Waiting for you at town hall. It’s going to be fine!
Damn this place is filling up fast though.
Oh fuck. Shit for brains decided to “move up the agenda” AKA he’s planning to start this thing in ten minutes with or without you. Will do my best to stall but get here FAST.
Where are you?
Jesus please answer your phone.
Ty???
Ty took a deep, calming breath. He’d literally just saved a kid’s life, but his adrenaline rush had faded. Now he existed in a state of Zen. What could Alan Chiu do to him? Nothing. Ty had literally held the man’s kid’s life in his hands, and he was going to sit judgment on Ty’s existence in town hall not even knowing Pete was in the hospital with a tube down his throat? Or did he know and not care?
Minor emergency, on my way, Ty texted back, and then he shoved his phone in his pocket. “Hey, Riley, can you do me a favor? You know that kid who hit the baseball?”
Maybe-Jeff-Bridges was sitting in the dugout with his head between his knees as his teammates looked on. No one seemed to know what to do with him.
“I mean, not personally?” Riley hedged.
“Just, uh, let everyone know there’s someone they can call if they need to talk about what happened, okay? Counseling. Totally free. I’ll text you the number.” He turned to Theo. “Can you get all your stuff together, buddy? It turns out we’re going to be late.”
Chapter 21
TY HADnever been to the town hall before, so he didn’t know what to expect. It turned out to be a low, modern-looking building with an atrium, a library on one side, and about half as much parking as it needed. Ty parked down the block and prepared to hoof it.
Ollie met him at the door. By the look of him, he’d been pacing a trough in the concrete. “Where have you—minoremergency?”
“Long story,” Ty said. “Should we go in?”
“Is thatblood on your shirt?”
“Hi, Dad,” said Theo.
“I’m going to go in,” Ty said, and he pulled open the door.
Ollie scrambled in after him.
A bespectacled receptionist stood when they entered, her expression alarmed. She took in Ty’s appearance and paled. Then her eyes went to Ollie. “We know the way,” he assured her as he jogged to get in front of Ty. “Uh, are you sure you don’t want to change?”
“Pretty sure,” Ty said confidently. “This the place?” Without waiting for an answer, he pushed inside.
If beige was an aesthetic, the Suffolk town hall meeting room fit it perfectly. At the far end of the room stood a long beige oval table with five beige chairs, all facing the door. The beige walls had been adorned with photographs of past and present mayors and council people, who apart from a few exceptions, were also beige. Beige curtains framed a window that looked out onto the beige interior courtyard. In one corner stood a pole with the American and Connecticut State flags.
Ty hadn’t expected the room to be so full of people. Fifty or sixty mostly beige Concerned Citizens turned to look as he came in. Many of them were wearing some kind of blue sticker on their shirts. Maybe he was supposed to stop and sign in and get a badge or something. Oh well. No time now—the door at the back of the roomhad opened, and the town council filed in—the mayor, the deputy mayor, Alan Chiu, and two other council members Ty didn’t know.
Alan Chiu was not the mayor, but that didn’t stop him from taking the spot at the center of the table.
He did a double take when he saw Ty had managed to arrive on time and was so surprised he made his first mistake. “Mr. Morris—you’re here.”
Right into the microphone. “Oh yeah,” Ty said cheerfully, aware of all the eyes on him. “Baseball game ended early.”
He let them make whatever they wanted of that.
The mayor looked sideways at Chiu before and then whacked a little wooden mallet on the table. Ty thought only judges used those. “This meeting of the Suffolk town council will come to order. Before we begin, I would like to remind those present that we are not a court of law and this is not a legal proceeding.”
It’s just supposed to make mefeellike I’m on trial, Ty thought acidly.
Alan Chiu cleared his throat. “Mr. Morris, we’ve prepared a table with a microphone to the side of the room here so that all those gathered present can hear your responses to our questions.”
