SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, PRESENT DAY
At six o’clock the heat was still rolling off the driveway as Hadley climbed out of her car. No AC—she couldn’t afford to have it replaced—meant she looked like an over-baked potato, even after the short drive from the station. Her never-iron khaki and brown uniform was crumpled and damp, and the fringes of her boy-short hair stuck to her temple and to the nape of her neck.
Good God, she was glad to get home. It had been a fruitless, fretful day. No progress on the dead girl’s killing had made Van Alstyne and MacAuley snappish, and for officers like her, assigned to patrol, dealing with angry tourists and disgruntled townies in the swamplike heat set everyone’s teeth on edge.
The enclosed porch at the back of the house wasn’t any cooler than the outside, but she got sweet relief when she stepped into the kitchen. The sudden drop in temperature made her feel twenty pounds lighter, even before taking her duty belt off. “Genny? Hudson? I’m home.” Granddad’s big old boat of a Lincoln wasn’t in the drive, but the only thing he and the kids had planned was church in the morning followed by a visit to Supercuts to take care of Granddad’s and Hudson’s hair.
Silence, except for the rattle and chuff of the window air conditioner unit in the family room. There was a note on the kitchen table, scribbled on the back of an envelope. Honey, I’m taking the kids to the lake to cool off. Don’t worry, I’ll get them dinner.
She sighed. That meant a stop at McDonald’s or Burger King, where the kids would eat their junior meals and Granddad would put away enough fat and salt to give himself another heart attack. Not to mention what his customary large milkshake would do to his blood sugar levels.
Her yellow and green kitchen was fairly neat, which meant the kids must have just run after getting their haircuts, grabbed their swimming things and run out again, touching nothing. She shuffled through yesterday’s mail, still piled on the counter. Bill, bill, credit card application—like that was going to happen, with the amount of debt she was carrying—Red Cross blood drive and a fat envelope addressed to Granddad from Medicare that promised hours of work for her sorting out his treatment and benefits.
She tossed it back onto the counter—her careless mother’s voice in her head saying, There’s always time for bad news—and headed upstairs. In her room, she deposited her gun and duty belt in her lockbox and replaced it on the top shelf of her closet. She gratefully stripped off her poly shirt and slacks and tossed them in the hamper. In the winter, she could get three or four wearings out of one uniform, but in heat like this, she’d go to work in her undies before wearing a set twice. More laundry for her, but at least she didn’t feel like she might be breeding mold in her pockets.
She considered a shower, then decided she’d rather eat. She tugged on a pair of cool cotton pajama pants and opened a drawer to dig into her crumpled jumble of T-shirts. Her hand closed around a neck and she pulled, only to discover it wasn’t her T-shirt at all. It was large, long enough to fit a slim guy of over six feet, and the faded lettering on the front read MILLERS KILL MINUTEMEN BASKETBALL.
She felt a sting, as if she were holding a scorpion instead of a limp piece of clothing. She wanted to fling it away, and because that was her first instinct, she kept it clenched in her fist. Pain from a misbegotten love affair wasn’t real pain. It hadn’t really been love, anyway, had it? Just gratitude and proximity and the loneliness of being a single mother who hadn’t slept with a man in God knows how long.
She had been shivering, she remembered, when Kevin Flynn had given her the T-shirt that had been hanging over the foot of his bed. It was January, and the cold leaked in around the edges of his apartment and pooled in his bathroom. He had laughed about her delicate California sensibilities and tossed her the shirt, and when she’d gotten back to the bedroom he was already pulling on his uniform, because he was on duty in fifteen minutes. She was going to be late getting home to Granddad and the kids. An hour and a half stolen out of the day, because they had been so love-struck with the raw newness of it all they couldn’t wait for their Friday date, which, as it turned out, never happened.
Well. Hadley laid the T-shirt on her bed and smoothed it out. She had thought they were both love-struck. She had been mistaken. Nothing surprising about that—she had a history going back to high school of picking the exact wrong guy and falling for him. She had probably had a crush on the worst girl-hater in kindergarten. She folded the T-shirt neatly.
She pulled a sleeveless shirt from her closet and buttoned it on, then picked up the Minuteman T-shirt and crossed the hall to Genny’s room. She had a box half-filled with kids’ clothes destined for Goodwill, and she dropped the folded T-shirt into it and left it there. She opened all the bedroom doors wide to share the cool air coming from Granddad’s room—he had the sole air conditioner upstairs.
Downstairs, she debated making some pasta or just having a sandwich for dinner. She decided on the sandwich. The initial thrill of cooler air had faded, and the kitchen felt a lot warmer than it had when she first came through the door. The thought of boiling water made her want to fan herself. She was laying out the lettuce and cheese and bologna on the counter when the front doorbell rang.
It was a Washington County sheriff’s deputy. She knew the guy; they had met at a seminar on policing and the mentally ill. Jason? Justin? Joshua. “Josh. Hi. What can I help you with?” She couldn’t imagine why he’d be at her door on a Sunday evening instead of contacting her at the station.
He looked embarrassed. “Hey, Hadley.” He handed her a thick manila envelope. “Sorry to do this, but you’ve been served.”
She stared at the envelope stupidly. She couldn’t seem to get her head off the guest-at-the-door track, and she found herself saying, “Um. Would you like to come in? Can I get you a soda?” Good God.
Thankfully, the deputy shook his head. “Nah. I’m working.” He took a step backward, then paused. “Maybe we could get together for a drink sometime, though?”
“Mmm. Yeah. Give me a call.” She shut the door, still staring at the envelope, Josh and his invitation already on their way to the circular file in her brain. She ripped the envelope open and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Some from a California law firm, some from a lawyer with an Albany address.
Oh, Christ. Her ex was suing for custody. The fear nearly blacked her out, dimming the room, bleeding the ink across the page, setting her swaying on her feet. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slowly. Once, twice, three times. Okay. She would start by reading the papers. Carefully.
She turned on the overhead light and spread everything across the dining room table. She braced her hands against the smooth wooden surface and began going over the document. Criminal proceedings. Alleged false imprisonment. Alleged tampering with evidence. Methamphetamines.
She jerked her head up. Methamphetamines? Oh, thank you sweet Jesus, these weren’t about custody. They weren’t about her kids at all. This was about her ex-husband being charged with possession. She was summonsed as a witness for the defense.
She sat down with a thud, her momentary elation gone. Witness for the defense. She looked at the second set of papers, from the California office. Civil suit. Unlawful restraint. Interference with custodial visitation. False evidence. Slander. Damage to reputation.
What the hell? Did her ex think he was going to get money out of her by suing her? Could you even bring a civil suit when you were facing criminal charges? Hadley read on. Required to appear for deposition. She realized she was once more being summonsed as a witness. She flipped back to the beginning, all the way back, and realized she had missed the very first page.
DYLAN KNOX v. KEVIN FLYNN and MILLERS KILL POLICE DEPARTMENT
Oh, hell, no.
Her phone was on the kitchen counter, next to the mail. She hadn’t deleted his number, any more than she had tossed his T-shirt. Well, at least this bit of idiocy would prove helpful. His phone went straight to voice mail. “Flynn, it’s Hadley.” She took a breath. “I need you to call me as soon as you get this. We have to talk.” She clicked off and set the phone back down by the bills.
Hadley’s mom had been right. It didn’t matter how safe you felt, how well things were going.
There’s always time for bad news.