“Hey, it’s me,” Hayley said when Sugar Bear answered the phone on the third ring.
“Hayley! What are you doing? I told you not to call me. What if Toby’d picked up the phone?”
“I’d have pretended it was a wrong number, or asked to speak to his mother and he’d have told me she—”
“I don’t want you talking to Toby about his mother!”
“I wouldn’t … why …? What’s wrong with you?”
She hadn’t meant to make the words an accusation but they’d come out that way and there was some small part of her that was glad she’d stood up to him.
“Wrong with me? Wrong with me?” Then he stopped, calmed down. When he spoke again, she could hear the concern in his voice. “We don’t need to be talking about what’s wrong with me. It’s what’s wrong with you that matters. Did Sam agree to … fix it?”
“Not on the phone.”
“Why can’t you just tell me—?”
“My mother might come and hear. We have to talk in person. We need to meet.”
“I don’t have anybody to look after Toby.”
“We have to talk.” There. She’d done it again, she’d been firm. “Tonight, while my parents are at that county meeting.”
“She wouldn’t do it, would she?” The question was emotionless, clinical.
“I said I can’t talk now.”
“That’s what I figured.” He let out a breath. “Okay, then. Yeah, we need to meet. We absolutely do. I’ll pick a place, and let you know.”
“What’s wrong with behind the Henderson’s barn?” The Hendersons were a retired couple who spent almost all their time with their daughter’s family in Florida. The barn on the back of their property was secluded, invisible from the road with a spot to park cars where they’d be concealed by large oleander bushes. And inside the barn was a pile of hay where you could spread out a blanket and …
He paused, seemed to be holding onto his emotions.
“When we meet … I want it to be somewhere different. I’ll call, you answer and I’ll just say where, and then you can hang up immediately, like it was a wrong number.”
Why did he want to pick some new place for them to meet? She wanted to ask, but didn’t have the chance.
“I have to go now.” And the phone went dead.