by CP Smith
A lightbulb went off, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. “He was with my grandfather last night. He’s—he’s Bobby’s alibi, isn’t he?”
He nodded slowly, watching me closely.
“That means if Bobby killed Taft, then my grandfather knows,” I whisper-shouted.
I’d had waking nightmares about Maria running for her life, and Taft laid open like a fish, wondering what kind of person could do such a thing. Now evidence again pointed to the fact that my grandfather was involved.
My heart started pounding, and I stood abruptly, threading my hands through my hair. “I’ve gotta get back to work,” I said for an excuse to leave.
What I needed was to run, to burn off the adrenaline coursing through my body making my heart race.
Devin stood and tried to take my hand, but I pulled back. “I can’t do this right now.”
Poppy and Sienna stood, too, and made their way around the table. When they started to reach out to me, I stepped back from them, as well. I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want them to comfort me. I didn’t want . . . to tarnish any of them with my fucked-up family.
“I have to go,” I mumbled then grabbed my purse. I made it two steps before Devin grabbed my arm and started steering me in the direction of Frock You and my apartment.
“I need to be alone,” I begged.
“That’s the last thing you fuckin’ need.”
“He’s involved, Devin. He’s evil, just like Bobby.”
“If he is, then we’ll deal with it.”
Deal with it? How do you deal with a grandfather who’s a murderer? How do you deal with the fact that an innocent young woman was dead because of your family? How do you fall in love with someone and sentence them to a life of being with the granddaughter of a killer? A man like Devin, who stood for truth and justice, deserved better.
I began to shake, the need to run overwhelming.
Ripping my arm from his grasp, I took three steps back and put my hand up to stop him from following. “You need to stay away from me. I knew this thing between us would end eventually, so I’m savin’ us both the heartache of becomin’ attached and you the stress of defendin’ my family when this all comes out.”
He looked shell-shocked.
“I don’t know where the fuck this is comin’ from, but if you think I‘m lettin’ you walk away from me, think again,” Devin growled.
“I think you don’t have a choice,” I answered.
I would save him from my family even if he wouldn’t.
Devin took a step toward me, but I backed up further. One of the haunted Savannah trolleys was heading in our direction, so I waited a second more then said, “Good-bye, Devin,” and ran across the street just in front of the trolley so he couldn’t follow. Ducking, I jumped into the back of the Trolley and plastered myself to the wall. The man at the front narrowed his eyes at me, and I mouthed, “Please,” as tears began to fall. He ducked and looked out the back when I heard Devin shout, “Calla?” He looked back at me and nodded. I don’t know if he thought I was running from an abusive boyfriend, and I really didn’t care. I just need space to think.
After we’d gone a fair distance, I peeked over the railing to see if I’d made a clean getaway. Devin was running in the opposite direction, pushing through the crowd, and my heart sank a little.
“You hidin’ from somethin’?” an elderly woman asked from the seat in front of me.
“Yeah.”
“Can I ask what?”
I thought about that a moment. “My past, my future, what could have been but can never be.”
“You’ve got a lot of baggage.”
I nodded. “I do.”
“Maybe you should unload some of it and move on?”
“I hear Florida is nice,” I answered jokingly.
“Not move, let it go.” I looked over the railing again and saw Devin standing in the street; he was turning in circles trying to get a lock on my location. The trolley had stopped for traffic, and he glanced at it and then started moving in our direction.
I slid down the wall with my back resting against it, praying the traffic would clear.
“Well?” the old woman asked.
“Well what?”
“Are you gonna let the past dictate your future?”
I looked at her. “My past and future are rolled together, held hostage by an evil man.”
“And?”
“And? Explain, how can I have a future when anyone I invite into my life will be touched by that evil?”
“So you choose to be a martyr to your own happiness?”
“No, that’s not what I’m doin’. Simply put, I don’t want anyone to suffer because of me.”
“And walkin’ away from them isn’t makin’ them suffer?” she tsked. “My momma used to tell me that every action in this life touches someone. How we choose to live our lives is the difference between touchin’ someone with the hand of God or the hand of the devil. I’d say walkin’ away from someone you care about is about as far away from God’s love as one can go.”
The trolley rocked forward, heading down the street again as I digested the old woman’s wisdom.
“What exactly are you plannin’ to do if you escape?” she asked, looking over my shoulder at the road behind us.
“Rightin’ a wrong done to an innocent woman.”
“And then?”
I shook my head and looked down. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.
“Well, you got about fifty feet to decide, and I’m thinkin’ if you don’t shit and get off the pot now, then your future will be decided for you.”
I snorted at her colloquialism. This sweet old lady with her words of wisdom had a potty mouth. “Why do you say that?”
“That way leads to evil, does is not?” she pointed in front of her. “And that way leads to God’s grace, where you can touch lives with light, so they’ll forget about the darkness.” She pointed in Devin’s direction. “So what’s it gonna be? Follow the path into darkness and sacrifice a part of your soul in the process, or take a leap of faith that God will work his grace inside of you?”
