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“Are you okay?”
“Not really. I ran away from home. I’m a runaway.”
“You’re too old to be a runaway,” I point out, my heart lodged somewhere at the level of my jaw.
Remy’s mouth drops open. “Is it her?” she whispers.
“I’m too old to be grounded, but that seems to have happened, too.”
One second, Remy’s looking at me from across the couch. The next second, I’m looking down at her. That’s because I’ve jumped to my feet. “You wenthome?”
“It was part of the discovery process.”
“Holy shit, L—” I’m not going to shout her name in this hospital room. “Holyshit.Stop making lawyer jokes and tell me where you are.”
She names a couple of cross-streets that I vaguely remember. “If you’re not busy, could you come get me?”
“I have to go,” I announce in a way-too-loud voice. Robin the Baby lets out a screech and starts up a raspy wail. That wakes up Snowball, who jumps around in his cage until I pick it up with my free hand. “Sorry, man. It sucks. But I have to go. I have my phone, so all of you should feel free to call or text.” Gabriel and Elise have come back into the main room with Nate and Lydia. They’re all staring at me, even Charlotte, who’s trying to settle Robin. “Congratulations, Mason. Charlotte. Great job being born, Robin. I’ll be in touch.”
Robin’s scratchy cries follow me out the door.
“What the fuck was that?” Gabriel says, just before they’re all out of earshot.
“Are you still there?” I ask the woman I previously kidnapped, then released, then left jail with, then briefly lost when she left the hospital without me.
“Yeah. Is everything okay with your family?”
“They’re fine.” I’m dismissive about it, but only because leaving them all there in that hospital room is worse than rushing to find them in the first place. As soon as I’m in the elevator, I can’t remember what the room looked like. My mind superimposes Mason’s horrible recovery room over the whole thing, and Mason in that bed, and our lives falling apart. “Are you actually okay?”
“Physically, I’m unharmed. Emotionally, I don’t know.”
Yeah. The lawyer-ly descriptions are convincing as hell. If I had to guess, Lily’s emotionally in denial, and later she’ll be furious.
Not that I have any experience with that.
“What happened?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Because he touched you?” If that bastard of a judge hurt Lily in any way, it won’t just be his house I burn down. It’ll be all of Cobble Hill.
“He didn’t hurt me, Jameson, but he was scary, and I’m not going to tell you anything else because I’m pretty sure you’ll do something ill-advised.”
“No, I won’t.” I silently judged her too soon about the denial. At best, the idea that Iwouldn’tdo anything that could be classified as a criminal act is wishful thinking.
“Yes, you will.”
“Ill-advisedis a matter of perspective.” That’s not bullshit at all. My mother raised us to take our own feelings into account, not only shitty laws and systems put into place by rich people. I don’t hear a word from her right now, which is probably for the best.
“I think you can’t afford to get arrested again.”
Outside the hospital, I put Snowball’s cage on the sidewalk and press my ticket into the valet’s hand. One of his guys sprints away to get my SUV. I can’t afford alotof things. I can’t afford to fuck up anything else about my nephew’s first days on earth. I can’t afford to give into the urge to fuck things up for other people who deserve it.
I can’t afford to lose Lily.
I know how ironic that sounds. I know how badly this entire enterprise has blown up in my face.
Now’s not the time to think about it. My SUV pulls up to the curb. First things first, I get Snowball buckled into the back. Then I shove the stray twenties from my wallet into the valet’s hand, get behind the wheel, and go.
