CHAPTER 34

“First of all I want you to know, because Jason was upset with me about this. I swear to you I had no idea she was on anti-depressants or that she had any of the issues that we found out about today. Growing up we knew she was a problem child. She ran away a few times but since she was an only child we all thought it was the same old thing every time. Melissa was an attention whore, always had been. And she was a teenager, everyone said it would pass. It did or so we thought but until today my aunt had never said anything about her being on meds. Apparently she’s had diagnosed psychological issues since middle school but my aunt and uncle never told anyone.

“Anyway like in the past my aunt was going to keep this to herself too until she broke down this morning because Melissa still hasn’t woken up . She couldn’t take it anymore and called my mom sobbing. She told us about how they’d found her in her apartment Friday after her work called to tell them she’d never showed up or called and they hadn’t got a hold of her. She was out of it when they found her but still semi-conscious. I was totally buying the accidental overdose thing until my aunt said… ” Kat’s voice gave, and Sal heard her soft cries.

He held the phone tight not sure what to say to her.

Then she spoke again. “My aunt said she repeated the same thing twice before she completely passed out, ‘Don’t hate me, Sal.’ And that’s when I knew. Her overdose was no accident.” She sniffed but was in more control of her speech now. “Jason didn’t want to involve you in this. He refused to call you when I asked him to but he finally gave in and said I could if I wanted to. I know it’s a lot to ask but I just think maybe if she heard your voice you know. She’s been out for almost three days now and—”

“What hospital?” Sal started the ignition on the car.

Kat seemed surprised but grateful and gave him the information. The entire way to the hospital Sal didn’t know what to think. He didn’t even want to imagine the possibility of Melissa dying and having to know the last conversation he had with her was probably what threw her over the edge. He knew she was on meds damn it. He should’ve taken that into consideration before he went off on her.

Kat met him at the entrance. Her face was worn and pale and her pink eyes were an indication of the crying she’d been doing. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“Not a problem.” He said with a gulp.

“Your timing is perfect. No one knows I asked you to come. And they all just left to grab something to eat. Only Jason knows and he left to get us something to eat, too. I told them all I wanted to stay.” They walked quickly down a corridor. “It’s better that they don’t know. My aunt would make a huge deal if she knew what I suspected.”

She stopped before they got to the ICU. “Whatever happens Sal. Jason wanted me to be sure to tell you, I’m in no way blaming you. She’s always had issues I just never knew the extent until now. The only reason I asked you to come was because I thought maybe, just maybe it would help bring her out of this. The doctors said they won’t know anything for days.”

Sal shook his head. His conversation with Melissa Friday morning was still repeating itself in his head over and over. They walked in and the reality of it struck him when he saw her. She was hooked up to so many tubes and she didn’t look anything like the perfectly groomed Melissa he’d always seen.

“Melissa,” Kat whispered next to the bed. She touched Melissa’s arm. “Sal is here. He wanted to come by and see how you were doing.”

Kat looked at him from across the bed and nodded. Sal took the few steps to near Melissa’s bedside. “Hey, Melissa.” Almost instantly there was a flinch in Melissa’s eyelids. Sal looked at Kat. She was wide eyed and brought her hand to her mouth. He was almost afraid to say anything else but Kat’s expression pleaded with him.

“I uh… was worried, but I know you’re strong.” They waited watching anxiously but there was no more movement.

Kat touched her arm again. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”

Sal had no idea what else to say. All he knew is he wouldn’t be in there with her long. He was beginning to think this was a mistake. Maybe him coming today would give Melissa the idea that this kind of thing is what she needed to do to bring him to her.

As soon as Kat walked out he decided he knew what he wanted to say. “Listen. I don’t hate you okay? I was mad but I understand now that… you weren’t well. I get it. And I want to make sure you know that. You should just focus on getting well. Don’t worry about anything else.” He squeezed her fingers and for a moment he thought he felt her move them then nothing. “Goodbye, Melissa.” He wanted that to sound as final as possible. “I know you’ll find happiness, but get well first.”

He walked out and an anxious Kat stood outside. “Did she move again?”

Sal shook his head, wanting nothing more than to get out of there as soon as possible. After speaking with Kat for a bit longer he finally said goodbye and left before Jason got back. He’d wanted to wait for him and apologize again for not making it to his wedding. Instead he apologized to Kat and left. He just couldn’t stand being there anymore.

