One Wrong Word by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Author:Hank Phillippi Ryan [Ryan, Hank Phillippi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

40

ARDEN WARD

Arden waited for her second coffee to cool, wondering how quickly she could extricate herself and Ned from this family gathering. How could he just casually chitchat over brunch with his mother and kids? He needed to get a lawyer. They’d listened to the news on the radio as they drove here, Nyomi not the top headline, but close. Stories full of legally careful allusions describing Nyomi as “the lawyer for the acquitted so-called Garage Killer.” “Clinging to life.” Couched and qualified, tiptoeing, devastating. Reporters must not have the video yet, or any texts, but Arden predicted it was only a matter of time. Monelle held that video time bomb in her hands. She’d unleash it when she was ready. Arden was sure of that.

She stirred her coffee, half hearing the conversation around her, watching the dark liquid swirling in her mug. A tiny vortex, turning in on itself.

Arden and Ned had been together for almost twenty-four solid hours now, in such a pressure cooker of emotions—fear, and sorrow, and suspicion—that it felt like time had made its own rules for them. Intensified, and contracted. Everything in their lives depended on what someone else said or did or wanted. But Arden still did not know Ned Bannister at all.

She looked up at him, sitting across the table from her. He was looking at her, too.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.” He turned his attention to his son. Pip held a ceramic pitcher shaped like a maple tree and was dumping fragrant maple syrup over his towering stack of pancakes.

“Hey, buddy,” Ned told him. “Save some for next time.”

Pip didn’t look up as he continued. “It’s good this way.”

“I bet,” Ned said.

“Let him be,” Georgianna Bannister said from her place at the stainless-steel stove. “Growing boy.” She poured more pancake batter into a loved-looking cast-iron pan. Emma, perched on a three-step kitchen stool, watched intently, naming shapes.

“Mickey Mouse,” she said. “That’s three circles. Make an E for Emma, Gramma,” she instructed.

Make an S for screwed, Arden thought. They were hiding here in postcard land, but Monelle Churchwood and her band of investigators were probably scanning traffic videos. Finding witnesses. Building a case.

Wake up, Nyomi, Arden sent a silent prayer. One right word, exactly the right words, from Nyomi could eliminate the sword over Ned’s head. It wouldn’t solve everything, but one step at a time.

When did Ned know Randall Tennant, and how did he know him, went through Arden’s mind. The minute they were alone, she’d just ask him about the barbershop. Could she do that? Why do you ask? he’d say. And then how would she answer? He would never trust her again. And she kept wondering—for all her explanations, why hadn’t Cordelia told him about the texts? And moreover, why did Warren send the Bannisters to Arden specifically? She’d call him, right now.

“May I use your bathroom?”

“Where we hung your coat,” Georgianna said. “The door next to that.”

“Thanks.” She put a hand on top of her cup. “My coffee’s perfect, and

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