by Shandi Boyes
He didn’t respond as I had predicted.
He held me until my tears dried, and the pain went away.
We’ve been together ever since.
My pace slows as good memories from my past slowly filter through my head. Julian is in a good chunk of them. Just remembering how he sounded like a duck the first time I heard him speak stretches a massive smile across my face. Then his smile when I said his name for the first time. Gosh—it was the stuff dreams are made out of. He’s a true gentleman, so much so, I’m spinning on my heels before I’m even halfway to my office building.
My quick pivot has me crashing into a wall of hardness. As my hand shoots up to rub the sting in my nose, I throw my head back and laugh. I recognize the scent of the aftershave the man who bumped into me is wearing. I would never forget it.
“Julian. What are you doing? I thought you were taking a shower.” I run my fingers through his hair that’s darker than normal since it’s soaking wet. “You’re lucky it isn’t winter, you would have caught pneumonia.”
“You’d never be so lucky,” he murmurs while tugging me closer to him by banding an arm around my back. When I peer up at him, confused, he adds, “To get rid of me so easily.”
“I don’t want to get rid of you.”
“You don’t, huh?” His last word garbles from me inching our mouths closer. “Do you want me to stick close by?”
“Of course, I do.”
He nips on my lower lip before asking, “For how long?”
I glance straight into his eyes while replying, “Is eternity an option?”
I must not have answered him right because instead of awarding me the kiss I’m all but begging for, Julian steps back before curling his hand around mine. “In that case, I guess it’s okay to show you this now instead of waiting for your birthday on Monday.”
The suspicion on my face doubles when he commences jogging us through the almost isolated streets. New York rarely sleeps, but the late hour certainly doesn’t impose any obstacles during our sprint to my office building.
I gasp out one of the urgent breaths I just sucked in when Julian secures a set of keys out of his pocket. I’m not stunned he owns a set of keys, his family has four hearing clinics in the upper east side alone. I’m shocked he has a key to a government building. I was lucky to be given access, and I work here.
“How did you get a key to my office building?” In my shocked state, I’ve reverted back to signing.
Julian remains as quiet as a church mouse. Not even the handing over of photo-ID to the guard standing firm at the elevator banks has a peep seeping from his lips.
“It was Mary-Anne, right? She has always had a soft spot for you.”
For someone born deaf, Julian’s silence shouldn’t frustrate me as much as it does, but it does—very much so. I’m on the verge of stomping down my foot like an errant child just to force him to react. He hates when I act immature. That probably has more to do with him being ten years my senior. He loathes it when strangers notice our difference in age, much less people we know.
When the elevator dings on the floor my office is located on, Julian places his hand on the curve of my back to guide me down the hallway I’ve walked many times the past six months. The records section I was seeking earlier is in the opposite direction, but the thud of Julian’s pulse thumping through my back has me keeping that snippet of information to myself.
“Julian…” Now I’m speechless—truly and utterly speechless.
Every inch of my office has been decorated with helium balloons, streamers, love hearts, and the ridiculous Pez collectibles I pointed out to him at the end of our first official date. He even got a Donald Duck one—his nickname since the day my cochlear implants were turned on.
“Happy birthday, Mel,” Julian croons, moving to stand in front of me.
“Thank you, truly,” I sign, incapable of both speaking and breathing. “It’s beautiful—”
My hands freeze when Julian lowers himself onto one knee before producing a blue velvet box from the pocket of the trousers he threw on in haste. “I love you,” he whispers when he spots the tears streaming down my face.
“I love you, too,” I reply when I find my voice. Those are the only words Julian has never seen me sign. They were only ever signed to one man, and I can’t bring myself to use them on another.
Speech is different, just like my relationship with Julian will be when I nod my head to the four words he speaks next. “Will you marry me?”
11
Brandon
I stop pursuing the late edition of the New York Times online when Alex’s grumble roars through my ears. “I don’t give a fuck what the local authorities say, overrule them!” He bangs his phone on his desk three times before slamming it back against his ear. “They didn’t log a flight plan. That makes them liable to an investigation.”
He doesn’t need to mention Isaac’s name for me to know who he’s talking about. The disdain in his voice replicates the contempt that scorched my throat when I read the new article about Melody’s engagement to Julian McMahon. Because Julian’s family are gazillionaires, news of their only son’s engagement is supposedly page six news. The article was printed with a photograph from several months ago, but the timeline of events show Julian proposed a mere hour after I reached out to Melody.
Talk about being a schmuck. If proposing is the only trick you have up your sleeve to have your girlfriend forgetting the ghosts of her past, you’ve got issues.
Not as many as me, but still.
Fuck! It’s been almost seven years, so why can’t I let bygones be bygones. Melody has moved on—clearly—so why the fuck can’t I?
Because you swore an oath to protect her until eternity long before you knew the meaning of the word.
Frustrated, I drag my arm along my desk, removing the contents on top in one quick sweep. Because the agents surrounding me are too busy inconspicuously watching Alex’s rant from afar, they’re none the wiser to my childish tantrum.
I’m not surprised. I’m not a threat to anyone except myself, don’t you know?
