Exactly.
The left one rose slightly higher than the right.
She had hated that in school pictures.
“Where did you get this?”
“I took it. Tripod and a timer. Your mom said otherwise I’d never be in any of them.”
“Anybody could have a photograph.”
“Yes.”
“You could know my mother.”
“I do.”
“You could be the reason she left.”
His expression tightened.
“Yes,” he said. “In a way.”
That was worse than reassurance.
A car moved past the opening on the far side of the level. Silver hatchback. A woman in a green raincoat behind the wheel. She did not look at them.
Hank waited until it disappeared.
“Call your mother.”
Sarah pulled out her phone.
There were three missed calls from Jimmy.
Her thumb hovered over Diana’s name.
She hated that she wanted permission from this stranger before pressing it.
Hank moved farther away.
“Tell her my name.”
Diana answered on the second ring.
“Sarah? Aren’t you working?”
“Mom.”
A pause.
“What happened?”
Sarah watched Hank watching the ramp.
“I’m with a man named Hank Reeves.”
Silence.
The kind of silence that was an answer before anybody spoke.
“Mom?”
“Where are you?”
“Why do you know him?”
“Where are you, Sarah?”
“He says Dad was murdered.”
A faint sound traveled through the phone. It might have been a cup touching a table. It might have been her mother sitting down.
“Put him on.”
“No.”
“Sarah, please.”
“No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to go around me.”
Her mother breathed once, unsteadily.
“Are you hurt?”
“Did he leave us?”
“Are you safe?”
“Answer me.”
Hank turned at the sound of her voice, but he did not come closer.
At last Diana said, “No.”
The word was almost inaudible.
Sarah pressed the phone harder against her ear.
“What?”
“Your father did not leave us.”
There were twenty-four years inside that sentence.
Every school project where Sarah had invented a business trip. Every Father’s Day card she had refused to make. Every time her mother said some men could not stay and Sarah heard that she had not been worth staying for.
She looked down at the photograph.
“Then where is he?”
Diana began to cry.
Sarah had seen her mother cry twice. Once when their dog died. Once after a landlord’s notice arrived the winter Diana broke her wrist and could not clean houses.
Neither time had sounded like this.
“Where is he, Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
Hank closed his eyes.
“You don’t know where he’s buried?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know he’s dead?”
“I’ll explain. I promise. But you have to listen to Hank right now.”
The betrayal in that almost took Sarah’s breath away.
“You lied to me my entire life, and now you want me to trust your friend?”
“He wasn’t my friend,” Diana said. “He was Michael’s.”
An engine sounded below them.
Hank raised a hand.
Sarah fell silent despite herself.
The engine rose, slowed, then continued toward another level.
“Give him the phone,” Diana whispered.
Sarah held it out.
Hank took it carefully.
“Di.”
Whatever Diana said made his jaw flex.
“No. I didn’t know until Sunday.”
He listened.
“I should have told her before today.”
Another pause.
“I know.”
Sarah stood close enough to hear her mother’s voice without making out words.
“No,” Hank said. “Don’t come to the diner. Don’t go home if you’re out. Call the number on the blue card.”
Sarah looked sharply at him.
“Still have it?” he asked.
His shoulders lowered a fraction.
“Good. Let her get you. Tell her there were two at Riverside.”
He listened again.
“Diana. Look at me.”
He caught himself.
The habit belonged to another time.
“Listen to me. I’m not leaving her.”
He returned the phone.
Diana said, “I love you.”
Sarah could not answer.
“Baby, I know you’re angry.”
“Angry?”
The word felt insultingly small.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She ended the call before her mother could say anything else.
For a moment she stared at the black screen.
Her own reflection looked like a woman waiting for news in a hospital hallway.
“Who is Cutter?” she asked.
Hank retrieved the photograph and held it between two fingers.
“Raymond Cole. Cutter’s what people called him.”
“People like you?”
“Yes.”
“Was my father a Hells Angel?”
“No. He fixed our bikes. Sometimes he rode with us. He had an old Triumph he loved more than was reasonable.”
“And Cutter?”
“Used to be one of us.”