Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(101)

West glances at me, then looks up at the ceiling. “And after it’s all done and you get released, I want you to find Caroline and take care of her for me. Take good care of her. I know you can’t talk right now, but you promise me just the same. She’s gonna need you.”

A booming knock at the bakery door makes me jump. “Mr. Leavitt!”

They’re pronouncing his name wrong. Leave-it rather than lev-it.

For no reason at all, that’s the thing that makes me cry.

“Thanks, Bridge,” West says, and disconnects the call.

He taps open the address book on my phone.

Bang bang bang. “Mr. Leavitt!”

Bo, he types. And then a phone number with a 541 area code.

He hands me the phone. “I’m going to open that door,” he says. “I’m going to let them in here, because there’s nothing to find, and they’ll get a warrant and be back tomorrow bothering Bob, anyway. So they’re going to search, and we’re going to make bread, okay? It might take them ten minutes, it might take them three hours, but at some point they’re going to decide to take me to the station. You stay here and finish the shift. I don’t want Bob to get screwed over any worse than he has to. Then just lay low, Caro. They couldn’t have found more than half an ounce in Krishna’s room. Maybe a quarter. It’s a misdemeanor. It’s nothing.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“In the morning, you call Bo and tell him what happened. He’ll take care of whatever needs taken care of. Tell him I said if he’s got one more favor in him, I need him to keep an eye on Frankie until I get this all sorted out.”

“West—”

Bang bang bang. “Mr. Leavitt!”

They have his name wrong.

I can’t stand it. I can’t.

“I need you to do what I said,” West says. “I need it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

When he kisses me, his mouth is warm and alive, his arms tight around me, but something is over, something is dead already, I want to scream. I ball up his shirt in my fists.

“I love you,” I tell him, without planning to. It’s not the right time. It’s not the right thing. It’s only what happens when I open my mouth, when I try to say what has to be said, now, before it’s too late.

His eyes are so full of caring and regret. Such a beautiful color, such a beautiful face. I tell him again. “I love you.”

He kisses me one more time, but all he says is “I’m sorry.”

Then he opens the door.



I have to throw out the French. The yeast proofed before West finished the mixing, and the dough looks strange. But the rest of the bread is okay, and I carry on with the work, checking the clipboard, manning the mixers alone in the shrieking silence.

West is gone.

West got arrested.

West is lost, and I’m here, surrounded by a hundred jobs, objects, scents, tastes, that remind me of him.

I cry. A lot.

I stay, and I do the work.

At five-thirty, Bob comes in. He’s bewildered to meet me.

“West told me about you,” he says after he works out who I am. “Is he sick?”

“He got arrested.”

I don’t know—maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell him. But he’s going to find out, and I figure West would rather he find out from me.

The conversation takes thirty minutes. It’s unpleasant. I wish, after it’s over, that I’d handled it better. By the time we’re done, Bob looks sad and defeated, and I feel as though I’ve done a bad job of defending West.

Maybe when I go to law school, I’ll learn the right way to defend the man you love when he’s turned himself in for possession of drugs that weren’t his but may as well have been.

I think, though, it’s possible there is no right way.

When I leave the bakery, I call Bo, who is monosyllabic and a little bit scary. I think I woke him up. It’s not important.

Then I’m not sure where to go. I could walk to the police station, but what would I do there? West said to stay away. I want to do what I said I would, but I can’t stand this. I don’t know what it looks like where he is. I’ve seen a lot of cop shows, just like Bridget. I’ve read detective stories. All I can imagine is West in an impersonal room being interrogated by the blond cop. West being urged to name names.

West with that smart-ass mouth of his, saying the wrong thing. Getting himself in deeper trouble.

But then I think of Frankie, and I know I’ve got it wrong. There’s only so far he would go for Krishna, only so much he’ll give up.

He’ll be on a plane. This afternoon, tomorrow, the day after—nothing will stop him from going.

I wish I didn’t know that about him. I wish I weren’t so sure of him, so unshakable in my conviction that he’ll do exactly what he thinks is right, always.

I wish the right thing could be the thing that I want, but it’s not, and that leaves me here. Worried about West. Stuck with myself, alone, on the verge of tears because he’s going to go and I’m going to stay and I love him.

It’s not fair.

It’s just not.

I walk a few blocks to the police station and sit on the steps outside. No one’s around this early. Only the occasional car putters through the cold morning. It’s spring break as of tomorrow, but Iowa is stuck in winter, freezing and thawing only to freeze again.