Page 56 of Forever Endeavor

CHAPTER 18

Billie

With their hulking forms and stony glares, Sonny and Cal looked like a pair of menacing gargoyles about to strike. “Look, I know I really messed up,” she blustered on a shallow gust of breath, “but if I could only just—”

Disappointment welled in Cal’s eyes. “What did you do? I told you about that night in confidence, and suddenly, I end up on TV?”

“You said that picture was research!” Sonny bellowed, pointing to the screen. “Better start talking, Billie.”

“All right, all right,” she yelped. “Would you just shut up for a second so I can explain?” She gulped air into her lungs and started with Cal. “You told me one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking stories I’ve ever heard and in an instant, I knew I could turn it into a beautiful, heartbreaking romance novel. If only—”

“If onlywhat, Billie?” he asked.

“If only I could give the two main characters a happy ending. The happy ending that you rightfully deserve.” She wheezed. “I tried to secretly arrange a reunion with your mystery woman so that you could find out what happened to her that night and get some closure.”

Sonny’s hands shot up to the top of his head, probably to keep him from blowing his stack. “Goddammit, Billie! Didn’t we just talk about this? Stop trying to manipulate the past to change the outcome to what you want it to be!”

“But I wasn’t manipulating the past, I was engineering a better future. I thought it was worth a seven billion to one shot to try finding her using the Star-Crossed Connections site. I posted anonymously but used Cal’s photo to boost the chance of success.”

“Well, congratulations! Now it’s all over TV!” Sonny spluttered.

“Not just on TV.” She bowed her head sheepishly. “It’s also gone viral and is in every major newspaper coast to coast. You see, there’s a reporter named Bart Fielder in Illinois who wanted to make Cal’s story part of his article on searching for lost loves. Unbeknownst to both of us, his story got picked up nationally.”

Cal remained incredulous. “You gave him my name?”

“Of course not,” Billie said adamantly. “But given that you’re in uniform and the story mentions Chicago, it’s not rocket science. Someone obviously traced the image and tracked you down by your badge number. Believe me, Cal, I am so very, very sorry. In a few days, this will all have blown over.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one whose face is plastered all over network and cable news.”

“I swear, I didn’t mean for things to get so out of hand. No one did. But this whole firestorm actually might have led to a miracle.” She drew in a breath. “Right before I ran over here, I called Fielder. You’re not going to believe this, but he thinks we might’ve actually found your needle in the haystack.”

“H-he found her?” Cal stammered.

“Who?” Sonny demanded.

Cal shook off his disbelief. “Back in Chicago, I met a young woman. We spent a few hours together riding out the worst of a snowstorm, but then she disappeared without a trace.”

“He’s leaving out the most important part,” Billie said. “That woman saved his life. Cal was hours away from meeting his maker before fate intervened.”

“And by fate you mean…this woman?” Sonny questioned.

“That woman, the freak snowstorm, even Dustin Flipping Hoffman in a dress,” Billie listed. “Everything about that night conspired to keep Cal here with us. And now, it appears that he might finally get a chance to tell her what she meant to him.”

Cal stepped forward. “What did you find out? Who is she? Where is she?”

“I don’t know yet. It sounds like Fielder has a credible lead, but he said he’d text me once he can confirm. There’s a lot of crackpots out there who have nothing better to do than catfish kindly gentlemen.”

“So, this cockamamie scheme of yours might have actually worked?” Cal marveled.

“You might finally get the answers to questions you’ve had for the past forty years.”

“I’ve gotta sit down. This is too much.” He squeezed his forehead and flopped into the recliner.

Sonny folded his arms across his chest and scowled. “So, you used Cal to write your book without telling him, and you lied to me about why you wanted his photo. You said it was for research.”

She flapped her arms in frustration. “Itwasfor research. I used it to help solve Cal’s forty-year-old mystery. I didn’t lie, Sonny.”

“You intentionally kept me in the dark about this. That’s not telling the truth either.”

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