control any longer.
“You let it all out, honey. You let it all out.”
They stayed sitting like that for a few moments until Kathleen unexpectedly withdrew her hand and pushed Ingrid away. Ingrid tensed, bracing herself, worried what was going to happen next. What Kathleen might say. She looked at Kathleen’s face, expecting to see an expression of disappointment. But Megan’s mom turned her face away. She stared intently at the television on the opposite wall.
“Is that him?” Her ruddy face had grown pale.
Ingrid looked at the scene playing out on the huge screen across the room. Two tall FBI agents were bundling a wiry, balding man in his mid-fifties, a mass of tattoos on his scrawny arms, into a waiting police car.
56
Although Ingrid had booked herself a room in a local motel, somehow Svetlana managed to convince her to stay in the family home. Much to Ingrid’s relief, her mother led her to a guest room on the top floor at the front of the house, rather than her old room in the attic.
After she’d unpacked, Ingrid checked her phone for all the calls and texts she’d been ignoring since she’d landed in the US. It took her a full fifteen minutes to plow through all of them and when she got to the end there was only one call she wanted to return. She hit a speed dial option.
“Hey, Ralph.”
There was a pause at the other end—Ingrid wondered if she’d interrupted something. She hadn’t quite oriented herself in terms of days and time. Had she called him in the middle of the night, London time?
“Hello. You arrived,” he said.
“I did.”
“I’m sorry if I left you a lot of messages. The Kyle Foster story hit the news here this morning and I thought you might want to know about it. Somehow Angela Tate managed to get a scoop. I don’t know how she does it.”
“Maybe she has friends in high places.”
“More likely she has enemies and a lot of dirt on them.” He fell quiet again. “Listen, I should come clean—full disclosure and all that… I left you a ton of messages because… well I suppose I just—”
“Does it help to know you’re the only person whose call I’ve returned?”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
“I only saw you yesterday.”
Another pause. She’d made him feel awkward—not what she’d intended. But to his credit he recovered quickly.
“You left just when things were starting to get interesting.”
It wasn’t as if she’d had a choice. No need to remind Ralph of that—she didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable.
He cleared his throat. “I saw on the news the police have made an arrest in Minnesota.”
“Yes, I was at Kathleen Avery’s house when I found out.”
“Do you know if he’s admitting anything?”
“According to my contact the sonofabitch won’t shut up about what he’s done.”
“At least that’ll make the whole process quicker.”
“I guess.”
“You’ve spoken to Megan’s mum? How’d it go?”
“I think it was OK.”
“Better than you were expecting?”
“Much.”
“But it was still tough?”
“I didn’t tell her exactly what happened—the fact that I ran. It wasn’t until I was sitting right next to her that I realized that if I had I would just have been unburdening myself. It wouldn’t have helped Kathleen any. It would have been plain selfish.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I think so. If she asks me for the details, I’ll be honest with her. But now is not the right time.”
He went quiet again.
“Ralph? Are you OK?”
“I feel like I want to wrap my arms around you, tell you it’s going to be all right.”
“I guess it never will be. But right now at least it feels a little less hard. I’ll take that.”
“Has a date been set for the funeral?”
“A week today. I was thinking I’d come back to London right after, but I might stay a while.”
“Oh.”
A single syllable could hardly ever have conveyed so much disappointment.
“I’ve got a lot of thinking to do. A lot of talking. And a hell of a lot of fences to mend.” Ingrid had expected him to jump right in and tell her she should take just as long as she needed to. But he said nothing. Maybe be was even more disappointed with her decision to stay on than she’d realized.
They said a slightly awkward goodbye and Ingrid made sure she was the first to hang up.
The following Monday, with mechanical assistance from the local vehicle hire company together with her own determination, Kathleen Avery managed to get to the cemetery for her only daughter’s