I wanted to fight him. To scream. But the warmth of his hands on my shoulders was the only thing keeping me upright. The fight drained out of me, leaving me hollow again.
I slumped. "Then what do I do?"
"Let me call her," Ben said. "I’ll set it up. Somewhere neutral."
"She won't agree."
"She might." He released my shoulders and pulled out his phone. "She’ll want answers too."
I watched him dial the number from Ryan’s call log. I watched his face shift, smoothing out into a mask of polite neutrality.
"Hi," he said. "This is Ben Walsh. I'm a friend of Ryan's... Yes. His wife is here with me."
He paused, listening. His eyes flicked to me, then away, focusing on a spot on the wall.
"She wants to meet, Lucia. And I think you do too... Okay. When?"
He grabbed a pen from the counter, reaching past me. He scribbled on the back of the note he’d left this morning. The sound of the pen scratching on paper was sharp.
"Tomorrow? Two o'clock works. Where?"
He listened. His brow furrowed deeply, creating a line between his eyes I hadn't noticed before.
"Are you sure?" He looked down at the address he’d just written. "Okay. We'll be there."
He hung up and looked at me. The phone sat heavy in his hand.
"She'll meet you," he said. "Tomorrow at two PM."
Relief washed over me. "Where? Her office?"
Ben looked down at the note and hesitated.
"No."
"Where, Ben?"
"It's an address on Route 9," he said slowly. "472 Route 9. Past the reservoir."
The blood drained from my face.
"That's..." I couldn't finish the sentence.
"Yeah," Ben said grimly. "It's the road he died on."
"Why?" I whispered. "Why there?"
"She said it's a property. A project." He looked at me, his eyes dark with worry. "She said we'd understand when we got there."
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the house.
Hadn’t Ryan been driving to her? What exactly was there on Route 9?
"I'll take you," Ben said. It wasn't an offer; it was a promise. "Alright? I'll be right there."
I looked at him, at the exhaustion in his eyes and the way he was standing between me and the door like a shield.
"Okay," I said.
