Ellie interrupts the conversation, calling for Caleb to come upstairs for something.
“Stay here,” he tells me. “We’re not done talking about this just yet.”
Talking isn’t something we’ve been doing a lot of recently…not unless it involves sex. If Caleb isn’t texting me absolute filth throughout the day, we’re whispering it in each others’ ears at inconvenient times, like in the kitchen as we pass one another, or in the corridor we always find ourselves alone in.
A notification comes through. A voicemail—the number unknown.
My stomach turns over again as I lift my phone, checking out the voicemail. It’s just been sent through—no call first. It has James Taylor written all over it. Voicemails are the way to go when you don’t want the recipient arguing with you. It’s the easiest way to get your point across, and we all know James loves to do that.
So I listen to the voicemail, phone raised to my ear as I anticipate an update from James on the case.
“Piper? It’s your father. Please give me a ring at your earliest convenience. It’s urgent.”
My stomach drops, so much that I could shit it out.
He has to be kidding. Nine-and-a-bit years of nothing, and now my father decides to leave me a vague-ass voicemail.
I clench the phone in my hand, careful not to shatter the thing. I could use the energy from all of these emotions surging through me to obliterate both the deviceandhim. What is he doing? Has he finally turned a corner, or is he the same man as before, only ringing me up because he needs my help with something?
Feeling a pair of eyes on me, I turn toward the staircase and see Caleb psychoanalyzing me. “Everything okay?”
“Is it obvious that it’s not?”
He paces down the stairs and takes a seat opposite me, his eyes wide and staring. He’s impossibly attractive, as usual. But tonight I’m distracted.
My father is God knows where, requesting my help with something.
I say nothing, and play the voicemail on speaker.
Caleb scoffs. “Urgent? More urgent than what you have going on now? I highly doubt that.”
“I doubt that too—my father’s definition of urgent is very different to mine and yours. But I should ring him.”
Caleb lays a protective hand over my phone, stopping me. “You already have enough on your plate. Are you sure this is wise?”
“It’s just a phone call. After he left me to pay off the rest of the house, I’m well in my right to hang up and forget he exists. He hasn’t contacted me once in the past nine-ish years.”
Caleb looks at me cautiously and removes his hand. I raise the phone to my ear and wait out the intermittent ringing. I have a few more to go yet before he should pick up. And that’s a bigif.He always used to answer at the last second, or never. Usually the latter.
He was the reason I always got stuck at school and made the teachers late getting home.
This evening, he picks up on the fourth ring.
Wow. It really must be important.
“I take it you got my message.”
“Where are you?” I frown into space, hazarding a guess. “Boston? New York? Fucking Japan?”
“Piper.” He sighs, one mixed with exhaustion and relief. “I’m back in town.”
“Town, as in Maple Crossing?”
“Yes. I need you to come and meet me as soon as possible. It’s urgent.”
How many times does he want to emphasize that?
“You’re gonna need to be more specific if you want me to meet you.”
