Hadley, what’s going on?
I’m good.You go and have a great game.
You do know I’m not going to stop harassing you until you fess up.
… I don’t want to tell you.
Now you have to tell me.
“She’s keeping something from us, little man,” I say to Tanner, who is too enthralled with his new toy to care what I have to say.
I was on my way home in an Uber and there was a little fender bender.I’m fine though.
Sorry?Fender bender.
A moving truck might have hit my Uber.
I bolt to my feet, and Tanner turns to look at me.My heartbeat is like a bass drum in my chest.
Might have or did?
Did.I’m perfectly fine.It’s just all precaution.
What is precaution?
No answer.
Hadley…
The three dots appear and disappear, and my chest gets tight as panic sets in.
Had?
The doorbell rings, and I rush to the door, opening it to find Penelope.She walks right in with a smile.Does she not know that Hadley could be on a stretcher right now on her way to having lifesaving surgery?
“Hey, I’m here for Tanner.”She goes into the family room, her face lighting up.“How about me and you have some fun?”she says to him, then turns to me.“Did you pack his bag?”
“Mom!”Hazel comes through the still-open door.“Oh hey, Easton.”She gives me a fleeting look.“Tanner!”She climbs into the hexagon fencing thing I bought to keep him contained.“Why is he in jail?”
Penelope laughs and looks at me, and when she sees I’m staring at my phone waiting for a text back, she laughs again.
I frown.“What are you laughing at?”
“She told me it’s fine, but she has to deal with the ambulance and police.You know how it goes.”Penelope waves me off.
Ambulance?Police?And she thinks that’s gonna calm me?
She has to be fucking kidding me.
“Where is she?”
Penelope shrugs.“She said they’d just pulled out from the coffee place.”
I rack my brain trying to remember whether Hadley told me the name of the coffee place she was meeting Honor at.
“You better get going.Decker just left.”She nods toward the door.“You’ll be late.Hazel and I have this handled.”
She smiles at where Hazel is in the hexagon, playing with Tanner.
