Saving Rain(109)

I hurried into the storeroom, away from anybody who might be listening, and answered the call before Detective Lewis could hang up.

“Hey, Sam,” I said on a held breath. “How's it going?”

“Well, I call, bearing good news,” he said, giving me the response I'd been hoping for. “We got Levi.”

My brow furrowed with instant suspicion. “Wow, that was quick.”

“He knew we were coming. I mean, believe it or not, he was just hanging out at your mom's place. Said he lived there.”

I nodded toward a stack of canned soups. “Yeah, I just … I don't know. I guess I expected him to run or something.”

“Nope. And actually, he seemed exhausted. You know, almost relieved. It was strange. But, hey, what matters is, we have him. He confessed to lacing her drugs with fentanyl with the intention of killing her, and he agreed to give up the name of another guy he worked with. Someone he said was also involved.”

My glare on the soup cans hardened as my brow furrowed. “Seth.”

“You know him?”

“Unfortunately.”

Sam grunted a contemplative sound, and I wondered what he was thinking, knowing it was unlikely that he'd share it with me.

Instead, he said, “Levi asked to talk to you.”

My jaw clenched, and my fist flexed. “Why?”

“I don't know. All he said was, there was some stuff he wanted to talk to you about.”

“Well, you can tell him to shove that right up his ass,” I replied without hesitation.

Sam offered a humorless chuckle. “That's what I thought you’d say. Anyway, Soldier, I just wanted to give you the update. Either I or Detective Miller will call you with any other developments, all right?”

“Yep,” I muttered, nodding. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Of course. Talk to you soon.”

He ended the call, and I stuffed my phone back into my pocket. I should've gotten back to work right away, knowing Howard was currently lifting those heavy boxes by himself when he probably shouldn’t, but I didn't move from where I stood. Instead, I lowered slowly to sit on whatever was behind me—a stack of boxes containing mayonnaise, apparently—and stared ahead at the chicken noodle and tomato basil.

Levi had been arrested, and I hadn't been there to grin like a fucking maniac as the cops drove him away.

I hoped someone had though. I hoped someone had been there, thanking God that the piece of shit had finally, finally, finally gotten what was coming to him after too many years of slipping under the law's radar.

But Seth …

I tried to imagine the motive for Levi, and while I was only guessing, I suspected it likely had something to do with the death of his brother. Revenge perhaps. However, knowing Seth had been involved somehow—according to Levi—set a different tone. That changed things, and suddenly, that revenge seemed an awful lot like a message.

One directed at me.

“What are you up to?” I muttered to the minestrone, wiping a hand over my mouth and down my bearded chin.

But the minestrone couldn't answer for Seth. None of the soups could, and neither could I. But all I hoped was that the cops got their hands on him before he got his hands on anyone else.

***

I didn’t feel like cooking, and neither did Ray. So, we asked Noah what he felt like eating, and after thinking about it for a few minutes, he told us he really wanted a cheeseburger from Dick’s Diner. And while we didn’t often make a habit of eating out, we thought a night outside of the house might help to brighten our collective mood, as dark and gray as the sky overhead.

“A storm is coming,” I commented on our walk to the diner.

Luckily, our neighborhood wasn’t far from Main Street. If the skies decided to open up on our way back, we wouldn’t have far to go.

“Helen said we were getting some nasty weather this weekend,” Ray replied, looking toward the black sky with a fearful grimace.

“Guess we can’t go fishing then,” Noah grumbled, kicking his feet along the sidewalk.

“Well, we’ll see how bad it is.” I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and pulled him against my side. “Otherwise, you can help me paint your room.”

“At your house?”

“Yeah,” I said, lifting one side of my mouth in a half smile. “Maybe we can head down to the store, and you can pick the color.”

“I guess that’s a good idea.” He nodded, lifting his feet off the sidewalk a little higher now. “I mean, since we still can’t live in our house and everything.”

On the other side of me, Ray wrapped her arms around mine, hugging it against her chest as she pressed her cheek to my bicep. “Actually, I was thinking … maybe we should just fix our place up and ask Connie to help us sell it.”

I raised a curious brow. “Oh, yeah?”

Noah looked around me to glare at his mom. “Why? Where are we gonna live then?”

“I think we’re pretty comfortable where we are, don’t you think?” she asked him, bringing her eyes up to meet mine.

Although she and Noah had been living at my place for several weeks now, it had never been discussed if it was a permanent change or just one we’d live with until it felt safe for them to go home. And considering the recent developments in the situation with Levi and Seth, I thought I’d made the accurate assumption in thinking that, once they were both locked up, things would go back to the way they had been. I would be disappointed—I loved sharing my space with them, and so did Eleven—but I, of course, would respect Ray’s decision to do whatever she thought was best for her and her son.