With my teeth gritted, I bend down to gather up the files I was in the process of sorting. They’re brimming with documents, bank records, and movement sheets that correspond with our target, Isaac Holt. But that isn’t all the files I’m gathering. There’s a thick manila folder I didn’t notice earlier. It doesn’t have the name of our target on the seal. It’s the file I asked Melody to unlock for me.
As I scoop up the evidence that the old Melody is still hiding inside her somewhere, I scan my eyes across the office. This file is so confidential, it has more than one private stamp embossed on it. It even has a CIA seal.
Confident I’m not being eyeballed, I gather the file into my hand, hide it with my thick winter coat even though its extra humid today, then hightail it to the room every agent seeks when they want privacy—the supply room.
“What do you mean you’re not going to share the information you’ve unearthed with Isabelle?” Grayson questions down the line. His voice is as hoarse as mine, like he too has been sitting on a hard floor for over three hours, sorting through evidence on a massive injustice. “If she knows the type of men Isaac is hiding from prosecution, perhaps she won’t be so eager to keep his secrets. He’s harboring a rapist, Brandon. They’re the worst of the worst.”
“A rapist who gave testimony saying my brother was the ringleader of the gang rape of Gemma Calderon-Levesque.”
“Hold on, what? Go back. What the fuck did I miss?” Grayson sounds as shocked as I felt when I read Hugo’s testimony from a rape case five years ago. It happened when Madden, Gemma, and Hugo—a member of Isaac’s security personnel—were deployed in Afghanistan. “Which brother are we talking about?”
“Madden.” Considering I only spoke one word, it shouldn’t have been as hard to express as it was. “Initial reports given to the JAG officer state Madden approached Gemma in the alleyway outside of a local bar. She was dis
orientated and dizzy, seemingly unaware of where she was. Madden said he tried to help her. Gemma’s testimony didn’t verify his version of events. She said Madden, along with an additional five officers, attacked her, and that Hugo stopped their assault.”
“Jesus H Christ.” I hear Grayson scrub at his beard. “Why would she change her testimony?”
“That’s the thing, she didn’t. She’s always maintained her side of the story. She is adamant Hugo never assaulted her.”
A chair creaking into place sounds down the line before Grayson asks, “Then why did he plead guilty to her rape?”
A shudder rolls through me when I recall the images attached to the file. They were when Gemma attempted to commit suicide. It was the night following my father slaughtering her in the witness box. He still had contacts in the military from his years of service, and they were more than happy to have a decorated defense attorney step in to help one of their own. Gemma was also an officer, but her name didn’t have military distinction attached to it. Madden’s did.
When I update Grayson on all aspects of my findings, he curses—loudly. “This is more fucked-up than my family shit. Jesus, punk.” He takes a breather for a second before asking, “Is this the first time your father has stepped in like this?”
I almost nod before the faintest memory filters through my head. “No. There was a similar incident when Madden was a sophomore. It wasn’t a gang rape, but he was accused of sexual assault by the police chief’s daughter.”
“What happened to those claims?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Madden had to hand over the keys to his Pontiac, and he joined the military, but I don’t know what happened to…” I lose my train of thought for a moment. I usually have a knack for remembering names, but Madden’s first victim is slipping my mind.
Victim… such an odd word for me to use if I believe Madden’s recollection of events.
Clearly, I don’t.
Ignoring my dead ass from sitting on a concrete floor for three hours straight, I stand to my feet before making my way out of the supply room. “If I forward you some info, could you work it through the pipelines on your end? It could be nothing, but it’s rare for my father to place his hat into a ring he can’t benefit from. This all occurred around the time he started his push for office. It could be one of those threads we’ve been seeking the past few years.”
“Yeah, of course,” Grayson replies without pause for thought. He knows the less my name is associated with the information I’m hunting, the better it will be for all involved. “Just prepare yourself, Brandon. When you’re digging for shit, you immerse yourself in it.”
“I can handle it.”
I hear his smile through the phone. “I have no doubt. Send me what you have. I’ve got a few spare hours tonight, and from what I’m hearing, so do you.”
Stealing my chance to question if he bugged my office, he disconnects our call.
I dump my cell phone onto my desk before logging into the official Bureau search engine. It only takes me a few minutes to remember the name of the girl who accused Madden of assaulting her in the middle of a movie date. I only had to search for the police chief in Saugerties the year Melody officially became my girlfriend. I’ll never forget that night. Not even years of grief have faded the memory I’ve worked on repeat the past seven years.
After forwarding Annie’s details to Grayson, I dig a little deeper into Annie’s father’s bank records. Money has been my father’s bribery tool for years. Ever since his inheritance from his great-grandfather’s oil refinery hit his bank account, he bought respect more than he earned it.
I hit a dead-end in Mr. Langfield’s bank records not even twenty minutes later. They ceased to exist five years ago. His family withdrew every penny they had a month after he was killed during a random traffic stop and left Saugerties for dust.
I’m about to commence a hunt for their whereabouts now, but before I can, a deep, moody voice scares the living daylights out of me. “What are you working on?”
“Ah…” I scratch my face, my ability to lie on demand long forgotten since I’ve rarely used the skill the past six years. “Just some stuff for another division. They wanted to see if there was any correlation between these bank records and Isaac’s.”
