Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(5)

“Good for Daddy,” Lauren says whenever the kids tell her stuff like that. She tries hard to keep sarcasm from lacing her words because you’re not supposed to speak negatively about your ex to the children. That’s got to be right up there with letting them have their way, saying Why bother? and I told you so, and giving them apples for dinner.

Then again, as far as Lauren’s concerned, any bad parenting on her part is vastly outdone by the ultimate worst parenting on Nick’s. Walking out on three kids pretty much takes the prize, right?

Sadie sobs on.

Lauren’s eyes snap open.

“You know what? Daddy will get Fred for you.”

That’s right. Let Daddy deal with something for a change.

Poor Sadie cries harder—probably because she’s already figured out that Daddy is hardly the most reliable guy in the world.

But it’s time for him to step up.

Lauren grabs her cell phone.

Nick’s is still the first number on her speed dial—only because she has no idea how to change it. Ryan had to program the phone for her when she got it, and it seems wrong to ask a twelve-year-old boy to bump his father’s number to the bottom of the list—or, for that matter, delete it altogether.

At least from the speed dial. Several times, carrying her phone in her back pocket, she’s apparently accidentally bumped the keypad, calling him without realizing the line was open.

“Pocket dialing,” Lucy and Ryan call the phenomenon. They think it’s hilarious that Nick, in the middle of a client luncheon, once got to hear tone-deaf Lauren driving along and singing at the top of her lungs the way she does when she’s alone in the car—or thinks she is. Nick was amused by it, too, back when they were married.

Now that he’s gone, though, pocket dialing is no laughing matter. She really doesn’t want him privy to what she says or does when she assumes she’s out of his earshot.

Today, Lauren dials his number the traditional way, and the line rings repeatedly. Just when she thinks the call is going into voice mail, Nick picks up.

“Hey, what’s up?”

He’s answered her calls that way for as long as he’s had caller ID: Hey, what’s up?

She used to think it was sweetly intimate. Now it seems cold and impersonal. Go figure. Maybe that’s because he used to pick up on the first ring. Now it’s the fifth, undoubtedly giving him time to roll his eyes and inform whoever happens to be in the vicinity of his window office in the Chrysler building that it’s the ex, calling with some unreasonable request.

This time, he would be absolutely correct about that.

She holds the phone away from her for a moment, toward Sadie, still sobbing beside her. “Do you hear that, Nick?”

“What is it?”

“It’s our daughter.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“She’s crying because she’s lost Fred.”

Lauren waits for Nick to ask who Fred is.

When he does, she hates herself for asking, in return, “How can you not know?”

Of course he doesn’t know. He doesn’t live here. Then again, even when he did, he never paid much attention to the kids’ little quirks.

To be fair, a lot of men don’t. Even her perfect brother-in-law, Ben, is an occasionally imperfect dad, according to her sister.

But Lauren isn’t in the mood to be fair right now. Not with an inconsolable child on her hands and yet another lonely night stretching endlessly ahead.

“Fred is Sadie’s favorite stuffed animal,” she succinctly informs Nick as she carries the phone to the kitchen. “She takes Fred everywhere.”

“Oh. Well, did you check the compartment in her room?” He’s referring to a small nook concealed by a secret panel in Sadie’s closet. A while back, Lauren had followed her nose and discovered her youngest was stashing uneaten meat and vegetables there, tired of being nagged about her fussy eating habits.

“She lost Fred in the city, not at home.” Lauren picks up the paring knife again.

“What were you doing in the city?”

“Having lunch with my sister. Nick…” She pauses, and then swallows the next two words she was about to say.

Can you—

No, that’s too wishy-washy. If she phrases it as a question, he’s free to say no.

“I need you,” she says instead, “to stop by the lost and found at Grand Central and pick up Fred, then bring him over here when you get home tonight.”

“How do you know it’s at Grand Central?”

Leave it to Nick to depersonalize Fred.

“I don’t, for sure. But we were in the city when she lost him.” Emphasis on the him.

“You were in the city today and you didn’t bring Sadie to see me?”

“We were busy. I’m sure you were, too.”

“Not too busy to take five minutes out for my daughter. My office is right across the street from Grand Central. You could have told me you were going to be there.”

She could have. But then she’d have had to see him. And today was supposed to be an escape, not a miserable reminder of her estranged husband.

“I know where your office is,” she says curtly. “Listen, you need to go check the lost and found, and if Fred’s not there, then… I don’t know, look around the station.”