“Hey, Sloane. Everything okay?”
While I’d vowed not to cry, the minute I heard my brother’s voice, I dissolved into sobs so intense I couldn’t speak.
“Sloane?” he said in a raised voice. “Is it something with Mom or Dad?”
“No, I’m sorry.” I blew my nose.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just…I need…I’m sorry.”
“Sloane, I can hardly hear you.”
“Is there…any…way…you can…come home? I know I’m asking a lot, but I need you, Knox.”
“You’re breaking up again, but if I’m needed at home, I can catch the next flight out. Tackle can finish things up for me here.”
“Tackle?”
“Long story, sis. He’s here in Italy.”
“You’re in Italy?”
“Yes…you’re breaking up again. I’ll be in touch when I land.”
It was morning by the time I heard from Knox again. I called the office and told the lead on my team that I needed to pick my brother up at the airport. Given they all knew about the plane crash, no one questioned my taking the time off.
I thought about bringing him back to the apartment, but the idea of telling my brother I was pregnant in the same place it happened, turned my stomach.
Instead, I drove to a diner that was far enough from the city and far enough from Newton that I doubted we’d run into anyone we knew.
Thankfully, Knox didn’t ask any questions until we were seated at a table in the back of the restaurant with no other customers in the vicinity.
“What’s going on, Sloane?”
I bit my bottom lip, trying my hardest not to burst into tears. “I’m pregnant,” I blurted.
My brother reached across the table and held his hands out to me. “I, um, don’t know what to say, Sloane.”
“I know. It’s hard.”
“Do the parents know?”
“No one knows, except the doctor and nurses I’ve seen.”
“What about the father?”
“Not in the picture and never will be.”
Knox nodded with scrunched eyes.
“Are you going to be able to handle that?” I asked, smiling for the first time, it seemed, since Friday.
My brother lowered his head momentarily, then looked back up at me. “Yes.”
“Simple as that?”
Knox’s eyes filled with tears, which he quickly tried to hide. “I told you at the airport, that day, that I want to be a better brother to you. I meant it. I can’t tell you how good it makes me feel that I’m the person you reached out to for help.”
“You understand I don’t want anyone to know about this.”
He smiled. “There will come a time they’re gonna know, peanut.” The look on his face changed. “I mean, if you’re going to…you know.”
“Have the baby?”
“Yeah.”
“I have to, Knox.”
“I get it, Sloane. I mean that. I hope you know I wasn’t suggesting anything else.”
I nodded. “I do.”
“You’re sure about the father not being in the picture?”
“One hundred percent.” I turned my head away, feeling the onslaught of more tears.
“Look, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m here. Whatever you need. I’m your guy.”
I smiled through my tears. “Thanks, Knox.”
“When do you plan to tell Mom and Dad?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Fair enough.”
“I have a question for you.”
“Can I get you two something to eat?” said the waitress who’d finally approached our table.
“I haven’t looked at the menu yet, have you?” Knox asked.
“You look. I know.”
I ordered a double cheeseburger with fries, a salad, and a chocolate milkshake. “Don’t say a word,” I told Knox when he looked up at me with wide eyes.
“Same,” he said to the waitress. “Except for the milkshake. I’ll have coffee.” Knox turned to me when she walked away. “You had a question?”
“How long will you be in town?”
“Indefinitely. Doc was in Italy too. I told him I was needed at home. He and Tackle said they’d cover me.”
“Oh. I mean, that’s nice.”
“Tackle and I already talked about me working for his dad, so that’s covered too.”
“You already talked about it?”
“Before I left on this last job. He said there was plenty of work if I wanted it.”
“By ‘last job,’ do you mean the missing-person case?”
“Yeah, but it got a whole helluva lot more complicated than that. Does the name Richard Emsworth mean anything to you?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It was his daughter, Tara, who was missing.”
I raised a brow.
“Do you know her?”
I shook my head.
It took my brother twenty minutes to tell me what had transpired since he left at the beginning of January.
First, he’d tracked the daughter to Italy, where her father, who had been accused of art forgery as well as wire fraud, was purported to be.
Then after accusing her of being the forger, Knox had found out that the man he’d believed she was involved with but was actually her half brother, was responsible for the crimes. Something about the way he told the story told me he was leaving a lot out.
“Knox?” I asked between bites of my cheeseburger.
“Yeah?” he said, sitting back and wiping his mouth with his napkin.
“Did something happen between you and Tara Emsworth?”
He laughed. “Is it that obvious?”
16
Tackle
“Anything you wanna talk about?” Doc asked when he sat in the seat beside me shortly after we’d boarded the plane that would take us back to the States from Italy.
“Why, do I look like there is?”
“You have since Halo left.”
“Did he say anything to you about what the emergency was?”
Doc shook his head. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Negative. I tried to call before we got in the air, but he didn’t answer.”
“You can try him again now.”
“I left a message.” I checked my phone, like I did at least every five minutes, but he hadn’t responded. In fact, the only person I had heard from was the one person I’d hoped to never hear from again.
“Actually, Doc, there is something I’d like to talk to you about.”
“Lay it on me, Landry.”
“There’s a woman…I, uh, went to high school with her. She turned up a few weeks ago,
