Vindicate (Recovered Innocence #1)(34)

I hold my breath. The more I think about the PI phone call my mom got, the more it makes me jittery. Something isn’t right.

“Huh,” Leo says.

“What?” I’m up and out of my seat to look over his shoulder at his screen. “Why would a legit PI have a pre-paid cellphone?”

“We use them sometimes when we don’t want to be traced, but if he was calling your mom in an official capacity, then there’s no reason why he’d have to hide his identity.”

“Let’s call it. I want to see who answers.”

I pull my phone out, but Leo puts his hand over the screen. “If this guy isn’t legit, we don’t want him knowing we’re onto him. Hang on.” He leaves, then comes back with a cellphone. “We should use a burner phone. Dad keeps some around for stuff like this.” He keys the number into the phone and hits send.

I put my head next to his so I can hear. It rings and rings and then stops ringing. No outgoing message.

“He might’ve already gotten rid of the phone.” Leo stares off for a moment. “I don’t like this.”

I’ve got goose bumps for an entirely different reason now. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. We should talk to my dad.”

“He’s got that meeting.”

Leo sits, tapping the burner phone on his desk. “Do you know if your dad has gotten any calls?”

“If he has, he hasn’t told me about them. But then I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks.”

He looks surprised by this. My relationship with my parents is nothing like the one Leo has with his. There’s no way to explain what the past five and a half years has done to my family. Besides the obvious things like Beau’s conviction, my parent’s divorce, and my emancipation at sixteen, the changes came swift and dramatic like a tsunami, washing some things away entirely, damaging others, and leaving some virtually untouched. There is no rhyme or reason for why things are the way they are between us. They just are. A closer family might’ve survived virtually intact. Then again, it might’ve been completely destroyed.

“Can you call him?” He has no idea what he’s asking me to do, and I don’t have the tools to explain.

“Sure.” It has to be done. I know this. But I can’t do it in front of Leo. I hitch a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m going to grab a water and some fresh air. I’ll let you know what he says.”

Sitting back in his chair, he gives me the strangest look—a mixture of confusion and concern and something else…hurt, maybe? I don’t know and I don’t have time to coddle his lack of understanding. Some things he’ll just have to deal with and accept. Or not. That’s totally up to him and not on me. I won’t let it be on me. This is his problem, not mine.

I head out of our office and into the reception area, where Savannah is clickety-clacking away on her computer. She glances up at me for a second, then resumes whatever she’s working on. I grab a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and go out onto the balcony. I immediately look for the orange alley cat. The big Tom sits on the fence, surveying the back passageway. He turns his head and our gazes collide. He watches me with ill-disguised boredom, barely blinking in the bright afternoon sun. For some reason he gives me the courage I need to make the call.

It rings three times and then Dad answers. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.” This is a test. Sober Dad should recognize my voice. Drunk Dad will likely mistake me for just about anyone, including whoever he’s banging at the moment.

“Cora?” Halfway to Inebriated Dad. Great.

“How are you doing?”

“Okay. Is something wrong?”

Yes. Everything. “No. I just called to ask if anyone’s called you about Beau’s case.”

“Cora.” He makes my name sound ugly, like a curse word. He hates it when anyone says Beau’s name.

“Have you gotten a call or not?”

“This is why you called?”

“Yes.”

I can hear the liquor sloshing in the bottle and his audible swallows. “No.”

“Would you let me know if you do get a call?”

“No.”

I control my sigh so that he can’t hear it through the line. “So you did get a call?”

“I’ve got to go. I can’t talk about this. You know that.”

“I know. I’m not asking you to talk about it. I just need to know if you got a call like the one Mom got or not.”

“Your mother got a call?” This is his way of asking about Mom but not really asking about Mom.

“Yes. She came to see me about it today. I thought maybe you might’ve gotten one too.”

“She came to see you?” More sloshing and swallows.

“She asked about you.”

He’s silent so long I have to check my phone to see if we’re still connected. Then finally, “What did you tell her?”

“Just that I saw you on Father’s Day. The call upset her.”

“How upset was she?”

“The usual. So did you get a call or not?”

“Yes.”

“What did they say?”

“Why the f*ck should I remember?” Deflecting. I learned a lot about this at my Al-Anon meetings.