“I’m not being mean to her. There were certain situations that had to be taken care of, but at no point was I out of line.” Everything I’d done had been warranted, and fuck anyone who said differently.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re sounding a little defensive. Perhaps there’s a thread of truth in those rumors?” His voice was creeping higher, almost into lecture territory.
Who the hell was this man becoming? “Don’t you break legs for a living?” Someone needed to remind him, because he’d clearly forgotten what he was.
“I’m only suggesting that you might be too hard on her and you should think about your actions.”
“Did you have any actual updates, or did you call to annoy the fuck out of me?”
“Her dog died a few months ago,” he continued. “He was a senior no one wanted that she adopted from the same shelter she volunteers at.”
Obviously I didn’t know that, not that it surprised me. It was such a Leah thing to do, or at least the Leah I’d known. She’d been constantly tending to some old or hurt furry thing she found.
“Anything beyond dogs?” I asked.
“I think she had a really rough time after she left Montana.”
“Why do you say that?” She’d moved from a house that was falling down around them to New York with a well-off stepfather. There might be rumblings of his being a bastard, but nothing was confirmed yet.
“No one who has a happy home life is excited to go to a boarding school, especially when it’s states away and hard to visit your family.”
“Boarding school?” I leaned on the back of my truck. “Why do you say she was excited to go there?” I hadn’t even known she’d gone to boarding school after she left here.
“I accessed the reports, internal and external. Hang on a second.” There was the sound of shuffling papers. “It says here, ‘We find her transition to be one of the smoothest we’ve seen. Although she doesn’t seem to have made any real friendships yet, she seems very content.’ That was from one report.”
“Obviously they’re going to say that to her parents,” I said.
“Listen to this one from internal notes. ‘Quiet and reserved, but seeming less jumpy and more relaxed as each day goes by.’ That was from one of her first teachers there.”
Less jumpy? Leah wasn’t one of those jumpy people. Never had been. If I wasn’t sure that John knew his shit, there was no way I’d believe we were talking about the same person. Although up until a couple of days ago, I hadn’t seen her cry either.
When I didn’t speak for a minute, he continued. “I’m just saying, I think she had a tough time, and I’d feel really bad if you were mean.”
Fuck.When did I become the villain in this story?
“Look, I’ll try to make sure I’m more sensitive.” I’d already been doing more than that, but I wasn’t telling him. “I want a copy of all the information you’ve gotten so far. I want to read all those reports.”
“Already being sent over.”
“Is there anything else?” I took another long swallow of beer.
“Yeah. I’m following up a lead on a warehouse the stepfather owns under a fake corporation. The setup smells to high heaven. My gut is saying this is all going to come back to him, but I don’t have anything concrete yet. I’ll be in touch soon, though.”
Dammit.
I hung up, went back into the house, and poured a whiskey. A beer wasn’t going to cut it today. I headed back out onto the porch, too afraid of what I’d say to Leah if I saw her right now.
Chuck, who had been heading over to his truck, detoured my way.
He glanced at my glass. “You’re drinking a lot lately. I’ve never seen you drink this much, and I’ve known you for a long time.”
“Well, this is my moment.” I raised my glass to him, not caring if he thought I was becoming an alcoholic. Tonight, I needed to drink.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked, fixing his hat.
“Not really.”
“We all screw up.”