Face Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan Read Free Book Online

queen of radio.” I give Mays a hug. “Congratulations,” I say. “Ignore Franklin. You deserve it. Now I understand the suit and lips, video girl.”
    “And it’ll keep me home this season, too,” Maysie says. Her brown eyes shine, and there’s a satisfaction—or something—in her expression I haven’t seen before. “No more two-week road trips with the boys of summer. Matthew is so psyched.”
    “The Sports Ma-chine,” Franklin repeats. He adds a dancing little hip-hop move now that the meeting is over. “Ma-CHINE.” He looks at Maysie, his dark brown eyes twinkling teasingly behind his glasses. “Did you come up with that? Or did old Susannah?”
    “Like I said, ignore him,” I tell Maysie, laughing. “But listen, it’s so funny. I thought you were pregnant. That’s what I thought you wanted to tell me. You know me, Miss Suspicious, anything to make the day weirder. Just what you and Matthew need, a sibling for Max and Molly.” I hurry to reassure her. “Not that there’d be anything wrong with that.”
    “Yeah, well.” Maysie replies. I detect the beginnings of a blush, and that satisfied expression returns. “Good thing. Because—yeah. That is what I was trying to call you about. Baby Green number three is on the way. Don’t make plans for New Year’s Eve, okay?”
     
     
    T HE CAR WINDOW beside me powers down by itself, letting in a blast of salt air and a faint stench of something as we drive up the North Shore Parkway. We’re half an hour out of Boston, destination—at last—Swampscott.
    “Smell that?” Franklin asks. He has one hand on the steering wheel of his Passat and the other on the window controls. “Welcome to the north shore of Massachusetts. The good news—you get to live by the ocean. The bad news—every summer, some disgusting algae stinks up the beach.”
    I sniff, then buzz my window back up, nodding. “Never fails,” I agree. The Parkway is taking us straight to our destination as the expanse of Atlantic Ocean, white-capped and sparkling, stretches endlessly beside us. Above a weather-beaten boardwalk, gray and white seagulls swoop between skateboarders, diving at remnants of leftover clam rolls. “But it’s so beautiful here. You probably get used to it.”
    Franklin makes a dismissive face. “I suppose it could happen,” he says. “Turn right after the ball field?”
    “Yup,” I say, confirming. We’d put in multiple and increasingly urgent but unanswered calls to Will Easterly and Oliver Rankin, then realized we couldn’t just stay at the station and worry. We decided it couldn’t hurt to check out Dorinda’s hometown, even though we have no camera with us. The assignment desk Nazi informed us he couldn’t spare a photographer except for breaking news, so today we’re on our own. Cross fingers we don’t miss out on some once-in-a-lifetime interview because Channel 3 refuses to provide the resources we need.
    “This takes us to Swampscott. The Sweeney house is off Humphrey Street,” I continue. I tip my new red-striped reading glasses into place from the top of my head and check our map. “Alden Street, then turn onto Little’s Point Road. It’s number three twenty-seven, but the clerk at town hall said it was for sale again, so I’m thinking we can just look for the sign.”
    We drive through the seaside neighborhood, patches of ocean grass and hydrangea keeping houses politely private, and pull up in front of an unpretentious two-story white-shingled cape with dormer windows, weathered shutters, gray front door. A bright yellow For Sale sign flaps silently in front, the yard’s only color. Someone’s mowed the lawn, but the garden is suffering, azaleas parched, splay-petaled tulips defeated by the June sun. The bad vibes surrounding the place are just my imagination, I know, but I hesitate to get out of the car. I wish Will or Rankin would call.
    “So now what?” Franklin asks. “You want to check with some neighbors? See if anyone