Yield (Cal and Macy's Story 3)

He didn't though. He kept coming. His face was filled with worry for me but so intent on saving his damsel.

I begged him to stop... not to brave the darkness and whatever evil was lurking just beyond the edges of the shadows.

But he never listened to me.

He kept coming after me.

And then... I woke up.

Okay, so it doesn't take a psychologist to figure out that dream. The meaning is clear and not something that is a big revelation to me. Clearly, I worry about Cal. I'm terrified Luke is going to kill him, and I'm doing everything in my power to make sure he stays safe, despite the fact that Cal is still clearly bent on pushing forward.

But when I woke up and thought about the dream, frustrated that I didn't see the conclusion, I focused in on my feelings just before it ended. I zeroed in on the prime emotion that was holding me hostage. I analyzed exactly what my dream self was getting ready to do before consciousness claimed me.

And I realized... I was getting ready to run to him. I was getting ready to jet down that dark hall, regardless of what might be in the shadows. I didn't care because my life and existence were secondary to Cal's.

I was getting ready to take on the risk to preserve the reward.

So, Dear Diary... I made a monumental decision today.

I'm going to go meet with my parents and Luke. I'm going to take back my life.

Today, I'm being reborn.

Love,

Macy

Chapter 23

It's been another three days since I last saw Macy.

Three long and unbearably brutal days.

I know she asked for time to think, and I promised I'd give that to her, but really... what does time really mean? A day? A week? A month?

I'm okay with it meaning three days. The selfish, alpha, hurry-things-along kind of guy that I am, I want to demand she finish up her thoughts and realize we're meant to be together. I know it at the core of my being. I think she does too, but she's afraid of it.

Mac has urged me to be patient. She says Macy has been very elusive the last few days, staying in Gabe's room mostly. This worried me... made me want to rush over there and bust the door down to soothe away whatever has her down at the moment. Which... given Macy's life, could be any number of things.

But Mac encouraged me to wait because while Macy has been a bit standoffish, it's not in a dark or depressive manner. In fact, Mac said Macy came back to the apartment last night and actually looked happy... satisfied.

This, of course, made my guts curl in on themselves because my first thought was Macy went back to One Night Only and that accounted for her satisfied look. That only lasted a moment though, because that's just not Macy.

At least, not the Macy I've grown to love.

I'm confident Macy is still mine, at least for the moment, while she continues to "think" about our relationship.

I, on the other hand, have more to do than just ruminate. I'm meeting with Dee Switzer and expecting her at my office any moment. I offered to come over to hers, but she said she would like to come to me because she didn't get out of the office often. I told her to make sure she smoked several cigarettes on the way over, because she absolutely was not allowed to smoke in my office.

She gave me a cackling type of laugh, one that I expected to erupt into a hacking cough, and then hung up on me.

I open the folder and flip through the contents, paying specific attention to the portions I highlighted just an hour ago. There's not many, but hopefully it's enough for Dee to do something with. So very pathetic that I'm hinging all my hopes of getting my woman back to this measly folder of paper on my desk.

A knock on my door and Janis opens it. "Miss Switzer is here for your appointment."

Dee brushes past Janis, who discreetly closes the door behind us, and marches up to my desk. The stale scent of cigarette smoke reaches me about two seconds before she does. Her method of greeting is to give me a quick nod of her head before she sits down in one of my guest chairs and fixes me with a direct stare.

"So, I take it you got dirt?" she asks without any preamble.

"Yeah, but before we go over it, I want to make sure you're still willing to squash the forfeiture order. I give you something that helps a plea deal get pushed through, Macy gets her apartment and her money back."

"Relax, Tiger," she says with a raspy voice as she leans over and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. "We're good."

"You can't smoke," I say as I pointedly glance at the smokes she's holding.

She gives me a sheepish grin. "Sorry... habit, you know."

"One that will kill you if you don't stop."

Dee's eyes widen, her brows go skyward, and she clasps her hand to her chest. "You're kidding. You mean... these things could kill me?"

