I relented. And when I sat down in the back seat, I passed out.
Chapter Seven
Jonah
“He’s getting awfully fussy,” Bryce said, rocking Henry in one of the recliners in my family room. “He’d be much happier at home in his crib. Pull the bottle out of the diaper bag, will you?”
I took a sip of iced tea. I hadn’t opened the bar on purpose. What I had to say to Bryce needed to be said without alcohol. I fished through the diaper bag and found the bottle. “You want me to heat this up?”
“Nah, he doesn’t mind it cold.” He pushed the nipple between Henry’s lips, and soon the little boy quieted. “He should be asleep soon.”
“I set up a place for him in one of the spare rooms. I just arranged a few of Lucy’s old doggy gates to fence him in and put down some soft blankets. He can sleep in there.”
“You didn’t have to go to all that trouble. But then again, why did you insist that I bring him? You knew he’d be nodding off soon.”
“I’ll explain it all in a little while.”
A few minutes later, Henry had fallen asleep. Bryce took him into the other room and then returned. He walked behind the bar. “Can I get you something?”
“Nope.” I cleared my throat. “And I’d rather you not drink tonight either.”
Bryce shuffled back a step. “Yeah? All right. What the hell’s going on, Joe?”
God, where to start? Here was my best friend in the whole world, and I was about to tell him that I thought his father was a child molester and murderer. Was our friendship strong enough to weather the storm this would bring on?
Bryce had had a good childhood. He’d always lived in town, as his father was an attorney in Snow Creek before he became the mayor. The Simpson family wasn’t super rich, but they were well off. Bryce had been a great kid—always smiling, always ready for any new adventure that the two of us could dream up.
“You going to talk?” he asked.
I nodded. “Remember once, how you said I’d changed? We were around fourteen, I guess.”
“No. Wait…yeah. You got different after that summer. More closed off. Not as much fun anymore. You’d go days without talking. You never explained why. Of course, now I know why.”
“Yeah. Now you know. But you don’t know everything.”
“What haven’t you told me?”
“That we think we’ve found another one of Talon’s abductors.”
“Seriously? That’s great!”
I closed my eyes and inhaled.
“You should be ecstatic, then.”
“I should be, yes.”
“Then why so glum?”
“Remember how Larry insinuated that you knew one of the others personally?”
“Yeah. But that can’t possibly be true. I’ve racked my brain to come up with someone I know who might be such a sick person. And Joe, I’ve got nothing.”
I breathed in, out, steadily, though my heart was beating a mile a minute. “Bryce, we have—”
The doorbell rang.
Saved by the bell again.