Page 74 of Against the Odds
“I’m having a moment, but I’m not nuts.”
“Come sit down.” When he followed me to the kitchen table, I took a close look at him. There were shadows under his eyesand bruises across the fingers gripping the coffee mug. “You look tired.”
“Not sleeping well.”
“Want to tell me about it? Or not. You can just sit there and eat cookies.”
“What cookies?”
“These.” I dug in the pantry, found the pack of his favourite chocolate chip ones, tossed them onto the table, and sat across the corner from him.
“That’s a new bag,” he noted.
“I was hoping you’d come by and eat some.”
He ripped the plastic, pulled out a cookie, and stuffed it in his mouth. Since that put a stop to him talking for a while, the ball was in my court. I’d had four days to get over being mad at him and decide to be the responsible one. “I’m sorry.”
Callum waved a hand at me, chewing faster.
“I mean it. I pushed instead of listening to you. You have to understand, I’ve always been Mr. Fixit. If something was going wrong, I wanted to be the guy with the answers, especially when Dad was deployed and after he passed. You had a problem. I wanted to fix it.”
He choked down the crumbs, sipped his coffee, and said, “Fix ityourway.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Even if that wasn’t what I needed.”
Wasn’t what you wanted.But maybe that was me, not listening again. “Tell me what’s going on. How can I help?”
A flush coloured Callum’s face. “After saying that, it’s embarrassing.”
“What?”
“I think I need to go to the cops with this.”
Hallelujah.I didn’t let satisfaction reach my voice. “Go on.”
“Uncle Wayne showed up at practice on Sunday.”
“Why?”
“Just to jerk my chain, I think. To show he’s in control. He was driving Grandpa’s truck again.”
“I thought you took back the keys.”
“I left them on the hook in the kitchen. Grandpa let him come home to pack up his stuff Saturday and he must’ve taken them.”
“If your grandfather wants to report the truck stolen, we could pick him up, once we find him.”
“Yeah, but that leaves Mr. Smith out there. However.” A smirk crossed Callum’s face. “Finding him shouldn’t be too hard. After I talked with Grandpa Friday night, I put my luggage tracker tag in the truck, just in case Uncle Wayne had made a key. We can see where he goes.”
“Okay. That’s step one. Smith is step two. Ideas?”
Callum chewed on his lip, shaking his head.
I reached over without thinking and thumbed his mouth. “Don’t hurt yourself. Talk to me.”
“I’m scared the gambling cops will blow me off. Or do something half-assed that’ll just alert him that I’m making trouble. Or even that they won’t believe me. They’ll think that two-thousand-dollar bribe was real.” Callum turned to me, an appeal in his blue eyes. “You do believe I’m innocent, right? I didn’t throw anything.”
