ON AIR

by Hadley Quinn

  I took a deep breath, still considering his words about my dad and Jenni’s. But it was all in the past. I focused on the matter at hand.

  “Jessica Sinclair Holt.”

  I watched his face. It was expressionless for the most part, but I noticed his eyes flash with recognition. Instead of sitting behind his desk, he sat down in the other visitor’s chair next to me. I could tell his jaw was clenched because of that dancing vein in his temple.

  “So your curiosity just couldn’t take a rest, huh?”

  “Oh come on, Emmet. She came to me.”

  Emmet didn’t budge except to blink. Finally he cleared his throat and glanced behind him at the bustle on the other side of the window. He turned around to face me again but was looking down at the floor as he leaned forward onto his knees.

  “Dane, I just thought it was best.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He looked up at me. “It means you should just drop the whole thing.”

  “Drop it? I was completely caught off guard. Felt like I was fucking sucker punched! I looked like a goddamn fool, and you’re lucky I actually kept my composure. For the most part.”

  He pursed his lips. I could see the vein in his temple was bulging now. And for some reason, I was feeling bold. I was struggling with life. I was unhappy with people lately. I was just fucking fed up. I was pissed off that he didn’t tell me, and I used Davey’s previous accusation to deliberately start shit with him right then.

  “Are you doing crap you shouldn’t be, Emmet?” I asked straight up.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “What in the ever loving fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Are you a dirty cop?”

  He popped up from his seat, reached forward and hauled me out of the chair, slamming me up against the wall. The door flew open and a couple of guys intervened. The one in the suit and tie pushed Emmet off of me, and when there was distance between us, the cop in uniform took up that space to keep us apart.

  “The hell is the matter with you?” the suit asked Emmet. He glanced back at me with an angry face, but returned his attention to Emmet for an answer.

  He said nothing.

  “It’s no big deal,” I spoke up, stepping away from the wall.

  As quick as I did, the uniformed cop shoved me back like he was afraid I was going to attack. I respected his authority, but I didn’t like being handled at all. I straightened my clothes defiantly, and oddly, wondered if I’d rocked Davey as hard as Emmet had just done to me.

  “Family shit,” Emmet finally said. He turned away from the suit and tie so he could compose himself. “I’m good.”

  Silent conversation was exchanged between the three of them, and then the other two cops left the office, shutting the door behind them.

  I’d never seen Emmet fly off the handle like that, but I guess accusing someone of being a dirty cop would do that. I’d certainly react the same way. Some of us took pride in our integrity.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m sorry I just threw that at you.”

  “Well you’ve got some explaining to do,” he growled at me, taking another deep breath. He released it as he sat behind the desk this time. Scrubbing his hands over his face, he told me to have another seat.

  I eyed the big desk between us and considered it to be somewhat safe.

  Sitting down, I sighed. “I talked to David Denman. He told me he just missed getting busted that night. He claims there’s someone inside the police bureau who’s in with Danzig.”

  “Well Danzig’s in jail,” Emmet waved flippantly with his hand. “That fucker will be off the streets for a while now.” I waited for him to expound, but he didn’t. “So why the hell did Jessica Holt pay you a visit?”

  I paused as I adjusted to the topic switch. “First of all, did you pay her a visit first? I realize you never said outright that you didn’t see her in person that day, but I’m assuming you did. Right?”

  He sighed impatiently. “Of course I did. Because of the flowers. And no, I didn’t know she was the city voice person. Only after I questioned her boss and got her full name. Then I asked to speak to her directly.”

  “And for some reason you didn’t think that was information I should know?”

  “No. I didn’t. I looked into it, Dane. She didn’t send you the spider flowers. She told me she’d been emailing with you and wanted to talk to you. She thought it was meant to be. I said no. Told her it was best not to. The case is over. No need to drag the skeletons out of the closet.”

  “I think that’s one skeleton you should have told me about,” I retorted.

  “If it went any further, then yes I would have.”

  I laughed cynically. “Well here we are. She came to my office. Introduced herself.”

  He rubbed his face again. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not good enough.”

  His eyes met mine. “Look, she was seventeen, Dane. A minor—”

  “Hailey Holt lied to the police. They both did. You were there. How can you sit there and not see how wrong that was?”

  “The media likes to twist the shit out of every story they can. They like to create chaos and extravagant headlines to get readers to their pages, channels, and websites. Not everything is black and white. I told you that justice was served. You still choose to not believe me.”

  I stood abruptly. “I sat in a courtroom and watched a woman and her younger sister get away with lying through their teeth. That is not justice!”

  “When you look at it through the law, then no it wasn’t. I could tell you more about Jessica Holt, but it’s none of your fucking business. It’s sealed information. Maybe she would have told you herself, but I assume you were a big jackhole and spit in her face.”

  I wanted to yell at him and claim I would have done worse than that if she’d stayed, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “I’m sorry you’re going through this again, Dane.”

  “Empty words.”

  His hand smashed against the desk so loud it made me jump. “Those are not empty words!” The echo lingered in the air for a few seconds. Then he exhaled, and I swear I saw his eyes glisten with moisture.

