Page 30 of Danny Hall Gets a Lawyer (Goose Run #1)

Great. Now the internal voice sounded even more annoyingly smug. It sounded just like Marty when he knew he was right about something. I wanted the original prosecutor back.

“I’m fine, Mom. Better than fine, actually. Guess where I’m calling from.”

Mom’s voice was warm when she said, “I’ll play. Where are you?”

“New York.”

“What on earth are you doing in New York?”

“Oh, just reading through the onboarding paperwork for my new job at Winston, Baker and Fisk,” I said and waited for her to congratulate me.

“Oh!” She was quiet for a moment and said, “Well, if that’s what you want, I’m happy for you, honey.”

She didn’t sound happy for me. She sounded more confused than anything. And that had me confused. Of course this was what I wanted.

Wasn’t it?

“You know it’s what I want,” I said. “It’s always been my dream.”

“I know, but last time you were here to visit you were happier than we’ve seen you in a long time. We figured you were finally settling down, making a life in Hopewell.”

“Settling down?” I frowned at the brick wall outside my window. “I can settle down in New York too, Mom.”

“Oh, I know that,” she said. “Just, you seemed to really like Hopewell.”

“You can’t get a decent coffee after ten p.m.,” I said.

“Well, you shouldn’t be having coffee then,” she said. “How much coffee are you drinking? You know your dad gets heartburn.”

“It’s not hereditary,” I said, even though I had no idea if that was true or not.

“It’ll catch you up at some point,” she said, and I didn’t have an answer for that because that was definitely true. “And you’re always telling us to watch our diets.”

“Not like that. Just, you know, cutting sugar is good.”

“I know it is.” She was quiet for a moment, and I figured we were both wondering how we’d gotten so off track. “Did you know you can buy turkey bacon? It’s like bacon, well, supposedly, but it’s made from turkey.”

Apparently, she’d committed to staying off track.

My mom wasn’t flaky, not that you’d know it from our current conversation, but she did have the habit of changing the subject when she thought you might not like what she really wanted to say.

Once, in high school, my brother started dating a girl my parents didn’t like, and when he asked them what they thought of her, Mom went on a twenty-minute tangent about deep ocean exploration.

So what wasn’t she saying now?

“I don’t know what this has to do with my moving to New York,” I said.

“Just, there are more important things than late-night coffee,” she said. “You’ve made friends in Hopewell. And what about Danny?”

“What?”

“Danny. Your friend. I got the feeling there might be something there, that’s all.”

“Who told you about Danny?” I asked. For a wild second I had the insane idea that someone—okay, Marty —had called my mom and given her the scoop. “I’ve never mentioned him.”

Mom laughed softly. “Oh, honey. You mentioned him when you were here for my birthday.”

I didn’t remember it, but I’d had a few strong drinks at Mom’s birthday—my dad was a generous barman—and we’d talked a lot, so it made sense that I might have said something about Danny in passing. “So I mentioned him a time or two. It’s an interesting case. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Let’s see. He has an awful neighbor who cut down his tree and he works at a gas station, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t smart, because he is. He lives in his grandma’s house with three other guys and two of them are identical twins. His grandma is a pistol, and he’s cute and funny, and?—”

“No way! I did not tell you all that!”

Mom laughed again, louder this time. “You want me to get your dad on the call to back me up?”

“No, I?—”

Too late.

“How do you—is it Add Call? Wait, I got it. Pick up your phone, Gary. No, press the button. The button on the screen.”

“Hello?” Dad asked.

“Tell your son that he kept mentioning his friend Danny the other week,” Mom said.

Dad said, “David?”

“Your other son,” I said.

“Miller?”

“Hi, Dad.” I closed my eyes and wondered if I should grab a beer out of the minifridge too.

“What’s this about your friend Danny?” Dad asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Hey, I’m calling from New York. I’ve got a job offer at a firm here. Winston, Baker and Fisk. They’re pretty big.”

“Oh,” Dad said, and he sounded as excited as my mom had. “But what does that have to do with Danny? Wait, are you breaking up with him?”

“How can we break up when I’m not even dating him?” That beer was looking better and better, even at minibar prices.

“Really? The way you were talking when you were here, your momma and me were sure there was something going on there.”

I was absolutely not explaining the concept of friends with benefits to my parents. I refused. And to be fair, they were probably already familiar with it. But I wasn’t going to tell them that I, specifically, had a fuckbuddy. There were some lines you didn’t cross.

“I told you you talked about him!” Mom said.

“Fine,” I said. “I talked about him.”

We were all silent for a long moment, and then Dad said, “New York’s a fair way away. It’s a long drive. I don’t suppose you’ll be able to visit as often as you do.”

“I probably won’t have many weekends free to begin with anyway,” I said. “It’s a competitive environment here, so I’ll be putting in the extra hours.”

“Ah,” Dad said. “Well, if you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“Of course I’m sure.”

Wasn’t I?

“Well,” Dad said, “you know what I’ve always taught you. When in doubt, trust your gut.”

Stellar advice, if only I knew what my gut was saying.

Mom spent most of the rest of the call telling me all about the new fabric store that had opened in their neighborhood and how she was thinking of buying a sewing machine because how hard could it be to learn?

So obviously she was in full deflection mode.

Dad just hummed and agreed with whatever either Mom or I said, and I felt worse for having called them, not better.

And even though I wasn’t always as good at keeping in touch with my parents as I should have been, I usually enjoyed talking to them.

But today the conversation left me feeling both flat and unsettled when I ended the call.

What the hell was going on with me? I should have been at the top of the world.

At the back of my mind, the prosecutor cleared his throat.

“Nope,” I told him. “Objection. Case dismissed. Whatever.”

I jammed my AirPods in and opened up a podcast. Great.

Fantastic. I was going to sit down and finish my water and listen to the history of the construction of the Hoover Dam, because that was a perfect way to relax.

And maybe later, when I went out to pick up some food, I’d actually take a look around the city that was going to be my new home?

Yes. That sounded like a solid plan.

But when I propped myself up against the beige padded headboard and settled on the bed, I found the podcast didn’t hold my interest, and after a few minutes I switched over to Spotify.

A smile crept on my face when the sounds of Creedence filtered through my headphones.

I closed my eyes and let the notes wash over me, and the familiarity of the music had my muscles unclenching.

Taking this job was what I wanted.

When I’d told Callahan I needed a couple of days off for personal business, he hadn’t even blinked, telling me I was overdue for a break. It meant I’d worked extra hours to get everything up to date before my trip, so I was probably second-guessing myself because I was overtired, that was all.

I guess you’d better get used to that.

“Shut up,” I grumbled at prosecutor not-Marty just as the music cut out and my phone started to ring.

My heart leaped in my chest, and for one wild moment I hoped it was Danny calling, but it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. It was Callahan. I swallowed around my disappointment and took the call.

“Miller? It’s Cal. Sorry to call you when you’re on leave, son, but we have a situation with one of your cases.”

“Oh god, don’t tell me. Let me guess,” I groaned. “Missy and Chad’s divorce is back on.”

“Actually, it’s the tree law case.”

“What?” I swung my legs over the side of the bed so I was sitting upright, instantly alert. “Did Harlan threaten them? Is Danny okay? Do I need to come back early?”

“Actually,” Callahan said, “Danny’s grandmother called. They’ve decided to drop the case.”