My jacket was still folded over the back of a dining chair.
I had taken the call because it could not wait.
In my ear was a secure satellite phone.
On the other end of the line, a calm voice from the Pentagon said, “General Mitchell, repeat the last figure, please.”
I opened my mouth to answer.
Michael stepped farther into the kitchen.
Behind him, my mother, Emma, stood in a faded yellow apron, pale as paper and twisting the hem in both hands.
My stepbrother Tyler leaned against the refrigerator with his phone already out.
He was recording before Michael had even finished speaking.
That told me more than Tyler meant it to.
He had expected a show.
He had expected me to be embarrassed.
For ten years, Michael had treated my mother’s house like an annex of his police department.
He was the small-town chief, the man people waved to at the gas station and moved aside for at the diner.
