“You have to produce this Chuck of yours, the one you made away with so flamboyantly,” Flynn says. He looks a lot like his dad did when dealing with a difficult situation. Rose knows that she is that difficult situation, and will be dealt with. With Mel’s intervention, she might be spared banishment. “Without a living, healthy Chuck, Ms. Pryor says all bets are off,” Flynn finishes. It’s possible her stepson hopes she will be safely locked away for a while—at least until Melanie is thirty and can take care of herself.

“This is better discussed in private,” the lawyer says. Elizabeth speaks in such a way that they all feel the threat. Rose doesn’t know what it is exactly, but she believes lawyer–client privilege, and plausible deniability for possible deposition questions, might be involved.

“Where is my phone?” Rose asks.

Mel pushes it toward her from where it lay behind a box of tissues on the table between their beds. “The police found it on Alma Greene’s desk and gave it to Dad. The nurse put it on airplane mode so you wouldn’t be disturbed.”

Rose takes it off airplane mode. Immediately it begins to buzz and chirp as messages download. Three are from Marion. Half a dozen or more are from Eddie’s phone. Rose starts to call, then stops. She looks at Elizabeth Pryor. “Can you handle another client?”

“Are you referring to Edward Martinez?” the lawyer asks. By the look on Royal’s and Mel’s faces, Grandma has been filled in on Eddie’s involvement so far as they know.

“Yes,” Rose says.

Ms. Pryor looks at her Apple Watch. She tucks a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear. She will have guessed Eddie was the masked man in the kidnapping. “I will speak with him if you both do exactly as I say,” she concedes.

Rose is fine with that. She pushes REPLY without bothering to listen to messages or read texts.

After a single ring Eddie answers. “Hey!” There is the sound of a mild scuffle; then a deep baritone says, “Yes?”

“Eddie?” Rose asks. It doesn’t sound like Eddie. Rose wonders if he’s gotten himself arrested for something in Brevard.

“May I ask who is calling?”

“Speaker, please,” Ms. Pryor says flatly. Rose puts the call on speaker.

She doesn’t know what to say, whether to answer. “May I ask who’s answering?” she asks cautiously.

“Charles—Chuck—Boster.” In the background Rose can hear a voice raised in protest. Slightly muffled, the baritone says, “Take it easy, son. Have another Fig Newton.” Mouth back to the speaker: “Now. Who is calling?”

“Chuck, it’s me, Rose.” There is a muffled discussion on the other end of the line. Then Chuck is back.

“The woman who took me out of … what? Longwood. The woman who took me out of Longwood?”