Page 75 of Shadows Relived
She didn’t forgive him for everything that happened, for his hand in the nightmare she had lived over the past week. Not fully. Maybe not ever.
But when she’d looked at him as Everett writhed on the ground, with Callen’s team storming through the treesand out of the house, she hadn’t seen the senator that filled the headlines.
She’d seen her father. Saw him in all his humanness, warts and all.
And for one fleeting second, it had mattered.
She blinked, tearing her gaze from the waves as the memory faded, but the ripple it left behind lingered in her chest.
The TV behind her buzzed with noise as Callen sat there, watching the breaking coverage roll in with people making official statements and the promise of federal indictments. She turned away, not needing to see it having lived through it, the weight of the past week still refusing to dissolve completely.
She had slept little last night. Or was it this morning? She wasn’t sure how long they had been stuck at the farmhouse, giving statements, answering questions. Callen’s boss, Dane, had called in the FBI who arrived to take over, and soon, Callen guided her to his SUV and drove off, the flashing red and blue lights disappearing in the rearview mirror while Everett Marris sat cuffed in the back of a federal vehicle. Her father had remained behind with some of Callen’s team, now acting as if he had solved the entire case on his own.
She stepped back out onto the balcony, wanting to get away from the news. It was too depressing. All she wanted to remember was the look in Callen’s eyes when she realized he wasn’t the man who walked away from her before. He was much more.
A sliding sound came from behind her as someone stepped out onto thebalcony.
“Elvis says there’s shrimp tacos downstairs,” Callen murmured.
She smiled faintly but didn’t turn around. “Tempting.”
“You’ve barely eaten anything since we got back.”
She gave a slow bob of her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ve been busy processing betrayal and attempted murder.”
His silence was soft, but weighted.
She exhaled and finally looked over her shoulder.
Callen leaned against the frame of the sliding glass door, arms crossed over his chest. The bruises from the rescue were healing, as was the gunshot wound, but the lines around his eyes were sharper, cut deep by guilt and exhaustion. Still, he looked at her like she was the only thing anchoring him to the earth.
“The news conference is about to start,” he told her, his expression blank.
Meaghan turned toward the mounted TV just inside the room, the banner at the bottom of the screen announcing that Senator Roger Harrington Resigns on a constant loop. The sound was low, but the image was enough. Murmuring reporters packed the press room. Her father stood at a podium with two American flags behind him, as well as what appeared to be two FBI agents behind him and his personal assistant. He looked thinner than she remembered, his suit hanging off him where before it had always been an impeccable fit. His cheeks seemed hollow and his skin pale, as if he hadn’t eaten in days.
The camera panned close, focusing on his face, which looked older than it had a week ago, his eyes darker,creases on his face deeper. He hadn’t shaved cleanly before stepping out there, and the tremor in his fingers as he adjusted the microphone betrayed a man worn down not just by scandal, but by guilt.
“Thank you all for being here.”
His voice was steady, but Meaghan knew it was only because he’d practiced this. Probably for hours. Maybe even for years, in case the lies ever caught up to him.
“I have come today not as a senator… but as a father.”
Her throat tightened.
He’d said those same words to her last night, only then his voice had cracked. No podium. No cameras. Just the farmhouse living room, dim with the one lightbulb and the bloodstained wooden floor. She was still shaking from the rescue, her wrists raw from zip-ties, when she walked in and saw him slumped in a wooden chair with a bottle of water and eyes rimmed in red.
He’d looked up at her like a man already sentenced.
“Meaghan…” His voice was low, wrecked. “I didn’t know.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to know. And when I finally saw the truth, it was already too late.”
She shook her head. “You were going to let me take the fall,” she whispered, unable to stop the tremble in her voice. “You… they put my name on everything.”
He’d gotten to his feet slowly, as if every inch of motion cost him something. “I tried to fix it,” he rasped. “I swear to you, I did. But I was sloppy. And they knew what I was doing before I could finish it. They sent men to shut me down, to use you, but I knew Callen could protect you against Marris.” He choked on the name, thenforced it out. “If Callen hadn’t forced me to come… if I’d lost you…”
He stepped forward then, his hands trembling. “If anything had happened to you, I wouldn’t be standing here. I would’ve followed him into hell and never come back.”
Meaghan remembered standing still, feeling everything and nothing at once. Anger. Sadness. That cursed love that still lived inside her, twisted and disappointed and never enough.
