by Shandi Boyes
We’re not doing anything illegal.
Everything is above board.
You just need your gut to get on board with our plans.
Since I somewhat agree with him, I mutter, “I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to get the file for you.”
Happiness beams out of Isabelle. “Thank you, Brandon, thank you.”
When she slings her arms around my shoulders, I murmur a quick, “You’re welcome,” before striving to work out the last time I’ve held someone like this.
I’m ashamed to admit, it’s been almost longer than my memory stretches.
When Isabelle inches back, I recall the reason I’m sticking my neck out for the third time in my life and put actions in place to make sure my head isn’t chopped off this time around. “It will cost you, though.” Her eager nod doubles when I add, “I need you to do a search on this lady…” but it packs up and leaves town when I say, “… and you have to go on a date with me.”
Honey Pot, Honey Pot, Honey Pot, I murmur to myself when shock is the first thing that registers on Isabelle’s face. The guilt in her eyes would have you convinced I asked a married woman to have an affair. It proves Isaac has his hooks in her more profoundly than I realized.
“One date, Izzy, that’s all I’m asking.”
She waits a beat before dipping her chin. “Okay, but it will have to be after I return. I’m going away with Harlow this weekend.”
The sting her delay caused my ego slips away when a smile stretches across my face. I still got it—even though I’m reasonably sure I don’t know what ‘it’ is anymore.
“Why don’t you come to my apartment, and I’ll cook dinner?”
I smile to hide my shock at Isabelle’s offer. This was not a path I expected her to lead us down. “Sounds great.”
She returns my smile before diverting her attention to the manila folder I handed her at the commencement of our exchange. While she peruses photographs of Megan Shroud, a woman Intelligence believes has a romantic connection with Isaac, I watch her for any tell-tale signs of a scorned woman.
She appears more unwell than jealous—even more so when she asks, “Who is this lady?”
I commence my lie with a shrug, “We don’t know. We’ve noticed her a few times hanging around the nightclub the past several weeks. We believe she may be a companion of Isaac’s.” Isabelle folds the card she’s been holding close to her chest when I add, “I haven’t seen Isaac with a girlfriend the entire time he’s been under surveillance, but this lady has been in the picture more regularly than his standard dates, so she may be someone significant in his life.”
“All right.” Isabelle hops off my desk with a grunt. “I’ll see what I can find out about her.”
While she heads for her desk, needing distance before I see the unease igniting in her eyes, I send Grayson a text.
Me: The beekeeper has landed.
His reply weakens the knot in my stomach but only by a little.
Grayson: Never feel guilty about protecting your first love. I never have.
Talking about first loves, here comes one phone call I never saw coming.
10
Melody
“I don’t care if he has a baby face, Julian, he’s a monster.”
Julian, audiologist, wannabe defense attorney and my boyfriend, rests a box of noodles on his wash-board stomach when he slumps into my couch. He’s making a mess, but since it gives him an excuse to take his shirt off, and hopefully spend the night, he’s going for it. “How could someone that cute commit such horrendous crimes? It isn’t possible.”
I almost reply that you can’t judge anyone on their moral upbringing, much less their looks, but the bright light of my TTY telephone in the corner of the room catches my eye.
No one uses that phone anymore.
No one except Brandon.
I shoo away Julian’s nosey-nancying when he says, “Why do you still have that old thing, Mel? You don’t need it anymore.” I’m too busy scrambling to answer a phone call I swore I’d never answer again. I don’t have time to hold his hand through the safety nets twenty-six-year-old women like me have a hard time giving up.
The last time I accepted a call from Brandon, a decade worth of memories was deleted from my mind in an instant. I had convinced myself for almost two years that Joey didn’t do what he had done, that he was the lovable, sweet, brother-like teen I had remembered, and that my woozy head that night had me misconstruing what had actually happened.
Then Brandon called, and my entire world upended for the third time in my life.
His contact not only revealed how foolish I had been, it also proved that you can never judge someone’s motives on their looks and upbringing. Some people are born to be evil. They can be taught to act differently, but the instant the protective cloak is removed, their true self comes out, and more times than not, it isn’t pretty.
I didn’t want to believe the reports Brandon forwarded me. I was certain every single word on the official documents were false. My thoughts only changed when Brandon didn’t deny the claims. He had sex with an informant. He never denied that. The only thing he wanted to refute was the plaintiff’s claim that she slept with him under duress. That she didn’t believe she could safely turn down his advancement, so she had no option but to answer his every whim.
That hurt.
Seeing the name of the man I had loved, and still do love, written on the defendant’s side of a sexual assault claim hurt. I can’t put it any simpler than that.
Thinking back, I realize how immature it was of me to react to the news as I did, but in all honesty, could you say you would have responded differently if you’d been through what I had been through? I was raped in a house I had once called my home, by a man I had considered a brother. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to repress my thoughts and look at Brandon’s case objectively.
I’m not even sure I am in the right mindset now. But I do know one thing, I swore I would handle things differently if given a chance again.
I’m going to keep my promise.
