I just didn’t know.
He had been brooding, though, and I wondered whether it might have less to do with our recent experience and more to do with what he had seemed ready to tell me just before Nicole and Lewis invaded the house. This thing that had happened to him, when he was thirteen, that had sparked trouble between Dad and him.
He’d said, back then, that he might be willing to talk about it with Julie, but the time wasn’t right yet. We needed to decompress before we tackled anything else.
Besides, I had a couple of things on my mind, too.
I’d been debating whether to stay at my father’s house, live there with Thomas, at least for the foreseeable future. But to my surprise, when I proposed the idea to Thomas, he was reluctant.
“I don’t think I want to live with you,” he said. “Look at all the trouble you got me into.” He said he wanted to live at the place I had gone to visit, so long as he could keep his computer.
Which still left me the option of selling my place in Burlington and moving into Dad’s house permanently. Then I’d be close to Thomas, could check in on him as often as I wanted. Over breakfast, our last morning in New York City, we talked about traveling. Thomas said he wanted to touch the window of a particular pastry shop in Paris.
“I think,” I said, “if we go all that way, we might want to go inside and eat the pastry.”
“I guess that would be okay,” he said.
Our future plans weren’t the only thing on my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about the phone call.
WE went home with Julie, in her car.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a police car blocking the end of the driveway at my father’s house when we got back. The press—reporters other than Julie—had gotten wind of the story and been trying to find Thomas and me. So far, we had managed to avoid them. Not just because we didn’t need the aggravation, but because I wanted Julie to have a chance to break the whole story before anyone else got the details. Our—well, mostly my—firsthand accounts of what had happened were going to give her a hell of an exclusive.
The uniformed officer sitting behind the wheel got out to see who we were. Once we’d identified ourselves, he pulled his car out of the way. Julie drove up to the house and stopped. Thomas got out first. Although he was never very demonstrative, I could tell he was excited to be home.
As he was approaching the house, I called to him, “Do not touch the phone in your room.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t,” I said. “Don’t even go near it.”
He didn’t argue. He didn’t care that much about phones. It was the fact he had no computer to return to that most upset him. If he asked me once he asked me ten times on the way home when we would be going out to get him a new one.
I came around to the driver’s door. Julie powered down her window.
“Thanks,” I said, bending over, my head half in the window.
“You say that a lot.”
“It’s ’cause you’re so damned nice.”
“I’m going to the office. I’ve got a story to write up. Did I tell you about it?”
“A little,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll give you a call later.”
“Look forward to it,” I said, then leaned in and kissed her.
I watched her drive off, then went into the house. I was going to head up to Thomas’s room first thing, but I saw the light flashing on the phone in the kitchen, and thought I’d better check the messages.
There were five.
“Hey, Ray. Alice here. Harry needs you to come in and sign a couple more things. Let me know.”
Beep. I hit 7 to delete.
“Ray? Hey, it’s Harry. Alice left a message for you yesterday. Right? Give me a shout.”
Beep. I hit 7 again.
“Ray, Jesus, Harry here, I saw the news. God, I hope you guys are okay. Look, when you get back, call me.”
Beep. 7 again.
“Hi, I’m trying to reach Thomas or Ray Kilbride. My name is Tricia, and I’m a producer for the Today show and we’d very much like to get in touch with you. It’s very important that—”
Didn’t have to wait for the beep this time. Hit 7.
“Hello, this is Angus Fried, from the New York Times, and—”
7.
I was parched, so I ran water from the tap until it was cold, filled a glass, and drank it all without taking a breath.
It was time.
I didn’t know what I was going to learn when I checked the call history on Thomas’s phone, on his separate line. Maybe nothing. Maybe the ID had been blocked, and the identity of whoever called the house would remain a mystery forever.
I put my empty glass in the sink and started heading for the stairs.
There was a rapping at the front door.