Page 26 of Finding Silence
She looks like she’s about to slam the door she is still holding on to shut, but then—like a balloon losing its air all at once—she deflates, her shoulders slumping and her hands dropping down by her sides. Even the tension in her features seems to melt off her face, replaced with a tired smile.
“Nothing to do with you,” she indicates as she steps aside. “Please, come in.”
“Would you like a coffee?”
“I probably shouldn’t. I already had the two cups my cardiologist likes to limit me to.”
“Can I get you something else?” she asks, clearly restless as she flutters around her kitchen.
“Glass of water, maybe?”
I’m not really thirsty but she seems to need something to do.
“Did something happen?”
For a moment, I don’t think she’s going to answer as she fills a glass from the dispenser in the door of her fridge. But once she slides it in front of me, she gives me her full attention.
“Yes. I was given the most unpleasant task of having to call my former band members to assure them I am still quite alive and well.”
I must be showing my slight puzzlement on my face, because she quickly adds, “Including Duncan, who is the one who I’m positive initiated that story in the first place.”
Right, the guitarist first Savvy, and then Phil herself, told me about.
“Why would you call him?”
“Because my lawyer wants me to treat him like the other two. He doesn’t want me to let on I think Dunk is the one to blame. Afraid I’ll get slapped with a defamation suit or something. All I know is talking to him, after I blocked his ass from my life, was less pleasant than the colonoscopy I was subjected to last year.” She reaches for the coffeepot and fills her mug. “At least I had the presence of mind to record the conversation this time. He was his usual charming self,” she adds with obvious sarcasm.
I carefully put the glass down I’d been sipping from.
“Did you tell him you were recording?”
Her eyes snap up when she picks up on the tense note in my voice.
“Of course not, he wouldn’t have shown his true colors if I had.”
“Good, because it’s a crime to record someone without their consent in the state of Washington. If he found out, he could make trouble for you.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a heartbeat. I know Oregon is a one-party consent state when it comes to phone conversations, but here in Washington there’s a clear two-party consent rule for any type of recording.”
“That son of a bitch,” she snaps as she swings around and braces herself on the kitchen sink, hanging her head low. “The smug bastard as much as admitted being responsible and I was hoping at least I could use his own words against him.”
From the rise and fall of her back, I’d say she is working hard to get herself under control. I’m happy to grant her that time while I give her dilemma some thought.
It says something about how taken I am with this woman; I’m actually considering ignoring the law I spent over thirty years following to the letter for her.
“Let me listen to it,” I suggest when I see she has regained her composure.
She seems to hesitate for a moment, but then walks over to the living room where she left her phone on the table. She finds the recording, presses play, and places it in front of me on the kitchen island.
“I’m surprised,” I hear a man’s voice say mockingly. “Didn’t you cut me off? And yet here you are, seeking me out. I’m guessing word of your unfortunate demise has reached whatever hole you’re hiding in? I told you I would get to you. You’ve always thought you were so far above the rest of us, it made you untouchable, but how does it feel to be proven wrong?”
Already, red flags are waving right, left, and center as I listen to the guy talk. There is a cold menace I can hear in his derisive voice that has the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Then Phil’s voice comes in, a little shaky, but I can’t tell whether from anger, frustration, or fear.
“The only reason I called was because Grace told me you’d contacted her with concern about my well-being, and she felt I should put your mind at ease. But I see she must’ve misinterpreted your interest. I bet you were merely fishing for information, weren’t you? It doesn’t matter.” She immediately brushes over her own question, as if the answer is irrelevant to her.
I’m sure it was intended to be a message to this Duncan character he is irrelevant to her. And if that wasn’t, what she says next would’ve brought her point home with the painful precision of a well-aimed bullet.
