Chapter 17: Plans Made
The hospital corridor seemed to stretch forever, a tunnel of fluorescents and linoleum. The smell hit Teresa first—that brutal, clean scent of antiseptic over something sour underneath. It never got easier. Callum walked beside her, his shoulder occasionally brushing hers. Not quite holding hands, but a steady, silent presence. His posture was different here, the detective armor sliding back into place, but his eyes kept finding hers. A quick glance, a question.
They stopped at room 407. The door was slightly ajar.
Teresa took a breath, pushed it open.
Cassadee was propped up on a mountain of pillows, a sketchbook balanced on her bony knees. She looked smaller somehow, swallowed by the sterile white sheets, the too-large hospital gown. The dramatic makeup was gone, revealing the fine-boned structure of her face, the dark shadows like bruises under her eyes. Her hair, usually a meticulously styled cascade, was a simple, dark braid over one shoulder. She glanced up, and a flicker of something—relief, anxiety—crossed her face before it settled into a wary neutrality.
“Hey,” Teresa said, her voice too bright in the quiet room.
“You brought a cop to my bedside,” Cass said. Her tone was flat, but a ghost of her old mischief touched her lips. “Could’ve brought grapes, but okay.”
Callum gave a small, tight smile. “Next time.”
Teresa pulled the visitor’s chair close, its legs scraping harshly on the floor. Callum leaned against the wall near the window, giving them space but staying within the frame.
“We need to talk to you about something,” Teresa began, folding her hands in her lap to keep them still. “It’s important.”
She laid it out. Miriam Vance’s call. The settlement offer. The thinly veiled threats about her own life, her job, about Callum’s integrity. The NDA. She didn’t soften it. Cassadee deserved the unvarnished truth. As Teresa spoke, Cass’s expression didn’t change much. She just stared at a point on the opposite wall, her fingers tracing the edge of her sketchbook.
When Teresa finished, the room was silent except for the distant beep of a monitor from the hall.
Cassadee finally blinked, slowly. “How much?”
Teresa was thrown. “What?”
“The settlement. How much did he offer?”
Callum shifted against the wall. “Cassadee, that’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point,” she said, her voice gaining a little steel. “I want to know my price tag. How much he thinks my silence is worth.” She looked at Teresa, her dark eyes exhausted and sharp. “Well?”
“She didn’t say a number,” Teresa admitted. “Just ‘substantial.’”
A bitter, quiet laugh escaped Cass. “Substantial. For my care and my future.” She picked at a thread on the blanket. “He stole my present. He doesn’t get to buy my future, too.” She looked from Teresa to Callum and back again. “You told her no. Right?”
“Yes,” Teresa said, without hesitation.
“Good.” Cass let out a long, shaky breath, as if she’d been holding it. “So what happens now?”
Callum pushed off the wall. “Now they come for us. They’ll try to discredit everything. Teresa’s involvement. Your state of mind. My judgment. They’ll subpoena records, interview everyone we know. It will get ugly. The trial will be… invasive. You need to be ready.”
Cassadee nodded, absorbing it. Her gaze drifted to the window, to the grey slice of sky between buildings. “I’m tired of being quiet,” she said, so softly they almost didn’t hear it. Then she looked at Teresa, a flicker of the old Cass returning. “So. You and Detective Broody over there. What’s the deal?”
Teresa felt a flush creep up her neck. “Cass. Not now.”
“Why not now? It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened in this room since they switched my Jell-O flavor.” Her eyes, still hollow, sparkled with a faint, familiar challenge. “You came in together. You keep looking at each other when you think I’m not looking. You have that… vibe.”
“What vibe?” Teresa muttered, shooting a glance at Callum, who was now studying the floor tile with intense interest.
“The vibe where you’ve seen each other naked.” Cass’s voice was dry, matter-of-fact.
“Jesus, Cassadee.”
“What? It’s obvious. The way he’s standing there trying not to hover. The way you’re pretending you’re not aware of exactly where he is in the room. It’s cute. In a completely terrifying, legally complicated way.” She tilted her head. “Is he why Thorne’s lawyer mentioned a ‘conflict of interest’?”
