“No!” I cut him off, slamming my fists onto the table as Ishot up from my seat and looked at him. “This wasn’t a cover-up to get out of a damn parking ticket! He helped cover up someone’sdeath! He played a part in helping to pay someone off to keep them quiet! And we all know he more than likely got a cut out of it for himself because he certainly didn’t do it out of the goodness of his fucking heart! ‘More to the story’?” I grabbed the documents and held them up. “There isno excusefor this! An innocent man lost his life, and the person responsible got to go on living theirs like it never happened all because they were loaded with enough fucking money to keep people quiet, and my dad helped them do it! I don’t need to know anymore!”
I knew Kenneth meant well and was only trying to offer up some explanation I could grasp hold of, but I didn’t want it.
I’d looked up to my dad my whole life. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be just like him. Sure, he could be a hardass at times, and he wasn’t perfect, but he was my role model. He taught me the value of hard work, of standing firm in my morals and values, andeverythingI’d done was with one goal above all others in mind: to make him proud. When he died last year, I promised myself that I would do everything I could to ensure I upheld his legacy, not only at the firm but in my family, for my mom and Haley.
I was damn proud to be Robert Callahan’s son.
Until today.
My dadwillinglywent along with this, and I knew that becauseno onetold that man what to do. He went against the very oath he swore to uphold. And it made me wonder how many other instances there were because I didn’t believe for a second that this was the one and only time. How many other bribes did he take? How many other people did he help to avoid responsibility and consequences for their actions? How manyother laws did he break to help himself? How many other injustices was he responsible for?
I’d never have the answers to those questions. The only thing I knew for certain was that my dad wasn’t the man I thought he was. Not even close. And I wanted no part of that legacy I once cherished.
Whatever I was feeling didn’t matter, though. Because it wasnothingin comparison to what the two other people this affected were going to feel.
I raked my fingers through my already disheveled hair and let out a shaky breath. “I have to talk to Luke. I have to tell him.”
Chapter 20
I couldn’t recalla time over the last three years when none of us went to The Sandbar on a Saturday night. Sure, there were times here and there when one of us had to skip out because something came up. Butallof us? It never happened.
Not until tonight.
Gabe called me an hour ago, just after I got out of the shower, asking me to come to his place because he needed to talk to me about something. Lucas and Wes were already there when I arrived, and the atmosphere was morose at best. It only got worse when Gabe explained everything he and Wes uncovered, and my distress and confusion over hearing it added to the already sullen mood.
When I left Callie’s house that morning, I was slightly hungover from the wine, and my stomach still hurt from all the laughing we had done the night before during our girls’ night. She was happy. Things weregood.
Then Lucas went to talk to her.
From what he said, dropping the bombshell on her went as well as it did when Wes dropped it on him and went exactly how he thought it would—terribly. Now, she wasn’t responding to anyone’s attempts to reach her; calls went unanswered, texts went unread.
Callie always had a knack for burying emotions she didn’t want to face or deal with; she’d been doing it since we were kids. She’d bottle up as much as she could until she couldn’t stuff anymore in there, and it all became too much, and she had no choice but to face it. She was doing it now with the death of her mom, still not allowing herself to fully grieve that loss even eight months later. I knew this was going to be the thing she couldn’t fit inside the bottle, and everything she’d been trying to suppress was going to come pouring out.
I was worried about her. I didn’t want her to be alone, but I also knew I needed to give her a little space to try and process it on her own. So I’d give her tonight. If she still wasn’t answering me by tomorrow, I was going to her house whether she wanted me there or not.
The silence in the room between the four of us sitting there was unsettling.
Lucas looked like pure hell. I mean, how else are you supposed to look when you find out your parents helped cover up the role one played in the death of the father of the woman you love? But something told me the unease radiating off him in waves had nothing to do with his own circumstances but sheer concern for Callie and what this meant for them going forward.
I’d heard Wes talk about his dad before, and it was obvious they were close, and he seemed to hold him in high regard. I had no doubt this situation left him feeling betrayed and probably questioning everything he thought he knew about his dad.
As for Gabe and I, we sat in our quiet concern for the others. I couldn’t begin to imagine what any of them were going through.
When my phone broke through the unsettling silence in the room, everyone snapped their gazes in my direction, and I knew they were all filled with the same hope I was. I quickly grabbed it from my purse, but instead of Callie’s name on the screen, I saw Brody’s, and my shoulders slumped. “It’s just my brother.” I ignored the call; he’d leave a message if it was important.
Lucas got up from his spot on the couch and walked towards Gabe’s back door, sliding it open and disappearing onto the porch. I sighed. “He’s a mess.”
Gabe nodded in agreement. “Yeah. And it’s not like there’s much for us to say to make the situation better.”
Wes shook his head with a tick of his jaw. “This whole fucking thing is a goddamn mess.”
“How did your mom and Haley take it?” Gabe asked.
“I don’t know.” Wes sighed. “I think they’re both still trying to wrap their heads around it—which is fair because what the actual fuck. But that’s nothing compared to what Luke and Callie are dealing with.”
Wes and I had no issue admitting that we weren’t friends, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t empathetic to what he was dealing with despite his best efforts to hide it. He was focused on his concern for Lucas and Callie, which was genuine, but seemed to be trying to hide his own inner turmoil over the role his dad played in all of this. It obviously affected him, but he didn’t seem to think it mattered.
After talking to Lucas on the balcony to try and give him some words of comfort about Callie, I walked back inside andlooked at Gabe and Wes as I grabbed my purse. “I’m gonna take off.”