Brandon protected, loved, and cared for me after my parents died, but the one time he needed me the most, I ran instead of explaining what had happened. I hid things from him and used my ability to pass a lie detector test with flying colors to my advantage. Then, when he needed me again, I failed him for the second time.
I refuse to do bad things in threes. It’s time for the fear to end. I’m tired of living half a life because I’m constantly looking back at my past. I doubt Brandon’s call will fully liberate me, but any step forward is a step in the right direction.
After counting to ten in my head, I hit the ‘connect call’ on my TTY phone. When the screen displays who’s calling, my hand shoots up to cover my soundless sob from Julian. Brandon told the operator his name is BJ McGee. I haven’t heard anyone refer to him by that name in years. Seeing it written across the screen is a whack to the gut, but it’s a good whack.
I think.
When Julian spots my watering eyes from across the room, he offers me his support, but he does it from a distance. He knows about my past, and Brandon comes up more often than he’d like, but that’s more to do with him being a major part of my childhood. I’m not doing it to be mean or to remind Julian I have loved before him. It’s just hard to forget a massive chunk of your life when every decision you’ve ever made was based on that life.
I followed the plan Brandon and I made when we were kids to a ‘T.’
I just did it without Brandon at my side as planned.
When the operator on the other end of the TTY phone advises another message is coming through, I drag my hands across my wet cheeks. The three-dash incoming message signal is worse than waiting for bar exam results to be released.
I’m tempted to call Brandon when his message comes through.
BJ McGee: Melody, are you there?
Even through a string of texts, I can feel his desperateness.
&nb
sp; I’m partway through scrolling the contacts on my phone for his number when another message comes through.
BJ McGee: I’m sorry for the late hour. I wouldn’t have called unless it was urgent. I need a favor.
I read the last four words of his message three times before another line of text erases it from my screen.
BJ McGee: I’ve tried every other angle I could. I’m out of options.
This set of messages is oddly similar to the ones he sent me years ago, and they make my heart a twisted mess of confusion.
BJ McGee: I need your help, Melody. I promise this is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you.
That hurts more than I can explain. I was hoping his contact was a way of bridging the distance between us, but it appears as if it’s going to instigate even more awkwardness.
BJ McGee: Melody…
After bracing my fingertips on the keyboard of the TTY phone, I stray my eyes to Julian. If he can’t give me the courage to type a reply, no one will. His future is being held hostage by my past as much as mine, so he deserves input in this as well.
When he lowers his chin, encouraging me to reply, my fingers race across the keyboard.
Melody Gregg: I’m here. What do you need?
Twenty minutes later, Julian joins me at my desk at the side of the living room.
“Are you okay?” He presses his lips to my temple before pinching the pleat in his trousers to lower himself to my level. It brings me in direct line with his shimmering baby blues. His gentle eyes were one of the first things I noticed about him, along with his ability to sign. “Is it anything I can help with?”
As I shake my head, my lips curl at his generous offer. Julian’s family is extremely wealthy. Nothing is above their league, but Brandon isn’t seeking anything of monetary value. He wants information. Information only I can give him.
When I explain that to Julian, he asks, “Do you want to give him the information he needs?”
I shrug. “He’s an FBI agent. I’m always willing to help one of my own.” He watches me with kind, understanding eyes, but his mouth remains shut. He knows I’m holding back the real reason I am hesitant. “I just never thought this would be the norm for us. That he would only reach out to me when he needed something.”
Julian tracks his thumb over the vein throbbing in my wrist before he asks, “I thought you told him your friendship was over years ago?” He thinks holding my hand will stop me from signing my reply.
He’s dead wrong.
I don’t know how to express myself without American Sign Language, so it’s my go-to anytime I’m feeling flustered.
I’m more than flustered today.
“I did say that, but it was said in the heat of the moment.”
“And how is he to know that, Melody? I’ve seen you mad. It’s scary.”
The fake tremble of his last two words arches my lips higher. “You haven’t even scratched the surface of my mood swings yet—”
He stops me mid-sentence by clasping my hands in his and raising them to his mouth. When he kisses the edge of my palms, the pain in my chest weakens. He has a way of healing me even when I don’t realize I’m hurting.
“Give him the file, then come to bed.” A sprinkling of light orange hair falls into his eyes when he slants his head to the side to hide his wickedly immoral grin. It’s straight and perfect but filled with hidden cheekiness. The rumors about redheaded men being the spawns of rascal-like behaviors are true. “We have more important things to discuss than helping an old friend with a debunked case.”
When Julian strays his vibrant blue eyes to the file I brought up to authenticate Brandon’s claims the reports were buried deeper than a standard vehicular murder case, I follow the direction of his gaze. I still recall Marjorie Hawke’s case. I hadn’t commenced my studies in law school yet, but tell me one female who doesn’t get misty-eyed when they hear of a pregnant lady being run down by a drunk driver, killing both her and her unborn child.
Up until twenty minutes ago, I never knew the outcome of Marjorie’s case. I assumed the drunk driver was served a hefty punishment for his crime. I had no clue he was offered a plea bargain by the DA mere weeks before he disappeared. That DA happened to be Brandon’s father, Vincent McGee.
