She had reached the inn when her phone final y rang. A number she didn’t recognize.
“Yes, hel o?” Hannah said.
“Hannah, it’s Robert Parekh. I got your email. Are you al right?”
He sounded calm, measured.
“Yes. No. It’s not me, it’s Sean. We were at a bar. I was talking to Samuel Fitzhugh. These three guys jumped Sean. They kicked the shit out of him. And then the police came—one of them was Jerome Pierce—and they arrested Sean. The guys who jumped him said Sean started it and everyone in the bar went along with the story. It was a setup.”
“Samuel Fitzhugh was part of a setup?”
“What? No . . . I don’t know.”
“Al right. That doesn’t matter for now. What matters is getting Sean medical attention. And bail as soon as we can get him in front of a magistrate. I’l take care of that, and I’l see if I can track his mom down. What about you? Where are you now? Are you safe?”
“I’m at the inn. I had to get an Uber—Sean’s car is stil at the bar.”
“But you’re al right?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” She was shaking, actual y. Her whole body was shaking so hard and she couldn’t tel if it was from cold or from fear.
“Okay,” he said. “Stay inside. Lock your door. I’l cal you back as soon as I know more.”
Hannah went inside. She used her key to unlock the front door and climbed the stairs to her room. She got into bed, ful y dressed, and pul ed the bedclothes over herself, hoping that if she could get warm, she could stop shaking, slow her body down, and start thinking again. But it got worse before it got better. The roaring in her ears, the spinning of the room. She closed her eyes tightly, pushed her fists against her forehead, and tried to concentrate only on her breathing. She breathed in and out, in and out, focusing on that until final y, slowing, the shaking started to ease and she came back to herself. Slowly, she sat up, looked about for her phone, and found it in the sheets. She checked it. No missed cal s, but it had been an hour since she spoke to Parekh. An hour? How was that possible.
She dialed his number. He answered immediately.
“Hannah?”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to know if you had been able to help Sean.”
“He’s being held at the police station over on Goodwin Neck Road,” Parekh said. “I’ve got a doctor on his way there now, but he’s driving over from Norfolk so it’s going to take him another fifteen minutes or so to get there. First bail hearing wil be at nine A.M. in the morning and you can bet your ass that Sean wil have the best representation in the county there with him.”
“You’re coming down?” Hannah said.
He paused, and when he answered his voice was dry. “While I appreciate your confidence in me, Hannah, given that the bail hearing is in the morning, I think we need someone there for Sean who is already familiar with the local judges. Particularly when we know that Pierce and Engle wil resort to dirty tricks. There’s no time for me to do any research.”
“I didn’t mean . . .” Hannah put a hand to her forehead. She stil felt stupid, as if her brain was on strike.
“No, that’s fine,” he said. “Look, I need to keep this line clear.
Sean’s mom is going to cal me back.”
“That’s fine,” Hannah said. “Of course.”
He hung up. Hannah lay back on the bed, feeling lost and utterly useless. She forced her brain to focus, tried to think about what, if anything, she could do to help Sean, and came up with nothing. She became aware of the pain in her lower back, in her arms and side.
She got up and went to the bathroom, examined the purple bruising that was beginning to appear, and turned away. Sean was so much worse off. There would be no sleep tonight and there was no one else she could cal for support or comfort. She couldn’t cal Laura right now, but even before al of this, had she ever been able to cal Laura when she was in trouble? Coming to Charlottesvil e, living this crazy life, none of it was normal or safe or right . . . but had her life ever been any of those things?
Thinking about that right now would make her crazy. Better to work, if she could. Hannah sat at the desk in her room and started by making notes on her conversation with Sam Fitzhugh. Then she wrote a detailed account of everything that had happened at the bar.
As she worked she kept thinking of that early morning in Sean’s mother’s house, when she’d come so close to emailing Pierce and setting him on Neil Prosper. She’d thought she was on the same side as Pierce, had built up an internal image of the kind of person he might be. A dedicated cop, someone who cared deeply. A driven man who maybe crossed a few lines but only in the pursuit of a just outcome. The reality was starkly different. Hannah put her pen down and started to pace the room. She’d been so sure of herself and now the ground was moving under her feet. What else had she been wrong about?