Chapter 4 #2
AJ had always been one of Frankie’s favorite people.
Not only because he was the smartest person she’d ever met, he also never lied, which was not something she could say for most of the people in her life.
If anyone asked him something, he always told the truth, without any filter.
Frankie knew if she called him and asked him about Liam, that’s exactly what she’d get: the raw, unfiltered truth.
Also, AJ would never tell Liam that she asked about him, unless, for some reason, Liam directly asked that question, which he never would.
Niko was the yin to AJ’s yang, He oozed charm and charisma. Flirting was in his DNA. Her friends often referred to him as Casanova or Romeo.
He was a storyteller. In a single sentence, he had people eating out of the palm of his hand.
If she called him, she would get more detailed information.
But he would definitely tell Liam that she’d asked about him.
And she would run the risk of him mentioning to Liam that she was in Hope Falls, because she wasn’t going to tell him not to.
If she did, he would ask why, and there was no way she was ever going to tell him why she didn’t want Liam to know she was in Hope Falls.
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. AJ!
Frankie moved the phone to her ear, pressing so hard she could hear her own pulse thumping in her jawbone.
It’d been months since she and AJ had talked.
He’d been out of the country on a deployment somewhere…
she never knew where. His job was classified.
He worked as a cybersecurity analyst for a highly classified cyber security branch of the Air Force that often supported CIA operations.
She glanced at the clock and tried to calculate the time difference to Langley, Virginia, where he lived, in her head, but her brain was too scrambled to do math.
Right now, she needed answers, and out of her whole family, he was the only one who wouldn’t try to shield her with a well-intentioned lie or, worse, a clumsy attempt at comfort, if he even knew about her and Tristan.
If he did, he found out from someone else, not her.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hey.”
“Hi, it’s Frankie,” she said, even though his phone was probably set to display her entire genetic code.
“I know,” he said, the words short and unembellished, not mean, just factual. Background noise filtered through faintly, the hum of electronics, maybe, or a powerful air conditioning unit. Tech stuff.
She hesitated for a second as it slowly dawned on her that he didn’t sound right. His tone was much more mono than usual. “How are you?”
“I’m… fine,” he replied. His pause was almost imperceptible, but it was there, like a comma in a sentence too short to need one, which, for AJ, was probably as vulnerable as he got.
Concern wrapped around her like the snap bracelets she used to wear when she was twelve as she leaned forward in her seat and grabbed the steering wheel. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Her brow furrowed, and she regretted not FaceTiming him.
If she had, she’d be able to see his eyes, the windows to his soul.
Her current issues melted away, suddenly becoming frivolous.
Her brothers were her life. She might be younger by two years, but she was very protective of both of them.
If anything was wrong with one of them, she would fix it.
If anyone hurt one of them, she would fix them, meaning they would be un-alived.
She knew there was only one way to suss out whether or not he was actually fine.
Throw out the joke bait, if he bit, then whatever it was couldn’t be that bad.
If not, she was on the next plane to Virginia.
“Are you sure? You haven’t been, like, kidnapped by North Korean hackers, or decided to join a cult, or started drinking soda, or joined a CrossFit gym? ”
It had been a running joke between her and her brothers that they’d lost good friends to CrossFit because once people started, they wouldn’t shut up about it. It became their entire personality. They’d even had mock memorial services for their friends.
A small sound—almost a laugh, except AJ didn’t laugh so much as acknowledge amusement, like it was a fact to be marked and moved on from—sounded through the speaker. “No kidnapping. No cults. No soda.”
“So, it is CrossFit.”
“I go twice a day,” he reluctantly admitted, and she instantly relaxed because she knew he was kidding, something he wouldn’t do if he was really upset. He would just repeat that he was fine again.
“Wow,” she sighed. “Well, all I can say is that it was so nice having you as a brother. Do you want me to break the news to Niko, or are you going to tell him?”
