Chapter Twenty-Three — RichardElle's POVI played the voicemail a second time.Same voice. Same measured tone. No threat in it, no edge, just a man who was used to people returning his calls because not returning them had consequences he did not need to spell out.I sat in the car for a few minutes after. The street was empty and the neighborhood was asleep and I had Richard Harlan's voice sitting in my phone like a live thing.The smart move was to not call back. To sleep on it, talk to Roseanne in the morning, maybe think about whether I needed someone older in my corner before I walked into whatever Richard Harlan considered a conversation. Paul Calvert came to mind. A man who had already called Richard out once today.I did not call back.I drove home, checked the house, found my mother gone to Aunt Karen's the way I had asked. The rooms were quiet and clean in the way they only were when she was not in them. I made toast, stood at the kitchen counter and ate it, and thought thro
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