Chapter 15: Forty Miles in the Dark

Jude's POV

She called at noon, and I let it ring.

She called at two, and I stood in the shed with the phone in my hand and watched her name until it stopped.

At four she sent a message.

*Joelle's mother's house, tonight. He's going back for her. I can't leave Frances with the guests. Please.*

I read it twice.

Then I put on my coat and went to find my keys.

I did not do it for Hanna, I told myself in the truck.

I did it because a pregnant woman was alone in a house with a man who took her phone.

That was true, and it was not the whole of it.

I had walked out of that post office without a word, and left her alone with him.

I did not like what that said about me.

I knew what I had seen.

I also knew I had been waiting six years to be told I was wrong, and I did not want to be right.

The drive took forty minutes.

Joelle's mother lived in a gray ranch house at the end of a gravel lane, behind a hedge.

I parked at the road with the lights off.

At eight there was a light on in the kitchen, and a small car in the drive.

At a quarter to nine a second set of headlights came up the lane, slow.

Declan stopped his car behind the first one and got out.

He was in his good coat.

He knocked, and he did not have to knock twice.

The door opened and Joelle stood in it, holding her belly with both arms.

I was out of the truck by then and halfway up the lane.

"There you are, honey," Declan said. "Get your things."

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