“Who do you think got me started?” he asked flatly.
“Noooooo!” she cried dramatically, then chuckled and got back on track, the reason she called was because AJ, like Zee, had a very low tolerance for phone calls, and she knew the clock had started when he picked up on the second ring. “Okay, so, the reason I called—do you know where Liam works?”
“Yes.”
Her nostrils flared with irritation at his short, non-informative response, but this was the reason she’d called him instead of Niko. He never told anyone anything unless they asked the question directly.
“Where does he work?”
“Pine Ridge General Hospital,” AJ said, as if he were reciting an address from memory.
“How long has he worked there?”
“Seven years and five months.”
Frankie’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“Seven years and five months?!” she repeated in disbelief.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded, a little too sharply.
“You never asked.”
Right. Dumb question on her part. She needed to keep her emotions out of this and stay on track before AJ’s patience for this telephonic chinwag ran out and he hung up. What else did she need to know?
“Did you know he changed his last name?”
“No.”
Oh...um...she honestly wasn't expecting that answer, so she was unsure of where to go from there. If he didn’t even know he changed his last name, he wouldn’t know why he changed it.
“Has he ever mentioned anyone with the last name Davies?”
“No.”
Well, crap. It seemed the catalyst for the identity change would remain a mystery. For now.
“How often do you and Liam talk…or keep in touch?” she rephrased.
“He calls on average every sixty-two days. Texts on average every nineteen days. We haven’t emailed in four years, six months, and four days.”
It always blew her mind that her brother could keep numbers like that straight in his head when she couldn’t even remember what her social security number was.
Frankie tried to picture what his and Liam’s conversations would sound like. Did they talk about the weather, about work, or about her? No. Why would he ask about her?
“Bye, Frankie.”
That was it. AJ was done with this conversation.
“Wait, AJ, how often do we talk or keep in touch?” She thought she reached out to him often, but did she? She would hate it if Liam checked in on her brother more than she did.
“On average, we talk on the phone every thirty-four days and text every six. We haven’t emailed for eight years and two months.”
The last time she emailed him was to send him the information for her college graduation.
“We text every six days?” She didn’t think she texted that much.
“The average was skewed during the pandemic when you were binge-watching Tiger King, Schitt’s Creek, The Queen’s Gambit, Squid Game, and Ted Lasso.”
Oh, right. She remembered that. She messaged him every day talking about those shows and demanding he watch them, which he did for her. She just worried about him because he was alone that entire time.
“Bye, Frankie.”
“I love you, AJ. Bye.”
The call disconnected, and she leaned back in the seat, wondering why Liam had taken a job in a small hospital.
And why he’d been there for seven years.
He could have worked anywhere. Part of the reason he and AJ bonded was their intelligence.
He graduated from medical school at twenty-two.
If he wasn’t going to stay in the Navy as an officer, she thought for sure he’d end up in a prestigious hospital like the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, Cedars-Sinai, or even back at Stanford.
She glanced up at the neon sign at the entrance that read: Pine Ridge Emergency Room. “Why are you here?” she whispered under her breath.
If she hadn’t humiliated herself the last time she’d seen him, and if she wasn’t in such a strange place with his brother, she would go in and ask him. It’s what she wanted to do. It was what every cell in her body was telling her to do. But there was no way she could.
She closed her eyes and remembered the night of his mom’s funeral.
She’d climbed through his window, the same way she had probably a hundred times before.
This time she found Liam sitting on the edge of his bed.
It wasn’t until she got closer to him that she realized he was crying.
She started to hug him, and he pulled her into him and sobbed against her belly.
His entire body shook as she ran her fingers through his hair and rubbed his shoulders.
She would have stayed like that all night.
As it was, she had no idea how long they were like that.
It could have been ten minutes or an hour, she had no clue.
But then he looked up at her, and she was sure he was going to make a joke or something to make light of her seeing him like that. But, oh boy, she was wrong.