AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My world was crumbling, and there was only one person who could save me, one person who could keep me from dying right along with my parents.
“I need to call my boyfriend.”
The door opened, and another officer entered. “There’s been a one forty at the Callahan place.”
My head jerked up. “What?”
Detective Donnelly nodded to the officer, who retreated, closing the door as he did.
“Someone else will handle it.”
“Brock Callahan is my boyfriend.”
I’ll never forget how he looked in that moment. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already told me the worst news imaginable. But I was wrong to think it was the only devastating news I would get that day.
“What’s a one forty?” I asked again.
It was likely shock that had him answering, “Murder.”
I didn’t think I could feel emptier, but as the news settled, it was like my soul left me in that moment. Drifted off to be with the ones I loved.
I could hardly speak the words. “Who’s been murdered?”
He reached for the door, stepped out for a second. As I waited in that room, I made a wish to whoever would listen that Brock wasn’t involved, but I knew. I knew why he hadn’t answered. He had left me too.
The bright blueblanket of the sky had not a cloud in it. A cool, crisp breeze stirred the colored leaves on the trees, several fluttering down to settle on the browning grass. The call of geese could be heard, the annual migration south in search of warmer weather. Looking out, it was a sea of black. Heads turned down, the soft sound of weeping. Two caskets sat side by side. Orange roses draped over both of them, one stone in the shape of a heart, their names etched on it. Two weeks after my world crumbled, I stood in the quiet graveyard, putting my parents to rest.
The tightness in my chest never eased. The doctors prescribed pills to help with the anxiety, the grieving. I wouldn’t take them because I was afraid once I started, I’d never stop.
I stood there long after everyone left, after my parents’ caskets were lowered into the ground, their flowers placed on the freshly stirred dirt.
The tears started again. I hadn’t just lost my parents.
Brock.
I clung to his memory as tightly as I clung to my parents'. We’d only just found each other again, the potential for a lifetime of what my parents had found lay ahead for us, but he was gone. It was the scandal of the decade. His father brutally murdered, his mother’s whereabouts unknown, which drew speculation that she met with foul play, too, because why hadn’t she come forward, learning her husband was dead and her son was the prime suspect. The situation was made even stranger learning that it was his mother who called Brock to the house that day. So where was she?
Maybe it made me a monster, too, like the one everyone portrayed Brock to be, but I wasn’t sorry his dad was dead.Hewas the monster. The only thing I was sorry about was in setting himself free, I’d lost him. He could never come back. He’d always be on the run, always an outlaw. We’d just caught a glimpse of perfect before it was snatched away.
Was it possible for someone who felt so empty to simply fade away? When would I stop counting the breaths, forcing the air in and out? How long did I have to go through the motions of life when all I wanted to do was curl up and will it all away? I’d move on, I didn’t have a choice, because life wasn’t going to stop for me, but I didn’t want to move on. I wanted my most happy memories to be like a snow globe, where I could live them every day.
The sun was setting when I turned to leave. I caught a glimpse of someone, and my broken heart beat hard in my chest. I moved quickly in their direction, feeling something for the first time in two weeks, but when I reached where they’d been, there was no one there. I walked back to my parents’ grave and saw the bluebells. My legs gave out, and I dropped to my knees. The tears started again, but I didn’t try to stop them.
That would be the last time I’d hear from Brock. I’d go to university, wouldn’t go into design, because my heart wasn’t into it anymore. I’d tame down my appearance, conforming to the world I now found myself alone in. I’d go through the motions, but stay still, waiting for someone I knew was never coming back.
One moment, one single instance had the ability to change the course of your life, but you had to pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and, even being on unsteady legs, you had to take that first step because that step was the hardest.
Chapter Ten
Detective Donnelly
I’d seen countlesscrime scenes, but the one at the Callahan place was gruesome. Kneeling next to Kenneth Callahan’s body, someone had done a number on him. Lifting his hand, from the look of it, he’d given almost as good as he got. It was rumored that he beat his kid. No one ever did shit about it, particularly not being the influential person that he was. Didn’t help that Brock had never come forward to report the abuse, hard for a kid to be put in that situation. Harder still that his mother never stepped forward, never shielded her kid from her husband. You weren’t supposed to get emotionally invested in investigations, needed to see the scene in black and white and not have it colored with bias, but it was hard to look at Kenneth Callahan and not feel sympathy for his kid. Brock was older now, but the abuse rumors had been around for a long time, long enough that he’d have just been a kid facing down all six three of his father. There was a part of me that thought good for him for giving it back.
I stood, taking in the rest of the scene. “Any word on Ashley Callahan?” I asked the room.
“No, but DNA on the glass is hers…she was arrested for a DUI, have her info on file.” Toby, one of the crime scene investigators, offered. “We also have this. One set of prints that match the victim, blood and hair on the butt of the gun, familial match to the victim.” He held up a 57 magnum.
“Kenneth held a gun on his own kid and hit him with it?” I asked incredulously.
