Page 60 of Quiet Protector
Although the evidence was damning, the leading hand refused to let my mom watch the footage imbedded on a micro USB stick he found in one of the devices. He told her what had happened, then advised her to call the police.
She did precisely that two hours before Madden arrived at the ranch late last week. When he took the evidence the builder had given her, he told her our father would take care of it.
The USB hasn’t been seen since.
When Grayson brushes his knee against mine, prompting me to answer his question, I give honesty a whirl for the first time the past three days, “She’s faring better than expected, but she’s still struggling. She believes Melody and has essentially banished Madden from her life, but she’s blaming herself for his actions like she didn’t raise him right or something.”
“You can’t fix fucked,” Grayson mutters with a sigh.
“Right?”
After lifting his chin, Grayson scrubs at the wiry beard covering his jaw. “And what about you, punk? How have you been coping the past few days?”
This question is harder to answer than his first two. I truly don’t know how I’m functioning. I’m moving, eating, and talking, but I still feel hollow on the inside. This isn’t a standard second-chance romance story. I don’t get to ride in on a white horse and save the day. I’m too late. Melody has already been hurt just like her father said she’d be.
Grayson reads me in a way not many people can. “You’re taking all the right steps. You got her here, she’s pressing charges. Now you need to let the system do the heavy lifting while you take care of you and your girl.”
“What if they fail her like I did?” I ask, expressing the real reason I can’t shake my depressing funk. “What happens then?”
Grayson scoots to the edge of his chair before slanting his head so he’s facing me front on. “We do what we’ve always done. We get justice for the innocent.” He slaps my shoulder two times before giving it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t lethimbeat you down with his mind games, Brandon.”
His sneer when he says ‘him’ reveals who he’s referencing. He’s not talking about Madden. His focus is on my father, the man Madden cited as his defense attorney when he was arrested for rape for the second time in his pathetic twenty-nine years.
As luck would have it, the judge at his preliminary hearing was Annie’s grandfather. Annie was the first person to accuse Madden of sexual assault. Although no charges were filed for her assault, Judge Pearce took an instant disliking to Madden. He refused his request for bail before he dismissed my charge of battery under the guise it was self-defense.
“If he defeats you, he defeats her.” Grayson nudges his head in the direction Melody just went. “You don’t want that, do you?”
“No,” I answer without pause for thought. “He’s going down with Madden.”
“Good. Then let’s do that.” He drops his eyes to the outline of my cell phone in my pocket. “Give me your phone. I’ve got some stuff I need you to take a look at.”
“I can’t work right now, Grayson. My focus has gone to shit.” Although I’m saying no, I still dig my phone out of my pocket and hand it to him.
“You won’t need to concentrate for this.” He unlocks my phone without asking for the passcode before logging into the Bureau’s mainframe. “Have you got access to a laptop at your fancy hotel?” When I shake my head, he snags his frumpy old leather suitcase from the ground. “This one is as old as shit, but it’ll get the job done.”
When I crack open the screen, it requests a passcode. “It’s locked.”
“You know how your passwords arealwaysMelody’s birthday.” He laughs a breathless chuckle when I rib him with my elbow. “Tobias’s were Isabelle’s.”
I twist my lips, not surprised by his reply, but shocked about one thing. “Why do you have Tobias’s laptop?”
Grayson’s smile isn’t one I’ve seen before. “Not even the sharpest minds retain the sweetest memories correctly.” He nudges his head to the laptop. “That’s full of them.” I only just catch my phone when he tosses it back my way. “I put the file’s deets in your notes. If you can, I’d like your thoughts by tonight.”
“Tonight? Fuckin’ hell, Grayson. I just said I’m not up for any work.”
Ignoring me, he stands to his feet. “Do you love your girl, punk?”
The tightness of my jaw is heard in my reply. “If you need to ask, I clearly did a shit job of showing it back in the day.”
“Not then. Now. Do you love your girl now as you did back then?”
Grayson looks shocked when I shake my head. He has no reason to fret. “I love her more. She’s so brave, Grayson. So fucking strong.” I give my tired eyes a quick scrub before continuing, “But it’s not the time to show her that. Julian only broke off their engagement three days ago. Her heart is broken, so it isn’t right for me to pretend she is not hurting.” I also don’t think I am up to the task. I’m not myself. Not in the slightest.
My eyes float up from my clenched fists when Grayson asks, “So friends can’t help friends when they’re hurting? Friends can’t admit when they were wrong and underhandedly beg for forgiveness?”
Even knowing part of his comment resonates with his guilt over what happened to Melody, I won’t call him out on it—today. He didn’t technically knock me out the night Melody was raped, that was Tobias, but even if he had, what happened wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t even mine. It was Madden’s. It’s just going to take me more than three days to realize that.
Taking my silence as an inability to formulate a comeback to his question, Grayson jumps back into our conversation. “If you can’t tell her how you feel, be her friend then. If that involves getting hot and heavy under a blanket while watching corny 90s movies, so be it. That’s what friends do, right?”
