“Cathy’s a pain in the ass, but she often has a point,” Camryn admitted. “Just so you know, in case you start substituting.”
On that, Jamie was still waiting to be called and hoped it would be soon. With her mother’s estate getting settled, her immediate money crises had eased, making it easier for her to breathe more easily. While Harley was at school, she’d gone to the local Verizon store and purchased a new iPhone, set it with her phone number, then had a new number assigned to her old phone for Harley. She planned to bestow her old phone on her on Friday evening, before the football game.
Against her better judgment she’d also agreed to let Harley babysit with Marissa at Teddy Ryerson’s. Jamie had called Teddy herself and checked to see if it was all right, which he’d assured her it was. Jamie had still been reluctant. Who knew what Laura would do? Maybe this would be another black mark. But beyond Cooper’s ex, Jamie had other misgivings. Since the fateful night of Emma’s attack, she’d had the heebie-jeebies where babysitting was concerned. She’d always had trouble leaving Harley with anyone other than the Mexican nanny who lived in their apartment complex and was basically Harley’s other parent, and she’d struggled to let her daughter babysit for any children.
Emma didn’t learn of Harley’s babysitting gig until Theo dropped her back home on Friday evening. Jamie had just bestowed the phone on Harley, who was gripping the phone and shouting, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”
“Harley needs to be able to contact me,” Jamie explained to Emma, who was looking at Harley with alarm.
“Mom said I would lose a phone,” Emma answered. “I wouldn’t lose a phone.”
“We’ll work on that,” Jamie said.
“Oh my God!” Harley’s voice was a delighted shriek.
“You have to be careful,” Emma told her. “People put bad things on phones. You can get caught. Sometimes you have to use other phones.”
“That’s why we have the home phone,” Jamie assured her, wondering where she’d gotten that information.
Emma cocked her head, thinking about that.
Harley said, “I’m going to call Marissa right now! No, I’m going to text her.” Her fingers were all over the cell phone’s keyboard. “Oh my God. I can call you from the game, and from babysitting, and I don’t have to use somebody else’s phone!”
“You’re making me feel bad that it took so long,” said Jamie with a smile, sharing in her daughter’s delight.
Emma asked, “Babysitting?”
“At Mr. Ryerson’s.” Harley didn’t look up from her phone. “Oh my God! I have to tell her who I am! She doesn’t recognize the number!” She laughed.
Emma’s blue eyes, which had a tendency to look into the distance when you were talking to her, zeroed in on Harley. “Where?”
“Where am I babysitting?” Harley asked.
“The Ryersons,” Jamie answered for her.
Emma shook her head. “You shouldn’t go. They’ll come after you. Blame you. Try to kill you.”
“Emma.” Jamie’s blood froze.
“Bring them here,” Emma told Harley in all seriousness. “To our house. Where you will be safe.”
Harley’s grin stayed on her face, but she blinked a couple of times and slid a look Jamie’s way, to see how she was taking this advice. “I’ll be with Marissa,” she assured Emma. “I won’t be alone.”
With that, Harley clutched her phone close and hurried away, clambering up to her room, slamming her door behind her.
“He shouldn’t have done that to me,” Emma said.
“He?” questioned Jamie. Emma had rarely spoken about the attack and she’d never specifically pinpointed her attacker’s sex as male apart from her cries of seeing “his eyes.” “You mean the man who hurt you . . . at the Ryersons’?”
“Mom said he should’ve died for it,” Emma stated matter-of-factly.
* * *
“What’re you doing tonight, man?” Howie asked Cooper as Cooper was shrugging into his jacket. It wasn’t raining, but the temperature had taken a nosedive.
“I’m taking my stepdaughter and a friend to the high school football game.”
“Rah, rah, River Glen?” Howie grinned at him, his white teeth gleaming. He’d grown up in Portland, at a school with a football team that seemed to always win their division.
“If they can field the team,” Cooper said with a shrug on his way out. There’d been a question all week of whether the boys who’d worn the costumes at the mixer would face suspension or be expelled or some other sanction. At least Laura hadn’t flipped out about this particular transgression; she wasn’t completely without understanding of teens, apparently, but she had a chip on her shoulder about his relationship with Marissa, even though she’d been the one who’d wanted out of the marriage.
But that was because of you.
Cooper made a face as he drove back to his father’s house. Your house, he reminded himself. Yours now.
He didn’t have a whole lot of time until he was due to pick up Marissa and Jamie’s daughter, Harley. Laura had apparently confronted Jamie about Marissa being invited over to spread Mrs. Whelan’s ashes. He would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that one. He hoped Jamie could handle herself and had a feeling she could, although whether that was the truth or just the way he remembered her being, he couldn’t say. And Laura had a
