Laila and Hester joined them, though both spent more time staring at their phones than the game. At halftime, Hester rose and said, “I better head back to the city.”
“You’re not staying out here with Oren?” Laila asked.
Oren Carmichael was the retiring police chief of Westville. He too had raised his family out here, been friends with Hester and Ira, even coached two of Hester’s kids, including David. Now Hester was a widow and Oren was divorced and so they’d started dating.
“Not tonight. The Levine jury may come back in the morning.”
“I’ll walk you out to your car,” Wilde said.
Hester frowned. When Wilde and Hester stepped onto the front pavement and fully out of earshot, Hester asked, “What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“You never walk me out.”
“True,” Wilde said.
“So?”
“So how hard was it to get my father’s address from DNAYourStory?”
“Very. Why?”
“I need to find the details about another profile from that site.”
“Another relative?”
“Yes. A second cousin.”
“Can’t you just answer them and meet up the regular way?”
“It’s more complicated,” Wilde said.
Hester sighed. “It always is with you.”
Wilde waited.
“Fine, text me the details.”
“You’re the best.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m the balls,” Hester said. She turned back to the house. “How are you holding up?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I see the way you look at Laila. I see the way she looks at you.”
“There’s nothing there.”
“She’s been seeing a guy.”
“I know.”
“I figured as much.”
“I won’t interfere.”
Tim opened the car door for Hester. She hugged Wilde fiercely and whispered, “Don’t disappear again, okay? You can live in the woods or whatever, but you need to stay in touch every once in a while.” She pushed back and looked up into his face. “Do you understand?”
He nodded. Hester slipped into the backseat. Wilde watched the car pull down the cul-de-sac. He reached for his phone and dialed his foster sister. When she answered, he could hear the normal family cacophony. Rola Naser had five children.
“Hello?”
He knew that his name wouldn’t pop up because he was calling from a disposable phone. “Can we skip the part where you give me shit for not staying in touch?”
“Hell no,” she said.
“Rola—”
“What the eff—and I say ‘eff’ only because there are children present but I really really want to say the whole word—what the eff is wrong with you, Wilde? Wait. Don’t answer. Who knows better than me?”
“No one.”
“Exactly. No one. And you promised last time you wouldn’t do this again.”
“I know.”
“It’s like Lucy kicking the football with Charlie Brown.”
“Lucy doesn’t kick the football.”
“What?”
“Lucy holds the football and then pulls it away when Charlie Brown is about to kick it.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s where you’re going with this, Wilde?”
“You’re smiling, Rola. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I’m angry.”
“Angry but smiling.”
“It’s been more than a year.”
“I know. Are you pregnant again?”
“No.”
“Did I miss anything big?”
“In the past year?” Rola sighed. “What do you want, Wilde?”
“I need you to trace a mobile number for me.”
“Read it off to me.”
“Now?”
“No, wait another year and then do it.”
Wilde read her the number that PB had given to him. Ten seconds later, Rola said, “Interesting.”
“What?”
“It’s billed to a shell corporation called PB&J.”
“Owners? Address?”
“No owners. Address is the Cayman Islands. Whose phone number is this?”
“My cousin’s, I think.”
“Say what?”
After young Wilde was found in the woods, he was taken in as a foster child by the kind and generous Brewer family. More than thirty foster kids had lived with the Brewers, and all had been made better by the experience. Most kids stayed only a few months. Some, like Wilde and Rola, had stayed for years.