Callum cleared his throat. “It’s a line they’ll use. Regardless.”
“But it’s not not true,” Cass pressed, not unkindly. She was piecing it together, the investigator in her own right surfacing through the trauma. “You’re together. For real?”
Teresa looked at Callum. He met her gaze, held it, and gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. There was no point in lying. Not to Cass.
“It’s… new,” Teresa said. “And yes. Real.”
A strange, sad smile touched Cassadee’s lips. “Good. You deserve something good, T. Especially now.” Her expression sobered. “It also gives them a weapon. You know that, right?”
“We know,” Callum said, his voice firm.
Cass studied him for a long moment. “You’ll protect her? From this? From them?”
“With everything I have.”
“Okay.” Cass seemed to accept this. She turned her attention back to Teresa. “Then you should go. Both of you. They’re probably already digging. You shouldn’t be here together for too long. Gives them less to work with.”
It was a practical, cold calculation, and it hurt Teresa to hear it. But Cass was right.
Teresa stood, leaning over to squeeze Cass’s hand. It felt too light, all bird-like bones. “We’re going to beat this.”
“I believe you,” Cass whispered. Then, her grip tightened slightly. “Hey. Be careful. Both of you. He doesn’t just send lawyers. He sends other things.”
A chill, deeper than the hospital air conditioning, settled in the room. Before Teresa could ask what she meant, Cass had withdrawn her hand and picked up her pencil, focusing on a vague shape in her sketchbook—a dark, formless smudge that looked like a spreading stain.
Callum touched Teresa’s elbow, a gentle press to move. “We’ll be in touch, Cassadee. The DA will want to meet with you soon.”
Cass didn’t look up, just gave another slight nod.
Out in the hall, the world felt too loud, too bright. They walked in silence for a while, the weight of the visit sitting heavily between them.
“She’s tougher than they think,” Callum said finally, as they waited for the elevator.
“She’s breaking,” Teresa corrected, her throat tight. “She’s just choosing how to fall apart. In pieces she can control.” The elevator doors slid open, empty. They stepped in. “What did she mean, ‘he sends other things’?”
Callum’s jaw tightened. He pushed the button for the lobby. “I don’t know. But we’re about to find out. The battle lines are drawn. They’re coming for us, Teresa.”
The doors closed, sealing them in the silent, descending box. Teresa leaned into him, just for a second, feeling the solid strength of him, letting it fortify her own resolve. Cass was in a room upstairs, drawing dark shapes. A lawyer in a tall building was drafting subpoenas. And they were in the middle, holding the line.
For the first time, Teresa truly understood: the fight wasn't just in a courtroom. It was everywhere. And it had already begun.
The elevator deposited them into the cacophony of the main lobby. The shift from sterile quiet to the grimy reality of linoleum and rushed conversations was jarning. Callum’s hand found the small of her back, a brief point of contact that grounded her as they moved through the automatic doors into the damp, grey afternoon.
Rain had begun, a fine mist that beaded on the windshield of his unmarked sedan. He opened her door, a old-world gesture that felt both protective and absurd given the circumstances. The car smelled of stale coffee and the lemon-scented cleaner the department used. He slid into the driver’s seat but didn’t start the engine. For a moment, they just sat in the humid silence, listening to the patter of rain.
“She’s right, you know,” Teresa said, staring at the wiper’s arc across the glass. “About it being a weapon. My being with you. They’ll use it to try to blow the whole case apart.”
He turned in his seat, the leather creaking. “Are you having second thoughts?”
She looked at him then, really looked. Saw the fatigue etched around his beautiful green eyes, the tension in his jaw. This wasn’t just a case to him either anymore. It was a collision of everything. “Not even a first one,” she said, and meant it. “But we have to be smarter. We can’t just… stumble into this.”
“Define ‘this’,” he said, a trace of the lightheartedness she craved coloring his tone.
“You know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes, but a smile threatened. “Late-night stakeouts at my cottage. Breakfast notes. Hospital visits together. It’s a pattern. Vance’s team will map it on a whiteboard with red string.”
“So what’s your operational suggestion?” He played along, but his eyes were serious.
