now adds hopefully and while we all mutter our agreements, we know it’s a long shot.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Caleb
“I’m gonna grab dinner, come for a walk.”
It’s not said as a question and when I glance up at Reid, I can tell from the look on his face that I also don’t have much of a choice about it either. “Sure,” I reply, giving Ruby a quick kiss before I stand from the couch and follow Reid out the front door.
We walk together in silence. It’s not awkward or weird though, there’s far too many years of friendship between us for things to ever be like that, but it also means I know he wants to ask me something, he’s just trying to figure out how.
“Just ask it, Reid,” I eventually say, shoving my hands in the pockets of my jeans as I glance over at him.
Reid smirks at me. “Who says I wanna ask something?”
I roll my eyes, letting out a half laugh. “You forget, dude, I’ve known you my whole life. I can tell when you’re struggling to keep your mouth shut. It doesn’t happen that often.”
“Fuck off,” he scoffs, punching me in the shoulder, both of us now laughing. “Okay, fine,” he says, sighing dramatically. “Your sister wanted me to check how you were doing.”
I burst out laughing, even as I’m reminded of Liz’s words to me earlier today. “Fuck me, you are so whipped.”
“So what, I own it,” Reid says, as though he’s actually proud of it. “It’s not exactly a bad thing, you know, especially when it’s—”
“Stop,” I say, cutting him off as I hold a hand up.
“What?” Reid asks in mock surprise, his hands out in question.
I roll my eyes again. “Whatever, but yes, I’m fine. You can tell her you asked me, and I said everything was fine.” It’s a total lie and I’d know that even without the guilt that now starts to eat at me on the inside.
“Yeah, except that would be total bullshit.” Reid says, calling me on it.
I glance at him again and see he’s still watching me, only his smirk is gone now. When I don’t say anything, Reid narrows his brow as he says, “Really, Caleb?”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” he says, sarcastically. “You forget, I’ve known you my whole life, I can tell when you’re bullshitting,” he says, throwing my words back at me.
I exhale, knowing I’m not getting out of it, not with him. “And like I said, just ask it then.”
Reid lets out a huff as he turns onto the main street and we head down toward the Mexican place that I know my sister loves. He doesn’t say anything at first and I’m wondering if he’s just going to drop it.
“How’s it going with the therapy stuff?” he eventually asks.
I shrug, even though both of us are looking ahead. “I don’t know. I guess it’s helping, although it’s fucking weird talking about all this shit to a stranger.”
Reid nods, stopping at the door of the restaurant as he says, “You could talk about it with me.”
Before I have a chance to answer, he opens the door and walks inside. I follow him in as he goes up to the counter and gives the cashier his name. I pull my wallet from my pocket and hand him some cash, but he waves me off as he squares away the bill, before we grab the bags of food and walk back outside.
Silence surrounds us again as we slowly make our way back home, the streets now dark. Liz’s suggestion to talk to Sie is still there and I’m sure if she knew the full story of the three of us and our childhood, she’d be telling me to talk to Reid too. Telling me t
o answer his question.
But does he really want to hear this shit?
And can I really tell him?
I turn his words over in my head, wondering if he truly wants to know about what I talk about with Liz or all the shit that happened back in Providence. Whether he’d hate me if I told him all the things I thought, all the things I wished for after he and Sie left.
“I guess I just figured you guys probably didn’t want to know about what happened,” I eventually say.
Reid stops, turning to face me, a pissed off look on his face now. “What? Why the fuck would you think that?”
I stand opposite him, my eyes searching his face. “Why the fuck would you want to know about it, Reid?” I ask him.
“Jesus, I don’t know, cause I’m your best friend, I’m family?” he throws back at me and it takes me a second to realize he’s not pissed off at me, he’s hurt.
I hold up a hand. “I’m sorry, okay?” I start. “That was a shit thing to say.”
“Yeah, it really fucking was,” Reid spits out, still not moving.
I take a deep breath in before letting it out on a long slow exhale, before I finally admit, “I don’t know how to tell you.”
Reid’s face softens. “Why?” he asks. “Nothing you say is gonna change my opinion about you, you know that.”
I raise a brow in question, my heart beating rapidly in my chest now as my mind flicks back through the previous two years and all the shit he doesn’t know about. “Really?”
“Caleb,” he says, stepping closer as he puts a hand on my shoulder. “I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for you after Sie and I left, okay? I really can’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know or that you can’t talk to me about it.”
“Even if it involves your dad?” I say, testing how much he means what he’s saying.
His grip on my shoulder tightens. “Especially if it involves my dad,” he says, his voice low.
We stare at each other now, neither of us saying anything else. Eventually Reid sighs, letting go of my shoulder as he turns and starts walking again. I follow him, the two of us once again walking silently side by side.
“I used to think about all the ways I could turn him in,” I eventually say, my gaze focused on the path in front of us. From the corner of my eye I see Reid glance at me, before quickly turning away, almost as though he knows I can’t look at him while I say all of this.
“I used to dream about going to the cops or trying to record him when he came in and made his threats. He was good though; he knew what he was doing, and it was like he knew what I was thinking too.”
I pause as a shiver slides down the back of my neck. Reid still says nothing, just continues walking.
“I almost asked you about it once.”
“What?” he says, his gaze snapping to mine.
I give him a half smile. “Yeah, maybe six months after you left. You’d called to tell me something, I don’t know, maybe about football or whatever, and all I could think about was how that afternoon, your dad had been talking to me about the same thing. Telling me how I’d thrown away a promising football career to try and save my deadbeat dad.”
