Keep Quiet(32)
“Hey, hi!” Jake tried to recover. “You’re home early.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Pam closed the door behind her. “I’ve been calling and calling!”
“I didn’t hear it, sorry.” Jake must have forgotten about his phone in the rental car. “What’s up? How come you didn’t park in the garage?”
“I didn’t bother, I’m in a rush! Where’s Ryan?” Pam was already heading for the stairwell, her high heels clacking on the hardwood. “Ryan, come down! Come downstairs!”
Jake didn’t like what was going on. This wasn’t the way he planned it at all. “He might be asleep, honey. He wasn’t feeling well—”
“Oh please. He’s been on the phone for the past hour.” Pam took off her high heels and placed them on one of the steps, to be taken upstairs. “Enough with the shoes. Showtime’s over.”
“Mom, what do you want?” Ryan called from his room upstairs.
“Come down, right now!”
“I’m in bed!”
“Come down, this is important!” Pam rolled her eyes and looked at Jake with a knowing smile. “He must be talking to the girl. I checked online and he’s on G-chat, too. Did he do his homework?”
“Some of it, I think.” Jake began to worry, wondering who Ryan was talking to on the phone and online. “He didn’t feel well.”
“He has a French vocab test on Tuesday, so he has to study in advance because of the playoffs.”
“Aw, cut him a break. He’s sick. He slept most of the evening.” Jake marveled that his wife always had Ryan’s schedule in the back of her mind, running on a parallel track with her own.
“Were you born yesterday?” Pam snorted good-naturedly. “He may have been in his room, but if he was on the phone and G-chatting, he wasn’t studying or sleeping.”
“It’s hard to focus when you don’t feel well.”
“Mom, what’s going on?” Ryan appeared at the top of the stairway and walked down slowly, running his hand along the banister and blinking against the bright lights of the hanging fixture in the entrance hall. His hair was messy, and he was dressed for bed in a maroon Chasers Nation T-shirt and pajama pants.
“Come down, I want to talk to you and your dad.” Pam beamed up at him, but Ryan avoided her eye as he descended the stairs, and Jake wanted to give him the heads-up.
“Ryan, Mom says you’ve been on the phone, but I thought you were asleep. You playing possum, buddy?”
“Nah, sorry.” Ryan looked away, and Pam threw open her arms when he reached the floor and gave him a big hug.
“I’m sorry you don’t feel well, honey. But humor me and come into the kitchen. I really need to talk to you and your dad.”
“What about?” Ryan asked, his tone offhand, as Pam released him from her embrace, took him by the arm, and led him into the kitchen in her stocking feet, with Jake and Moose behind.
“I have amazing news, truly amazing.”
“Great, Mom,” Ryan said, but Jake looked past his son’s shoulder to the TV on the counter, where the local news had just begun and the top story was being reported. STUDENT KILLED IN HIT-AND-RUN, read a lurid red banner across the screen, and an attractive African-American anchorwoman was saying, “A tragic story is first up tonight. A teenage jogger identified as Kathleen Lindstrom was struck and killed in Concord Chase last night, while running on Pike Road. Police believe the vehicle struck the jogger, then fled the scene…”
Jake crossed the kitchen to turn off the TV, but Pam grabbed his arm, beaming.
“Honey, sit down. Ryan, you, too. You have to hear this.”
“I was just about to turn off the TV—”
“I can’t wait another minute!” Pam motioned them into their tall stools at the granite countertop and hustled around the other side, standing in front of the oven and the television. Jake and Ryan sat down in their seats and faced a delighted Pam, against the backdrop of the news report of the heinous crime they had committed together.
The anchorwoman continued, “Lindstrom was a junior at Concord Chase High and she had just moved here from Seattle with her mother, Grace, but the duo had already made fast friends with neighbors like Dylan Paolucci, who lives next door.” The screen switched to footage of an older man standing in his threshold, saying, “I’m still shocked. I just finished talking to her. She was a good kid. Her mom is a doll. I cannot believe somebody would hit her and not even stop the car.”
Pam took a deep breath, barely able to contain her excitement as she looked from Jake to Ryan, and back again. “Guess what?”
“What?” Jake asked, but Ryan’s attention was riveted to the TV screen, which had returned to the anchorwoman, who was saying, “Police have no suspects at the present time, but they are looking for the vehicle, which is likely to have damage to its passenger-side fender and undercarriage…”
“Ryan!” Pam barked, with a mock frown. “May I have your attention? What does it take! Sheesh!”
“Sorry.” Ryan straightened up, and the TV screen changed to a remote report by a male reporter in a logo ball cap and windbreaker, standing on an otherwise darkened Pike Road, at the blind curve. He was saying, “The heartbreaking death of young Kathleen Lindstrom has brought new attention to this deadly blind curve on Pike Road, which residents have been complaining about to the Township Board of Supervisors for years. Traffic accidents happen routinely here, usually involving walkers, cyclists, and joggers, but last night’s was the first fatality…”