by Bella Jewel
I agree, smiling. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through so much.”
She smiles back, broken, but a smile. “I’m sorry, I missed your name?”
“My name is April.”
She steps aside and says, “Would you like to come in? I have just brewed some coffee. I was on my way to shower.”
“Of course, thank you.”
“You’re most welcome. I don’t hear from Chase’s friends. I miss the hectic lifestyle that used to fill my house daily. It’s so empty without him here.”
“You still have Tatum, that’s got to mean something.”
I am risking everything throwing Tatum in the mix, but the fact is, I need answers and the only way I’ll get those is to take risks. It’s obvious Tatum has something to do with this, and I want to know how close he is to his family. He was obviously close enough to his brother to help him out.
I didn’t get much information from the emails I found at his house, except Tatum going back and forth with someone about getting a new I.D. He didn’t say for who, and he didn’t say what for, but it was around the time Celia died. About a week before, actually, which makes me think he got his brother out and that’s when he disappeared and Celia freaked out. Slowly, it’s all piecing together.
The woman nods. “Yes, my oldest son has been my rock. Do you know him, too?”
“I do, yes.”
She smiles, and we both walk into the large home. She points to the dining table and tells me to take a seat while she goes and takes a shower. I do so, watching her disappear down the hall. When she’s gone, I stand quickly and rush over to the kitchen counter. I frantically look through pieces of paper, trying to find something to give me an idea of where Chase is. There’s nothing there.
I hurry into the living area and glance at all the photos above the television. Chase was a good-looking man, but that’s not surprising considering how Tatum looks. Chase is very similar looking to his older brother, only his hair is a little lighter, more a medium brown, and he’s clean shaven. He has the same light-blue eyes and the same mischievous smile. He’s gorgeous.
I turn and walk back into the dining room, unable to snoop any further without risking getting caught. I notice a phone on the counter, just up the other end near the coffee machine. It would be locked, right? I mean, everyone locks their phones these days. Still, I can’t not go over and pick it up. I rush over, glancing down the hall to make sure I’m still alone. I pick up the phone and bring it to life with a swipe of my finger.
It’s unlocked.
My heart pounds and my fingers tremble as I frantically go into the contacts and search for Chase. I find him, and with a ferocity I never thought possible, pull out my phone and quickly enter his number. Then, with my hands still shaking, I lock the phone and place it down where I found it. My whole body is on high alert when I sit down at the dining table, shaking from head to toe.
I feel like a damned criminal.
I feel like I’m invading her privacy.
But I had no other option.
She returns a few minutes later, clean and wearing a long, flowing, black sun dress. Her hair is wet and falling over her shoulder in one big, thick bunch. She smiles when she sees me, and says, “I didn’t introduce myself; my name is Freya.”
I smile, and say, “You have a lovely home, Freya.”
“Thank you, dear. How do you have your coffee?”
“Just black, please.”
She walks over, and my heart races as I watch her, terrified she will notice her phone. She doesn’t even glance at it as she prepares the coffee.
“What do you do, April?” she asks me.
“Currently, I’m working at a café, but I plan on doing something more productive with myself soon. Maybe go back to school?” I tell her.
“That’s a wonderful idea. I’d love to go back to school. Chase always wanted to be a doctor. Did he ever tell you that?”
“I think Celia mentioned it once or twice,” I say, my voice hitching. I have to breathe through it—she will know I’m lying if I don’t get it together fast.
“Celia was such a lovely girl. I don’t think anyone will ever recover after that accident. That poor thing, just walking down a road. It broke her family. Just tore them right apart. Her parents have never been the same. I think they blame themselves.”
“It wasn’t their fault,” I say, trying desperately to ignore the pain slamming against my chest as my heart ferociously pounds. “They couldn’t have done anything to stop what happened that night.”
“No, you’re right, but they were going through so much they didn’t even know Celia was dating Chase for months. I overheard her telling Chase once that she felt ignored, that they didn’t even know she existed. After Mark cheated on Adriana, things just went south for that poor family. Tanner had to hold everything up. Do you know Tanner?”
So much information.
My mind is spinning.
This woman clearly hasn’t had anyone to talk to for a while, she’s spilling things like we’re best friends.
“I do know Tanner, yes. He’s a good guy. You’re right, Celia was having a hard time. It was hard after what Mark did. It really hit home for her.”
I have no idea what I’m talking about.
I feel sick.
“I can imagine, the poor girl. For them to keep going on like nothing happened. I can’t believe they’re still together, to be honest. Word is he has another woman again.”
God.
She really needs to get out.
“That’s so sad. I imagine all of this would have been hard on Chase, too?”
Freya nods. “It was hard on him. The two of them started fighting and then she broke it off with him. That was hard enough, but then when she died ... He just couldn’t be here anymore.”
“I didn’t realize he left,” I tell her.
“He was only going to go for a while, but he decided he couldn’t come back. He still won’t tell us where he is, it’s like he’s pushed us all away and started anew. I rarely hear from him. The town lost Celia Yates, but I lost my son, too. It was the worst night of my life.”
