by Mark Stone
“You’re going to try,” he said. “Even though I’m telling you that the people responsible for this are too powerful to be taken down, you’re still going to try. It’s in your nature. I’ve seen your exploits reported on enough to know that.” He ran a haggard hand through his hair. “You’ll fail though. It won’t be your fault, but you will. When you do, I don’t want you to be so hard on yourself. I want you to know it’s alright.”
I took a deep breath, puffing my chest up. “If you think that’s what’s going to happen, then you don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do. I don’t cower to powerful people, Mr. Mayberry. I stand up to them and, if I have to, I crush them in order to do what’s right. I’m going to do that for you, too. I swear it.”
Chapter 11
11 Months Later
“Dillon Storm, are you out of your mind?” the shrill voice of June, Rebecca’s aunt and our resident (and self-appointed) wedding expert, shot out at me as she pushed me out of the doorway with a huge and indelicate hand. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I want to talk to my fiancé,” I said, plastering on the fake smile that had become second nature to me in the three weeks that Rebecca’s aunt had been down here. She had come to help my girl plan the wedding, even though Rebecca told her it wasn’t necessary. Still, I suppose the gesture was sort of sweet, even if June’s nature was about as far away from the sweet, kind way her niece went about things as possible.
In fact, the two had almost nothing in common. If not for the fact that they shared the seafoam eyes my grandfather had been so enamored by when he first met Rebecca, I’d have thought one of them had been switched at birth.
Oh, well. You know what they say. You marry a woman. You marry her whole family.
“Your fiancé is otherwise occupied, and you should be, too,” June sneered back at me. “Don’t you have some groom business you can attend to?”
“Actually,” I started, my smile stretching to almost the point of breaking. “Being the groom in this sort of thing is pretty much a piece of cake. All I have to do is show up and say my lines.”
The older woman glared at me. “Show up and say your lines? Isn’t that exactly the kind of excitement every woman wants to see coming from the man of her dreams?” She rolled her eyes.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, swallowing hard. “I just mean that, in comparison to what Rebecca has to do, I’m getting off easy. Shouldn’t the fact that I want to see her now speak to how excited I am about this whole thing?”
“She’s trying on her wedding dress,” June said flatly. “I’m not sure how things are done this far south, but I can tell you that- where Rebecca comes from- a man doesn’t get to see his bride in her wedding dress until the ceremony.” She wiggled a finger in my face. “And he doesn’t get to see her out of it until after the ceremony, if you get my drift.”
“Well, you are laying it on pretty thick,” I answered, trying to keep my smile stalwart.
“June, can I see you?” a familiar voice said from behind me. Turning toward it, I saw Charlotte walking through the doorway I had just been so rudely pushed through, closing the door behind her.
“As soon as I get rid of our little intruder, sweetie,” June said, her eyes plastered on me.
“Okay, but Rebecca needs you,” Charlotte answered. “Something about a torn seam.”
“Oh, no!” June said, her entire body tensing as she jerked toward my ex-girlfriend. “Are you sure? Did she say the words ‘torn seam’?”
“I think so,” Charlotte said, shrugging.
“Then there’s no time to lose,” June said, darting back into the room. “Please show Dillon out, Charleston.”
“Charlotte,” Charlotte corrected her, but it was too late. June had already slammed the door shut.
“Sweet lady,” Charlotte said, looking over at me and running a hand through her curled red hair.
“You should try having dinner with her four nights a week,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“The things we do for love,” Charlotte answered, blinking at me.
“Tell me about it,” I answered. “Is everything okay in there?” I asked. “Seam-wise, I mean?”
“It’s fine,” Charlotte answered. “Rebecca told me to come out here and save your ass. I’m sure all your future wife’s seams are exactly as they should be.”
“Good,” I said. “And thanks for helping so much with this. It’s insane how close you and Rebecca have gotten because of this wedding.”
“I’m glad it happened,” Charlotte said, shuffling uncomfortably. “Though, to be completely honest, it’s a little weird that it’s your wedding.”
“Yeah,” I answered, pursing my lips together and braving the moment of awkwardness as our shared past reared its head. “Funny how life works.”
“I need to get to work. Wanna walk me to my car?” she asked, motioning toward the front door of Rebecca’s apartment building.
“I do,” I answered.
“Good,” she said, smiling. “And keep practicing that phrase. You’re going to have to say it in front of a bunch of people soon.”
“Hopefully,” I muttered, mostly to myself, as I walked behind her to the door.
“What does that mean?” she said, though she didn’t turn around to meet me.
A flush ran over me. I shook my head. I should have kept my mouth shut.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I said, rushing past Charlotte to open the door for her.
“Don’t give me that,” Charlotte said, glaring at me in the way only she could. “No one says something like that without them having a meaning behind it. That goes double for you, Dillon Storm. Now spill your guts. What’s going on in that head of yours?” She finally turned toward me as she walked outside, the warm Gulf breeze running across her hair. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”
“It’s the opposite actually,” I answered, motioning to Charlotte’s car.
