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“Is Dr. O’Neal there, Mallett?”
Rye hesitated.
“Mallett? Is she there?”
“On her way to the house.” Where Timmy was.
“Where are you?”
“An airport. Just flew her in. Have y’all got people…? A…the sheriff’s department here you can notify?”
“And tell them what?”
“Jesus, I don’t know, tell them—”
“About a box, empty except for blood samples? About your run-ins with Goliad, your unexplained abductions of Dr. O’Neal, a senator’s somewhat strange but so far legal behavior? What do we tell them? Huh? It all feels criminal, but what’s the crime? Time you shared with us, don’t you think?”
“I will. But not now. Get people moving toward the Griffins’ house.”
“Based on what?”
“No time, Rawlins. Just move on it!”
“Beyond Brady White’s heart giving out during surgery—”
“Wait! What?”
“You didn’t know? He arrested on the table. They worked on him for ten, twelve minutes—”
Rye clicked off and slid down the wall onto his haunches. This blow hurt worse than when Goliad had slugged him. Anguish squeezed his chest so tight, he thought his breastbone would crack.
He could see the photo on Brady’s desk of him and his family. Brady smiling up at him from his hospital bed. Marlene saying, He couldn’t wait to meet you.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to block the images.
No time to think about it now. He had to get to Brynn.
Brynn, whom he’d pushed away.
Straight toward Timmy.
He tapped in the number of her new phone. No answer. No voice mail. “Shit!”
He surged to his feet and bolted from the lounge, running like a madman from room to room, looking for the pilot he’d swapped expletives with. He found him studying a radar monitor.
Breathless, Rye said, “Dude, sorry about what I said earlier. Do you have a car here I can borrow?”
Chapter 34
10:39 a.m.
During the twenty-minute drive from the airfield to the Griffins’ neighborhood, Brynn’s cell phone rang almost continually. There was never a name identifying the caller, so it could only be Rye. She didn’t answer. Why rehash the quarrel, when the outcome would be the same? As he’d said, why drag it out?
But not even her personal heartache could suppress her happy anticipation of delivering the good news to Violet and her parents. She felt a flutter of excitement as she neared their home.
The hours she’d spent researching, studying, struggling with doubt, commiserating with Violet’s parents, arguing with Nate were about to culminate in the best way possible: Violet would be reprieved, possibly saved.
The driver stopped at the corner at the end of the Griffins’ street. “Mind if I let you out here? There’s a lot going on up there. It’ll be hard for me to turn around.”
