Love & All Things Broken

The first thing I sensed when I woke was Caden's arms wrapped around me—the first time, in fact, since before my birthday. Through the back windows, I could feel late afternoon sun streaming in, touching the skin of my arms as it sunk down preparing to set for the day. The hum of the AC was still lulling me even as I forced myself to not fall back asleep. Laying there, I listened to my husband's steady breathing, feeling the rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek.

It was surreal, this peace. After everything we'd been through; the fights, the silence, the separate rooms, the separate states even— yet here we were—together. The locket felt warm against my throat, laying between us, a sign of something deeper as it sat touching both our chests.

"Hey," he said softly, and I realized he'd been awake, probably watching me sleep.

"Hey yourself." I stretched slightly, but remaining wrapped in the warmth of his embrace. "What time is it?"

"Almost four."

"Hey—so, Macy will probably be getting home soon, right?" I asked while pulling up to a sitting position. Not waiting for his response, I continued "I want to call her," I said, sitting up slowly. "I need to thank her properly for everything she did. Make sure she doesn't think I blame her for the purse—and that she knows how much everything here meant to me."

Caden smiled, that soft expression I'd missed so much. "She's going to be over the moon to hear from you. She's been so worried."

I stood, went to the kitchen to brew a shot of espresso because, well I'm not sure functioning without the caffeine kick was really possible at this point. Returning with an espresso for each of us in hand, I gave Caden his and then reached for my phone on the coffee table. My heart was already lifting at the thought of hearing Macy's voice—at knowing how excited she will probably be. There isn't much more fun than sensing a kid's excitement—at any age, I've come to realize. Getting ready to hear her talk a mile a minute I smiled as I scrolled for her name.

Touching on her contact, I heard the phone rang once, twice, then—

"Hello?" Jessica's voice, crisp and slightly irritated.

My good mood faltered immediately—I double checked and confirmed I'd clicked the right name, "Oh—Hi, Jessica. It's Felicity. Is Macy available?"

A pause that felt loaded with something I couldn't identify. "She's... busy right now. Homework."

"Oh." I glanced at Caden, who was sitting up now, paying attention to my expression. Something in Jessica's tone felt off, but I couldn't put my finger on what. "Could you tell her I called? I wanted to thank her for something."

"I'll let her know." Jessica's tone was dismissive, like she was already ending the conversation.

The brush-off stung more than it should have. This was about Macy, not about whatever issues Jessica had with me. "Actually, could I just say hi quickly? It'll only take a minute."

Silence. I looked at the phone and saw that she had disconnected the call. What the hell? Looking over at Caden, I saw he was just as annoyed as I.

I called again. After a single ring, "Felicity, I said she's busy and can't speak right now." The call was disconnected again.

Caden stood up. "Are you kidding?" He pulled out his own phone and dialed Jessica's cell, placing the phone on speaker.

"Hi, Caden," was the response he got.

"Jessica, did you just hang up on Felicity? Twice?"

"Caden, Macy is busy right now," she says in a placating voice. "I was just trying to help her understand that it's not a good time. It's not my fault that Felicity went crying to you because she is sensitive."

I mouthed to him, with as angry a face as I could muster, "What the fuck!? Sensitive?!"

"Jessica, I was sitting right here with her when she called. Don't try and play that game. We'll discuss this another time. Put my kid on the phone."

Jessica sighed, "Caden, I'm trying to avoid drama. Macy said she didn't want to talk right now, and I think it's best if we just respect that. I think she feels like she was made to apologize for something you did, Caden. And now she doesn't want to talk to Felicity. This isn't my problem. It's yours. So don't put this on me. I'm trying to be nice h—"

"What the hell are you talking about Jess—you know what? It doesn't matter. Put Macy on the phone."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not letting my daughter get caught in the middle of whatever you have going on there. You need to shape up Caden. Whatever is happening is not okay. I don't think I want her over there for a while. It's not healthy."

"Jessica, you better put my daughter on the phone, or so help me God you will be hearing from my lawyer before the day is out."

"Don't you threaten me Caden Barrett!" Jessica barked. Her voice and tone were getting louder and significantly more agitated.

"Jessica, that's enough. I don't know what's going on here, or why you're trying to keep me from my kid, but I will figure it out. We are on our way over."

"Why, Caden? I already told you I don't like how things are unfolding and that she won't be coming over for a while."