  The only time I’d ever seen Emmet Greene cry was after my father died. It wasn’t during the funeral, or even afterward at the memorial the bureau held a week later. It was almost two months after my parents had left this earth. Emmet had asked if I’d go fishing with him. It was something my father loved to do, and they used to go together. But we sat there on the riverbank for almost an hour, staring at the water. Neither of us had even cast our poles. Suddenly he just completely broke down. He cried how sorry he was and how much he missed my parents. He cried for Chloe and how heartbroken she’d been. And he finally cried how sorry he was that he’d never be half the man my father was.

  He promised he’d always be around to help us out, and I promised he didn’t have to try to fill my father’s shoes. And we never spoke of it again. Deep down I’d always known what that day was really about, but for some reason it had never hit me so clearly as it did right then in his office.

  “I’ve never dishonored my badge,” he eventually added. “That case with Danzig did involve playing both sides, but it was the way the bureau wanted to handle it. I’m not dirty. I can’t say more than that.”

  I only nodded. Despite everything that had happened and what was currently coming to the surface, I believed him.

  “But I’m not a perfect man,” he continued.

  “I don’t need you to say it.”

  “I feel like I should.”

  “I’m beginning to realize the truth, I don’t need to hear you say it.”

  He stared at me for a very long time. I could see the sadness in his eyes, the remorse and the pain…but I didn’t see any regret. Somehow I’d always known but was never ready to let it break the surface. I didn’t understand what that meant about myself. I never knew why I couldn’t come to terms with it. Maybe because I knew it would change
even more things in my life.

  “I loved her, you know,” he finally said. “I loved your mother with all my heart.”

  32

  You know when you’ve really hashed something out with a person and you’re left totally and completely drained, physically and emotionally?

  I took almost a week off work after I left Emmet’s office. There was nothing left of me when I stood and walked out of his precinct in silence. And now I had so many questions I wanted answers to because I hadn’t exactly hashed everything out with him.

  I knew he’d loved my mother. I knew she’d loved him in return. Back then I didn’t know who it was my mom had been involved with, but it all made sense now. Certain words I caught between my parents here and there; Emmet came around less. And when he was around, there were a mix of moments that I could piece together now. Again, more words here and there, behaviors changing. Despite everything, my dad and Emmet remained friends, and my parents stayed together for Chloe and me.

  And I was still angry about that.

  God, I was beginning to think life was just meant to be one giant mindfuck, and we were supposed to sit back and watch it all happen.

  On the fourth day I was holed up in my house, Madden broke my door down. I mean literally. He fucking busted through it to get inside. After listening to him knock and ring my bell for ten minutes while I sat on the couch in my underwear, I don’t think I even flinched when he came hurling into my living room.

  The asshole took the door that was hanging on half a hinge and casually propped it back into the frame like nothing happened. He sat on the couch on the opposite end from me.

  “I ordered pizza,” he stated.

  And just like that I seemed to accept his intrusion. It wasn’t just the offering of food, but the friendship that had propelled it. I put pants on. We ate, drank beer, and watched baseball. I knew he was going crazy with worry. Probably a lot of confusion and stress, too. I felt obligated to share what I wasn’t ready to share, but if I didn’t, I didn’t know how long I was going to remain sane.

  Finally I said, “Sinclair is Jessica Holt—the seventeen-year-old driver who was tried for killing my parents. Her older sister, Hailey, was actually the one who had been driving. Plain as fucking day that was the case. Hailey was twenty-two; she had a nine-month-old baby at home… I don’t fucking know,” I waved it off. “But Jessica took the blame. Huge controversial case about her getting off so easy because of her age and the fact she was an honor student about to go to college.” I explained this to Madden because, although he knew how my parents died, I’d never really shared too much about it. He hadn’t even moved to Portland until two years after they died.

  I couldn’t quite remember all the media jumble from back then—probably because I’d spent the last seven years trying to block it out. All I knew was that Jessica and Hailey had switched seats after the accident. Several witnesses had sworn that’s how they left a friend’s house that night—with Hailey behind the wheel. Jessica hadn’t been drinking, but her sister had been over the legal limit.

  The news that Jessica Holt was Madden’s mysterious Sinclair was a blow to him. I didn’t see it on his face because I didn’t look at him—we were both staring straight ahead at the television—but I could feel it radiating from him.

  After a few minutes of silence, he finally said, “Wow. I can’t even… I can’t.”

  Yeah, I couldn’t either. It took me years to get over just the circumstances of my parents’ death and the case that evolved from it. That shit had circulated through the media pretty harshly. People were outraged that Jessica got off so easily, but especially that someone—Hailey—hadn’t accepted responsibility for the crime; that she’d coerced her sister into taking the fall in hopes they’d both walk away without any repercussions. Then there were those who supported the teenager because she was “an honor student; a sweet and caring athlete who was going to graduate with a college scholarship—why should her life be ruined for one mistake? Accidents happen.”

