Grace's Redemption, page 15
But the look on Grace’s face during our call this morning hadn’t left my mind . . . the way she’d panicked and how she’d responded to my voice when I’d talked her down. The flash—the moment—I knew we shared, just before she looked at that pregnancy test, when it felt like we both wanted it to be positive.
What the ever-loving hell?
After Maria, I never wanted to go through any of that again. Marriage. Pregnancy. The potential of loss so deep it could tear me in two. Yet here I was.
Yet here we were.
With a dot.
Until we know what we’re doing . . .
Yeah, that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? Dot or no dot, I couldn’t deny I’d started to feel something for the adorable Mrs. B., and that could be a problem because I’d sworn off those kinds of entanglements to focus on Olivia.
Still, I was early for my meeting, so I made a split-second decision to pop up to see her and make sure she was doing okay. Purely selfless of me.
The elevator doors slid open and there she was . . . her face ashy and pale just like this morning.
Our eyes locked, and what I saw mirrored in hers made my heart begin to pound. Something was wrong. I moved toward her as she stumbled my way, one hand gripping the wall, one clutched to her chest as if to find air.
Her ashen face turned ghostly white behind her glasses as I reached her, her knees melting from beneath her. I caught her before she hit the ground, ignoring the surprised gasps around us.
“Grace?” I swept a stray lock of hair back from her face. “Baby?”
Nothing.
I collected her into my arms and carried her to a row of chairs, ready to sprint for help just as her eyes fluttered open.
Relief flooded through me. “Are you okay?”
She blinked up at me a few times just as a nurse rushed over. “Ma’am? Are you alright? Do you need to go to the ER?”
I was about to agree to that when Grace waved her off. “No. I’m fine. Thank you.”
The nurse shot me a look, but I had my gaze pinned on Grace, who forced a half-assed smile.
“I’m fine. I promise,” she said, pushing up taller. Her eyes darted to a group of people getting off the elevator and she held her chin up. “Seriously.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked her over as the nurse reluctantly walked away. “I call bullshit.”
She pasted on a fake smile and spoke through her teeth. “You call wrong.”
The group of six or seven elderly women, and two guys probably in their forties, stopped and squeezed her hand, hugged her, tsk’d about the unfairness of such a horrible thing happening to such a wonderful man. Grace nodded and smiled and thanked them for coming, and they wandered down toward her dad’s room.
I watched her expression disintegrate the second the last one passed.
“Do you faint as often as you lie?” I asked.
Her brows fell. “I didn’t faint. I just swooned a little.”
“Not funny, Grace.”
She took a breath. “I know.”
I sat next to her and softened my tone. “Talk to me.”
She shot me a sideways glance. “Emotional morning, I guess.”
“With us or your dad?”
“Both.” Her gaze fell to her lap. “He’s particularly bad today.”
I cupped my palm over her hands. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded but didn’t look at me. After a long moment, she turned her hand so our fingers were interlaced. “I have anxiety,” she admitted quietly. “It gets the best of me sometimes.”
I didn’t reply right away. I had already pieced together that she had issues with anxiety, but the fact that she was sharing it with me felt big somehow.
Until we know what we’re doing . . .
“I’m sorry,” I said again, rubbing my thumb along her fingers. “I know that’s rough. But from where I sit, anxiety doesn’t have you. You’re pretty damn amazing, Grace.”
Those big dark eyes lifted to mine and a soft smile lifted her lips. “So are you, Mateo.”
“Feeling better?” I asked instead of acknowledging that.
“Yes. Thank you.” She dropped her head to my shoulder and squeezed my hand. “So, did you come by just to see me, or . . .?”
“I did come by to see you, but I also have a meeting this morning with the medical examiner.”
“Ah.” She didn’t ask and I didn’t tell.
Her phone dinged with a text, so she sat up and checked it, then responded before turning to me. “I’m gonna run to the little girl’s room. Be right back.”
“Okay.”