“We act like professionals with a common goal. Which we are. In public. Around the station, around the case. We’re disciplined.” She turned her body towards him, pulling one leg up on the seat. “And the rest… the rest is ours. Separate. Private. We don’t give them anything for free.”
He considered this, running a hand through his already-mussed brown hair. “Discipline I can do. But Teresa, last night… that wasn’t just professional. You can’t compartmentalize a thing like that.”
The ghost of his hands on her skin, the profound peace of sleep in his arms, surged back. “I know,” she admitted, her voice softening. “I don’t want to. But we have to be two people for a while. The ones fighting this case, and the ones fighting for…” She trailed off, gesturing weakly between them.
“For this,” he finished for her.
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly, accepting the terms of their impossible situation. He finally started the car, the engine a low growl. “Then right now, I’m just giving you a ride home. A courtesy to a key witness after a difficult interview.”
“Exactly.” She faced forward again, watching the rain-smeared world blur past. “And when we get there, you’ll come in. Because we need to debrief the hospital visit, strategize our next move with the DA. Purely professional.”
“Purely professional,” he agreed, a smile in his voice.
The drive to the coast was quiet, the rhythm of the wipers a steady metronome. The earlier warmth from the hospital, from Cassadee’s brittle blessing, had cooled into a focused vigilance. They were building a fort under siege, deciding which walls to reinforce first.
He pulled up to her sun-bleached cottage. The ocean beyond was a roiled, dark grey mass, the crashing waves a distant, thunderous sigh. They made a dash through the mist, shoulders hunched, and burst through her front door into the familiar scent of salt and old paper.
She tossed her wet jacket over a chair. He stood just inside the doorway, as if awaiting instructions. The professional distance felt suddenly ridiculous, a thin theater performed for an audience of no one. The reality of him in her space, of the threat coiling around them, of Cassadee’s hollow eyes, crashed together.
Teresa walked to the kitchen, needing to move. “You want coffee? I think I need something stronger.”
“It’s three in the afternoon.”
“Your point?” She pulled a bottle of bourbon from a high cabinet, grabbing two short glasses.
He chuckled, the sound warming the dim room. He finally shed his own damp coat and came to lean against the kitchen counter, watching her. “My point is, I’m on duty in spirit. But I’ll have one with you. For medicinal purposes.”
She poured two fingers into each glass, handing him one. Their fingers brushed. The simple contact sent a current through the quiet. They clinked glasses, a soft tink that felt like a pact.
“To being smarter,” she said.
“To being smarter,” he echoed, and took a sip. His eyes never left hers over the rim of the glass.
The silence stretched, filled now with the things they weren’t saying. The fear, the want, the sheer, vast risk of it all. She thought of Cassadee’s blunt assumption in the hospital room, the easy way she had stated it as fact.
“She thinks we’ve slept together,” Teresa murmured, swirling the amber liquid in her glass.
“I got that impression.” He took another slow drink. “Can’t blame her. The… vibe, I believe she called it.”
“It’s a logical conclusion.” Teresa’s voice was low, a mix of defiance and something more vulnerable. She set her glass down with a definitive click and met his gaze squarely across the muted light of the rainy afternoon. “For the record, and just so we’re absolutely clear on the facts of this case… we haven’t. Seen each other naked.”
Callum paused, his glass halfway to his mouth. A slow, genuine smile spread across his face, crinkling the skin at the corners of his eyes. He threw his head back and chuckled, a rich, unguarded sound that seemed to push back the grey dread pressing at the windows.
“Is that so?” he finally managed, setting his own glass down. He closed the small distance between them, his body a welcome barrier against the world outside.
“It is a material fact,” she insisted, her breath catching as he rested his hands on the counter on either side of her, caging her in gently.
“Noted for the record.” His amusement was a tangible warmth. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur meant only for her. “Then I guess we still have that to look forward to. After the war.”
He kissed her then, not with the desperate hunger of potential loss, but with a promise of continuation. It was slower, deeper, an acknowledgment of the tangled mess they were in and a silent vow to find their way through it together. When he pulled back, his forehead resting against hers, the rain and the law and the ominous warning felt momentarily distant.
They stood like that in the quiet kitchen, two people holding a very fragile, very precious line.