I can't help but chuckle at the way she mocks me for the unnecessary preach I just laid on her. I push the folder across the desk toward her, but she doesn't take it. Instead, she leans back in her chair, crossing one polyester, pant-suited leg over the other. "Just give me the highlights."

"My investigator found a witness. A former housekeeper of Coppens who worked for him for almost twenty years. She's retired and living in Antwerp now."

"What did she have to say?"

I hesitate for just a moment, because at first... she really didn't have much to say. After Keith paid her, she got quite chatty. "She confirmed that Coppens had a surgical suite in the basement of his house in Brussels, as well as the house in Lucerne. That Coppens routinely saw patients down there, and they were usually very young girls... in her estimation, not older than eighteen."

"That doesn't mean anything criminal," Dee points out.

"I'm not done," I tell her smugly. "She was shown a picture of Luke Carrington and asked if she ever saw him. She identified him as having made two visits to the Lucerne house, both times with two different young girls. Very young."

"Again... all circumstantial," Dee says, flicking at some lint on her pant leg.

I don't say anything for a moment, letting the tension build. Now would be the perfect time for a drum roll. "She also recognized one of the girls brought to the Brussels house. It was the daughter of a neighbor of hers. She was with an older man... no one relevant to this. My investigator tracked the girl down and talked to her. She confirmed she had an illegal abortion by Coppens."

Dee stares at me shrewdly as she considers my evidence. "It's still circumstantial in regards to Luke Carrington."

"Yeah," I say as I lean forward and clasp my hands before me on my desk. "But it's a really good circumstantial. You can prove Coppens did an illegal abortion on an underage girl, that he had a pattern of taking young girls down into the surgical suite, and that Luke Carrington took two girls there before. It's a slam dunk, Dee."

"And just out of curiosity... did this information cost anything?" she asks slyly.

"My investigator bought her lunch," I reply vaguely with a shrug.

"And how much did that lunch cost?"

"About ninety-five hundred Euros." If I was going to pay to get a witness to talk, I was going to own it.

"Jesus Christ, Cal," Dee says with a sneer. "That witness is biased. She could be making that shit up."

"But she's not," I insist. "She knew a girl that had been there. That girl corroborated the story. And if you take this to Luke Carrington and threaten him with it, he'll roll. You can take them all down, get your pat on the back, and move on to the next case."

Dee's head bops back quickly as she snorts. "You think it's just that easy, huh?"

"I think it's something you need to try and see if it works," I growl at her. "It puts this case to rest and lets Macy move on with her life."

Standing up from the chair, Dee walks over to the wall in my office that holds my degrees. She clasps her hands behind her back as she studies them. I patiently wait for her, although I can't imagine what she finds fascinating about them.

She keeps me hanging only for a

moment, when she turns and gives me a benevolent smile. "You're a smart man, Cal. And determined. I'm very impressed with what you did to uncover this information."

Um... thank you?

"It's amazing what we'll do for the people we love," she murmurs as she tilts her head and gives me a knowing look. "And while I'm very intrigued by everything you've presented to me, I'm afraid I can't use any of it."

"Why not?" I explode as I rise from my chair. "This is good stuff. You could at least try to use it to get a deal."

"I can't use it," Dee reiterates patiently, "because a deal has already been struck. It took several hours to hash out an acceptable plea deal for all parties, but the defendants and their counsel signed the agreement last night. They'll be formally sentenced next week."

I sink back down into my chair, completely blown away by this information. I mean... why the fuck did she even bother to come see me? Why the fuck did she let me ramble on with this information if it was no longer needed?

"I don't understand," I mutter as I pick up the folder of information and throw it in the garbage.

Dee walks over to the side of my desk, casually puts her hands in her pockets, and leans a hip against it. "Macy called me two days ago. She told me she would give a statement against her father and for me to set up a time for us to meet later in the week."

"She did?" I ask, bewildered. I mean... Macy had let it go. She didn't want to dredge this all up, and now she was laying it out there for perfect strangers to see?

Dee nods with a fond smile. "She did, but that meeting doesn't need to take place. Not but a few hours after Macy's call, I got a call from Travis' lawyer wanting to cut a deal so her secret stays intact... whatever it was."