“Zoey Jensen doesn’t know Teddy. She doesn’t know his history. She doesn’t know the way this town works. Hell, how could she? She’s only been on the job six months. I have no problem with Zoey. It’s just that this is a family issue. You and me, we’re family. Mike and Andy and Sue, they’re family. Zoey Jensen isn’t family. We don’t need her sticking her nose into this.”
Clay feels his sixteen-year-old self begin to boil. “What are you talking about? We have no idea what Teddy’s been mixed up in. And do you know why we don’t? Because we’refamily. Because we love Teddy. Because we only want to think the best of him. Because we don’t want to think the unthinkable. We’re too close, Dad. We’re too goddamn close to Teddy. Zoey Jensen is exactly who needs to be investigating his disappearance. Asking questions. Finding out who Teddy’s been seen with lately. What he’s been up to. Because we can’t see clearly when it comes to Teddy. And you especially can’t. You’ve been bailing him out of trouble since you were kids. I love him to death but the man can’t hold a job and can’t keep his hands clean. And you’ve enabled it. Why should he straighten out his life when you keep cleaning up his messes?”
Judd curls his lower lip into his mouth to let his anger cool to a simmer. He checks the open kitchen window to make sure Deb isn’t lurking near the screen. “Just stay out of this,” says Judd in a low growl. “I don’t need some soccer player out there stirring up an already murky situation.”
“Some soccer player?” says Clay. “That’s who I am to you? Not your son? Not Teddy’s nephew? Butsome soccer player?”
“Dammit, Clay, I don’t care if you’re a soccer player or an accountant or a ballet dancer. The point is you don’t understandor appreciate the delicacy of this situation. You spook the wrong people, they’ll clam up. And that will make finding Teddy ten times harder. Just leave it to me and Mike and Andy. We’ll find Teddy. That’s what we do.”
Clay turns away from Judd and stares out at the gravel driveway leading from the road. His truck is pulled off to one side. He wants to get in it and drive away. He did something like that twenty-four years ago and things turned out pretty well. Maybe he and Judd just aren’t meant to be. Would it have made a difference if Pam had lived? Might she have found a way to bring father and son together without combustion? Clay has no idea but the answer doesn’t much matter now, does it?
He turns toward his father and says, “I’ll do whatever the hell I want. Don’t take out your guilt on me.”
“I have no guilt. What do you think I’d feel guilty about?”
“Oh, man. So many things. Not helping Teddy turn it around. Not treating this disappearance seriously.”
“What do you mean—”
“I mean you refused to take this to the chief of police. You and Mike and Andy are just nosing around. No one’s done any real investigative work.”
“I—”
“What have you done?” says Clay. He hears his voice rise to a volume that can be heard inside the house. He takes a breath, steps toward his father, and almost whispers, “By now you and your good buddies Mike and Andy should have Teddy’s cell phone records. You should know who he’s been calling and texting. You should know which cell towers he’s been pinging over the last few weeks to see if there’s any location patterns thatmight give some insight into where he’s been and what he’s been up to lately. Every criminal complaint, questioning, and arrest in town should be referenced and cross-referenced for known friends and associates of Teddy. And they should run every Facebook, Instagram, and X account of every friend Teddy has or has had through Sprout Social to analyze every picture and post in search for a connection. And get back to basics. Why hasn’t a K-9 unit tried to track his scent? It hasn’t rained since early Friday morning but it could any time.”
Judd looks at Clay with a hint of a smile in his eyes. Looks but doesn’t say a word.
“What?” says Clay. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Judd scratches his head, then shakes it. He shrugs.
Clay turns and walks back into the house, where he manages a smile for Deb and Mei, then heads out to the deck to see how Braedon’s doing on the grill.
The rest of the evening is pleasant enough. Judd and Clay are so used to conflict that they put it behind them rather easily. They don’t get over it. They bank it. But banked conflict is better than boiling-over conflict—at least they can function. And it helps that Mei is a talker. They learn she was married once in her twenties to a man her parents pushed on her. He turned out to be bad at business and bad at monogamy. When she divorced him, her family practically divorced her.
“They have some very old-world ways of thinking,” says Mei. “Even now, almost thirty years later, they say I should have never left him. That’s why I’ve been content to build my life here in Minnesota.”
Mei looks at Judd, and the two share a smile. Despite Teddy’sdisappearance, Judd has reasons to be happy. He’s introduced Mei to his family. They all seem to be getting along well. More importantly, they all seem like they want to be getting along. Mei has questioned Braedon about his science studies, and she’s been impressed with what the boy knows at twelve years of age. Deb is being especially welcoming to Mei. Clay is treating her as if she’s already a member of the family. And Judd won’t shut up about Braedon’s prowess on the grill. It almost feels like a happy occasion.
Then there’s a knock on the front door.
CHAPTER 15
Judd almost jumps out of his seat. He opens the front door and slumps with disappointment.
“Picked a bad day to leave my windows open,” says Ash Solbakken, Deb’s first cousin and neighbor. He wears Nantucket red shorts, Top-Siders with no socks, and a butter-yellow cable-knit sweater over a kelly-green polo shirt buttoned up to his neck. “Your grilling smells too good to pass up. I think I’ll join you for dinner after all.”
He has come empty-handed. Judd leads Ash to the dining room table, introduces him to Mei, and finds another chair.
Judd wants Mei’s counsel. He wants to share everything with her, good and bad. He wants to show her his weaknesses. Hismistakes. He wants to be vulnerable and turn himself inside out, and Mei can accept or reject the real him. He’s only been dating her for four months, but hell, he knows her well enough to understand that he doesn’t need to know her better to feel the way he does. Judd hasn’t felt this way about anyone other than Pam.
They’ve just made love. Judd and Mei stare up at the modest rambler’s popcorn ceiling, the room lit by a small lamp. The kind that holds a single candelabra bulb in a tiny linen shade. The lamp has been there so long that Judd can’t remember where it came from. His guess is Pam found it at a garage sale. Maybe even before they were married. She loved a good garage sale. Mei is the first woman he’s allowed into the room where Pam once convalesced and slept. It’s not the same mattress—Pam died thirty years ago—but it’s the same bed made of antique maple that matches the dresser and two nightstands. The furniture had belonged to Judd’s grandparents.
Now Judd’s a grandparent. So much of his life is behind him. He never had a problem getting older. Not when he turned forty. Not when he turned fifty. But when he turned sixty, the finiteness of life hit him hard. You can’t call yourself “middle-aged” when you’re sixty. No one lives to 120. Sixty felt like smelling salts under his nose. Sixty woke up Judd. He downloaded the dating apps. He met Mei.
And then Clay and Braedon moved to Riverwood. The boy took to him right away, as if Judd and Braedon had both been waiting for each other. There was no getting-to-know-youwarm-up period. No dance. No nothing other than instant chemistry, enthusiasm, and affection for one another. Braedon was and is more than Judd dared to hope for. The only downside to his grandson is that he’s a living measuring stick for Judd and Clay’s relationship.
Just as inexplicable as Judd and Braedon getting on the way they do is Judd and Clay not getting on at all. Their enmity feels preordained to Judd. Even when Clay was a baby, he’d cry whenever Judd picked him up. What alchemy is at play? And to make matters more strange, why is it that Judd and Pam loved each other, Clay and Pam loved each other, but Judd and Clay can’t seem to agree on the color of the sky?