When he got back to the restaurant Sofia was a little too excited to see him. “Where’ve you been we’ve been trying to get a hold of you. How come you’re not answering your phone?”

Sal patted the phone on his holster as he walked to the back room and remembered he’d put it on silent before walking into the ICU. “I forgot to take my phone off silent. Why? What’s up?”

Sal turned to her then back at Alex who shook his head. A feeling of dread began to come over him but when he saw Romero smirk he knew it couldn’t be about Grace.

“I got more than just proof that you didn’t do shit that night. I got proof that she did more than we thought.”

The video started panning out across certain areas of the bar where they’d hung out. There was a shot of a group of girls then Romero slowed it down and froze on a girl—Melissa. She was doing something with a shot glass, her back was turned away from the other girls as if to shield it.

“So lets go to another angle.” Romero typed something in and there was the same shot from a different angle. “You see here?” He stopped it and zoomed in but the picture got blurry. “So we focus this,” he said typing more stuff in and suddenly the picture was clear. Romero slowed it down so you could see exactly what she was doing in slow motion.

Sal sat up when he saw what she was doing. She’d opened a capsule and poured a little of what was in it into the shot glass.

“Okay so we know what she’s doing right?”

Romero fast forwarded the video until they saw a waitress come by. Sal recognized her as one of the waitresses that was bringing over the drinks the girls sent. At first she seemed to shake her head.

“I didn’t even catch this part the first time I saw it. It happens so fast but look here.” He slowed down the video and points at Melissa slipping the girl something in under the tray. “If I zoom in you can see it’s a fifty but I want you to see what happens next.”

Sal watched astonished as the waitress took the shot glass Melissa handed her and placed on her tray. Romero typed in something so they could see from a different angle as she walked away from Melissa to the bar. She picks up more shots but moves the one Melissa gave her to the side then walks over to where he and the guys are.

“And there you have it.” Romero froze the video on the moment she hands Sal the shot glass Melissa obviously paid her to make sure he got.

Sal’s eyes were glued to the screen remembering how odd he’d began to feel after the shot and how he’d thought the waitresses had been flirting with him when she handed him the shot. Even knowing now that Melissa had issues he still couldn’t believe she’d do this.

After fast forwarding for a while he slows at another image of Melissa spiking yet another shot then she put something away in her purse, picked up the shot glass and walked out of the camera’s view. He typed in something else and a different camera picked up her image. Melissa walked across the bar with the shot glass still in her hand and she went straight to a very wobbly looking Sal and handed it to him.

“I don’t remember that at all.” He thought hard and remembered being handed shots but not who handed them to him. He assumed it had been Jason or the waitress.

“You’re lucky you were so wasted you spilled half that shit or she may’ve killed you!” Alex fumed.

They watched several more videos of Sal walking through the casino and to his room hanging on Melissa the whole way. There was no video of what actually happened in the room. But Sal knew without a doubt nothing had happened, especially not after seeing just how out of it he’d actually been. The only other evidence was that she hadn’t even spent the night. She walked out of his room twenty minutes after walking him there and didn’t return until the following morning.

Her spiking his drink made total sense now. No wonder the memories of that night were so damn choppy.

“Are you calling the police?” Sofia asked. “or are you going straight down there to file the report?”

Sal shook his head still staring at the video Romero had now rewound to the part where she spiked his drink. “I’m not doing either.”

Both Sofia and Alex spoke at the same time. “Why not?”

“First of all,” he said turning to face their stunned faces. “This tape would never be admissible in court. Romero could even get in trouble for having it.”

“Actually there’s ways around that,” Romero smirked.

Sal was adamant. “Even if there is. I’m not.” If this girl nearly took her own life because she thought he hated her, he could only imagine what she’d do if he ruined her. This would get her debarred for sure. Sal took a deep breath and explained briefly about Melissa overdosing and what Kat had told him. “She’s unstable but having this evidence against her could be enough to keep her away for good. I don’t even wanna have contact with her again but I could pass the word through Jason that if she so much tries to contact me or Grace I’ll go to the police.”

None of them seemed content with his decision, least of all Sofia. “What about Grace? Are you going to show this to her?”

Oh he certainly planned to. “Yeah,” he turned to Romero, “but I need another favor from you.”

