We need to settle this. I need to know where I stand. Now.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Light started to leak in from behind the curtains. I’d been through an insane number of texts, including many more between Jennifer and Kyle, and found little else of interest. If my eyes had been bleary and tired earlier in the night, by the time I heard Amanda’s footsteps above me they felt like they’d been scrubbed with a Brillo Pad.

I stood up from the desk, my back creaking like a rusty gate. Any thought of work or the day’s demands had rushed out of my mind like blowing sand. When I had been twenty and pulling an all-nighter before a college class, I could manage it. I knew when the class ended I could return to my dorm and crash into bed. Facing an eight-hour day at work with real responsibilities seemed impossible. Especially with so many unanswered questions swirling around me.

I grabbed my phone and jumped from one social media platform to another, looking for any information about Jennifer’s death. Twitter and Facebook. The local newspaper and TV stations. Nothing. I almost threw the phone in frustration.

A second later I heard Amanda’s steps in the kitchen, accompanied by Henry’s gooing and gurgling.

“Ryan? Are you up?”

I went out and saw Amanda in her robe, her hair mussed by sleep, sliding Henry into his high chair. Once he was in, he started thrashing his arms around, his mouth a near perfect O of desire and hunger.

“Why are you up so early?” she asked. “And after you were up so late dealing with Blake.”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Henry held his arms out to me like he was Superman, then started banging his fists against the high chair. I went over and kissed him on top of the head, which calmed him a little.

“You never have trouble sleeping,” she said. “Unlike your son.”

“Maybe I had too much caffeine.”

I felt jittery and caged up. Amanda started taking things out of the refrigerator, and I kept getting in her way. I couldn’t concentrate on anything around me.

“Do you need something?” she asked, a polite way of asking me to move.

“I’ll be right back.”

I went to the office and sent e-mails to the appropriate people at work telling them I wouldn’t be in that day. I claimed to be under the weather but didn’t offer any details. I didn’t need to, not really. One of the benefits of being a VP at a small company. And it was a good time to miss work. We’d recently completed a large project I’d been in charge of—a giant social media campaign for Rossingville’s minor-league baseball team, the Roadrunners—so I’d stored up enough goodwill to miss a day. I could check my e-mail and be available by phone if anyone needed me.