Page 19 of You for Her (The Edge of Retaliation 2)
“I can imagine,” I say, giving her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure it’ll work out. You can’t stay just because of the drama that would follow if you left.”
She sighs. “Did you see that magazine report a few days ago?”
I did see it.
An article of her and some caption about the town’s local millionaire’s wife not living in the same house, and is their marriage over? I didn’t read it. I didn’t need to. It’s trash. Still, people love that kind of gossip. Pat is young, he’s good looking, and he’s rich. It’s not going to be easy for Jo to walk away without anyone bothering her. Not to mention all the media shit that will come with it.
I feel for her, I really do.
“I did see it,” I answer her question. “Just tell Pat that if he causes any problems when you leave, you’ll tell the media about his bed farts.”
Jo giggles. “God, can you imagine?”
We both laugh. Making light of a troubling subject.
“So, I think we should go outside and you should call Chase,” Jo says, after eating in silence for a few minutes. “I think it’s time to find out what he knows.”
“What do I say to him?” I ask, pursing my lips. “If I stuff it up, he’ll know I don’t know anything and can just as easily block me.”
“I think you just tell him you know what he did to Celia, and you know that she ended he life because of him, and if he doesn’t come forward, you’ll tell the media.”
I raise my brows. “That’s brutal, Jo.”
She shrugs, her face hard. “Him letting you get locked up was brutal, Callie. This is justice.”
Ouch.
But she’s right.
I exhale. “It’s a risk.”
“Everything is.”
She’s right about that. Everything is.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
We finish our dinner and our wine, and then we pay and head outside. We walk down the street a little, and I’m feeling more than a bit tipsy. We find a quiet area of the street and I pull out my phone, dialing Chase’s number. Then I glance at Jo as I put the phone on speaker phone. Here goes nothing.
It rings a few times, and part of me, a tiny little part, hopes he won’t answer.
Facing this, uncovering this hell, it’s going to bring forward a lot of pain, for everyone.
It has to be done, but that doesn’t make it easy.
“Hello?”
A croaky, sleepy, male voice comes across the other line and, for a few moments, my heart races so hard I can’t find my voice.
I take a deep, shaky breath and say, “Chase?”
Dead silence.
I look to Jo, and she nods for me to keep going.
“I know it’s Chase.”
“Who is this?” he asks, his voice a little more awake now.
“It doesn’t matter who it is. We need to talk. We can make this easy, or hard, but if you hang up, it’ll be hard.”
“What do you want?” he demands, angry now.
“I want the truth,” I say, my voice a little more confident now. “I know what you did to Celia Yates. I know what happened.”
He goes silent again.
“How did you get this number?”
“That’s irrelevant. What matters is what you’re going to do with this information. I want you to come forward, I want you to tell your family and her family what you have done. If you do, I won’t go to the police …”
It’s a risk, throwing the police in, because I don’t actually know what he did, but either way, I’m playing this card, because it’s the only one I have.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, low.
“But you do, Chase. I have proof, if you’d like to see it. I have Celia’s test results. I have emails and I have text messages. I know what you did.”
I hold my breath.
I hold it so tightly I feel like I’m going to pass out.
He’s either going to call me out, or I might just get away with this.
“I never meant to hurt her,” he says, his voice pained. That hurts, I won’t lie. I don’t think Chase ever meant any harm, but regardless, he is the reason she is gone. At least, I think he is. “I didn’t mean to get in so deep. I wanted to give her nice things. I was making money from the drugs, and I screwed up. I owed them and … I didn’t think they’d take it out on her. I didn’t think they’d hurt her. I couldn’t stop them, the drugged me and made me watch. I couldn’t. It wasn’t my fault.”
Couldn’t stop them?
Who is them?
What did they do to her?
“She got HIV from it!” I accuse. “She took her own life because she couldn’t go on! It is your fault, Chase. It is!”
That’s the only tiny piece of information I have, but I’m going to use it.