She laid her phone down in her seat, then walked toward the women’s restroom.
I pulled out my own cell phone to check the time just as her phone’s screen lit with two more messages back-to-back. I couldn’t help but see them.
Hope: Did you print those annulment papers yet???
Hope: For fuck’s sake, sign them! I don’t care how good he is in bed . . . IT’S YOUR WAY OUT!
I blinked down at the screen, rereading the words, but they blacked out, just as my heart did. I wasn’t sure what hurt worse. That she’d had annulment papers drawn up or that she hadn’t bothered to talk to me about it.
I dropped my head and pinched the bridge of my nose against the burn of emotion, not sure how to feel. I should be glad about this. Relieved she’d taken the initiative and saved us both a lot of trouble. But that wasn’t what was rolling around in my chest like a fiery poker. No, this felt a whole lot more like loss. And betrayal. Neither of which I liked.
I glanced up at the soft click of her shoes on the linoleum and our eyes clashed. A soft, stupid part of me wanted to buckle at the broken look on her face and those big emotional eyes that seemed so lost against that pale skin. And the way she stared at me . . . like I was her redemption?
No.
Not now.
I picked up her phone just as she opened her mouth to say something. “Your sister texted.”
Her gaze slid to the phone in my hand, then back to my face, her expression confused. She darted a glance back over her shoulder toward her father’s room. “Faith?”
“No. Hope.” I glanced down at the offending black screen, then back to her. “You had annulment papers drawn up?” I asked, my voice low.
Her eyes got wide. “You read my messages?”
“No. Your phone was right here next to me. The screen lit up. I couldn’t help but see it.” I tilted my head as I tossed her phone back into her chair. “But that’s not the point, is it? Were you even going to talk to me about this?”
“What was there to talk about?” She paced a step or two, then came back to me. “We’d already talked about it being a possibility.” She slammed her arms across her chest and stared me down, her eyes full of conflicting emotions. “Hope’s a lawyer. I asked her to look into what it would take to . . .” Her words fell away as if she’d lost her energy.
I slumped over, my elbows to knees, not sure what the hell I was feeling.
She sunk into the chair on the other side of me, ignoring her phone. “I didn’t ask her to draw them up.” Her voice was softer now. Pleading. “Well, sort of. Not—”
“You did or you didn’t, Grace?”
She recoiled at my biting tone, but I didn’t care in that moment. I needed to know if she’d been planning to end things this entire time that I’d been planning to . . . stay.
Fuck.
When had that happened?
She huffed out a heavy breath. “Yes,” she finally managed. “Back then.”
“Back then? As in a whole week or two ago?”
“Back when I first got home and all I knew was I’d drunk-married a stranger and could be pregnant. When all I knew was I’d made a mistake just like—” A half sob choked her as she bolted from the chair, a hand to her mouth as if the words were just too much for her.
“Like what?”
She just shook her head, standing with her arms crossed, her eyes shut tight. “It doesn’t matter now,” she whispered. Her eyes opened, releasing a flood of tears as she stared blankly down the hallway. “Hope offered to check into Nevada annulment law and what my options were before I knew you were in town. Before we got to know each other. Before any of this . . .” She swirled her hand in the air between us. “She did, and threw something together for me. Just in case.”
My brain scrambled to catch up with everything. She was talking about a ‘before us’ and annulment papers in the same breath. What the fuck? “In case you aren’t pregnant?” I bit out.
Her eyes closed again. “I’m not,” she whispered.
Wait. “What?”
She couldn’t look at me and that hurt worse than anything. “I just, you know . . . started.”
There were a hundred things I should have felt in that moment. Happy. Relieved. Grateful. Not one of those came to me. Instead, only rock-solid dread filled my chest as I stared at her profile.
She was going to sign those papers and leave me.
Leave me?
Had she ever even been mine?
It was becoming painfully obvious the longer she wouldn’t look at me that the answer was no. She’d only hung around to concede to my need to know about a baby. Our chemistry was only an added bonus.
