With a weak huff of laughter, Jake let his hand stop and pressed it into Rye’s back gently. “It’s okay. You’re gonna do great,” he repeated. “But I have to warn you—”
His cell phone rang then, a buzz followed by his familiar ringtone, and Jake frowned. “Hang on. I need to silence it anyway,” he said, but when he reached out and picked up the phone, which had been sitting face down in the space in front of the gearshift, his frown turned into a grimace.
It was Wayne. And he had two text message notifications from Shirley and one from Rachel. All sent in the last ten minutes or so.
Shit.
“Wh-why’s Wayne calling?”
“I’m not sure.” Jake hesitated for a second before swiping to answer and lifting the phone to his ear. He glanced over at Rye, and his stomach dropped. Rye’s normally pale complexion looked even paler, and now he clutched at his stomach. Jake shook his head gently, hoping Rye would know what he meant—don’t worry, everything’s okay, you’re safe.
“Hello, Wayne?”
“Ah, good, I caught you. Shirley and Rachel said you hadn’t answered their texts, and Shirley thought maybe you’d had to turn off your phone while Ryan was testing.”
“No. Well, I mean, yes, I will, but he hasn’t started yet.”
“Okay, okay,” Wayne said. There was some rustling on the other end, and Jake frowned again.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing bad, but you need to know. I’m sure it’s gonna be all over the news, if it’s not already, and it’d be better for Ryan to have it coming from you than from the media.” Wayne paused, and there were more muffled sounds on Wayne’s end of the line. “No, no, tell ’em we’re not issuing a statement right now. That’s all,” Wayne said, clearly talking to someone else.
Jake’s chest tightened, and his eyes darted back to Rye. The younger man was now staring down at his lap, still clutching his stomach.
“Sorry, Jake. So, seems like there’s been a sighting. Raymond Hirsh, I mean. Someone recognized him hanging out around an elementary school down in Tucson. They went to the police just this morning about an hour ago.”
“Oh shit,” Jake mumbled, and he immediately regretted it as Rye flinched, hunching his shoulders over and screwing his eyes shut. Jake pulled the phone away from his ear and slowly reached out to touch Rye’s back. “Sorry, sorry, Rye. I’ll do better. And everything’s okay, alright?”
Rye was trembling—Jake could feel it as he lightly rubbed Rye’s back. Yet Rye nodded.
Jake brought the phone back to his ear. “Is there anything else, Wayne?”
“That’s it, really. At least for now. They’ve got a partial plate and a description of his vehicle and probably the whole Tucson Police Department out searching for him. But nothing else yet.”
“Okay, thanks, uh, keep me posted.” Jake let his hand press into Rye’s back a little more. “Although I won’t have my phone on except during Rye’s breaks between exams.”
“Will do. And just as a reminder, Tucson is plenty far away from—Redding is where you are, right?—and Hirsh was seen just this morning. So there’s no danger or anything. We just didn’t want Ryan to find out from the TV or something, you know?”
“Yeah, thanks, Wayne. I gotta go.”
“Alright. Tell Ryan good luck from all of us.”
“Will do.”
Jake waited for a second until he was sure Wayne had hung up, then he pulled the phone away from his ear, hit the power button to turn off the screen, and stuffed the phone in his pocket, glancing up toward the news van. A second news van had pulled up, and two men were climbing out.
The timing was just awful, even though the news was good—the first real lead they’d had on Raymond Hirsh’s whereabouts since they’d discovered his identity back in December. But now, he needed to tell Rye, and Rye had to somehow be okay enough to go inside and take his exams, even though he was already nervous.
Jake shifted to look at Rye, who was breathing a little fast, his eyes still screwed shut. “Hey, you okay?”
Rye immediately shook his head.
“Did you hear what Wayne said?”
He shook his head again, and Jake’s stomach twisted into a knot.
“Okay, okay. Um.” God, he didn’t want to do this here, sitting in the parking lot, right before Rye’s exams. And they probably only had a few minutes now, even though they’d been perfectly early getting here. Still, he didn’t see any other way. Rye needed to know. So he took a deep breath and shifted slightly to face Rye, then he started lightly stroking back and forth with his hand low on Rye’s back as he quietly relayed Wayne’s message to Rye.