"You can't keep me from her, Jessica. She is my daughter and our agreement clearly states you can't prevent me from seeing her."

"Caden, Macy doesn't want to see you. This isn't about me! It's about you and your wife."

"I'm coming over and you better have my kid ready to see me or maybe we'll be revisiting our custody agreement!" He hung up, his face flushed with anger.

I stared at him, my mind reeling. "What just happened? Yesterday Macy was planning to help you with my surprise, and today she suddenly doesn't want to talk to me? Something isn't right here, Caden."

"None of this makes sense," Caden said, pacing now. "Jessica's lying. I know she is. But why? What's she trying to hide?"

I felt a chill run down my spine. "Caden, she's been increasingly hostile toward me for a while. I let it be—didn't want to make waves given how much else has been going on. But now she's actively preventing contact with Macy, making up stories about how Macy feels—there's something going on and it can't just be about me. "

He stopped pacing and looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know exactly, but her behavior feels desperate. Why would she try to keep us away from Macy when she doesn't even really know what's happening between us? Even Macy doesn't know the details—just that I went away for my birthday and the thing with the purse. These are not reasons to separate you from your daughter. There has to be something else going on."

"Like what?"

I started thinking out loud, trying to piece together Jessica's erratic behavior. "Maybe things with Brad aren't going well, or what if she like—lost her job, or there's some other kind of personal crisis she doesn't want us to know about? Could something have happened with Macy that she would try to hide from you? Macy hasn't said anything bad about her mom. I know she feels guilty sometimes but..." I let my words trail off, not really sure how to articulate what I was thinking.

Before he could answer, his phone rang. Lauren. We were making our way through the kitchen where we could enter the garage.

"Lauren," he answered, while walking. He put it on speaker immediately. "I can't talk right now. Felicity and I are heading over to see Macy. Something's seems off and Jessica won't let us talk to Macy, not really sure w—"

"Caden, stop. Don't go to Jessica's house." Lauren's voice was tight with urgency in a way I'd never heard before. "I need to tell you something, and you're not going to like it."

My blood ran cold. Lauren was always calm, always measured. If she sounded panicked, something was seriously wrong.

He jerked to a stop and coming up behind him, I didn't have the chance to stop in time. We collided and his phone skated to the floor.

"Damn—sorry!" Scrambling for the phone, I tried to grab it and it flipped out of my hands again. What the hell?

Caden called out, "Lauren—hang on, I dropped the phone."

Out of breath, I finally had it in hand, and brought it up between us. Caden let out a little laugh and I followed suit. He grabbed the back of my neck, pulled me close and laid a kiss on my forehead. "Shit, I think I needed that," he said, laughing a bit.

Sighing, I leaned further into him, "me too."

"Okay, Lauren," his voice more measured now. "What's going on?"

"Are you sitting down?"

"No, but I'm sure we'll survive. Just lay it on us."

"Okay, well—don't say I didn't warn you. So, those financial irregularities we found?" I looked up at Caden, confused. He whispered to me "I'll explain in a minute. Lauren is looking into something weird she found."

"Go on."

Lauren said, "I took the information over to Jackson in the Forensic Accounting team. Gave him all the information and the file we put together. He and his team found some major irregularities. He brought Janice from Legal just to have her take a look. I guess Janice had concerns about what they'd found, and reached out to a contact she has at the DA's office."

What the hell was going on?

"Shit. Really? What did they say?"

"Well, apparently with our current suspicions, there is a huge list of possible crimes. Larceny by False Pretenses, Identity Fraud, Forgery, and even some Computer-related crimes—that's just to name a few, Caden."

Caden pulled out the kitchen table chair and sat down. Motioning for me to do the same, I took the chair next to him. With the phone on the table between us, we listened to Lauren continue.

"No freaking way."

"Yes, way."

"You're serious?"

"As a heart attack, Caden. They think it's Jessica and, if it's true then she's been accessing your email account and submitting forged documents for payment in your name, to be paid by the company. Where we thought we were paying a vendor fee or standard operating expense, she was taking that money and using for personal reasons—though I don't know what for."

He sat staring at the phone, mouth open—shock all over his face. "What the fuck do I do? Lauren, she has my kid. I want Macy out from under her! Does she know we're looking into this—I mean. FUCK!" He yelled the last, clearly a demonstration of frustration and anger.