“Jesus, Caleb,” Reid says, his voice laced with sympathy and remorse as he stops walking again. “I didn’t know, man. I’m—”
“I know you didn’t,” I say, cutting him off. “That’s not why I’m telling you this.” Reid swallows hard as though he doesn’t know what to say. “I knew you didn’t know what your dad was doing, not all the shitty, illegal stuff I mean. Not the violence.”
“I swear, I really didn’t.”
I glance over at him with a smile. “I know,” I repeat.
Reid gives me a quick nod in acknowledgement before we start walking again. “What stopped you from asking me then?”
“I don’t know,” I stall. “I think I realized I didn’t want you to have the life I had. You’d left, you’d gotten away, Sie too and I knew I had to protect that. That neither of you deserved to be dragged back into the shithole we were all supposed to leave behind.”
Reid takes a deep breath as he shoves his free hand through his hair. I can tell he’s struggling with what I’m saying to him, with the knowledge that if he knew about things, so much of this could have been prevented. “I wish you had told me,” he says, his voice quiet. “I mean, I get why you didn’t, but I really wish you had.”
“I know.”
“Will you…” he pauses, clearing his throat a little before he continues. “Will you tell me what happened that night?”
Without spelling it out, we both know what night he’s talking about. It’s a night I’ve tried so fucking hard to wipe from my memory, but a night that never seems to fade, no matter how many miles or how much time I put between it and now.
“You really want to know?” I ask, my voice weirdly calm.
Reid’s hand lands on my shoulder again, the two of us still walking as he squeezes once and whispers, “Yeah.”
My eyes close briefly as I take a deep breath and try to figure out how the hell I’m supposed to talk about the night my best friend’s dad came over and nearly killed me. It’s not just something I want to forget. It’s something I don’t want to burden Reid with either. It’s too much and I know that no matter what’s happened since, no matter the choices Reid has already made, hearing this will not be a good thing for him.
“Caleb,” he prompts, my name barely audible.
Exhaling slowly and with my eyes firmly fixed in front of me, I say, “It happened the night before you guys got back. I’d finished late at the bar and when I walked outside to my car, I’d expected to see one of your dad’s guys waiting for me.” I sound like a robot, as though I’m recounting someone else’s story.
“They did that?” Reid’s question is so quiet I barely hear it.
“Yeah,” I nod. “They’d started about six months before. They never did anything, just casually reminded me of the payment system my dad was failing to meet. After he died, things got a little more threatening, but it was never physical. Not then anyway.”
I pause, taking another deep breath as I feel my heart rate start to pick up, thumping steadily beneath my ribcage, even as my chest starts to feel tight. My skin feels clammy and I unzip my hoodie to let in the cool night air.
“But that night, no one was waiting for me. I didn’t know why. I still hadn’t paid. We didn’t have the money. Deep down, I knew it was too good to be true to think they’d decided to let it go. I mean, I’d heard the rumors and everything.”
Reid glances over at me but says nothing this time. I don’t bother elaborating, because there’s no point. I mean all three of us always knew Reid’s dad was a bit sketchy, we just never realized how bad it was. At least Reid and Sie hadn’t.
“When I got home,” I continue, as we turn off the main street and into the quieter residential streets. I realize Reid has been walking the long way back, giving me space and time to answer his question. “I knew something wasn’t right, didn’t feel right. The house was in darkness, which was nothing new, I mean I could barely afford the electricity bill. But I always left the front light on, you know…in case,” I add, glancing over at Reid.
He opens his mouth as though to say something, but it’s too late now and I keep talking.
“When I got out of the car, the night, the whole street was so eerily quiet, my footsteps up to the house sounded so loud. I remember holding my phone up to the lock so I could get my key in and seeing the text message you’d sent with a picture of Sie holding a guitar and laughing. She was so fucking happy, which made me smile, made me so glad you were doing that for her.”
“Shit,” Reid whispers and I can hear the pain in his voice now. I know he feels like shit about the fact they were off having fun while all of this was happening to me.
“It was his voice that shocked me the most,” I continue. “It was so fucking cold, so calm. I remember freezing in the doorway, unable to move. I c
ould feel him standing behind me as he told me just how much money I owed him and exactly what my punishment would be if I didn’t pay it back. How he reminded me of what had happened to Dad…the obvious implication behind that.”
Reid finally stops, turning to face me with a look that can only be described as anguish on his face. “Caleb, you don’t have to—”
“I know,” I tell him, with a small smile, because I know he means it. “The funny thing is, the beating didn’t actually hurt that much. Well I mean, it did, but not as much as the realization of what was happening did. Of the fact that my best friend’s dad, a man who’s house I’d practically grown up in, could do this.”
“You didn’t deserve that, Caleb,” Reid says, shaking his head. “You didn’t—”
“Neither do you,” I say, cutting him off.
“This isn’t—”
“That’s what hurt most of all,” I continue, cutting him off again. “That this wasn’t just done to me, it was done to you, too. He was doing this to both of us.”
“Fuck, Caleb,” Reid breathes out, stepping closer as he throws his arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him. We stand in a half embrace on the sidewalk, neither of us speaking. I can practically feel the anger radiating off him, the hard beat of his heart, echoing through the space between us.
“I wish I could’ve done something to stop this,” he whispers, his voice low, his grip tightening around my shoulders as I try to move away from him. “I wish I had done something sooner so none of this ever happened in the first place.”
“It’s not your fault and you did do something, remember? You ended it.”
Reid nods once before pulling back, his hand on my shoulder. “I know he never gave a shit about this,” he says, his hard gaze holding mine, telling me what he’s referring to. “But I do. And I will never, ever do anything like that.”
“I know you won’t.”
“You and Sie are my family, Caleb,” he continues as though he hasn’t even heard me. “You always will be.”