Well, we had our answer now and she could have that clean break she wanted from the beginning.
I took a breath and fought the desire to rub the ache in my chest as I stood. “Okay, then. I’m glad you took the bull by the horns and planned ahead. Let me know what you need from me, then I won’t bother you again.”
This time I didn’t look at her as I walked away.
I took a lap around the hospital to get myself mentally together before my meeting with the medical examiner. I was only five minutes late, but he didn’t seem to notice, busy behind his computer with his AirPods in his ears.
I waved to get his attention and he pulled out one of his pods. “Chief Beckett?”
“Yes. Sorry I’m late, Dr. Copeland.”
“Nonsense. Have a seat.” He indicated the chair on the other side of his cluttered desk.
We shook hands, and as I sat, I took in the good doctor and his workspace. He was younger than I imagined, maybe late thirties, thinning dark-blond hair, smiling blue eyes behind round Harry Potter glasses, ruddy cheeks, and a ready smile. His office seemed to suit him with memorabilia from The Office and Star Wars interspersed with clunky reference books, binders, and multiple prestigious degrees on the wall.
“So . . .” He rocked forward in his chair and rifled around his desk to find a folder. “Your body in the barrel.” He opened the folder, then lifted his eyes to mine.
“Yes.”
“I’ve been able to make a positive ID and determine cause of death.”
“That fast?”
“Yes, sir. The body was badly decomposed due to the acid, but there were some personal effects at the bottom of the barrel to point me in the right direction. Dental records confirmed it. And cause of death was easy enough due to the bullet hole in the skull.” He slid the folder my way with a photo of a chief of police badge sitting on a metal table.
I lifted my gaze to his as a cold chill crept over my body. “Is that . . .?”
“Yes. Wyatt LaVeaux.”
I sat back with a sigh, fingertips to my mouth. “Fuck,” I whispered under my breath.
“My sentiments exactly.”
I picked up the photo and studied the image of the same badge I wore now. How had LaVeaux ended up in a barrel of acid? Probably mixing with the same company that got Chief Bollinger put in prison. And now here I was, right in the den of vipers.
Or viper.
Cyrus Pittman.
I needed to figure out their ties and put that asshole in his place before he caused any more damage.
I tossed the photo back on Dr. Copeland’s desk. “Thank you for your time on a Sunday. Is there anything else?”
“That’s the gist of it. I’m only in half a day today, but I can get you a copy of all my reports by tomorrow morning.”
“I’d appreciate that.” I rose and we shook again. “You have a good day.”
I left his office with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Both because of the giant task I now had to face down, and because I had the daunting duty of notifying Chief LaVeaux’s next of kin what had happened to him. It wasn’t at all because Grace and I had no reason to stay married. Not at all.
A week and a half later, and three Tylenols into my lunch break, I sunk into my office chair with a massive sigh that felt like it emanated from my bone marrow. Funerals sucked. Police and firefighter services especially wrung every bit of emotion from you. And something about watching Reese LaVeaux-Scott sit through her father’s funeral cut extra deep. Maybe because I could see Olivia in her eyes, and I was all she had in the world. At least Reese had her husband, Finn, and baby daughter there to hold. To touch. To help her feel less alone. If something happened to me, who would Olivia have?
“You alright, Chief?”
I lifted my head at Louise’s voice. “Yes.” She tilted her head down to look at me over the rim of her glasses. “No.”
“These things are always hard,” she said softly, fiddling with the coffee pot outside my office door as if she needed something to do.
Wyatt’s cause of death hadn’t been released to the public. I also hadn’t talked to Louise about the details, but I had a feeling that not much escaped her notice. In my short tenure, she had proven herself a capable and loyal ally. I sat back in my chair as she turned around, her black dress a stark contrast to the denim skirts and basic blouses she normally wore.
“Did you know Wyatt LaVeaux well?” I asked. “Outside of working for him?”
She sighed and came in my office, landing heavily into a guest chair. “I’ve worked for four police chiefs in this office,” she said quietly. “And they all have one thing in common.”