I followed her as she walked toward it. She didn’t get inside though. Instead, she thrust herself up on the hood, moving her knees to her chest and motioning for me to do the same. It was a familiar move for her and one that brought back a lot of memories. I couldn’t have counted all the nights that the two of us used to sit on the hood of a car like this, getting things off our chests and making promises we had no business trying to keep.
I did as she asked, and suddenly, I was seventeen again, except with a whole new host of problems.
“Talk to me, Dilly,” she said, using the nickname only she did now that my grandfather was enjoying his retirement in Vero Beach.
“I don’t know what’s going on with me, Charlotte,” I admitted, looking out into the big blue abyss of the Gulf. “I love her. I love her so much it physically hurts me.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Of course,” I answered. “But I’ve never loved anything that didn’t leave me in one way or another. My mother, my grandfather-”
“Me,” she finished.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, turning to her, hurt flashing across my eyes. “What happened between us was different. We were kids.”
“And kids grow into adults,” she answered. “Adults who carry what happened to them when they were young along with them.” She took my hand. “I know I hurt you, Dilly. I would never try and deny that, but Rebecca isn’t me. Hell, I’m not even the me I used to me. She’s not going to leave you, not unless you drive her away.”
“I know,” I said, nodding. “It’s just that I haven’t been myself lately. I don’t know if it’s the wedding or something else. It’s just-”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Dilly,” she said, squeezing my hand. “You can’t save everyone. You can’t fix everything.”
Of course, she knew what I was talking about. I had lied when I told her I didn’t know what was irking me, the thing that was making me feel out of sorts.
Lilith
Mayberry’s face flashed through my mind. It had been months since I thought of her, months since I’d allowed myself to think of her. I made a promise to her and her husband. As he told me how I wouldn’t be able to break through the ivory wall that was Naple’s elite community, I swore to him that I would get to the bottom of it. I promised I would find his son’s killer. Almost one year later, and I was no closer than I had been that night. I had failed them, and it was tearing me up inside.
“It’ll be a year since that boy died in just a couple of weeks,” I said, sighing loudly. “One year since I let him get killed.”
“You can’t do this to yourself anymore, Dilly,” Charlotte said. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for something that isn’t your fault.”
“Of course, it’s my fault,” I answered. “It’s my job. It’s what I’m supposed to do, and I didn’t. I let him get taken, and then I let him die. I was the only one there who could have helped. Lilith begged me to follow him. If I had, maybe I could have saved him. Maybe I could have-”
Charlotte reared back and slapped me across the face hard.
“Stop this!” she said. “You are a lucky man, Dillon Storm. You have everything a person could want. This entire town loves you. You have a woman who’s ready to give her life to you, and you’re sitting here, fixated on one thing, a single imperfection. Don’t you see how crazy that is?”
I touched my face, feeling the sting that was meant to throw me back into reality.
“It’s a single mistake that destroyed the life of a family,” I answered. “They’re getting divorced, Gary and Lilith. Did you know that?”
“That’s not on you,” Charlotte said. “Just like the fact that Justin and I didn’t work out isn’t on you. I’ve told you that a hundred times.” She brushed my cheek with her hand, this time gently. “You’re a good man. You deserve to enjoy your life. God knows you deserve to enjoy your own damn wedding. Let the past stay where it belongs. Let it go, Dilly. Let it die.”
As the words left her mouth, my phone vibrated. Looking down, I saw a name I hadn’t seen in almost a year.
Lilith Mayberry had texted me. Looking at the message my heart stopped.
It’s Joel, Dillon. Something’s happened.
So much for the past staying in the past.
Chapter 12
Knocking on the door of Lilith’s home, I took a deep breath. After Joel went missing, the woman’s anger turned not only on me but on the police department as a whole.
Unlike her soon to be ex-husband, Lilith didn’t seem to think finding her son’s killer was impossible. She did, however, think it was almost unnecessary. She didn’t care about justice, didn’t care about closure, and didn’t care about making the people responsible pay for their sins. No. With her son gone, Lilith didn’t seem to care about much of anything.
The door swung open and my body tensed. I hadn’t seen Lilith in several months now, aside from photos in newspaper articles speaking to the divorce she was going through and the fact that her one-time mayoral candidate of an ex-husband was now engaged to the very same secretary who he was seeing when Joel disappeared all those months ago.
“Gary,” I said, narrowing my eyes and looking him over. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
It had been almost front-page news (well, of the social section of the paper anyway) when Gary Mayberry moved out of his wife’s home. It was the disintegration of a family, the final nail in a coffin that started building when Joel was killed, and the newspaper was treating it like a bit of juicy gossip. It was almost sickening.
Of course, it still begged the question of what the man was doing here today.
“I didn’t expect to be here either,” he conceded. “I take it Lilith called for you?”
“She did,” I answered, nodding at the man. “May I come in?”