For some reason what he needed to know now outweighed any worry he’d had in past weeks about clearing his name. Unbelievably something that had actually made him start questioning his desire to have Grace back in his life.

*

The next morning Sal got two calls: the first one was a relief; the other one his worst nightmare. Kat called to thank him again for coming to the hospital and told him Melissa had woke up just hours after he’d left. As much as a relief that it was to hear that news he still had one not so pleasant thing to do when it came to Melissa. He asked Kat if he could speak to Jason. First he apologized again for not making it to the wedding.

“Don’t worry about it, man. I get it now. I wouldn’t have wanted to be there either if I was in your shoes. But you gotta know I would’ve never pushed for you to go out with her especially a second time if I had known about all this.”

“Of course I know that,” Sal said. “But believe it or not there’s more. Can you put me on speaker because I want Kat to hear this too?”

Sal told them everything. About the Vegas stunt to the fake pregnancy and then dropped the big one about her spiking his drink. “Don’t ask me how but I have it on tape. I just want to make sure you guys know that I’m not going to the police with this yet. When she’s better I need for you two to make sure you tell her that I’m willing to overlook this. Let it go and we all know this is huge.” The thought of it was beginning to piss him off again. “But I’m willing to not ruin her career and possibly throw her ass in jail so long as she stays the fuck away from me and my family. I don’t want her anywhere near my house, the restaurant, anyone I know and I don’t want her contacting me in any way.”

After the initial shock of it both Kat, but even more adamantly Jason, agreed they’d make sure Melissa had it straight. And Kat thanked him repeatedly for not going to the police.

Sal sat back in his chair when he got the second call. It couldn’t have come at a worst time. Once again he had a meeting that day with the investors. He was just waiting for Alex to get out of class and come relieve him so he could leave and meet with them. But Romero threw a wrench in those plans.

The night before Sal had asked him if he could find out a little bit more than what Vincent was giving him about Grace and this Laughlin guy. He’d remembered a part of the conversation he had with Grace the day they left the hospital when the twins were born. When he asked her why she’d come back to the restaurant even though she was so adamant about not being hired as a bartender she’d said “sometimes necessity makes people do things they might not otherwise.”

Without a job, Sal knew Grace must be in a bind. She’d told him she wasn’t attracted to Frank in any way. And she’d told Rose she wasn’t interested in him either. So if she was sleeping with the guy now—the thought alone made him squeeze his eyes shut so hard he saw stars. But if she was it was for one reason only—money. Sal knew no matter what he could never respect someone like that. Grace said she wasn’t like her mother but... necessity. She sure as hell hadn’t wasted any time after they broke up to take a vacation in Laughlin.

Sal knew there was no way this guy would be buying her a house and going into business with her if there was nothing else involved. As much as it killed him he had to know.

He answered Romero’s call on the first ring. “Hey, man. I don’t have much yet except one little, yet very significant, thing that’s gonna piss the fuck outta you. But I thought you should know.”

“I had a job near Chula Vista early this morning. I got here a little too early so I thought I’d drive by her place, you know to check out what might be a good place to get the best angle if I decide to stake it out.” He paused for a second before continuing. “The car was there, man. And if I had to guess because it was so early, we’re talking just after five, it was there over night.”

Sal bolted out of his chair in reaction to that news. The guy was there all fucking weekend and he’d spent the night at her place? He ran his hand roughly through his hair. “And you’re sure it was Nevada plates?”

“Yep, I mean it could be a coincidence but—”

“Nah, it’s no coincidence that’s his car.” Sal couldn’t believe he could be so wrong about her.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so either. So whatta ya want me to do? I could still look into it but I mean… this pretty much says it all.”

Sal stopped pacing and shook his head. “No. Don’t waste anymore time on her. I don’t need to know anything else. But thanks.”

The second he hung up Sal picked up the coffee mug on his desk and flung it across the room. Hearing it smash into a million pieces was what he needed at that moment. But it did little to calm him.

Oscar rushed in the room. “You okay in here?”

Sal could barely breath straight much less talk. He nodded and pointed at the door. “Just close the door will you? I need a minute.”

By the time Alex got there Sal had done nothing but obsess about Grace with that guy and even though he’d told himself he’d want nothing to do with her if she was sleeping with him he needed answers or he was going to explode.

Alex stopped and stared at the coffee stain on the wall and then the shards of coffee mug all over the floor. “What the hell? What happened?”