Chapter 7: The Message at Two in the Morning
I didn't reply.
I set the phone face-down on the nightstand and lay in the dark with my eyes open, listening to the house breathe around me.
He'd heard Ryan was having trouble.
That meant someone had told him.
Someone who had been at the party, or someone who knew someone who had.
It had been less than six hours.
At six in the morning I got up, made coffee, and sat at the kitchen table with my phone in front of me like it was something that needed watching.
Barbara came down at six-thirty.
She read the message without a word, set the phone back down, and poured herself a coffee.
"How did he get your number?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"Do you think Ryan contacted him?"
"I don't know that either." I wrapped both hands around my mug.
"Ryan asked about him last night.
He asked if his father knew he existed."
"That's not the same as reaching out."
"No.
But it's a door opening."
Barbara sat down.
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know yet.
I need to think about what he actually wants."
"He wants back in," she said.
"That's what the message is.
*I heard there's trouble.
I'd like to help.* That's not a father reaching out.
That's someone who heard there's an opening."
I had thought the same thing at two in the morning.
Hearing it said out loud didn't make it easier.
"He could have changed," I said.
It came out flat, not hopeful.
"He could have," Barbara said.
"But changed people don't make contact through a back channel at two in the morning.
Changed people call in the daylight and say who told them and why they're really reaching out."
Ryan appeared in the doorway at seven.
He was dressed, which surprised me — he rarely surfaced before nine.
He looked at the phone on the table.
Then at my face.
"What happened?"
I turned the phone toward him.
He read the message.
His expression went through several things quickly — surprise, something complicated, then a careful stillness.
"Did you know he was going to contact you?" I asked.
"No." He said it immediately.
"I didn't reach out to him.
I don't even have his number."
"Someone told him about last night."
Ryan sat down slowly.
"One of the guys at the party.
Has to be.
I don't know who else would have—" He stopped.
"There were people there I don't know that well.
Friends of friends."
"What do you want to do?" I asked.
He looked at the message again.
"What does he want?"
"I don't know yet."
"Are you going to reply?"
"Not until I decide what I want to say."
Ryan was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Last night you told me not to look for him."
"I did."
"Is that still what you think?"
I looked at my son across the kitchen table.
He had his father's jaw and his father's eyes, and for years that had been the thing I tried not to see.
Now I made myself look at it directly.
"I think," I said carefully, "that you have a right to know who he is.
But I also think the timing of this message is not a coincidence.
And I think you should know that before you decide anything."
"You think he heard about the money stuff.
About Barbara."
"I think it's possible."
Ryan's mouth pressed into a line.
"So he shows up when he thinks there might be something to get."
"I don't know that for certain."
"But it's what you think."
I didn't answer.
I didn't need to.
Ryan stood up, went to the counter, and poured himself a coffee.
He stood with his back to us for a moment.
"Don't reply yet," he said finally.
"Let me think about it."
"It's my phone, Ryan."
"I know.
I'm asking." He turned around.
"Just give me a day."
I looked at him — at the set of his shoulders, at the way he was holding the mug with both hands the same way I always did.
"One day," I said.
He nodded and sat back down.
The three of us had breakfast together.
Barbara made toast.
Ryan ate two pieces without being asked.
Nobody talked about David.
But at eleven that morning, while I was in the garden and Ryan was inside, my phone rang.
It wasn't the unknown number.
It was Marcus.
"Mrs.
Linda," he said.
May you like
"I think you need to know something.
Last night, after I left — someone followed me to my car."
