The Great Escape

The day was warming up, and Mike suggested they sit on the porch. Panda took the chair he’d just abandoned, and Bree claimed the matching one while Mike perched on the railing. He talked about how well Bree was doing with her business, then offered up a list of Toby’s recent accomplishments. “He and his teacher are working together on a black history unit.”

“Toby knows more than she does,” Bree said proudly. “But you came here to talk to me about something?”

Having Mike around complicated an already difficult task. “It’s okay. I can come back later.”

Bree frowned. “Is it about Lucy?”

Everything was about Lucy. “No,” he said. “It’s a private matter.”

“I’ll leave,” Mike said genially. “I have some errands to run anyway.”

“Don’t go.” She gazed at him. “Despite appearances, Mike is the most discreet person on the island. And I’ll end up telling him whatever you tell me anyway.”

Panda hesitated. “Are you sure? This … has to do with your family. Your father.”

She looked wary. “Tell me.”

And so he did. He sat there in the creaky wicker chair, leaning toward her, his forearms braced on his knees, and told her about her father’s relationship with his mother, then about Curtis.

When he was done, Bree had tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Panda shrugged.

Mike came to stand beside her. Bree searched her pockets for a tissue. “After my father died, Mother made sure we all knew what a rotten husband he’d been, so it’s not exactly a surprise. But none of us imagined he had another child.” She blew her nose.

Mike curled his hand over the back of her chair and gave Panda a steady gaze, his easygoing demeanor vanishing as he assessed whether this information posed any harm to the woman he loved. “Why did you buy the house?”

Panda liked him for wanting to protect her, so he told them the truth. “Some kind of twisted revenge. I hated your father, Bree. I told myself I hated your whole family, but that was jealousy.” Panda shifted in the chair and then he shocked himself. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly when I bought the house. After I got out of the military, I had problems with post-traumatic stress.”

He said it as if he were confessing a tendency toward head colds.

Their expressions were a mixture of concern and sympathy, but they didn’t run screaming from the porch or dash around looking for a weapon to protect themselves. He had Jerry Evers to thank for this. Kristi had found the right guy for him to talk to, a no-bullshit shrink who’d seen combat himself and understood exactly how terrified Panda was that the demons he’d fought would reemerge and make him hurt other people.

Bree was more interested in Panda’s revelation about Curtis. “Do you have any pictures of him?”

He hadn’t thought of that, but he liked that she’d asked. He reached for his wallet. “I’ll send you some when I get back to Chicago. This is the only one I have on me.”

He took out Curtis’s final school photo. It was tattered, a little faded, the word PROOF still faintly visible across his T-shirt. Curtis was smiling, his adult teeth a tad too big for his mouth. Bree took it from him and studied it carefully. “He … looks like my brother Doug.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “My brothers need to know about Curtis. And they need to know about you, too. When you’re ready, I want you to meet them.”

Something else unexpected. “I’d like that,” he heard himself say.

As she held out the photo to return it, her thumb moved gently across the image.

“Keep it,” he said. And somehow that felt exactly right, too.

HE WAS OUT ON A run late the next morning when his cell rang. He never used to bring a phone along, but now that he had people working for him, he had to stay in touch, and he didn’t like it. His business might be thriving, but he still preferred working alone.

He glanced at the display. An East Coast area code. He didn’t recognize the number, but he knew that area code. He immediately slowed and answered. “Patrick Shade.”

The voice he’d been yearning to hear came buzzing through, very clear, very loud, and very angry. “I’m pregnant, you son of a bitch.”

And then the connection went dead.

He staggered to the side of the road, dropped the phone, snatched it up, and hit redial. His hands were shaking so badly, it took two tries.

“What do you want?” she screeched.

Oh, God. He had to be the grown-up. He opened his mouth to say—who the hell knew what?—but she was still yelling, and he never got a chance.

“I’m too furious to talk to you right now! You and your vasectomy.” She spit out the word.

“Where are you?”

“What do you care?” she retorted. “I’m done with you, remember?” She hung up on him again.

Jesus … Lucy pregnant. With his baby. He felt as if he’d been plunged into a pool of warm, rippling water.

When he tried to call back, he got her voice mail. He already knew where she’d moved, and not much later, he was at the ferry dock. Six hours after that, he was in Boston.