Save the Date(116)

Even as the thought entered my head, though, I dismissed it. That just wasn’t how the five of us did things—even when I was three and still getting the hang of complex sentences and running without falling over, I knew not to tattle if one of my siblings was tormenting me. We settled things on our own and only brought in a higher authority when it was absolutely necessary.

But even so, it seemed like I should not be the only cavalry who was coming. When I reached a stop sign, I paused for a little longer than usual—not that it mattered, there was nobody behind me—and called Rodney. I figured it couldn’t hurt to call the one lawyer whose number was saved in my phone. As I waited for the call to connect, I just hoped it wouldn’t matter that he hadn’t passed the bar yet. His phone went straight to voice mail—not surprising, considering that I’d called him on his wedding night. So I left him a message, conveying the little I knew about the situation, then texted him the dropped pin J.J. had sent me.

I was following the directions, making the turns that the automated voice on my map app (I’d changed it to an Australian guy I always called Hugh) told me to make, and it wasn’t until I was nearly there that I realized, my stomach sinking, where I was actually heading.

This was certainly not the police station. It was, of all places, Grant Avenue. There, on the side of the road, was Danny’s rental SUV, parked at an angle. There was a Stanwich Police car up the street from it, the sirens off but the lights on, the whirling blue and red lights against the darkness looking somehow out of place and cheerful—like they belonged at a carnival and not at the site of someone’s arrest.

My brothers were all standing by the curb, in a line, and there was a police officer in front of them, a flashlight in his hand that was pointing down at the ground, a small circle of light shining on the pavement. I pulled up behind the police car, then killed my engine and got out of the car, my heart beating fast. This looked serious, and it did not look good.

“Hold up there,” the police officer’s voice said sharply, and I stopped in my tracks immediately. He raised his flashlight toward me, and I squinted against it, but the whole world had just become washed out.

“That’s my sister” I heard J.J. say. “So if you could stop blinding her with a flashlight?” There was a tiny pause, maybe in which J.J. realized he was speaking to someone with a firearm and the ability to put him in jail. “Please?”

The flashlight beam was lowered, and I blinked quickly, trying to get rid of all the floating white lights that were now impairing my vision. “Can I—” I gestured toward my brothers, not sure if I was allowed to move or not yet. The walkie on the officer’s shoulder crackled, and he bent his head toward it, motioning me forward as he did with an annoyed wave.

I hurried up to my brothers before he could change his mind. They were still standing in a line—Danny, then J.J., then Mike. “What’s going on?” I hissed at them.

“Thanks for coming,” Danny said, giving me a quick smile as he ran his hand over his face. He looked exhausted, and somehow older than I had ever seen him. I was happy to see that none of them were handcuffed—that would take this into a whole new level of seriousness. And it was serious enough, what with the cop car and its flashing lights and my brothers standing shivering in a line on the side of the road.

“Why are you guys getting arrested?” Even though I was still trying to speak as quietly as possible, I could hear my voice getting high-pitched and squeaky with worry.

“We’re not,” Mike said quickly. “We’re just being, what—detained?”

“No charges have been made,” J.J. agreed, nodding. “We haven’t been Miranda-ized or anything.”

“But why are you—” I started, just as my brothers all exchanged simultaneous guilty looks. Danny glanced toward the Grant Avenue sign, and I realized why I was standing here. “You guys tried to steal the sign,” I said, not exactly phrasing it like a question.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” J.J. said in a small voice. “We were just driving around. We needed to blow off some steam, and then we saw the street, so . . .”

“I don’t know why there was even a cop there,” Danny said, shaking his head. “It was like he was waiting for us or something. All the other times we took the sign, it was totally deserted, not—”

“The governor of Connecticut lives in Stanwich Woods,” I said, pointing to where we could see the entrance from here. “There’s always a police officer there when he’s in town.”

“Oh.” This information seemed to deflate Danny somehow, and his shoulders slumped.

“Well, the good news is that we didn’t actually do anything,” J.J. said, in a voice that was straining to be upbeat. “We’d only just started to climb the sign when the five-oh showed up.”

“I don’t think that’s good news,” Mike said, shaking his head.

“Well, it’s better news than if he caught us red-handed, like, removing the sign,” J.J. pointed out. “All he has us on right now is suspicion. And a grudge.”

I just blinked at my brother. “Why would he have a grudge?”

J.J. shrugged. “We’ve just taken up a lot of his time tonight, that’s all.”

“What—” I started, just as the police officer lowered his walkie and turned back around toward us. Now that there wasn’t a flashlight beam or the aftereffects of a flashlight beam shining in my eyes, I could see that I recognized the police officer—it was Officer Ramirez, who we’d all seen just a few hours before.