Hidden Things (28 page)

I'm sorry,
a small voice cried in the back of her mind.
I told her I was sorry. I take it back.

“ . . . and you left—”

“I threw her out.” Phyllis sounded like she'd been holding her breath. Neither of the men said anything, but the look they exchanged told Calliope that this was the first time they'd heard the words. “I was so”—she squeezed her eyes shut—“I was so
tired
of fighting all the time. It was so
hard
. I just—”

“I'm sorry, Calliope.”

“Mom—”

“I should have done this before.” She walked out of the kitchen. “Pack, now. Get out of my house.”

The house was quiet as she pulled the door shut behind her.

“—gave up.” Calliope's voice was barely a whisper, rough with unshed tears. The office rang with silence. “So did I.”

No one spoke for over a minute. Finally, the sheriff cleared his throat. “Your parents asked me to try to find you.” His eyes went to her father, then back to her. “When your sister got your letter, they decided to let things work out on their own, since you were already well out of the state.”

Phyllis let out a laugh that was more than half sob. “That didn't work out so well. Our daughter hates us.”

“No.” Calliope shook her head, frowning at the sheriff's words more than her mother's. “No, Mom. I just . . . I got scared.”

“That—” Her father sat forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with both index fingers. “Your logic makes my head hurt, little girl.”

The childhood phrase brought a faint, sad smile to Calliope's lips. “Josh didn't really understand either.” She glanced at her parents. “He really wanted to meet you. After we got back home, we—he broke up with me.”

Phyllis frowned. “But you started working with him in Sept—”

“It's complicated, Mom,” Calliope cut in. “The band wasn't working after he left, so I decided to get into the new business with him. He offered.” She sat back in the chair and crossed her arms, feeling defensive. “It's complicated.”

“That's a pretty good word for it,” the sheriff said. His voice was too loud in the tension of the room, but it served to shift attention away from the revelations of the last few minutes. “The thing is, with a history like that—if you hadn't had about the best alibi you could have, ‘complicated' would have turned into ‘suspicious' as soon as your partner was reported missing.” He looked at his desk, then back up at Calliope. “As it stands, it's just curious as all hell.”

Calliope watched Jim Fletcher's face, looking for a sign that she had another enemy to worry about. “You jumping in on the investigation of the case, Sheriff?”

“Calli—” her mother began.

“No.” The sheriff raised his hands. “It's a fair question, though I think the answer's pretty obvious.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his desk, unconsciously mimicking her father, and looked at Calliope. “I've got a badge waving in my face, as you put it, telling me I should give someone a call if I get any word of Miss Calliope Jenkins anywhere in my jurisdiction.” He glanced sidelong at Phyllis, but returned his attention to Calliope. “The person you're looking for is an ex-boyfriend, who's now your business partner; which might be a problem except you're only into the company for ten percent, and his ninety percent goes to his wife if he's declared dead, according to Detective Johnson.” He sat back in his chair. His eyes were still on Calliope, but rather than meeting her gaze, he seemed to appraise her. “Then Calliope Jenkins shows up at her parents' house, who are friends of mine—and I hope still are after all this—and she's looking a little cat-dragged and a little wild-eyed and”—his lips narrowed—“she's favoring her right side the way someone does when it hurts like merry hell but she doesn't want the sheriff to notice.” He leaned forward again, lacing the fingers of his hands together, but leaving them lying on his desk. “I'm not working on
your
case, but I suddenly have a situation dumped in my lap that could turn into a hell of a mess if I just ignore it.”

Calliope felt as though the bandage wrap had tightened around her chest again. “What do you want me to tell you, Sheriff Fletcher?” Her voice was soft, not out of any particular self-control or consideration, but simply because she couldn't force any more air out. “I just want to see if I can find my friend. I only came here to see my parents. I wasn't causing any trouble, and I'm still not.”

“You have to see—” Fletcher began.

“Everything you said is right,” Calliope continued, “and everything I just told you, you already know.” She spread her hands, palms up, in her lap. “You called Detective Johnson, and he told you everything he knew, it sounds like. That's all I've got. There's no dark secret or big truth I can pull out to make everything come clear.”

“Who shot you?” her father asked.

For several seconds, Calliope continued to look at the sheriff, hoping she'd somehow dropped into one of the surreal dreams that had dogged her since the start of this trip. Jim Fletcher's eyes tracked to her father, then back to her, and he tilted his head slightly. Waiting.

Keeping still simply to contain the frantic, nervous energy in her chest, Calliope turned her head toward her father. “What?”

He didn't return her look. His eyes were on his hands, his thumb rubbing along a callus on the outside edge of his left index finger. “Who shot you?” he repeated, almost talking to himself. “Seems like that's the only big thing we don't know.” The corner of his mouth drew up in a humorless smile. “Seems kind of important to me.”

“Oh,” Calliope replied. She turned back to face the sheriff, though her eyes were focused on nothing in particular.
This is where it ends,
she thought.
I'm not going to find Josh, or . . . anything.
There was a finality—almost release—to the thought.
I lose.

“Calli—” the sheriff began.

“Walker.” Calliope lifted her head, looking him in the eye. She heard a kind of wordless, confused sound from her mother. “Special Agent Walker shot me. In the shoulder. With his service piece.”

It was Jim Fletcher's turn for his eyes to go wide. After a few seconds, they resumed their typical hooded expression, and he looked down at the small pile of notes between his hands. “When was this?” His jaw firmed, and he looked back up at Calliope.

“Two days ago.” Calliope felt cold—detached from her own body. “In Colorado. Castle Rock.”

