Silent Neighbor

“You don’t think I’ve thought of that?” Chloe asked, starting to get slightly angry. “And no…the journal isn’t enough. It could be enough to maybe reopen the case, but that’s about it. There’s no hard evidence…and the fact that there was already a trial and our father was put in prison and then let go makes it even harder. Throw Ruthanne Carwile’s recent conviction in there, and it becomes one huge mess.”

“So you’re saying he’s likely going to end up getting away with it?”

Chloe didn’t give an answer. She downed the rest of her beer and walked into the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door to retrieve another but then stopped. Slowly, she closed it again and leaned against the small kitchen counter.

“I’m aware that this is mostly my fault,” Chloe said. It was hard to admit. The words tasted like acid in her mouth as they came out.

“I’m not here to blame you, Chloe.”

“I know. But it’s what you’re thinking. And I don’t blame you. Now that I’ve seen what’s in that journal and sort of…I don’t know…sort of have a feel for him…I’m thinking it, too. If I had listened to you before all of this started it would be different. Before Ruthanne, before landing my job at the bureau…”

“Don’t do that. Just…let’s look forward. Let’s figure out what we can do.”

“There’s nothing!”

Chloe surprised herself when she screamed the two words at her sister. But once they were out, she found it hard to reel them back in.

“Chloe, I—”

“I messed up. I failed you and Mom and myself. This is me now. I have to live with this and just…”

“But we can figure it out together, right? Look…I dig this role reversal and all, but I can’t stand to see you beating yourself up like this.”

“Not now. I can’t deal with it right now. I have to figure some things out.”

“Let me help, then.”

Chloe felt suffocated. She also felt another outburst coming on, but she clenched her fists and was able to stamp it down. “Danielle,” she said as slowly and as patiently as she could, “I appreciate the sentiment and I love you for being so concerned. But I need to handle this on my own for right now. The longer you pester and press in, the harder it’s going to be. So please…for right now…can you just leave?”

Chloe watched as something in Danielle’s expression shifted. It looked like disappointment. Or maybe it was something closer to sadness. Chloe couldn’t tell and, quite frankly, she didn’t care in that moment.

Danielle set her beer down on the coffee table—not yet even a quarter of the way empty—and got to her feet. “I want you to call me when you’re done being distant.”

“I’m not being distant.”

“I don’t know what you’re being,” Danielle said as she opened the door to leave. “But distant sounded better than a bitch.”

Before Chloe could say anything in response, Danielle made her exit, closing the door behind her.

Chloe wished Danielle would have slammed the door. At least then there would have been some sort of feeling left, some sign that Danielle was just as mad as Chloe was. But there was only the soft click of the door closing and nothing more.

Chloe sat in the silence that followed for the rest of the afternoon and all she had to show for it the next day were more empty beer bottles in the trash can.

CHAPTER TWO

On Sunday, Chloe found herself sitting in a visitor parking space outside of the DC Central Detention Facility. She looked at the building for a moment before getting out of the car, trying to figure out exactly why she was there.

She knew the answer, but it was a hard one to swallow. She was there because she missed Moulton. It was a truth she would never speak out loud, a sore spot that she was having trouble processing. But the plain and simple truth was that she needed someone to comfort her and ever since she’d moved to DC, she’d seen Moulton as that figure. Oddly enough, it was something she had not come to realize until after he had been sent to prison for his role in a financial fraud scheme.

At first, she’d thought she only missed him because of the physical intimacy—the need to be held by a man when she was feeling discouraged and lost. But when Danielle had left yesterday and Chloe had found herself desperate to talk to someone about what she was dealing with, she thought only of Moulton.

With one final push of motivation, Chloe got out of her car and walked through the front doors. She used her federal ID to get inside, signed in, and then sat in a small holding area as a guard was sent back to get Agent Moulton. The holding area was basically empty; apparently Sunday was not the most popular day to visit troubled loved ones in prison.

Less than five minutes later, Moulton appeared through the door in the back of the room. The room itself was set up like a small lounge of sorts. Chloe was sitting on a couch, which Moulton slowly approached. He looked at her with a skeptical smile, as if trying to size her up.

“You okay if I sit here?” he asked, uncertain.

“Yeah,” she said, scooting over to allow him room on the couch.

“It’s nice to see you,” he said right away. “But I have to admit that it’s also very unexpected.”

“How are you being treated here?”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “It’s mostly guys like me. White collar crime stuff. I’m not ever really worried about getting jumped in the showers or beaten up in the exercise yard, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t even want to talk about that. How’s work? Working on anything of interest?”

“No. They partnered me back up with Rhodes. She and I have been working this profiling project. A little boring at times, but it keeps us busy.”

“You two getting along?”

“Better than the first time around, that’s for sure.”

He leaned in closer and once again gave her a skeptical look. “What brings you to these parts, Fine?”

“I wanted to see you.”

He smiled. “That makes me feel much better than it should. But I don’t buy it. Not completely anyway. What’s up?”

She looked away from him, starting to feel embarrassed. Before turning back to him, she was finally able to squeak out something of an answer: “My father.”

“Your father? The one who just popped back up in your life a few months ago? The one that spent most of the last twenty years or so in prison?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I thought you were happy about that, for the most part.”

“I was. But then something else popped up. And then something else. There’s just been this huge pile of crap that keeps getting added onto. And this last thing I discovered…I don’t know. I think I just need someone not attached to him to give me an opinion.”

“Maybe someone who worked closely with you before getting thrown in prison?”

“Maybe,” she said, giving him a smile that felt a bit too flirty.

“Well, hearing the story would be the most interesting thing I’ve taken part in over the past two weeks or so. So let me hear it.”

It took a few seconds for Chloe to find the courage to talk about such a personal issue but she knew it needed to be done. And as she started telling Moulton about Danielle’s constant warnings about their father as well as the revelations discovered in the journal, she understood why she had refused to discuss it with Danielle; it was opening her up to vulnerability. And that was not a state that Danielle had ever seen her in.

Even as she told Moulton everything, she kept some of the more private details to herself—particularly when it came to memories pertaining to her mother’s death. But getting out the bits she did was extremely helpful. She knew that at the core of it all, this was nothing more than a venting session. Be that as it may, it still felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

It helped that Moulton never questioned her or even made faces to indicate his true feelings on the matter. He knew what she needed; she just needed someone to listen—someone to maybe even offer some advice.