Run You Down (Rebekah Roberts #2)(66)

Nechemaya does not answer his phone, so I leave a message with as much detail as I can. Hopefully, he’ll listen to his voice mail.

Saul comes out of the bathroom, takes off his shoes, and lays down. He’s wearing a white undershirt beneath his long-sleeved blue button-up, but is apparently going to sleep fully clothed. He doesn’t even remove his belt. I brush my teeth and change into my t-shirt and sleep pants. It occurs to me that because we met in the dead of winter, Saul has never seen me in anything but long pants and sleeves—and a hospital gown.

“I’m sorry this makes you uncomfortable,” I say. “Are you thinking I’m, like, shaming God by sleeping in the same room as you?”

“Not at all,” he says. “I am marveling at how easy it is for you to interact with people. All kinds of people. It took me many years to look at people who were different from me as people at all, really. And more years still to see them as unthreatening. In some ways, working for the police department helped with that. In some ways it probably hurt. Seeing people at their lowest times, on their worst behavior.”

“That’s sort of how I see people as a reporter,” I say. “At the worst times.”

“Yes,” he says. “But you are so young. And it seems to come naturally to you.”

“Bugging people?”

“No,” he says. “Flexibility. Empathy. You encounter people who are different from you and you are able to connect to them instantly. You see similarities, not differences. You look for a way through what divides you.”

I’ve never been great at accepting compliments; I don’t like the way it tilts the balance of power, even if for just a moment. But if I could let myself believe what Saul has just said about me, I could be pretty happy.

“Thanks,” I say.

“No need to thank me,” he says.

“Just say, ‘you’re welcome,’ Saul.”

Saul chuckles and lays his head on his pillow on the floor. “You’re welcome.”

I am about to turn out the lamp beside the bed when my phone rings with a blocked number. The city desk, I assume.

“This is Rebekah,” I say.

“Rebekah? This is Ryan Hall.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO





REBEKAH


Ryan insists I meet him alone, I insist we meet in a public place, and Saul insists I call Van to tell him where I am going before I leave the motel. So, at just before midnight, I pull up to the same diner where Van and I met last night, knowing he and Saul will be parked with sights on the building. Just in case.

I see Mellie as soon as I walk in. She is standing beside the booth against the far wall, bouncing Eva on her belly, looking like she hasn’t slept since I was in her living room yesterday. When she sees me, she scowls.

“Ryan,” she says, “that’s her.”

Ryan, who is sitting in the booth, bent over with his hand on his forehead, looks up. He squints at me, then pops up, nervous.

“Thanks for coming out,” he says, gripping my hand. Ryan looks weary, but wired. He is tall and thin, with brown hair grown a little shaggy over his ears and half a week of stubble on his face. His blue scrubs have the words HUDSON ANIMAL HOSPITAL embroidered on the chest.

“You didn’t say were a reporter before,” says Mellie.

“Shut up, Mellie,” says Ryan. “Tell her.”

“You tell her first.”

“Maybe we should sit down,” I say. There are people in a booth at the other end of the restaurant who appear to be in a study group. The lone waitress is behind the counter, filling ketchup bottles. Nothing screams ambush, but I’m going to sit facing the door anyway.

I pull out my notebook as Mellie slides in across from me toward a child’s car seat. Eva, dressed in footie pajamas with bunnies on them, is whining, twisting backward and trying to hurl herself out of Mellie’s arms. Mellie presses her into the car seat and struggles to strap the child’s limbs down beneath the various belts and buckles required to make her stay. She produces a teddy bear from the diaper bag on the table and drops it in Eva’s lap, but the stuffed animal does nothing to quiet her crying. She pulls a baby bottle, a water bottle, and some sort of tin from the bag. Ryan watches, standing, chewing on his fingers. I can hear his teeth tick tick tick as he pulls away cuticle flesh.

“Sit down, Ryan,” she says. “You’re making Eva nervous.”

“Tell her,” says Ryan, still standing.

“I have to make this f*cking bottle!”

“Shhhh,” hisses Ryan, looking around.

“Sit down or I’m leaving,” she says.

“You’re the one that called me!”

“Shhh,” she hisses back. These two really don’t like each other.

“Ryan,” I say, “why don’t you sit down? I’m glad you called.”

Ryan points to the duffel bag on the seat next to me.

“Open that.”

I bring the bag to my lap. It feels empty. “What’s this?” I open it. Inside the bag is hair.

“It’s Pessie’s,” says Ryan.

“Pessie’s?”

“She wore a wig.”

Of course she did. Pessie’s wig is in this bag.