was there to see that one myself. They don’t stop serving as soon as they should up there. He got so fresh with a girl at the bar who didn’t like his attentions, Tina straight-up kicked him out.”
“Good. What else?” Duff asked, not saying what Dev knew: they needed more. Disappointing as it was, being a buffoon wasn’t a crime. Being a drunken one was, and so was harassment. But, in this case, the moment had passed.
“They’ve had girls up at the house,” Phoebe Tran popped up in a hesitant voice. “I don’t want to sully anyone’s reputation, but I’m pretty sure a couple of them were underage. Maybe I could say more…you know…in private?”
Dev clenched his jaw, too furious to speak as Duff nodded in agreement, saying in a softer voice. “Alright. We’ll talk after.”
“I once saw him—”
“Dev!” Trudy whisper-hissed in his ear sharply, coming out of nowhere and interrupting what looked like it was shaping up to be good. “I’ve got something to tell you, but not here.”
“Can it wait?” he asked distractedly, swinging his eyes to her as he tried to listen to the story being told with one ear.
“No…” Tears shone in Trudy’s eyes. “It can’t.”
Not much rattled Trudy, which was to say, her plea got his attention.
“Alright,” he nodded. “Let’s go in the back.”
By the time Dev closed the office door behind him, Trudy’s brow knitted, and she wrung her hands and paced a little back and forth within the confines of the tiny office. It was clear that Trudy knew something—something not fit for public consumption. The question was, what?
“I’d always planned to tell you, but I’d never planned to tell you like this. Everything I’m gonna say to you tonight was s’posed to happen another way. You’ll see in a minute why it has to happen like this, right now.”
But after the week he’d had, Dev didn’t have much patience for preamble, even though this was Trudy and he owed she of all people time to say what she needed to say.
“Trudy, if you know something about the investigation, I’d appreciate it if you—”
But she cut him off. “Jake Hamren isn’t your daddy, Dev.”
That tiny little statement involving the theory that only Dev was supposed to know about kicked him in the chest and stole away his breath.
“Your grandpa told you what he knew—a rumor told to him by your mom. It was designed to protect everyone from the naked truth.”
But Trudy stopped right there, seeming choked and unable to spit out the words that Dev had needed to know all his life. Only, why now? Why was this coming up during what was arguably the most important discussion in decades to decide the fate of the town? It took effort to refrain from asking stupid, secondary questions about her motives and timing first, in favor of asking the only one that mattered.
“Trudy…” His voice held warning he wasn’t proud of using with his mother’s best friend.
“No, Dev. You gotta let me tell it my way.”
He quieted and waited. Complying did nothing to stop his body from trembling with something that felt like rage—powerful and angry but several degrees milder. He wasn’t angry with Trudy. She was clearly set to be the one person who would do right by him. He was angry at life itself for fating him to reach his thirties without knowing the truth of his parentage. And on bad days, like today, he was really angry with his mom.
“She was young, Dev. I mean, really young, when she fell in love with him. You’ve always known she had you a few weeks before her nineteenth birthday. But she was involved with him for two years before she even got pregnant with you. He was older—so much so that public knowledge would’ve gotten him arrested. She wasn’t even legal when they first got together. She was only seventeen.
“At the time…” Trudy gave a shaky exhale as she continued telling the story. “Things weren’t great between Josie and your grandpa. You got the best of him and he loved you a lot. But, with her…he wasn’t an easy man. It wouldn’t have mattered who she brought home—her being so young and dating anybody wasn’t something he would stand for. But he would have especially disapproved of your father. So they kept it a secret, even after she came of age.
In that moment, Trudy’s eyes darkened and Dev saw her familiar grit. It overpowered the sadness and guilt that had formerly etched