✿✿✿
Turning in circles, Devin had a sinking feeling he couldn’t shake. Calla was slipping away from him like tiny grains of sand through his fingers, and he knew in his bones if he didn’t find her now, she would do something stupid. Something she’d never recover from.
Though their paths had only crossed a few days before, set on a collision course that neither one of them could stop, he felt like he’d known her his whole life. In a short amount of time, she’d become his other half—his fucking heart. Serendipity, as she’d said that first night, had played a hand in bringing them together, and now that he’d found his heart, he wasn’t about to let her go.
As he scanned the street, his heart raced to a thunderous beat, but his gut burned with hatred for her grandfather. He was slowly piecing together that both grandparents withheld affection during her upbringing. Used manipulation instead of love to bully a woman so full of love and compassion that she’d sacrifice what she wanted just to spare him from her grandfather’s own brand of evil.
Panic began to set in as seconds ticked by without locating her. He’d never felt this helpless. A bruiser of a man didn’t faze him. Death barely touched him now, but this half-pint of a woman with lavender eyes that reached into his soul would be his undoing.
Where the fuck are you?
He caught sight of the trolley she’d ducked behind and took off running. It was the only place he hadn’t looked. It was two blocks ahead and ready to turn off of River Street for the rest of its tour.
One block away.
He pushed his legs faster.
Half a block away.
It turned the corner.
“Stop!” he roared, pushing through tourists as they ambled slowly down the cobblestone street.
He rounded the corner, but he was too late. The trolley was gone, heading to some unkno
wn graveyard to captivate the masses.
He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath while he formulated a plan. She wouldn’t allow her grandfather to get away with murder, so he’d check there first. If she wasn’t at his home, then he’d check at Jones’ house. He knew his betrayal was eating at her as well. She’d called him her friend, like an annoying older brother you couldn’t stand, but you loved anyway because they were family. She’d told him softly, in the dead of night while he held her, that if he’d asked, she would have done anything for him within reason.
Yet another person in her life who had used and manipulated her for their own end.
When he found Calla, he was tempted to keep right on going out of town. They couldn’t hurt her if they couldn’t find her. Then again, if what he suspected was true, she wouldn’t be seeing them anyway. Not unless she felt like making a drive to the maximum-security prison on the other side of the state.
Pushing off his thighs, Devin turned to head back to his bike. Then he stopped in his tracks. Calla stood five feet behind him. Her head was bowed, her eyes cast toward the road, and he could see tears dripping from her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He couldn’t move, unable to bridge the gap between them for fear she would turn tail and run again. He could see it in her rigid lines and curled palms; she would bolt at the slightest provocation. She may have come back, but she wasn’t a hundred percent committed to the decision. No, he couldn’t take the first step. She had to come to him of her own free will; it had to be her decision to take the first step, or she’d balk and he’d lose her forever.
“Talk to me,” Devin muttered cautiously.
She chanced a guarded glance at him before she began.
“You need to understand that I’ve been lonely my whole life. Even with Bernice and Eunice showering me with love, I was still hollow—empty inside. Then you showed up like a force of nature and life had color. Instead of hollow, I felt full. You have me off-balance. Every moment around you feels like ridin’ a rollercoaster. When you say my name or call me baby, my head spins in circles. I’ve never had that, and I don’t want to lose it. But I’ve lost everything I’ve ever loved in the past, and because of that, it taught me to protect myself by leavin’ first. That’s what I did today.”
She wasn’t the only one spinning like a wheel. Every shy smile and touch of her hand distracted him like nothing had in his life.
“Baby—” he started to reassure her that he wasn’t the type of man who walked away. That when he committed to something, he saw it through until evidence suggested it was time for a new course of action. And the evidence in front of him told him he was looking at his future wife, but she raised her hand and stopped him before he could explain.
“There’s more,” she said. “. . . My whole life my family’s history, their legacy to this city has been retold like Scripture from the Bible, and it’s a deep part of who I am. I can’t run from that, from my roots, or my responsibility to honor my ancestors, no matter what my grandfather has done. It’s my cross to bear, not yours or the girls’. That’s also why I ran. I wanted to protect you from the weight of it.”
She stopped for a moment, looking around the street as if searching for an answer, so he held his tongue, praying she’d find the right answer for both of them.
When she turned back to him, a decision clear in her eyes, he took a deep breath and waited. “I need your help. I don’t know how to do this, Devin.” She motioned with her hand between them both. “I don’t know how to protect you from who I am, protect my own heart, and keep you at the same time.”
“You don’t,” he answered, relieved, able to take a breath that didn’t feel like his last. “That’s my job.”
Her brows pulled together in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Calla, it’s my job to protect you, not the other way around. To make sure you’re happy, that you feel full instead of hollow, and it’s my fuckin’ job to make sure you never feel lonely again.”
“Then what’s my job?”
“To love me.” Her lips began to tremble, and it took sheer strength of will not to reach out and crush her to him. But he continued instead. “To crave my touch, to trust me with your whole heart. To fix me when I need fixin’, to lay your troubles on my shoulders so you don’t have to carry them. To need me more than air. To just fuckin’ love me.”