I won’t cry.
Dammit, I won’t.
“I’m so sorry. I hope Chase comes home soon.”
She smiles, but it trembles. “I don’t think he will. I don’t think he will ever face up to what happened here. He’ll never be able to live through the pain.”
I’m taking another huge risk asking this, but I have to know. “I heard that the girl who hit Celia said that she had stepped out in front of the car, did you hear that, too?”
Freya nods. “I did hear that.”
“Do you think it’s true? Do you think Celia was unhappy enough to do something like that?”
Freya hesitates, and then says low, as if we’re being listened to, “I never said anything to anyone, but before she died, Celia was in a bad place. I overheard Chase telling his brother that something happened, and she was struggling. That’s when Chase started running off the rails. He couldn’t get ahold of her. It was bad. But after she passed, Mark and Adriana claimed she was happy, that there is no way she would have done anything like that. They even went through her things, nothing indicated she would hurt herself. No one in her family believed it. Celia put on a brave face, she always did, but I saw a different face. I saw the face she wore when she wasn’t with her family.”
“She was hurting,” I say, my voice low, soft.
“She was hurting,” Freya confirms. “I did try to mention it to Adriana once, but she maintained her daughter was happy. That the morning she died, the two of them had been dancing and laughing in the kitchen. I don’t know if it was denial, or if Celia really didn’t want her family to suffer so she put on a happy face to keep things flowing. Either way, I do feel for the poor girl that hit her, because maybe, just maybe, she did take her own life.”
Finally.
There is someone out there with doubt.
Someone that doesn’t belie
ve I’m the monster in all of this.
I’m one step closer to getting where I need to be.
Only one step.
But it’s something.
“SERIOUSLY?” JO ASKS as we walk toward a local Italian restaurant where we’ll be having dinner and a few drinks. “You have Chase’s number?”
“Yes,” I say, “I just haven’t decided how I’m going to approach it yet. This is my one chance not to screw this up. If I do, he’ll run, and I’ll never find him.”
I haven’t told her that I broke into Tatum and Tanner’s house, I just told her I overheard them saying they were going to tag my car. I don’t want to put anything else on her, she’s already going through enough standing beside me like she is. I can’t expect her to involve herself anymore than she already has.
“Technically he’s already run, but I get what you’re saying. All the effort to change his name and disappear but he still calls his mom?”
“If he didn’t, she would have probably called the police,” I point out. “I mean, think about it, she would worry he was dead, or hurt, and would have sent them after him, which would have looked suspicious for him. Instead, he has packed up and left, saying he couldn’t deal with living here anymore, and has decided not to tell anyone where he lives. He calls her every now and then, that keeps her from coming after him.”
“That poor woman.” Jo sighs. “It’s so sad that she has to go through something like that. She must be heartbroken.”
I nod. “She’s hurt alright, no doubt about it. She’s worried for her son, she misses him like crazy, but she’s so down and out that she lets him have it his way. He’s getting away with starting his life over again.”
“Not for long,” Jo mutters. “He needs to face up to whatever he did to Celia, and he needs to own it. He has no right to hide and let you take all the pain from it. We’re going to find him, and we’re going to make him admit to everyone what happened to her.”
“What do you think happened?” I ask, as we round the corner and the restaurant comes into view.
“I don’t know,” Jo says, her voice low. “I’ve thought about it a lot, but the things I come up with that would be bad enough for her to take her own life make me feel sick. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good, because nobody does what Celia Yates did unless they feel like they honestly can’t go on.”
I nod, and my heart aches for the girl I’ll never know. For her pain. For her burden. “I wish I could talk to her. If I could have one thing in this world, it wouldn’t be to change that night, it would be to have the chance to sit with Celia for a day and just talk to her, about everything, about anything, and get to know her, secrets and all.”
Jo reaches over and squeezes my arm. “If there was anything in the world I could give you, honey, it would be that.”
I smile at her. “Anyway, that’s enough talk of this. Let’s go drink and eat and for a moment forget this hellish nightmare we currently live in.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We make our way to the restaurant and, when we’re shown our table, we order some garlic bread, pasta, and some wine. Then we drink and talk and laugh. It feels good, to not be constantly living in the web of lies that has somehow managed to weave its way all around us, locking us in.
“How are things with Pat?” I ask Jo when our pasta arrives. “We’ve been so tangled up in this mess, I haven’t asked you about it.”
Jo shrugs. “It’s the same as it always is, Pat is Pat. He is constantly on my case about moving home and getting things back to the way they were, but that’s what he’s not understanding. I don’t want things back the way they were. I want my husband to be a husband. I don’t want to go on expensive dates, I just want to spend a night alone with him, without his phone or his job, or someone interrupting. He can’t let go of those things.”
“I’m sorry things aren’t working out. Are you any close to deciding what you’re going to do?”
