Free Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline

much for the lift.”
    “No problem, sir.” Officer McMullen steered the cruiser to the curb, slowed to a stop, and got out to open the back door. “Good luck with your car.”
    “Thanks,” Jake said, fleeing the cruiser.

 
    Chapter Nine
     
    “What happened, honey?” Pam asked, meeting him in the entrance hall. Obviously, Ryan hadn’t confessed to her, because she looked like her normal self—sweet, loving, and concerned about him. But she must already have been in Ryan’s room, because Moose trotted up behind her.
    “It was nothing, really. I hit the Dumpster at the Wawa. I clipped the edge.” Jake gave her a brief hug, so he didn’t get any residual airbag powder on her clothes. She was dressed for the gym, in glasses, ponytail, and a long T-shirt over her black yoga pants, but worry was etched into the lines of her lovely face.
    “How did you do that? You weren’t on the phone, were you?”
    “No, I hit the gas instead of the brake.”
    “Really?” Pam recoiled, puzzled. “You’re a better driver than that.”
    “I know.”
    “So how did it happen?”
    “God knows. I needed my coffee.” Jake let her go and shrugged it off, or tried to. He’d been too preoccupied on the ride home to make up a detailed story about the accident. “Mike’s is right there, and I don’t think it’s totaled, so it’s a nuisance, but that’s all.”
    “Thank God.” Pam’s intelligent blue eyes searched his face from behind her glasses. “What’s that powder on your sweater?”
    “From the airbag.” Jake brushed it away, but Pam lifted her eyebrow.
    “The airbag went off? How fast were you going?”
    “Not that fast.”
    “But you have to be going a certain miles an hour for the airbag to go off. You must’ve been going kind of fast.”
    “I didn’t think I was, but whatever. We’re insured, and I’m not going to sweat it. I have to rent a car.” Jake looked around for Ryan, masking his anxiety. “So what’s up with Ryan?”
    “I don’t know, he seems really sick.” Pam raked her nails through her hair, which had a ridge from her ponytail. “He’s thrown up twice and he looks terrible.”
    “Oh no.” Jake let his concern show.
    “And he hardly slept last night. He didn’t want to tell me because he knows he can’t be sick now. The game’s Sunday. It’s the playoffs, remember?”
    “Right.” Jake had forgotten. He didn’t know how Ryan would bear up under the pressure. It was getting worse and worse.
    “He could have something, like a bug, but he was hiding it from me. I heard him in the bathroom and went in. He’s miserable, but there’s no fever. It could be the flu, there’s something going around.”
    “That’s probably what it is. The flu.” Jake’s heart went out to his son. It sounded as if Ryan was distraught over the news about Kathleen, which was just what Jake would have expected. Ryan had to have known Kathleen, at least to say hello. And she had died at his hands.
    “Wait a minute.” Pam frowned. “Did you tell me he had a hamburger last night, at the diner? I should call Sal right now and make a complaint.”
    Think fast. “No, he didn’t have the burger. He only had ice cream.” Jake had to prevent her from calling Sal, who would tell her that he and Ryan hadn’t even been in last night.
    “But you said he had a burger.” Pam frowned, more deeply. “I remember because I was surprised. He’d been saying he wants to eat less meat.”
    “He ordered the burger, and I ordered a sundae, but when the food came, he thought mine looked better and we ended up switching.” Jake knew this was believable because everybody coveted his ice-cream sundaes, but he was the only one who ever ordered them.
    “Oh, okay. Then it wasn’t the meat. Good.” Pam cocked her head. “Hmmm. It could’ve been that cheesy crap with the nachos, at the movie.”
    “Right.” Jake wanted to talk with Ryan alone, which would be a problem now that Pam wasn’t going to the gym.