The erroneous mishandling of Marjorie’s case exposes why Brandon is interested in her file, but I’m still wary I am crossing a line by giving Brandon Marjorie’s sealed file. They were locked in a vault so tight, I had to use the head of my department’s credentials to find them. I wasn’t given access to his passcodes for no reason. He trusts me with them, and I’m not willing to lose his trust to help an acquaintance, but since the person asking is Brandon, I don’t know if I can say no.
After a few minutes of silent deliberation, I lock my eyes with Julian’s before nudging my head to my bedroom. “Why don’t you head up? I’ll join you in a minute.”
“I can wait.” His swift reply hides his excitement at being invited to spend the night, and I won’t mention how happy he is that I used my voice to express myself instead of my hands.
“It’s okay. Head up. I won’t be a minute.”
“All right.” When he tucks a strand of dirty-blonde hair behind my ear, I lean into his palm, seeking comfort for what I know will hurt me no matter how hard I try to brush it off as being nothing more than work. This is as personal as it gets for me. I’ll never see Brandon as just an acquaintance. “Don’t be too long.”
When I nod, Julian presses a second kiss to my temple before standing from his crouched position and making his way to the staircase of my loft bedroom. My apartment is barely five hundred square feet in size, but the loft bedroom perched above the living area makes good use of the space. Apartments in New York don’t come cheap, let alone ones close to the office. I’m only renting my apartment since most of my trust fund went toward having cochlear implants inserted into my ears a little over three years ago. They cost more per ear than four years of pre-law study. Were they worth it? I don’t know yet. I never felt disadvantaged being deaf—except that one time.
I snap out of my dreary thoughts when the shower in the attached bathroom of my room switches on. My hearing isn’t as good as a person born without profound hearing loss, and my voice is cringingly deep, but it’s good enough for me to hear my raging heart as much as I can feel it. It is thumping so fast it’s battering my ribs. Something so simple shouldn’t make me so nervous, but it does.
After a stern warning on how my past has no right to affect my future, I divert my focus to the screen of my MacBook Pro. Although the file Brandon is chasing is directly in front of me, it’s the scanned version every clue hunter hates. There are more redacted pages than text-filled ones.
With that in mind, I snag my keys off the desk before shouting Julian’s name, cringing when my voice comes out sounding like a man’s.
Due to the size of my loft and the fact Julian rarely showers with the door closed, he responds rather quickly. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to pop down to the office for a minute. I won’t be long.”
I’m reasonably sure he tells me to wait, but since I’ve already made up my mind, and I regularly use my poor hearing to my advantage, I continue for the door.
The doorman of my building greets me with a dip of his hat before his opening of the thick wooden door blasts the foyer with ghastly humid air. New York’s weather is nothing like what I faced in California. It’s more severe here with ice and snow every winter, and the humidity is atrocious. I’ve barely seen the sun past the skyscrapers the past year, and my California tan is paying for the controversy. I had quite the tan compliments to the lazy weekends I spent reading at Venice Beach.
That’s where I met Julian. I wasn’t on the prowl for a date. That wasn’t something I had ever planned to do, but when you’re wrangling a rude waiter unwilling to read the order I had written for her, sometimes you have to accept help from a stranger.
It would have been rude for me to reject Julia
n’s request to dine with me after he jumped to my defense. He was charming, and the first guy I had spoken to in almost three years. One casual dinner turned into an afternoon movie date. Our friendly movie date extended to a thirteen-hour marathon text conversation where we organized to dine together again the following weekend.
There wasn’t a great amount of sexual chemistry the first few months we knew one another. Julian was, and still is, gorgeous, but I wasn’t looking for any type of relationship. It was just nice having someone to talk to.
Julian is an audiologist. His family has a range of hearing clinics on both the east and west side of the country. They specialize in hearing aids for the aged and cochlear implants for newborn babies. Since he grew up around people with hearing impediments, he learned ASL at a young age.
Around three months into our friendship, he made an appointment with me to meet with his father about having cochlear implants inserted. He was the first person since Dr. Giorgio to suggest them, and I wasn’t a fan of the idea.
Julian’s constant pushing for me to reconsider my objectives wedged a six-month gap into our friendship. We only reunited after I had a scare on the metro. A woman I had accidentally bumped into couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t verbally apologize for my mistake. She wanted an apology, and from what I gathered between the many thrusts of her hands in my face, she wanted it immediately.
I was so shaken by the incident, I broke down. I stopped attending school. I failed to show up for lectures. I shut myself away from the world as I did the weeks following Joey’s death.
Instead of my phone being blown up by Brandon offering his friendship, Julian reached out to me. He brought me food, held back my hair when I vomited through the panic attacks rendering me immobile, and promised nothing I could ever tell him would change his opinion of me.
I believed him.
I still do.
I told him everything—the home invasion when I was five, giving my virginity to Brandon, my parents’ accident. I even told him a story I had never shared with anyone.