Alex purses his lips. He doesn’t want to believe me, but he has no reason not to. “I need you to stop that for now and jump onto surveillance with Reid. Facial recognition picked up a positive match for Isaac at an airstrip near The Hamptons.”
When I jerk up my chin, acknowledging I heard him, Alex balances his hip on my desk, announcing our conversation isn’t over just yet. “Did you speak to Isabelle before she left?”
“Yeah, briefly. She unearthed the identity of the mysterious female in the yellow car outside of Isaac’s nightclub.” I don’t know why I’m sugar-coating Isabelle’s investigative skills. It’s a habit I can’t seem to let go of, much like my inability to remove Melody from my mind.
Alex scrubs at his jaw like Grayson always does. His is just minus the scruffy beard he had before he took a five-month hiatus from the Bureau. “Did she happen to mention where she was going this weekend?”
“Ah… not in full detail. She said she and Harlow were going away for the weekend.” I’m not sugar-coating anything this time around. Isabelle either believed her weekend getaway was solely with Harlow or she’s more skilled in lying than I once was. “Why are you asking? Is she in danger?”
“No,” Alex denies with a shake of his head. “I just figured you were friends, that’s all, so I’m trying to wrap my head around why you didn’t get an invite to her weekend getaway.”
He’s a worse liar than Grayson, but I’m happy to lead him to believe he isn’t. “Perhaps it’s a girls-only weekend? I don’t have the necessary equipment for an invite to one of those.”
A side of Alex I haven’t seen in months shines through when he ribs, “Are you sure about that, Brandon? After all the pussyfooting you’ve done the past few months, I’m beginning to wonder.”
Smirking at my shocked expression, he returns to the glass box he calls an office, and I switch my investigation from Annie Langfield’s whereabouts to Isabelle’s. I can’t change the past, but if I try to stay one step ahead of the future, I can hope it won’t be nowhere near as painful.
12
Melody
A grin tugs at my lips when the chime of a bakery bell dings into my ears. It’s funny how the littlest things can cause the most joy. I had never considered what a bell sounded like. I always pictured the noise more than wondering about its happy little chime. It’s a good ding to alert staff to customers just like loud and ear-hurting sirens are perfect for ambulances and fire trucks. I went from a world of silence to one that never stops humming. I guess that’s why Julian understood my wish to move back to New York State. There are so many noises here I’ve never heard before, such as Mrs. McGee’s voice when she waves for me to join her from the corner of the bakery. Her tone is as beautiful as her face, and her pitch is perfect.
“Hello.”
She cries like I did the first time I heard someone speak, except this time, it’s the other way around. She’s hearing me talk for the first time.
“Melody,” she signs my name as well as saying it. “You… oh… you’re beautiful. Come here.” When she wraps me up in a firm hug, my heart turns to mush. Her son hurt me, but Julian taught me it’s okay to still love her. She didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did Brandon. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Once she pulls back, she gestures for me to sit. I hang my purse over the back of the wooden chair before sitting in the seat across from her. I smile in gratitude when she taps on my ankle with her foot to advise me the waiter is at my side, forgetting I can hear the faint patter of his feet, much less smell his deodorant.
After ordering a cup of coffee and a blueberry Danish, I divert my attention back to Mrs. McGee. My eyes automatically drop to her lips when she asks, “Is Julian
going to be joining us?” Lipreading is an old habit I find hard to give up.
“Ahh, no. He said he would come next time. He didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.” When she takes her time to respond to my reply, I sign. “I can sign if you would prefer. My voice is—”
She encloses her hands over mine. “Your voice is beautiful. I’m sorry if I am appearing rude. I’m just stunned. I never thought this was possible.”
“I didn’t either. I was really opposed to the idea at one stage.”
Mrs. McGee laughs. “Yes, you were. If I recall correctly, you didn’t want the fantasy in your head ruined if you discovered we all had robot voices.”
My laugh still sounds odd to me, but it springs tears into Mrs. McGee’s eyes. “You should have seen my face when they switched on the devices. I was mortified my worst nightmare had come true.”
Mrs. McGee laughs so hard, she covers her big beaming smile with a napkin coated with the crumbs of the muffin she was halfway through devouring before I joined her. Nerves made me over thirty minutes late. I’m glad she isn’t mad I almost left her stag.
My smile sags when she asks, “Have you heard Brandon speak yet?”
When I shake my head, fresh tears twinkle in her eyes. “He called me last week, but it was on the TTY phone. I haven’t told anyone I got cochlear implants. I don’t know why.” I do. I hate admitting I had a disability. I had never seen my deafness as a disability until I met Julian, and I don’t want to now.
Mrs. McGee reminds me of the gorgeous soul she has when she asks, “You still have a TTY phone?” She sounds as shocked as Julian did when I ordered one to be installed in my loft. The speech side of my new skills was still in development, but I was far from needing a TTY phone. It was just something I couldn’t give up straight away. “I thought that would have been the first thing you got rid of. With how advanced technology is, they’re so clunky and outdated. Your beautiful face should be flashed across FaceTime for eternity.”