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“I know she was terrible, in fact, she seems worse now. You don’t have to remind me.”
“Right. Yeah. So he was stuck, right? He couldn’t leave, but he was so unhappy, Bell. You shoulda’ seen him. Looked like he was witherin’ away right in front of me. Until he wasn’t.” I take a large drink of my coffee as he pauses, struggling to find his train of thought.
“He was seein’ her for about a year behind your ma’s back. He got his color back, gained healthy weight again, even started whistlin’ while he was workin’ and shit. ‘Scuse the language.” I wave away his apology, urging him to continue.
“Then your ma found out about it.” He pauses briefly, before correcting himself. “Well, she got paranoid. She didn’t rightlyknow, she just suspected. But it was enough. They had the biggest fight of their lives that night and she threatened ta call the cops and get him arrested for abuse or some fuckin’ bullshit, saying he’d never see ya again. He told me the next day he was plannin’ on breaking things off with the girl that night. The same night he…the same night you guys…well, you know.”
My heart lurches into my throat and I drop the hold on my coffee, the ceramic clanging to the table and spilling over my skin. Gizmo and Snitch let out squeaks at the abrupt noise, immediately clamoring up my arms. I use calming them as an excuse to pull myself together before speaking once more. “You mean to say that he broke things off with the mistress the night he died?”
“Yeah, that’s what he told me anyway. That day he looked so…broken. Like he had been wanderin’ in a desert for weeks without water. Just…not all there. I think your ma crossed lines with him that he didn’t even think she was capable of. He even had a gash here.” I roll my eyes as he makes a movement to probably try and show me where and he groans in dismay when he realizes what he did. “Sorry. It was on his forehead, on the left side, like she had thrown somethin’ at him or somethin’.”
“Sounds like my bitch of a mom.” I confirm, sighing and clutching my arms around my middle as I slouch back in my seat, Gizmo and Snitch climbing to the back of the booth to grab at my hair. I try to think back and see if I remember him ever having an injury, but it was so long ago. I just don’t know.
“That woman made him happy. For a short time anyways.” Uncle B sighs deeply and the cheap, vinyl diner seat squeaks as he adjusts himself. “I’m not sayin’ what he did was a good thing, and I told him that same exact thing, but I also won’t deny that he was better off when she was in his life. Your ma…well, you know.”
“I do.” I freeze in place as a crystal clear image of my dad’s smiling face projects from Uncle B, his aura practically flattening with the weight of the despair that settles over him. Dad is laughing about something, the sound garbled but still surfacing in my mind, bringing an instant sting to my eyes that I struggle to blink away.
“I miss him, kiddo. So much.” Uncle B’s voice is wavering and thick, as if he’s just barely holding back the sobs that threaten to surface. “He was my brother, maybe not by blood, but as close as we’d ever get. He was the only family I had. I’m sorry, I- I’m sorry I haven’t been there for ya like he woulda’ wanted. I just…”
He flounders and chokes for a second, coughing to cover the whimper that escapes.
“I got lost in the pain. It’s no excuse, I know that. I just got lost in it for so long. After a while, I thought too much time passed and I didn’t know how ta reach out. I felt like I didn’t deserve ta have ya in my life after not being there for the hardest part.” My heart twists and writhes in tandem with the anguish leaking from his vibrations, his pain reaching out to my own and blending together into a canvas colored only by grief and misery.
I reach my hand across the table, offering just a tiny olive branch, and the choked sob that surfaces from the broken man in front of me just about breaks me. His hand touches my own, hesitantly at first, until he’s grasping so tightly that I’m sure I’ll be feeling it for a while. The dam holding his turmoil at bay is obliterated, and his crying fills the diner.
The guys next to us all sit in silence as I comfort the grown ass man who’s currently bawling his eyes out, their auras a mixture of pity and discomfort. It takes a lot to make a man like Walker Brooks cry. Much like my dad, he hides his pain behind a masculine, stony mask that refuses to crack even on the worst of days. To see it fall off completely is evidence of the tremendous effort he’s put into keeping it in place for this long.
He wasn’t lying when he said my dad was his only family. They met at the age of eight, when Walker’s mom died and his dad lost himself to a haze of drugs and alcohol to numb his pain, forgetting to pick him up from school completely. My dad got out of his after school club and saw him sitting on the school steps with tears in his eyes. He adopted him as a brother that day, and they stayed inseparable until his death.
If anyone can understand the agony I was left in when Dad died, it’s Uncle B.
“So Dad never introduced you guys? Showed you a picture of her? Told you her name?” I push the subject once more, letting his hand go and placing mine in my lap.
“No. I’m sorry. To be honest, I didn’t want ta know. Felt too much like…like it would be endorsin’ what he was doin’.” Uncle B breathes out a strangled sigh as he collects himself before continuing. “As much as I loved the change in him, felt like I had my best friend back and all that, I still don’t like cheatin’. Never have. That shit can ruin someone, ya know?”
“Yeah, I do. What about the car crash? Do you know anything more about that?”
“I’m sorry, no. I was kind of one of the last who were even told about it.” Disappointment floods me, but my phone rings, stopping me from questioning him further. I pull it from my pocket and give him theone secondgesture before answering. “Talk to me.”
“Wicked.” The delightful purr down the line brings a grin to my face, only for it to be wiped away completely when I realize Scarlette never calls me unless she’s got an update on a quest I sent her on.
“Scar-baby, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I’ve got some news on that accident you wanted me to look into.” Her tone switches to all business and I sit up straighter in my seat, my hand tightening on the phone.
“I’m all ears.”
“Alan Richards. Age fifty-three, chief of the Manna County Police Department. Six foot two and roughly one hundred and ninety pounds. Married to Sarah Richards, age forty-six. Is all that information correct?”
“That’s him.” I confirm tightly, my stomach flipping in its confines, making bile rise to the back of my throat.
“I’m sorry to say that there was no paper trail of a car accident on him. The only thing on his record is a speeding ticket from fifteen years ago and some stuff before that. All old news.” She pauses and I hear the rustling of some papers down the line before she speaks again. “Can you confirm the make and model of the car he was driving on the night of the alleged accident?”
I scrunch my brow before turning towards the guys, who are all on edge as they try to figure out who I’m speaking to. “Do any of you know what kind of car Alan drives? Or the one he was driving the day of my mom’s attack?”
“Honda Accord. Black. A twenty-seventeen is my best guess. It was his usual car,” Kai immediately answers. I turn forward in my seat, returning my attention back to the lusty lady on the other end of the phone. “Did you catch that?”
“I did. He currently owns that one and a matching one in silver. I sent a couple of my girls to check it out in person to see if he just didn’t report it to insurance or anything, but there were no signs of any damage on either car. Nor was there any damage to the third vehicle in his driveway the night the girls were there.” Blood rushes through my ears, my heart ramping up to a painful pace, and it takes a moment before I realize that Scarlette is still speaking.