I piped up, "Hey Lauren, it's Felicity."

"Hi Felicity. I'm sorry for all this stuff going down."

"I know. And thank you. I think I missed something though—how did we find out about it? And why are we thinking it's Jessica?" Sadly, I've seen things like this before, being in HR—you'd be surprised the things people do.

There was a pause at my question. Then Caden started out...slowly, "so, when everything happened with the purse, I asked Lauren to put together a list of all the things I'd gotten—I mean, she'd gotten for you over the years." He hung his head, clearly in shame.

Reaching for his hand, "I get it Caden, just go on. I know where we were, and let's just focus, okay? It's about Macy right now."

"Yeah, okay. Thank you," he responded, and turning his hand over so our fingers could intertwine. "So, it was in that conversation where I learned I'd been giving Jessica pretty extravagant gifts in Macy's name over the years. So I asked Lauren to do a full accounting, lo and behold, around the same time she got an email from my personal email address asking her to send a new card to Jessica's house since the existing one had expired. Said I wanted to ensure Jessica had it for anything Macy needed."

"What the hell? That's freaking weird."

"Tell me about it. Regardless, Lauren asked me about it, since she figured I would have just asked her to do it rather than email her—especially given the financial discussions we'd been having. That's when we figured out that, over the years, Lauren had been receiving emails with bills that needed paying, but from my personal email address, always at night or on the weekend, as if I were at home and just sending something in. The bill would show a fee paid. Lauren would get it and just forward over to Accounts Payable. That's all I knew though since the issue was in the infancy stages of research. Everything Lauren is sharing here is new to me too."

I sat back in my chair. "Holy shit. That's like—diabolical."

"And criminal!" Lauren called out. "So—picking up there, Jackson had done some forensic mojo, in technical terms—stuff that I couldn't even begin to explain. Essentially he traced something like an I.P. address back to Jessica instead of to you, Caden."

"I'm completely blown away by this. How could she do something like this? What was she doing with the money?"

"That I don't know, but I do know that the police are very interested in it! All told it's well over half a million dollars. It's no light sum we're talking about here."

My mouth dropped open, "no way."

"Yes, way."

Caden was staring at the phone like it might explode. "Half a million dollars," he repeated quietly. "She's been stealing from my company for years, and I had no idea."

"Yes—seems she is quite good at forgery. There may be other means of stealing she took outside of the email address. To that end, do not go into your email. The police want to meet with you both as soon as possible," Lauren continued. "Let me see—here it is. I have information for a—Detective Morrison from financial crimes with BPD. I guess he is the lead handling the case. But Caden, they specifically said not to confront Jessica directly. If she realizes we've discovered the scheme..."

"She could try to destroy evidence or—shit what if she tried to run?" I said, the pieces suddenly clicking into place. Caden jumped up from his chair. "Macy. I need to get to Macy. Fuck the financial shit. What if she tried to take Macy away."

I jumped up with him. "Lauren, we have to go get her."

"Breathe, we don't know anything that for sure," Lauren said quickly. "She has no idea that you know anything. I'm no expert, but my guess is that right now, status quo is best."

Just then, Caden's phone buzzed with a text. He glanced at it, and his face went white.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's from Macy." He showed me the screen: Dad, I'm fine. Don't come over today. Need space to think about everything. Will call you tomorrow.

I read it twice, my heart sinking. "Bullshit. No emojis or abbreviations? That's definitely not from her."

"Jessica sent this," Caden said, his voice deadly quiet. "She's using Macy's phone to keep me away."

"I think you're right. Listen, this is bigger than just one thing—you need to talk to the Detective before you do anything." Lauren said through the speaker. A buzz from Caden's phone showed another text, this time from Lauren. "I just sent you all his contact information. Call him now."

"Okay. She already thought I was on my way anyways. I'll call him and see what he says. But I'm telling you right now, nothing is keeping me away from Macy. I'll get his guidance on how to approach it, but he's not going to get me to back away from getting to Macy."

"I'm with Caden on this. I don't think we should take a chance with Macy's safety."

"Call him. See what he says."

As we hung up with Lauren, I couldn't shake the image of Macy—this young and unassuming girl—potentially caught in the middle of her mother's desperation.

"She's going to be okay," I said, reaching for Caden's hand.

"She has to be," he replied. But I could hear the fear underneath his certainty, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: what if something happened before we could get there?