She looks around the table, then around the room in general.
“And then what? You’re going home?”
“We couldn’t leave her alone after a credible threat,” Will explains. “If anything happened to her, we would never have been able to explain that to the colonel.”
“Make sense, I suppose,” she nods.
Cass scowls briefly. “Well, do you have different information? How credible is a threat from Ty?”
She stiffens. The guys both see it, and I do too.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” she admits.
“Have you been back to work?” I ask. “Has he… said anything?”
“About you? Not really. I have your ID, and I left it in your laptop case. Honestly, I don’t think that you will hear from him. And if he knew who you were, you would definitely not hear from him. He’s just a coward with a big mouth.”
Will refuses to stop looking at her.
“And that’s all? Is there more?”
“No, I… Well, it just made me think,” she admits. “Maybe it’s not a good environment. For anybody. For me.”
“Did something happen?” I ask carefully.
“What? Oh, no! Well, not to me. Not exactly. But you know how it is. You talk yourself into things. You make a decision that seems right at the time. Suddenly it’s three years in and you’re still working for a guy with a mullet and seven missing teeth, you know what I mean?”
“Time does fly,” I smile sympathetically.
Everybody makes choices, comes the voice in my mind.
I know that there is more that she can tell me, but she won’t say anything in front of Will and Cass. Maybe later, when we are alone. Maybe then I’ll get the rest of the story.
And maybe not. Maybe the story ends without me knowing anything.
“To tell you the truth, I thought you were being a little bit of a drama queen,” she shrugs.
“It wasn’t up to her,” Will replies simply.
“Okay, well then maybe you are the drama queen!” she scoffs, but then her attitude slowly changes. “Then after a while I saw it all with fresh eyes. The girls. The drugs. And days going by, as they do.”
She sighs sadly, as though counting to herself all the days that have gone by.
“Oh!” she barks suddenly, holding her hands up. “And I almost forgot! I got your money, too!”
“Wait, what?” I gasp. “Are you kidding me? That’s amazing! How much?”
She pauses, grinning. “Three hundred and forty dollars, sweet cheeks.”
“Oh my God!”
Patting my hand, her eyes sparkle. “Worth every penny, Libby-love! You worked your ass off for that money. Is it enough? Can you get to New York?”
Cass sits up straight. “New York? What’s this about?”
I exchange looks with Will, remembering that I had a conversation with him, but not with Cass.
“Oh, it’s just… Well, I’ve been saving up money. For a nursing residency. In New York. But I don’t have it all.”