“Are you pregnant?”
“What the hell? Really?” Hadley had seen it was Flynn on her cell phone, of course. “No hello, no ‘How are you,’ no ‘Gee, Hadley, good to hear your voice again’?”
“You said we needed to talk. I was thinking about it today and…”
“You thought I was pregnant?” She remembered to drop her voice at the last minute. She had stepped out onto their tiny front porch before she had answered the phone. Genny and Hudson were safely inside, glued to the television, and Granddad was off at the VFW, but not everyone on Burgoyne Avenue had air-conditioning, and there would be more than a few neighbors’ windows open to catch a night breeze.
She dropped into the two-seater porch swing. “You do realize, if I had been pregnant, I’d be seven months along by now. What’d you think, I was calling to invite you to the baby shower?”
“I don’t know.” His voice was frustrated. “I don’t know what I thought.” He stopped. She let the pause lengthen. Finally, he said, “So you’re not pregnant, then.”
“I had my tubes tied after I had Genny. So, no.”
He let out a sigh—she couldn’t tell if it was relief or disappointment. “All right. You asked me to call. I’m calling. You tell me what’s on the agenda.”
She braced her foot against the porch rail and rocked the swing back. “I take it you haven’t gotten the summons, yet?”
“Summons? Like … a legal summons? No. I’m kind of hard to get ahold of just now.”
She frowned. “Don’t tell me they put you on the dog shift?”
He huffed a laugh. “No. I’m working undercover.”
“Undercover?” She had pictured him in uniform all this time, doing the same sort of work she and he had done together. Traffic. Accidents. Investigating under the weathered eyes of their superiors.
“It’s complicated. I’m traveling around a lot. They needed someone who looked young and impressionable.”
“You are young and impressionable.” Her routine jab at his age didn’t have any heat.
“I’m twenty-seven, Hadley.” There was no force behind his comeback, either.
She watched the lights of a car grow large and flash past her on the street. “It’s not dangerous, is it?”
“No.”
She snorted. “You sound like the chief. Not quite as convincing, though.”
“What can I say? I learned from the best.”
She was starting to feel comfortable talking with him, comfortable and soft and stupid. “The summons. You’ll be getting one as soon as they can track you down. The town and I have already been served.” Across the way, someone was walking their dog, a flashlight picking out the sidewalk. “It’s Dylan. My ex. He’s suing you, and me, and the town for false imprisonment, and damaging his reputation and a whole laundry list of charges. One of which is tampering with evidence.” This part she could quote by heart. “To wit: secreting methamphetamines on his person or in his personal effects.”
The silence from the other end was vast.
“Flynn? You there?”
She heard him exhale. “Yeah.”
“Flynn. That night when we got the kids away from him—I wasn’t exactly at my best so I don’t know if I’m remembering things right. But if I am—”
“I don’t want to talk about this over the phone.”
“What? Flynn—”
“Just give me a minute to think, will you? Just give me a minute.” She could hear him breathing. Something rasped, like his hand over his hair. It sounded short again.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to come there.”
“What do you mean? Here? Granddad’s house?” She twisted her head to where she could see the family room window out of the corner of her eye.
“No. Someplace public. Where an out-of-towner might go.”
“Uh…” She could think of lots of places tourists went. None of them were good for a private conversation. “What about the library? Or St. Alban’s?”
“That’s it. I’ll meet you at St. Alban’s. I can’t get away tomorrow, but Wednesday or Thursday should be good.”
“Wednesday or Thursday when?”
“It’ll be evening, that’s the best time for me to get away. I’ll text you. Don’t talk to anyone until you and I have gotten a chance to … go over things.”
“Flynn.” She was whispering again. “What did you do?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. None of this is going to touch you.”
“That doesn’t actually reassure—”
“Gotta go. Bye.” The connection was broken before she had a chance to respond.
She pressed her phone against her stomach and let herself swing. Here, next to her, is where he had sat, and there, on the steps, he had told her he loved her, and out there in the soft darkness they had sat trading kisses in his car until she had tumbled out, afraid the kids would see something through the windows. She had thought he was one of the good guys and she had been wrong.
Hudson burst through the front door. “Mom? Can we watch Jaws?”
“No.”
“What if I watch it after Genny goes to bed?”
“That’s not fair!” his sister whined. Hadley creaked out of the swing and went inside to settle the fight. All the while hearing her own whisper in her ear.
Flynn. What did you do?