Lisa booted up her phone. She’d kept Will in her contacts all these years, although she’d never reached out to him again. She wondered if his number had changed, but when she dialed him, he answered on the first ring.
“Special Agent Woolwich,” he said, his silky voice still familiar, still conjuring the image of him in her mind.
“Agent Woolwich,” she said with a slight hesitation. “It’s Lisa Power calling.”
There was a pregnant pause on the line. When he spoke again, she could hear the same thing she’d heard in his voice all those years ago. Interest. It gave her the tiniest spark of satisfaction to know she could still elicit that reaction.
“Lisa Power,” Will replied. “Wow, how long has it been? Ten, eleven years now, right?”
“Something like that.”
“You’ve done well for yourself. I’m proud of you. I remember this twenty-something girl telling me all about how she was going to write thrillers for a living, and I thought to myself, Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
“Well, you were very nice to that girl. You helped me a lot.”
“It was my pleasure. I’ve followed your career, you know. I’ve read all your books. They’re very good.”
“Thank you. I’m honored.”
“I hear there’s going to be a movie, too.”
“Next summer, hopefully. Reese tells me the filming is done. She says she’s happy with it, so that has to be a good thing, right? I can’t decide whether to see it or not. Writers always tend to be the biggest critics when their work shows up on-screen. I don’t want to be that person.”
“I’ll see it and tell you how it is.”
Lisa smiled. “Thanks.”
“Anyway, I don’t suppose this is a social call. What can I do for you? Are you doing research on a new book?”
“No, not this time. Actually, I don’t know whether you can help me or not, but I don’t feel comfortable going to the local police about this yet. I wasn’t sure who else to talk to, so I called you.”
His voice turned instantly serious. “What’s going on?”
Lisa glanced across the pickup truck at Purdue. “I was wondering if you’d heard anything about a manhunt underway in Pennington or Kittson Counties involving a human trafficking operation. I was told the police are searching for someone. A fugitive of some kind.”
“A manhunt? I don’t know anything about that off the top of my head, but that wouldn’t be my area of focus. I’m mostly in financial crimes these days.”
She was disappointed. “Yes, I understand.”
“Why can’t you talk to the local cops?”
“It’s a little hard to explain. The story about the manhunt came from the local police, and I’m just not — I just don’t know whether to trust what I’ve been told.”
He didn’t push her for details, and she was grateful. “Well, let me look into it, and I’ll call you back. It may take me some time to get answers out of the local field office, and depending on what I find, there may well be things I’m not able to share if we’re talking about an active investigation. But I’ll do what I can.”
“I really appreciate it, Will.”
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I know something more.”
“It’s very kind of you to help me like this.”
“It’s no problem.”
She waited for him to hang up, but she could hear in his voice that he wasn’t done yet.
“One other thing, Lisa,” Will added.
“What is it?”
“I know this was a long time ago, and we didn’t have a chance to talk back then. I thought about reaching out to you many times, and I’m sorry that I never did.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Will sounded awkward, which wasn’t like him at all. “Well, when we met, I remember you said you were engaged. Later, when I got your first book, I saw some of the interviews you did, and I heard about what happened to Danny. About him passing away.”
“Oh.”
“It sounds like he was quite the hero.”
“Yes. He was.”
“This is very belated, but I wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
Lisa tried to summon a smile, but it just wasn’t there. “Thank you, Will. That’s sweet of you. But as you say, Danny died a long time ago.”
10
“Who’s Danny?” Purdue asked.
Lisa didn’t answer right away. Danny’s death was part of her past, and there had been so much more loss since then. And yet he was always there with her. Their lives together were like snapshots, photos in her mind of little bits of their history. She saw him wherever she went. Like the pond in front of the pickup where she was now. They’d been here together. When she looked at the water, she still saw herself as a teenager, swimming with Danny and Noah. Drying on towels under the sunshine afterward. Hoping her brother didn’t notice that she and Danny were holding hands.
“How about we go down to the little lake?” Lisa said to Purdue.
“Okay.”
“Are you warm enough?”
“I’m fine.”
They both got out of the truck. She tramped through the weeds, and the boy splashed in the mud the way boys do. Where the pond water slurped around the tall brush, she stopped and put an arm around Purdue’s shoulder. He felt small and vulnerable with those skinny bones of his. The wind whipped his blond hair, and the mist made his face shine. He pointed at an eagle overhead, making high circles above the fields. They both followed its progress as the circles got bigger and wider, until the bird was just a tiny dot lost in the clouds.
“I met Danny in high school,” Lisa told him, when she was finally able to talk about it. “He was a year older than me, but I knew who he was. All the girls did. My brother Noah went out for the baseball team, and Danny was a pitcher. He and Noah became friends, and so Danny and I became friends, too. The three of us started doing everything together. Every evening, every weekend, we’d be hanging out. I don’t really remember when Danny and I started to become more than friends. But at some point, we knew we were in love. We had lots of plans. Get married. Have kids.”
“Did you?” Purdue asked.
“Well, life is a little more complicated than that. We went to different colleges after high school, and we broke up. We didn’t see each other for several years.”
“Why?”
Lisa shrugged at the bad memories. “Danny’s father had big plans of his own for Danny. College, law school, politics. Danny was supposed to be going places, maybe even Congress or governor someday. He didn’t want any of that, but you don’t say no to Danny’s father. I told Danny he had to make a choice, either me or The Plan. He chose The Plan, at least for a while. He went to law school, got a job as a lobbyist at a big firm in Minneapolis. He was on his way. I became a nurse at the hospital in Thief River Falls. I lived with my parents and wrote books. I didn’t sell any of them, but I kept writing.”
“So what happened?”
“On my twenty-seventh birthday, Danny showed up at our door,” Lisa said. “He’d quit his job and moved back to Thief River Falls. He’d begun training to be a firefighter, which was what he’d really wanted to do since we were in high school. A few months later, we were engaged. We rented a house next to my parents, and we moved in there. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be that happy again.”
Purdue had a child’s gift for picking up on emotions. “Don’t be sad, Lisa.”
“Oh, I’m okay.”