“Thad was family. That makes you and his kids family too. We take care of our own.”
The door to my office opened. Mehar walked in mid-stride and stopped when she saw me standing behind Kacey with my hand on her shoulder and Kacey sobbing in the chair. Her expression shifted from confused to concerned in about half a second.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in a meeting,” Mehar said.
“It’s okay. Kacey, I need to speak with her but I’ll be in touch about the funeral arrangements. We’ll handle everything.”
Kacey stood and wiped her face and gathered herself. She looked at Mehar and something moved across her expression. Not suspicion exactly. Something more instinctive than that. Her eyes lingered on Mehar’s face for a beat too long, studying her with a focus that had no logic behind it but plenty of intuition. Then she turned back to me.
“Thank you again, Quest. I’ll call you about the arrangements.”
“Take care of yourself, Kacey.”
She walked past Mehar toward the door and Mehar held it open for her. Kacey didn’t acknowledge the gesture. Just walked through it with her tissue and her grief and that look still sitting behind her eyes.
Mehar closed the door and turned to me. “What was that about?”
“They found Thad’s body. Prime’s staging worked. It was found at one of Rashid’s buildings. I told her Mega was probably responsible.”
Mehar was quiet for a second. Whatever she was feeling about Thad’s body being found, she processed it privately and quickly. “And she believed it?”
“She doesn’t have a reason not to. Mega’s dead, Rashid’s dead, and the body was found in the right place. The story tells itself.”
“Did she give me a look on her way out or was I imagining that?”
“You weren’t imagining it. But she doesn’t know anything. She’s just a grieving woman looking for something to be angry at and you were the closest target.”
Mehar nodded and let it go because that’s what she did. She processed, she filed, she moved on. She didn’t sit with things that couldn’t be changed.
“Thank you for covering for me,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did.”
She smiled and sat on the edge of my desk, which was her favorite spot in this office for reasons that had nothing to do with sitting. “So. Are you packed for tomorrow?”
“Been packed since yesterday. You?”
“Almost. I can’t decide between two dresses and I might just bring both.”
“Bring both. Bring ten. I don’t care. Just be ready by 8 AM.”
“You better not crash that plane, Quest.”
I laughed. “I’ve been flying for years, Peach. You’re safe with me.”
“I better be.” She leaned in and kissed me soft and slow and the office and the lies and Kacey’s grief all faded into the background for a few seconds. When she pulled back she lookedat me with those eyes that made me want to cancel every meeting I had and lock the door behind us.
“8 AM,” she said.
“8 AM.”
She hopped off the desk and walked out and I sat there for a minute thinking about the ring in the safe at home and the red rocks in Sedona and the woman I was about to ask to spend the rest of her life with me. Then I thought about Kacey’s face when she talked about Thad’s body being unrecognizable. The coroner’s report. The months of torture. All of it traced back to Mehar and Prime and the cage that nobody would ever know about.
I’d carry that secret for both of them. For as long as I lived. Because that’s what you do when you love somebody. You carry the weight they can’t hold anymore and you don’t complain about it and you don’t put it down.
I closed my laptop and grabbed my keys. Tomorrow I was flying to Arizona to ask a woman to marry me. Tonight I was going home to pack a ring and pretend the world was simple.
41