“That’s it?” she asked around a restrained sob. “That’s all I have to do?”
Devin chanced a step forward and put out his hand. She looked at it, then up at his face. His eyes begged her to reach out and take his hand, to reach out and choose him.
“It’s fuckin’ everything to me,” he growled, but the words caught midway out, broken with his unspoken plea.
A small sob escaped her lips, and she looked at his outstretched hand again, but she didn’t move.
“You have to come to me,” he explained. “It has to be your decision. But understand, if you take my hand, that’s it. No more runnin’ from me. No more tryin’ to protect me from your family. You’ll be mine. Completely. And baby, if you haven’t already clued in, I take that very seriously.”
She raised her hand then hesitated.
Searching his face again, she looked deeply into his eyes and asked, “You promise?”
He wasn’t sure what she was asking him to promise, but he had a good idea. She’d been left behind by the death of her family, unloved except for her aunts, manipulated by a grandfather who should have protected her, and used as an excuse to murder a woman by a man she considered a friend. She was asking him to guard her heart, not to leave her behind, and not to trample over the gift she was giving him—her love.
“I promise,” he vowed, the words ripping from his mouth with force.
She didn’t take his hand when he answered. Instead, she took a step and threw herself into his arms then buried her head in his neck and wept, words of sorrow for Maria, her mother, what it would do to her aunts when they found out, all mixed together.
When she slumped against him, Devin went to his knees and pulled her in tighter, holding on while she let go. Cars passed by, tourists, too, all staring at them as they headed for Bay Street to escape the heat in one of the local bars. And still he held her while she emptied years of loneliness, disappointment, of self-inflicted solitude onto his shirt.
Once the tide of emotion ebbed, Devin stood slowly and helped Calla to her feet. When she looked up at him, he tried to wipe the slowing river of black from beneath her eyes.
“Let’s get you home,” he whispered, then brushed a kiss across her mouth. But as he did, the bricks beside him exploded and mortar peppered the air, blinding him for an instant. On instinct, he picked Calla up at her waist and took off down the sidewalk.
“What just happened?” she cried.
Devin ignored her and pushed through the crowd before he put her down and grabbed her hand, taking off at a run. He hadn’t heard the report of a gun, but he’d been in enough firefights to know when a bullet had just missed his head and buried itself into the brick and mortar. If he hadn’t leaned down and kissed Calla when he did, he’d be dead right now.
✿✿✿
Devin stormed into the detectives’ division looking for Strawn. He’d left Calla at her aunts’ with strict instructions to stay inside. She’d agreed, but they’d kept what happened to themselves to keep from upsetting Bernice and Eunice. She’d told them she had a headache and Devin had brought her home from work so she could rest. They believed it, and started making her tea as he’d said good-bye to her in Frock You’s kitchen.
Strawn looked up as he entered and motioned to him with a jerk of his head to an empty interrogation room.
Devin followed, holding his tongue until the door was closed behind him.
“Tell me you got that viper to talk,” he bit out. “Calla and I just got shot at in broad daylight with tourists everywhere. I want Jones and Armstrong off the street. If
they’re willin’ to risk Calla as collateral damage in their quest to save themselves, then they’re willin’ to do anything.”
When he was done, Strawn took the floor out from underneath him.
“We confirmed not an hour ago that Armstrong, Jones, and his giant of a bodyguard were in Savannah at a business meetin’ when Taft was done.”
Devin closed his eyes and dropped his head, then his hand came to his face and he pinched the bridge of his nose to control his temper.
“You’re tellin’ me that Armstrong may be innocent of any wrongdoin’ concernin’ Maria Espinoza and Charles Taft?”
After what Calla just went through, he wanted to kill someone. He thought he was protecting her, giving her time to ease into the idea that he may be involved, that’s why he’d told her about her grandfather being Jones’ alibi. He’d put her through hell for nothing.
“That’s what I’m tellin’ you. We’ve got thirty men who will testify in court that Armstrong and Jones were in a meetin’ and couldn’t have been on Tybee Island. And not only that, their own drivers confirmed the giant didn’t leave the parkin’ garage.”
Devin turned and put his fist through sheetrock. It didn’t ease the rage boiling under his skin, so he punched it again. Then again.
“You feel better?” Strawn asked as he waved off a patrolman who’d opened the door to check on Strawn.
“Not in the fuckin’ least,” he growled. “My woman just emptied her soul on my shoulder because I told her that her grandfather might be coverin’ for Jones last night. That’s what we believed when I left here, so I tried to ease her into the idea, and she handled it about as well as a kitten bein’ thrown into the river. So until I know exactly what the hell is goin’ on, I’m not gonna tell her otherwise and get her hopes up, yet again.”
“Jesus,” Strawn replied.
“You don’t know the fuckin’ half of it, my friend, so lay this out for me one more time before I rip that old man’s head off. Because someone, I’ll repeat, just took a shot at me and Calla on the fuckin’ street.”
“All right, let’s start at the beginnin’. Maria overhears Jones talkin’ about marryin’ Calla, and she’s followed by at least Stutter and Yoo. Jones could have been there, but we don’t know.”