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“Hey, Patrick,” I said, walking into McKenna’s that following Monday, not surprised to see him hanging around.
Officer Kinney’s wife, Kinsey, worked the counter at the deli. So, naturally, the guy spent a good deal of his time busting her chops while she worked.
He offered a friendly smile at my greeting. “Hey, Soldier. How’s itgoin’?”
“All right. Can’t complain.” I stopped to lean against the counter beside him. “Actually, I have a question for you.”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“You know a lot about the people around here, right?”
He puckered his lips with contemplation before saying, “Sure, I’d say so. Why do you ask?”
“So, what do you know about Ray’s boyfriend?”
Patrick wrinkled his brow as he turned to Kinsey, waiting behind the counter for me to give her my order.
“Does Ray have a boyfriend?” he asked her, and she shrugged and replied, “No, I don’t think so.”
Well, that’s an interesting turn of events.
“Okay,” I hummed and tapped my fingers against the glass case housing the deli meats and prepared salads. “What about Noah’s dad then? What do you know about him?”
“Well, I know he has one … obviously,” Patrick replied, still deep in thought. “We don’t see him often around here though. As far as I know, he’s never lived with Ray. Honestly, I’m not sure they’ve ever beentogether—or at least not in the time she’s lived here.”
“And how long has that been?”
Kinsey twisted her lips to the side before saying, “Um … maybe five, six, seven years, give or take? Noah wasn’t a baby when she bought her place. He was at least a few years old.”
“Hmm …” I nodded slowly, growing more and more curious by the second.
Patrick bumped his shoulder against mine. “Why don’tyajust ask her? Don’t you two hang out sometimes?”
It wasn’t a lie. Ray had become a good friend in the weeks since we’d started spending time together. We chatted regularly, saw each other every Tuesday at the store, and ever since I had learned that she worked at the library, I’d made it a point to visit her weekly when I needed some new books to pass my time with. But that didn’t mean I wanted her to know that I was digging for information about her or her kid.
“Yeah, I might,” I half fibbed because who knew? I might find a reason to ask eventually.
But now wasn’t the time.
***
That time did come, however, when, a couple of days later, that same truck was parked outside Ray’s place late into the evening.
Noah was sitting on the curb in the quiet dark.
“Hey,” I said, poking my head out my door. “What are you doing out so late?”
It was nine o’clock on a school night. Noah was never outside this late on a school night.
He looked in mydirection, butdidn’t say anything. So, I brushed Eleven out of the way with a sweep of my foot—that damn cat was always trying to sneak back outside into the same world I’d rescued him from—and walked out the door and onto the steps I still hadn’t fixed.
At the sight of my approach, Noah began to shake his head, his eyes widening with a warning.
“Noah, why are you outside?” I asked again, sterner than before. “Is everything okay?”
“I can’t talk right now,” he hissed quietly.
A loud sound came from inside Ray’s house. It could’ve been a piece of furniture being thrown. A door being slammed. Whatever it was, warning bells rang loudly in my head, clanging with every beat of my heart, and I took a step further toward Noah.
