Chapter 15: Nine Minutes

Geneva's POV

The file came on the fourth night after the transplant, at twenty to midnight.

I was in the family lounge outside Sam's room, with a cold coffee and the monitor's soft chirp coming through the wall.

Vaughn walked in with his laptop under his arm.

He had not shaved since the lake house.

He sat down next to me on the vinyl couch, close enough that his knee touched mine.

"The carrier sent it an hour ago," he said. "I haven't opened it."

"Why not?"

"I wanted you beside me when I did."

He set the laptop on the low table between us.

I did not trust my hands, so I folded them in my lap.

He clicked, and a long gray page came up, rows of dates and numbers and the name Ansley Lowell at the top.

"That's the line," he said. "That's the night."

We both leaned in.

The first outgoing call was at 12:15 a.m., to Vaughn's number, and it had gone to voicemail.

The next two were to me.

12:30 a.m. and 12:41 a.m., each one ringing out to voicemail.

I had seen those two lines for five years behind my eyes, and now they were typed in black.

Ansley had not left a message on either.

"She didn't say anything," I said. "Not a word."

"I know."

"I thought she might have. I always wondered."

His hand came down over mine and stayed.

We kept reading.

There was one more row.

1:12 a.m. Outgoing. Kendra Lowell, mobile.

Duration: nine minutes.

Neither of us said anything.

Down the hall a pump started up and ran, then stopped.

"Read it again," Vaughn said, and his voice had gone strange.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Left Me Pregnant at Her Funeral, Now His Son Needs Him from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.