then shouts at the taxi driver that she won’t be a minute.
When she moves to the desk to grab a forensic science biology book from a stack of four, her steps are extra shaky. I think I’m in the clear when she heads for the sliding door, but just before she exits, she remembers about Tobias’s letter.
I scamper back when her bob to scoop it up from the ground has her spotting my shoes under the shelving. I curse my stupidity a million times in my head before switching my profanities for excuses as to why she shouldn’t call the police on me.
All my plans fly out the window when she murmurs the quickest, “Thank you for telling me.”
She doesn’t wait for me to acknowledge her praise or to tell her I’m sorry for her loss. She just spins on her heels and hot-foots it to the taxi idling halfway down her driveway.
I wait for the cab’s engine to replicate the annoying buzz of a mosquito before moving out of my not-so-inconspicuous hidey-hole. The longer the playdown of Isabelle’s grief rolls through my head, the more the image of her face is replaced with Melody’s. They have a lot of similarities. Not in appearance—excluding their brown eyes, they’re quite the opposite, actually—but they both did lose influential men in their lives without anyone knowing exactly how far their grief extends. There’s just one notable difference. My family rallied around Melody. We propped her up when she had no one.
Isabelle doesn’t have that same crutch.
Or should I say, didn’t have?
She does now.
Tobias said I was to deliver his letter then walk away. He didn’t specifically state how long it had to be between the stages of his instructions.
Brandon
Six months later…
“You lucked out, man. From what I heard, Theresa is a witch.” Zayne, a recently recruited agent at the Bureau, backhands my chest like he’s talking to a fellow rookie. This is one of many reasons I hate having a boyish face. “Are you packing heat?” When I raise my brow, wondering what the hell he’s on about, he snickers. “From what I heard in the academy, if you can keep up with Theresa in the bedroom, she’ll keep you out of the trenches.”
“I’m not sleeping with my superior officer.” I know how bad the consequences are when you slip between the sheets with an informant, so I’m as sure as fuck not going down that path again. If they’re in any way associated with the Bureau, my dick is staying in my pants. I don’t care how attractive they are. “And I suggest you stop listening to rumors if you want to last longer than six months in the Bureau. As far as rookies are concerned, your chances of fucking anything went out the door the day you arrived at the academy.”
Zayne keeps talking, but I’ve lost interest in our conversation. It isn’t that he bores me, I just have a more appealing development occurring than to care what a wannabe hero has to say. Isabelle’s old Buick just pulled into the lot of the Bureau’s training field office in San Francisco. She looks good compared to the last time I saw her. The weight she lost in the four days from finding Tobias’s envelope to his funeral has been put back on, and the hair she used as a shelter during proceedings is pulled up and away from her face.
Her attendance at Tobias’s funeral went unnoticed by the assembly of FBI agents and bureaucratic hierarchies because she hid at the back like Melody did at Joey’s funeral.
She had a good reason to hide.
I’m still struggling to work out Melody’s objective.
A smile tugs at my lips when I notice the paperwork Isabelle is clutching. It’s one of the half a dozen applications I slid through her mail slot the past six months. She finished her studies not long after Tobias’s death, but she kind of drifted between nothingness ever since. It was clear she needed something to occupy her time other than her grief.
Her strength I’ve admired from afar the past six months had me confident she’d ignore my gentle push if she weren’t ready. The fact she’s here proves she is eager to move onto the next stage of her grief—the onward and upward stage—the one full of hope that the world couldn’t be so cruel to the same person twice.
The one stage of grief I no longer believe in.
After personally delivering her application to the agent manning the reception