I went back into my office and looked at the phone sitting on my desk, willing it to ring. Like the masochist I apparently was, I wanted to know what had happened in her life to force her down this path. The savior in me wanted to help her. Truth of the matter was, I was no savior; I was an enabler.
I must have had some sort of super ESP, because it was at that moment that the damn phone actually did start ringing. All of a sudden, I wasn’t too sure I wanted it to be Sherman, because if he told me what I suspected was true, that Delaine was in a wretched place when she decided to do this, I just didn’t know how I would handle that.
I took a deep breath to calm myself and steady my nerves and then picked up the receiver. “Crawford.”
“Hey, Crawford. Sherman here. Got that information you wanted. Hope I’ve caught you at a better time.”
I sighed and it sounded despondent even to my own ears. “It’s as good a time as any,” I answered. And then I waited with bated breath.
“Yeah, well, got a pen and paper handy?” Sherman asked in his all business voice.
I grabbed a pen from my pocket and slid my notepad in front of me. “Shoot.”
“Delaine Marie Talbot, aka Lanie Talbot.” Like I needed to be reminded.
“She’s twenty-four, lives at home in Hillsboro, Illinois, with her parents, Faye and Mack Talbot. I’ve got an address if you want it,” he offered.
“Isn’t that what I’m paying you for?” I asked, agitated.
Sherman rattled off the address and then got right back to it. “High school records show she was a straight-A student, but I couldn’t find any record of her ever having attended college.”
I wasn’t surprised at all that she was smart; maybe she needed the money for tuition.
“Also doesn’t look like she was much into the social scene. Not surprising with a straight-A kid. They tend to be recluses.”
I had been one of those straight-A kids, so I knew damn well that nothing could be further from the truth.
“Seems pretty boring, if you ask me.” I hadn’t asked. “There really wasn’t much more on her, so I went digging on her folks. Her father used to be a factory worker until he recently got fired for attendance issues. There were doctor excuses on file, but they weren’t for him. Apparently he’d been taking care of his ailing wife, Faye. Faye Talbot is terminally ill, like at death’s door terminally ill, and in need of a heart transplant,” he said, and paused.
Memories of my mother’s closed casket flashed before my eyes and I dropped my pen, suddenly losing control of my motor functions. I had lost the only two people I had ever truly loved at the same time, so I was all too familiar with how Delaine must be feeling. And she was there with me, instead of by her mother’s side. Why?
I could hear Sherman shuffling papers in the background, and then he continued. “They recently came into a large sum of money, donated by an anonymous source. Before that, looks like they were going under fast. Lots of medical bills, maxed-out credit cards … You’d think health insurance would pay for some of this. But then again, no job usually means no insurance.”
Son of a bitch.
“No police record on Delaine. That’s all I’ve got.” He sighed, and waited for me to say something. The problem was that I didn’t know what to say. My brain was still processing the fact that Delaine’s mother was dying. For the first time since my own mother passed away, I wanted to cry.
“Crawford? Crawford, do you hear me?” he repeated.
I couldn’t say anything. I was choking back the flood of emotions that suddenly rushed at me and threatened to overtake the dam I had carefully constructed to keep those emotions in check, like it was made of twigs instead of 330 feet of reinforced concrete. The grief that I’d felt when I lost my parents had nearly destroyed me. I would’ve done anything to save them if it had been possible. Anything.
I barely even registered hanging up the phone in my state of shock.
Delaine had done the most selfless thing any human being on the face of the earth could have asked of her. She had given up her own body, her own life … to save her dying mother.
She was a goddamn saint, and I had treated her like a sex slave.
Guilt like none that I had ever felt before started eating away at me. Because knowing what she’d done, and the reason she’d done it, broke my fucking heart.
13
I FEEL FROGGY
Noah
I left work early. I just couldn’t do it; I couldn’t sit there acting like everything was fine, conducting business as usual when what we were doing was anything but.
“Yo, Crawford.” Mason stopped me as I made my way toward the outer office door. “You heading out? What’s up?”
Yeah, I probably should’ve told my assistant something, right? Everything in my goddamn head was a jumbled mess and getting messier by the second. Un-fucking-usual.
“Just send my calls to my voice mail. I’m checking out for the day. And if anyone asks, you don’t know where I’m going.”
“But I don’t know where you’re going.”
“Exactly.”
I turned on my heel and continued on my way, ignoring Mason’s “Is everything okay?” No, everything was not okay. And no, I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to wallow in my own guilt for a while and then figure a way out of this mess.
I knew there was only one place where I was ever going to get the peace and serenity I needed to sort this shit out, and I wasn’t going to let any Chatty Cathies delay me. Which meant I had to be rude, and I was … to several employees. But you know what? I didn’t give a good goddamn if they felt slighted because I didn’t smile politely when they asked how I was doing and give them a superficial “Fine, fine. And you?” I didn’t fucking care how they were, or that little Johnny had a snotty nose, or that Susie made the cheerleading squad, or even that Bob finally got that promotion. I didn’t fucking care.