“What’s that?”
“Cyrus.” She said his name slowly under her breath, almost like it was sacrilege to utter it too loud.
I leaned forward on my elbows. “What makes you say that?”
She shrugged. “They all fall to him.” She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “Cyrus Pittman has strutted around like a peacock in heat for everyone that sat at your desk, making sure they bow to his will.” Her eyes opened, and she narrowed them on me. “I watched each one fall one way or another, no matter how good their intentions were.” She leaned in. “And when he doesn’t get his way? Well . . .” She glanced away as if she couldn’t speak the words out loud.
I blew out a breath, rolling a pen over my fingers as I studied her. “Talk to me, Louise.”
Her gaze slid back to mine. “Well, you’re number four, and you haven’t fallen. Yet.” Her brow lifted. “It’s still early.”
I lifted mine right back, silently demanding further explanation.
She recrossed her legs as if settling in to tell a long tale and straightened her skirt on her legs, her face growing somber. “I saw it coming a mile away with Chief Bollinger. He’s a bit of an arrogant ass, to be honest. Too much like Cyrus, and too easy for the pickings.”
I frowned. “How so?”
“Greedy,” she said. “Weak. Too willing to fall for whatever filled his pockets, and Cyrus isn’t stupid. He’s sharp and slimy, and molds the weak to do his bidding. Which is why Bollinger’s in prison for corruption and drug charges and Cyrus isn’t.”
“And Wyatt LaVeaux?” I asked.
Her face fell, telling me without words that she was fond of Wyatt. “He wasn’t a perfect man, but he was kind, and he loved his daughter.” She glanced down to her lap, then back up. “What really happened to him?”
“He was murdered.” I watched the horror flick through her eyes. “Keep that on the down-low for now though.”
She nodded and kept going. “Wyatt’s sin was one of omission, I suppose.” At my confused frown, she explained. “He took hush money to look the other way from Cyrus’ illegal dealings around town.”
“Who was before him?”
“Chief Darden,” she said. “Martin Darden. He was chief for about five years. Nice man, if a bit flirty.” She glanced away with a little shrug.
“What happened to him?”
“He died unexpectedly. He didn’t come to work one morning, so a patrol unit went to check on him, and they found him dead on his living room floor. Said it was a heart attack. Sad because he was only fifty-three with a grandbaby on the way.”
I nodded, my mind ticking. “And was he on Cyrus’ payroll too?”
Her eyes flitted to mine. “Those two were thick as thieves. Then his daughter got pregnant and I overheard him talking to his wife about cutting ties with him. Now that I think about it . . . I believe he’d met with Cyrus a day or two before his heart attack, but I’m not sure what they spoke about.”
I could take a guess.
I picked up a pen and jotted down Chief Darden’s name. “Do you know if he was buried or cremated?”
“He was buried with full military honors,” she said, her eyes looking sad. “Retired Navy.”
I nodded and made a note to look into his autopsy report. I really didn’t want to have to go down the route of having him exhumed for forensic evidence, but I’d do what I had to in the name of justice.
Pen still in hand, I sat back and studied my secretary for a moment. “So . . . you witnessed all of this for all these years and never said a thing to anybody?”
“To who?” she shot back. “Who am I supposed to tell that my boss—the police chief—is corrupt?”
“What about the mayor? The sheriff? The FBI? The media?” I folded my hands and leaned forward. “Anyone who would listen?”
Her brow shot up in humor. Or frustration. “You’re new here.” She met my gaze again. “You’ll come to see that we don’t air our dirty laundry outside Redemption, or bring the spotlight to it. We take care of our own.”
“But—”
“I’ve lived in Redemption my whole life, Chief,” she said quietly. “So has Cyrus Pittman, and his family before him. Everyone knows his power. His reach. If he can control the law, he can do anything, and I like my head right where it is.” She winked. “My husband’s, too, although some days that answer might be different.”