She shakes her head and shoves a piece of pasta into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before answering, “I feel like I’m trapped still. I mentioned the other night that maybe we just needed to call it quits, and he lost it. Going on about how he’ll lose everything, and how his business will have to be sold ...”
“Does he think you’d take everything?” I ask, frowning.
“I mean, I’d be entitled to a lot of it. I wouldn’t take what wasn’t owed to me, but I’d have to start again, too. He couldn’t expect I’d leave with nothing. It’s expensive to live out in this world now, and I contributed a lot, too.”
“No, you’re right, that wouldn’t be fair.”
“So, he’s making it hard. He wants me to sign all this stuff, which I refuse. Then we went to a family dinner and everyone was putting pressure on me, saying how stressed he is, and how I’m causing so many problems with my up and down. How bad it would be if he lost everything. I feel like I’m trapped. I really do. I wish I could just wipe the slate clean, you know? Just start over again.”
“I can imagine,” I say, giving her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure it’ll work out. You can’t stay just because of the drama that would follow if you left.”
She sighs. “Did you see that magazine report a few days ago?”
I did see it.
An article of her and some caption about the town’s local millionaire’s wife not living in the same house, and is their marriage over? I didn’t read it. I didn’t need to. It’s trash. Still, people love that kind of gossip. Pat is young, he’s good looking, and he’s rich. It’s not going to be easy for Jo to walk away without anyone bothering her. Not to mention all the media shit that will come with it.
I feel for her, I really do.
“I did see it,” I answer her question. “Just tell Pat that if he causes any problems when you leave, you’ll tell the media about his bed farts.”
Jo giggles. “God, can you imagine?”
We both laugh. Making light of a troubling subject.
“So, I think we should go outside and you should call Chase,” Jo says, after eating in silence for a few minutes. “I think it’s time to find out what he knows.”
“What do I say to him?” I ask, pursing my lips. “If I stuff it up, he’ll know I don’t know anything and can just as easily block me.”
“I think you just tell him you know what he did to Celia, and you know that she ended he life because of him, and if he doesn’t come forward, you’ll tell the media.”
I raise my brows. “That’s brutal, Jo.”
She shrugs, her face hard. “Him letting you get locked up was brutal, Callie. This is justice.”
Ouch.
But she’s right.
I exhale. “It’s a risk.”
“Everything is.”
She’s right about that. Everything is.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
We finish our dinner and our wine, and then we pay and head outside. We walk down the street a little, and I’m feeling more than a bit tipsy. We find a quiet area of the street and I pull out my phone, dialing Chase’s number. Then I glance at Jo as I put the phone on speaker phone. Here goes nothing.
It rings a few times, and part of me, a tiny little part, hopes he won’t answer.
Facing this, uncovering this hell, it’s going to bring forward a lot of pain, for everyone.
It has to be done, but that doesn’t make it easy.
“Hello?”
A croaky, sleepy, male voice comes across the other line and, for a few moments, my heart races so hard I can’t find my voice.
I take a deep, shaky breath and say, “Chase?”
Dead silence.
I look to Jo, and she nods for me to keep going.
“I know it’s Chase.”
“Who is this?” he asks, his voice a little more awake now.
“It doesn’t matter who it is. We need to talk. We can make this easy, or hard, but if you hang up, it’ll be hard.”
“What do you want?�
�� he demands, angry now.
“I want the truth,” I say, my voice a little more confident now. “I know what you did to Celia Yates. I know what happened.”
He goes silent again.
“How did you get this number?”
“That’s irrelevant. What matters is what you’re going to do with this information. I want you to come forward, I want you to tell your family and her family what you have done. If you do, I won’t go to the police ...”
It’s a risk, throwing the police in, because I don’t actually know what he did, but either way, I’m playing this card, because it’s the only one I have.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, low.
“But you do, Chase. I have proof, if you’d like to see it. I have Celia’s test results. I have emails and I have text messages. I know what you did.”
I hold my breath.
I hold it so tightly I feel like I’m going to pass out.
He’s either going to call me out, or I might just get away with this.
“I never meant to hurt her,” he says, his voice pained. That hurts, I won’t lie. I don’t think Chase ever meant any harm, but regardless, he is the reason she is gone. At least, I think he is. “I didn’t mean to get in so deep. I wanted to give her nice things. I was making money from the drugs, and I screwed up. I owed them and ... I didn’t think they’d take it out on her. I didn’t think they’d hurt her. I couldn’t stop them, the drugged me and made me watch. I couldn’t. It wasn’t my fault.”
Couldn’t stop them?
Who is them?
What did they do to her?
“She got HIV from it!” I accuse. “She took her own life because she couldn’t go on! It is your fault, Chase. It is!”
That’s the only tiny piece of information I have, but I’m going to use it.
“I never meant for it to happen!” he yells. “I never meant for her to get hurt. I tried to stop them. I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
“Who are you?” he yells. “Who the hell are you? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m the girl you let go to prison for her death.”
He goes silent.
Then the phone line goes dead.