  “I kind of read up on the facts a couple years back,” Madden admitted. “You told me about your parents’ accident and how it happened. You were vague though. I was curious.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “There was even a petition going around to get that judge de-throned.”

  Even in a shitty mood, I still smiled at his choice of words. But I also sighed. “Yeah, it got pretty intense. A beloved cop versus a perfect student with a bright future.”

  From the corner of my eye, I could see him nod his agreement. We both reached for another slice of pizza, and while he took a huge bite, I paused for a second.

  “Guess who my mom had an affair with. Emmet Greene.” I said this casually, like I was announcing the weather.

  Madden choked on his food, and as he coughed, tossed the half eaten slice into the box so he could take a swig of beer. “What the fuck?”

  Leaning my head back, I stared at the ceiling as I recapped my entire visit at the police bureau. I’m honestly not sure if I felt no emotion to any of it or if I was just so beaten down I hadn’t had time to process all of it yet. I’d spent four days going through every single conversation with my dad that I could remember. It was like he wasn’t even mad at my mom—or Emmet, now that I knew who she’d been seeing.

  I didn’t understand any of it.

  “I don’t either, man,” Madden replied.

  I wasn’t even sure how much of that last part I’d said out loud. I turned my head to see him mirroring my position.

  “I’m sorry, man,” he proffered softly.

  Returning my gaze to the ceiling again, I shrugged. “Hm. Nothing to be sorry about. It is what it is.”

  I set the slice of pizza back in the box and continued to talk. I’m not even sure what drew it out of me, but it was like the dam had burst and only more was going to rush through before it slowed down. I talked about Natalie quite a bit and how much I missed her. I confessed that I had fucked up with her big time. Everything I’d been mad about hadn’t even been her fault. I was such a piece of shit because I couldn’t even admit to her I’d been wrong. I realized so many of the good things that had been in my life had a lot to do with her.

  “She loves you, Dane. It’s time you admit that to yourself, and then you either shit or get off the pot.”

  He was so right. Problem was, if I made the decision to proceed with Nat…that’s what it was going to be. None of this back and forth crap, and no more misunderstandings or off-and-on with her. I didn’t want that in a relationship. There were always ups and downs—I knew that—but I wanted the stability of going through it together. No excuses.

  “So,” Madden exhaled after a bout of silence. “The mystery of Sinclair has been solved. Eh… I feel like one dumb son of a bitch.”

  “So do I.”

  “Yeah, but Jesus Christ, I was obsessed with her.”

  So was I. And just the thought of that—being so preoccupied with something so precarious—made me feel like a loser. I’d spent so much time on something I knew could blow up in my face. It did and here I was, with more questions than I could handle.

  “I probably should have talked to her more. I kicked her out of my office.”

  “Understandable, bro. She manipulated the situation. Not cool. But even though the circumstances are really weird—I mean really fucking weird—maybe this all happened for a reason.

  God, I didn’t want to think about “fate.”

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me,” he continued. “I’m being serious.”

  I sighed. “After the ruling, I was presented the opportunity to meet with Jessica Holt so she could give me and Chloe a face-to-face apology.”

  Madden paused. “So why didn’t you? Just the thought of it being too hard?”

  “No, just the fact that I knew she wasn’t the one who had been driving. She was going to apologize to me for something she didn’t do? It would have been a mockery, a lie. And Chloe… Yeah, my sister accepted t
he letter Jessica wrote, but it didn’t do much. It didn’t change what happened.”

  We sat in silence for almost a minute before Madden asked about Emmet again. He wanted to know how I really felt and what or if I was going to do anything about it.

  “I honestly don’t know. Like I said, it’s been right in front of me but I was never willing to acknowledge it. There’s gotta be a reason for that.”

  “He was your dad’s best friend. He’s really the only person in your life who knew him so well. Maybe better than you because there are some things you just don’t talk to your kids about when you’re an adult. Your dad felt he should let it go and move on. Maybe that choice was hard for him and maybe it wasn’t, but you should probably respect his decision. And maybe you forgave Emmet subconsciously because there’d already been too much grief taking up your life. The accident and the aftermath of all that was quite a lot. Sometimes people are just too tired to face anything more.”

  I turned my head to face my best friend. For a goofy motherfucker, he sure did come through when I needed him to. I guess you couldn’t ask for anything more than that in a person. They make you laugh and enjoy life, but will kick your ass and feed you the honest truth when you need it.

  I believed he was one hundred percent right.

  A nod was my only response. The candid bro talk was over. We watched the rest of the game and finished off the entire pizza.

  Oh yeah, and we both fixed the front door together.

  33

  Life really is about growth and learning. I believe our potential depends on how much we’re willing to refine ourselves, and sometimes that process can vary. There were some obstacles I’d overcome simply because I was forced to, but there were also some that I really needed to resolve with calculated effort.

  You can’t always help who you are. Some of our innate characteristics are ingrained in us permanently. I believed my sister would always be a sweet, caring person just as much as I believed myself to be a decent guy. I also knew we were both stubborn, but whereas Chloe could easily admit it, I wasn’t so bendable.