The sheriff nodded. Sounds from the outer office seeped in to fill the empty space between the room's four occupants. “Guess I need to ask for your personal effects, Calli. For safekeeping.” He glanced up at her, then back at his desk. “Figure you know the deal.”

“I do.” Calliope pushed herself up out of her chair and dug in her pockets. She felt numb, detached from herself. After everything that she'd gone through, the enormity of what this meant for her—for Josh—was simply too much to process.

“What—” Her mother seemed to choke the word out around her own surprise. She looked at the sheriff, then Calliope, then back to Fletcher. “What are you doing?”

“It's fine, Mom.” Calliope dumped her keys onto the sheriff's desk and pulled out her wallet. “That's pretty much everything I have on me,” she said to Fletcher.

“It's
not
fine.” Phyllis turned to her husband.

Her father cleared his throat. “You gonna hand my daughter over to the man that shot her, Jim?”

“Dad—”

“No . . .” The word seemed to come out of the sheriff's mouth reluctantly. He shook his head, looking away from all three of them. “No, I don't suppose I am.” His gaze moved back to her father and settled on Calliope. “I
can
still lock her up for a couple days, though.”

Calliope blinked, trying to keep up with the sudden shift in the conversation. “What?” Her voice sounded remarkably similar to the way her mother's had only a few seconds ago.

The sheriff leaned back, considering. “Might not be such a bad idea.”

“Ex
cuse
me?” Calliope turned to look at her father, but his eyes were still on his hands; it seemed to Calliope that he didn't want to look up and see her face, or the face of his friend. She turned back to the sheriff, whose eyes were also looking away from her and her father; oddly, he was watching her mother, who sat with her arms crossed tightly over her ribs, the fingers of one fist pressed to her mouth. Calliope shook her head and picked up her keys. “No.”

“Honey—” her father began.

“Not just no, but
hell
no,” she cut in, glaring at Fletcher.

“Your partner's wife comes in to identify the body in the next day or so,” the sheriff said. “Figure that you'll be fine if you just stay out of the way until then—let that question get answered.” He sat back in the chair. “Unless you promise to stay at your parents' house that long.”

“No!” At some level Calliope barely understood—one that might not have even existed a few days ago—she knew that she had to find Josh before Lauren saw the body; that it was, in Vikous's words, the way it worked.

“You didn't have any problem with this when you thought I was turning you over to Walker,” Fletcher said. “Now you do, when I'm not? Doesn't make much sense.”

“You wanna do your
job,
Jim? That's fine—I understand that.” She pushed her chair to the side and stepped away from the desk. “You want to lock me up for safekeeping? Treat me like I need babysitting?
Fuck
you.”

“Calliope Jenkins!”

“Oh,
what,
Mom?” Calliope rounded on her mother. “You want to put me in some jammies and get me a pacifier? Because I have a suggestion . . .”

“You'll want to be real careful what you say next,” her father murmured. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the room. “That's your mother.”

The tone of his voice, so familiar—the sound of dozens of arguments Calliope had lost as a child—cooled her ire only slightly. “What do you—”

“No.” Phyllis interrupted, shaking her head. “Calli, they're just . . . you know they're not going to do that.” She looked at the two men. “Jim?”

The sheriff shifted in his chair. “Your daughter's already been shot once.” He jerked his chin toward the outer door of the department. “Guy that did it's out there, probably not that far away, and he still has his gun. And a badge.” Her mother's face pinched with frustration.

“So you're going to—” Calliope shook her head, short and sharp. “You know what? Go ahead.” Calliope turned from her mother back to the sheriff. “I changed my mind; I want you to do this.”

Fletcher studied her, his own poker expression holding. “I'm not sure I believe you.”

“Oh, you can believe me.” Calliope bit off her words. “I'll end you.”

The sheriff's eyebrows raised slightly. “Really.”

“Really.” Calliope motioned toward the phone. “You just got off the phone with a cop who vouched for me, and cops don't even
like
me. I live in the most litigious city on the planet, and I chase down alimony dodgers, parole skips, and guys sneaking out on big legal fees for a living. Lawyers fucking
love
me, and I can think of a half-dozen assholes who would sue not only you but the entire department into bankruptcy, for free, even if they
didn't
owe me. It would be fun for them.”

Fletcher smiled slightly. “I don't think—”

“And it will take
years,
” Calliope drew out the word, letting it soak up some of the anger boiling just beneath the surface. “You'll be going to hearings for so long, it'll feel like a second career.” She gestured at the window of the office, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. “Lock me up. Start the nightmare.”

Silence poured back into the room. Her mother was looking down at the floor, wearing a peculiar expression Calliope couldn't identify. The sheriff continued to watch Calliope's face, then turned toward her father, who finally looked up at his friend.

“Jesus, Jim,” her father said, his voice still pitched low. He coughed lightly, and when he pulled his hand away from his mouth, Calliope saw a wry smile. “I don't think she likes that idea.”

The sheriff pursed his lips, shaking his head. “Doesn't sound like it.” To Calliope, it seemed he was about to start laughing.

“You . . .” Her mouth worked open and shut several times in exasperation.

Her mother stood up. “All right, that's enough.”

“You—” Calliope was still trying to find the words for her next assault on the smirking pair of men.

“Shh.” Her mother patted her arm. “Give your father a hug and I'll drive you back to the house.” Calliope looked at her mother. Seeing her face, the older woman nodded, her expression a mixture of amusement and annoyance. “Yes, they're being awful. I know. Give your dad a hug.”