“It’s me,” he confirms.
My eyes fill with tears. It’s really him. I can’t believe it. “I didn’t think you would pick up. I found this letter I wrote to myself saying that you… that you were injail.”
There’s a long silence on the other line. “Tess, don’t make me lie to you. I don’t want to talk about myself. I want to help you. And today I’m going to do it. Once and for all.”
“Okay…”
“So here’s the thing.” He sounds almost breathless, like I caught him in the middle of something. “Every time I see you, you tell me you called your father, and he never returned the call. And I got to thinking how strange it was that in a whole month, he never once called back his only daughter. I mean, he wasn’t the warmest person in the world, but helovedyou. He would never ghost you for an entire month.”
He’s right. Lucy returned my call, but my father never did. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying,that’s not your father’s number.”
I frown at the phone. I never memorized my father’s phone number. But the voicemail had his voice on it.
“Graham must have gotten a burner phone andrecorded your father’s voicemail message onto it,” Harry explains. “So when you leave the messages, he never gets them. But I found your dad, Tess.” He pauses. “He never got any of your messages. Not a single one. And I’m driving to his house right now.”
“My dad…”
“Right. Your father.” There’s a loud honk on the other line. “When I tell him what’s going on with you and that asshole Graham, he’s going to want to get involved and help you. Your dad’s a good guy. And he’sfamily. No court is going to listen to me, but they’ll listen to him. He’s going to help you—I’m sure of it.”
“Oh,” I say.
It sounds almost too good to be true. Harry will tell my father what’s going on in this house, and my father will intercede and come save me. I can go live with him in a house where the doors don’t lock from the inside. Where I don’t have to write secret messages on my thigh to find the man I love.
Like I said, it sounds too good to be true. Nothing can be that simple, can it?
“Anyway, I’m almost there.” Another loud honk and Harry swears under his breath. “I’ll call you after I’m done talking to him. Okay?”
“Don’t hang up,” I start to say, but my words get cut off by the blast of a loud horn. And a second later, the line is dead.
I put down the phone, my stomach churning. This should be a good thing. My dad and I aren’t close, but he loves me. If he thinks I’m in danger, he’ll come to save me.I know he will.
But somehow I sense that Harry going to see my father is a horrible mistake.
Chapter 41
Graham spends the entire morning up in his office, but he finally emerges when it’s time for lunch.
Camila is making soup for lunch. I helped her out by chopping various root vegetables, but now everything is in the pot, and every couple of minutes, she stirs it, tastes the broth, and makes some sort of seasoning adjustment. The aroma of garlic, rosemary, and thyme fills the kitchen.
It reminds me of when I was a kid, and I used to cook in the kitchen with my mother. She used to give me a few little tasks to do, so I could feel like I contributed in a useful way to the meal. She was a really skilled cook. As an adult, I was never a good cook, and I always felt like if she had lived longer, she could’ve taught me more of her secrets. I would have loved that.
I also always felt sad that she never got to meet Harry. She would have adored him—I’m sure of it.
“It smells incredible in here,” Graham comments. “Icould smell it all the way up the stairs.”
“Tess helped chop the vegetables,” Camila says.
Graham is silent for a beat. “You gave her a knife?”
I remember the moment of hesitation before Camila handed me the blade I used to chop vegetables. The drawer with the knife was locked with a key.
“It was fine,” Camila says.
“No, it’s not fine. You shouldn’t have given it to her.”
I shift in my seat at the kitchen island. “I’m capable of chopping a few vegetables, Graham. I’m not going to hurt myself.”
