Page 63 of No Offense

John wished that Katie had felt this way. It would have saved him thousands of dollars in orthodontia bills.

“But with the SATs, we really thought we got through to her,” Tabitha’s mother went on. “We took her to half a dozen life coaches and therapists, and thought she understood. And then the morning of the day of the test, I went to wake her up, and she was just... gone. She’d packed all the things she loved best—books, mostly—and disappeared. Without a word.”

“Except for my Platinum American Express card,” John heard Tom Brighton shout in the background. “I get the bill every month. I can see all the ridiculous things she’s been buying!”

“Oh,” Mrs. Brighton said. “Yes. The credit card. It’s in Tom’s name, but only his initial—T. Brighton. So we didn’t cancel it, because we thought it might help Tabby. She can still use it, even if someone asks for ID. The bills we get every month—and of course calls from people like you, inlaw enforcement—are the only way we know... that we know...” She sighed. “Well, that she’s all right.”

John said, “I see,” again. It was the only thing he could think to say. Truthfully, he was a little disappointed. Not about the credit card—although it had been missing from Tabitha’s wallet, so he presumed one of the Sunshine Kids had stolen it... most likely Beckwith.

No, he was disappointed that Tabitha’s relationship with her parents was so adversarial. That meant they were going to have no idea who the father of her baby was. Though Tabitha herself insisted it was Beckwith, and that Beckwith loved her and the baby, John was beginning to think this was doubtful. Why would Beckwith put his own offspring into a box and then leave her in a library restroom? He couldn’t imagine any father doing this. It was possible Tabitha was so crazy about the guy, she onlywishedthe baby was his.

Then again, Beckwith was the worst. If anyone was going to abandon his own newborn, it would be him.

Why, though, had he abandoned the baby and its mother only to stick around town? In a decent boat, he could have crossed the Gulf and been in Mexico by now.

Not that any of it mattered. Regardless of whether or not the baby was his, John intended to spend the rest of his life making sure Beckwith paid for what he’d done.

“Where is she?” Mrs. Brighton had apparently put her husband on speaker phone, because John could now hear him barking very clearly into his ear, “Where is my daughter, and what has she done now? If you’ve got her locked up,you can tell her from me that I’m not bailing her out again. I’m sick of all her wacko views. All I want is a kid who’ll go to college and get a job and stop spending all my money on pizza and spray paint.”

“Well, Mr. Brighton,” John said in his calmest tone, “I don’t know about any of that. All I can tell you for sure is that your daughter is currently in the maternity ward in the hospital on Little Bridge Island, Florida.”

“Florida?”Mr. Brighton repeated with as much horror as if John had saidHell.

His wife was a little more on the ball. “Maternity ward?Is—is she all right, Officer?”

“My understanding is that she will be. Congratulations. You’re grandparents. Your daughter’s given birth to a healthy baby girl.”

“What?”

Both parents were stunned into silence. As he waited for them to catch their breath, John listened to the sound of the waterfall by the side of the pool splashing in the courtyard below, along with the rumble of jets in the hot tub and the loud croaking of the frogs that lived in the bushes behind it. He decided to take the opportunity while the Brightons were still too shaken up to think better of revealing such personal information to ask, “Would you happen to know who the father is?”

“The father?” Mrs. Brighton murmured vaguely. She was still in shock at the news that she, an attractive and relatively young woman in her early forties—John had looked her and her husband up, and seen that they were wealthysuburbanites—was a grandmother. “No. No, how would I know that? I didn’t even know she was pregnant. We haven’t heard from her in months.

“Oh, my little girl,” Mrs. Brighton cried. “I just can’t believe it. My baby—has a baby!”

“Where is my granddaughter?” Tabitha’s father demanded. “When can I see her? And my daughter?”

“Well, just as soon as you can board a plane and get down to Little Bridge Island,” John said, hoping that neither Tabitha Brighton nor Molly Montgomery would be too displeased with what he’d done. Obviously Tabitha had the right to keep her whereabouts and the birth of her daughter a secret from her parents, with whom she’d apparently been feuding for some time.

But she had nearly died. And so had her child. These were things John felt her parents had a right to know, too.

“Fine,” said Mr. Brighton. “We’ll be there tomorrow.... Wait, where is this Little Bridge, exactly?”

It took John some time to straighten out the logistics of travel to Little Bridge Island with the Brightons, since there were no direct flights, unless they chartered a private jet. This irked Mr. Brighton, but his wife seemed eager to take the trip to see her daughter and granddaughter, no matter how many hours it took or how inconvenient it seemed.

John considered this a good sign.

What was decidedly not a good sign was when he ended the call, put his phone away, and turned to see Molly Montgomery standing in the open doorway to her room, glaring at him with her arms folded across her chest.

“What?” he asked. It was hard to tell with the light streaming from behind her, but her body language indicated that she was mad. He had a feeling that he knew why, but surely after the extraordinary sex they’d just had, she couldn’t bethatmad.

Unless it hadn’t been as extraordinary for her as it had been for him. But she had certainly seemed to enjoy it. She’d been the one Mrs. Filmore had heard shouting, not him. He’d only knocked over a few piles of books... and of course, in the moment, nearly told her that he loved her, because—in the moment—he was sure he did.

Now he was glad he’d kept those words to himself.

“Did you honestly call Tabitha Brighton’s parents?” Molly demanded in a cold voice.

Okay. So she was mad.