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“Quit complaining.” I know Brad. He’s his own worst enemy. I got the information we needed. My God, this day, though? “I need another beer. And a smoke.” And when I get home, a really big cuddle. My phone rings, reminding me that my wife isn’t at home waiting for me. Of course she isn’t at home waiting for me. “Alan?” I answer in question.
“Yeah, hi, Danny.” He sounds tentative. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
I roll my eyes. “What’s she up to now?” God love that woman, she’s a trier.
“The spa just blew up.”
My smoke stops halfway to my mouth, and I feel the blood physically drain from my face. “What?”
“I just got here. Hardly had one foot out of the car. I’m telling you, the explosion knocked me back ten feet.”
“Alan.” My Marlboro drops from my fingers, my collar tight around my neck. “Can you see Tank’s car in the parking lot?”
“I haven’t looked.”
“Then fucking look!” I bellow, raking a stressed hand through my hair.
James is up in my face like a shot, his psycho eyes demanding answers. “The salon just blew up.”
“Fuck, no,” he breathes. “No!” He rushes out of the café and down the steps, and I follow, my heart beating frantically.
“Baby?”
I skid to a stop.
Turn.
See Rose on the shore, Maggie held to her front. She looks me up and down. “We’re paddling,” she says quietly.
I see Beau beyond, up to her knees in the water, her face worried. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“Oh my God.” My phone slips from my hand, my legs failing me, and I fold to the floor in a heap of relief as James wades into the water and claims Beau, taking her in his fierce hold. My head hangs. My skin is cold. “Fuck,” I whisper, trying to calm my shakes. I should have manhandled her onto the fucking jet.
I eventually look up at Rose. She’s staring at me with an expression that I hate on my wife. Knowing. Preparation. She pulls Maggie in closer and kisses her head, eyes on me. A silent message.
She’s had her freedom. She better not fight me on what she knows is coming.
I get up and go to her, wrapping an arm around her and walking her into the café.
“What’s going on?” Brad asks, appearing with Pearl tucked into his side.
“The spa just blew up,” I say, feeling Rose’s shocked eyes hit me from her place under my arm.
And when my phone rings, my recovering heart drops again. Unknown number. He’s called Pearl. James. Now me. But my phone rings off before I can answer, and another rings. Brad’s. Then that stops and another rings. I turn my eyes onto Beau as she looks down at her screen.
“Unknown number,” she says.
Rose’s phone starts ringing from her bag. “Who is that?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Otto mutters from his laptop. He’s thinking what I’m thinking. My number, James’s, Brad’s, yes. But our wives? How the fuck did he get those numbers?
Ringo’s phone starts, and Brad moves in, holding up his hands for Ringo to pass it. He throws it, and Brad catches and connects the call. “You’ve made your point,” he says in answer, holding the phone out for us all to hear.
“Have I?” King asks. “You mean the salon and the musical ringing tones worked?”
“It worked.”
“Oh, then I suppose I should have left your son alone.”
