Chapter Twenty-Two
Sitting at his large desk with his head propped up by his hand cradling it at the temple, Gabe tried to finish up what seemed to be an endless pile of purchase orders and vendor bills. What he really needed was a secretary to help get him organized. It always felt like he was simply restacking things into different piles around his office. The clutter made his brain overwhelmed.
His phone buzzed, making his heart leap a little. What this shitty day needed was Rachel. Talking to her would definitely improve his mood.
But when he looked down at the screen, he saw a number he didn’t recognize. He ignored it—and the disappointment—and refocused on his work. The phone stopped only to immediately start up again. And again after he ignored it for a second time. Somehow, the consistent buzz of his phone echoed louder in the quiet room than a ring would have. Gabe picked up the phone and looked at it for a second before giving into temptation and accepting the call. “Gabe Torres.”
There was silence for a beat before a throat cleared. “Hi. Gabe. Uh, wow, sorry. I know I called you, but I guess I hadn’t thought of what to actually say when you answered.”
“Well, you can start by telling me who’s calling,” Gabe said.
“Oh, shit. Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s Cole Barnes.”
Gabe leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. Why the fuck did I answer the phone? “What can I do for you, Cole?”
“I…” a large sigh whooshed out of the man. “I just wanted to apologize. Make amends for being such a dick.”
Well this… wasn’t what Gabe had expected. He hadn’t heard from Cole in a couple months and had hoped the guy had disappeared off the face of the earth. But he sounded sincere, so while Gabe was skeptical, he figured there was no harm in hearing him out. “Okay,” Gabe replied because he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Seriously, man, I was out of control. I don’t even know why I was so fixated on getting back into the club. It was like once the thought popped into my brain, I started treating it like a crusade. Maybe I figured I could focus on that instead of what a disaster my life was becoming.”
Gabe opened his mouth a couple of times, but couldn’t make a coherent thought form on his tongue. He finally forced out a, “You all good now?”
Cole sighed again. “I’m getting there. It’s going to be hard to stay in recovery after all the years of partying I’ve done, but… I need to do it. I don’t want my kids to remember me as some asshole who fucked up their lives. They deserve better. Better than me for sure, but I’m what they got stuck with, so I need to get my shit together.” There was a hint of a joke in his tone when he said the last sentence, but there was also a sadness.
“It’s cool, man. I hope it all works out for you. No hard feelings.”
“Wow. Really? I thought for sure you’d wanna put my head through a wall after what I did.”
Gabe laughed. “I was pretty annoyed. Threatening to go public about the club was pretty shitty, but at least you didn’t go through with it.”
The silence on the other end of the phone made Gabe increasingly anxious as it stretched on. “You didn’t go through with it, right?”
“I was sure you would’ve heard by now. The guy at All Access seemed excited about it.”
“All Access? As in All Access Sports? Are you fucking kidding me, you asshole!” Being sensitive and forgiving was forgotten as Gabe let his anger pour out. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“Oxys, cocaine, and whiskey. Among other things,” Cole replied with the serene voice of someone who’d already confronted his demons and decided it was time to move on to the next phase of his life.
It pissed Gabe off. “That’s great that you’re so calm, dickhead. You may have sunk this whole place. Everything Mike worked for, everything he sacrificed—”
“You think you’re telling me something I don’t know? Something I haven’t regretted since I went into treatment?” There was a hint of steel behind his voice that hadn’t been there before. Seemed Cole still had some fire in him after all. “The only thing I can do is apologize. Whether you accept that or not is up to you.”
Gabe groaned and pushed a hand through his short hair. “I have a contingency on my forgiveness,” he finally said.
“What’s that?”
“I can forgive you if you promise to never talk to me again. You are one pain in the ass I never want to feel again.”
“Are there other pains in the ass you do want to feel?” Cole asked, humor lacing his voice.
“Fuck off, man,” Gabe replied, though he knew his smile could be heard in his tone.
Cole laughed. “No problem. I can definitely fuck off. And for what it’s worth, if they haven’t sent that reporter woman to talk to you yet, they probably figured I was too unreliable a source to build a story on.”
The back of Gabe’s next prickled. It was a silly connection for his brain to make. There’s no way it could be her, but he couldn’t help asking about it anyway. “Do you know what the reporter’s name was that they were supposed to send?”
“Eh, I’m not sure. She left me a voicemail once, but I deleted it. Began with an R I think. Rebecca or… Renee? Fuck, I don’t know.”
Gabe’s stomach dropped. “You don’t happen to remember a last name, do you?”
“Nah, I’m not sure he ever even said. And if he did, there’s no way I’d remember it. I could probably ask if—”
“No, no,” Gabe interrupted. “It’s cool. I’ll just keep an eye out for a woman with a name beginning with R.” The words felt sour on his tongue. There had to be a logical explanation for all this shit. But he couldn’t think logically while he was still talking to Cole fucking Barnes. “Thanks for the apology, man. Best of luck.”
“Thanks, Gabe. You too.”
Gabe hung up quickly and dropped his phone onto his desk. He propped his elbows on it and let his head drop into his hands. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way Rachel could be the reporter they sent to investigate the club. She’d never do that to him.
Would she?
Because the more Gabe thought about it, the more he convinced himself that he shouldn’t be so sure. Rachel had shown up in Philly right around when the shit was Cole was going on. And she’d never actually told him who she was working for, had she? Or did she and he just didn’t remember? Gabe wracked his memory trying to remember if she’d ever said, and concluded that she hadn’t. And what did he really know about her? They hadn’t spoken in ten years. She could be a serial killer for all he knew. Well, maybe a serial killer was a stretch, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that she could be an accomplished liar who was getting off on messing with him. Just because he didn’t think it was true didn't mean it wasn’t.
It was all so fucked up. He snatched his phone up and went to her number. He found her name. There was nothing to do but ask her. She’d tell him the truth, right?
But if she’d been lying this entire time, she could easily lie to him now. And if she wasn’t from All Access, she may never forgive him for thinking she’d do that to him. He thought about what to do for the rest of the afternoon, completely ignoring the work he promised to himself he’d get done.
Finally, a plan came to him. It was time to investigate the investigator.