“Well, it’s not my house anymore. So, I guess I don’t have the authority to say yes or no. Seeing as how Lilith rang you though, I’m guessing she wants you involved in all of this.” He moved away from the doorway, allowing me to enter the house.
The instant I did, I knew things had been even worse for the former Mrs. Mayberry than even the papers described. The house, a nice two-story home that my mother would have killed to call her own when she was alive, was a complete mess. Boxes lined the walls, dust draped the fixtures, and papers lay strewn on the floor.
The look on my face must have showcased what I was thinking, because Gary grimaced at me. “Don’t judge her too harshly, Detective Storm. She hasn’t been herself for quite some time.”
“I judge a lot of people harshly, Mr. Mayberry, but she isn’t among them,” I responded, walking past him and into the foyer.
“Is that a dig at me or one at yourself?” the man asked, walking behind me.
“Can’t it be both?” I answered without turning back.
“They tell you not to blame yourself,” Gary said as an answer. “They say it wasn’t your fault, that there was nothing that could be done. And worse, they tell you that you should move on with your life. They tell you that you deserve to be happy, and you want to believe them. I mean, doesn’t everyone deserve to be happy in one way or another? Don’t we all get to move past the worst days of our lives?”
“I would hope so,” I said, blinking but still not turning back to him.
“Me too,” he answered. “So, I did it. I took that advice.”
“You mean you left her?” I asked, finally turning my attention back to the man.
He looked tired. He looked worn. He looked almost exactly the way he did the night he told me his son was dead, and his body would never be found. It was an eerie predication, one that would come to pass. The storm made finding Joel Mayberry’s body impossible and, almost one year later, the family still had nothing to bury.
“You think that’s what I wanted?” he balked, his eyes widening. “You think I didn’t try?” He shook his head. “I know what you think. I know that, because of where I was when all of this went down, you think you know what our relationship looked like.”
“Seeing as how you’re about to marry the woman you were sleeping with that night, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet,” I answered.
“That’s not how it went down,” Gary said. “That’s not how any of it went. After Joel died, I tried to be the man Lilith needed me to be. I stayed home. I cared for her in the only way I knew how.” He swallowed hard, moisture pooling behind his eyes. “It didn’t matter. Nothing I did pulled her out of that muck. Months passed, months and months, and I couldn’t bring any light to her life.” He sighed loudly. “I finally got tired of living in the darkness. Does that make me a bad person?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted. It was a complicated situation, one that had pushed me closer to my breaking point than almost anything I’d ever faced.
“Neither do I,” he admitted. “I thought I made the right decision. I thought everything was going to be okay and then something like this happens.”
“Something like what?” I asked, my muscles locking together. “Her text was vague. Lilith just said that something happened, something to do with Joel.”
Gary shook his head. “She’s been in a bad place. A time or two, the darkness I talked about has gotten the best of her. She’s tried to do things that weren’t in her best interest.”
“What sort of things?” I asked.
“On more than one occasion, Lilith has tried to take her own life,” Gary said.
“My God,” I muttered, guilt cresting in me like a wave. “Is that what happened here today?”
“Partially,” Gary admitted. “But there’s something else, too. She was here by herself when she did it. For all intents and purposes, she should have succeeded. But she didn’t, and the reason she didn’t is truly unbelievable.” Gary leaned against the wall, deflating a bit. “She says a man came in here and saved her.” He blinked hard. “She swears it was-it was Joel, Detective Storm.”
I stared at the man.
“The mind can play tricks on us in times of distress, Mr. Mayberry,” I answered, almost drowning in this sadness.
“There’s more to it than that,” Gary said. “She says she has proof, Detective Storm. I’ve seen some of it and, the thing is, I think I believe her.”
Chapter 13
I stared at the man, my mind bouncing somewhere between pity, horror, confusion and a mixture of all three.
Gary Mayberry had been a pillar of the community. Though he had never been the sort of upper crust man his mayoral opponent had been, that had always been part of his charm. He was a levelheaded, blue collar good man. He had a good head on his shoulders and he knew the difference between right and wrong, the difference between what was good for the people of Naples and what was good for just some of the people of Naples.
Look at him now. That pillar of the community was standing here, telling me he thought his dead son had just come to visit his soon-to-be ex-wife.
I took a deep breath. I had done that to him. Not intentionally, of course, but my actions allowed a series of events to unfold that had obviously taken that good head on his shoulders and made it a little less clear. I didn’t do my job, not in the way I needed to, and this is what happened because of that.
“Your son is dead, Gary,” I said softly, trying to keep my eyes both firm and sympathetic. “You told me that yourself. You pulled me into a waiting room and gave me all the reasons he was dead.”
“I know that,” he answered, nodding firmly at me. “And I believed it then. Hell, until today, I’d have told you there wasn’t any way in the world my son was still breathing, but I believe now.”
“Why Gary?” I asked. “Because a woman whose mental state was fragile enough that she attempted suicide told you she saw him? Does that really sound like enough?”
“Of course not!” he answered quickly. “I know that isn’t enough. I’m not some sad sack idiot wishing for the best.”