I Will Find You

Chapter 27

Had David seen the lie on her face?

Rachel almost told him the truth. Maybe she should have, who knew? But right now, she needed David to trust her absolutely. If he understood the truth about Cheryl’s visit to that fertility clinic, the full truth, he might push her away. They couldn’t afford that. So for now, right or wrong, Rachel would have to go with deceit. Remaining his ally was more important than honesty.

After David left for Pop’s Garage, Rachel combed through the photographs yet again — this time with a new goal in mind. She was looking for a familiar face, one David wouldn’t really know. To her relief, she didn’t find it. There was still a chance that David was wrong — that the Berg Reproductive Institute being one of the sponsors at the amusement park that day was a coincidence — but the more Rachel thought about it, the more she realized that there had to be something to it.

But how did the fertility clinic fit into all this?

She stared now at her phone. She had put off making the call for long enough. She needed answers, and he might have them. She dialed the number. He answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Rachel?”

There was a lilt in his voice. It made her smile.

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God, it’s been so long.”

“I know, I’m sorry about that.”

“No need. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” she said.

“I called you, you know.”

“I know.”

“When the whole thing went down with that article and our alma mater—”

“I know,” she said again. “I should have replied to you. I owed you that.”

“You don’t.”

“I do. I’m sorry. I was just... It was a lot.”

Silence. Then: “There a reason you called?”

“I need a favor,” Rachel said.

“I’m always here for you. You know that.”

She knew. She cleared her throat. “Did you read about my brother-in-law escaping prison? I don’t know if the news would reach—”

“I saw that, yes.”

“I’m hoping you can help with something.”

He hesitated. “Look, Rachel, where are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you home?”

“No, I’m...” Should she say? “I’m near Boston.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“Can you get to Toro restaurant on Washington Street? In, say, an hour?”

“Wait, you’re back?”

“It’s better we talk in person, don’t you think?”

She did.

“And it will be so good to see you, Rachel.”

“It will be good to see you too,” she said.

“Toro,” he said again. “One hour.”

“I’ll see you there.”

I don’t like the setup at Pop’s Garage.

I don’t like it at all.

I am driving the purportedly untraceable car Rachel drove up to Revere. I grabbed one of Dougie’s baseball caps and a pair of his Ray-Bans, and while I’m not totally disguised, I don’t think the police will set up a roadblock between Revere and Malden. If they know I’m here, I am assuming they somehow tracked me coming in on the train. They are not going to suspect that I was able to secure a vehicle. Or maybe they would. Either way, I have to take risks, but this one seems pretty calculated.

Hunting Street is a bizarre blend of residential homes and car mechanics on the border of the town center. Pop’s Garage is jammed between Al’s Auto Center and Garcia Auto Repair and across the street from Malden’s Body Work and Repair. I am, of course, on the lookout for cops or vans or anything suspicious. But there is nothing and no one on this normally congested thoroughfare — and that is what is making me suspicious.

Al’s appears closed. So are Garcia’s and Malden’s. They aren’t just quiet. They are shut down, shades pulled, lights out, no movement.

I don’t like that.

Only one person is visible. A man in a blue work coverall with a name I can’t make out stenciled in script on the chest waves at me. He motions toward the one open garage bay like one of those guys at the airport who direct the pilot in and out of the gate. I make the turn off Hunting Street into Pop’s. The opening looks wide, dark, cavernous, as though it may swallow me whole.

I hesitate, staring into the garage’s mouth, when Skunk emerges from the darkness like some horror film ghost rising from the grave.

He is pale. The hair is slicked back and oily. The forelock seems more pronounced than ever. Skunk smiles at me, and I feel the chill run down my spine. He hasn’t aged much if at all. His suit is too shiny and glistens in the morning sun. He steps to the side and beckons me to enter.

Do I have a choice?

I pull in with Skunk leading the way. He is signaling me to keep coming forward. At some point he gestures for me to slow down and then brake. I do. I am inside the garage now, the door sliding closed behind me.

There are just the two of us.

I step out of the car.

Skunk comes up to me with a big smile.

“Davey!”

He embraces me, the third person to do that today and in the past five years. This embrace offers no comfort or warmth, just hard edges; it’s like being hugged by a coffee table. He reeks of cheap European cologne. I have smelled some awful things in the prison, but this nearly makes me gag.

“Davey,” he says again, pulling back. “You look well.”

“You too, Kyle.”

“I’m sorry about this,” he says.

And then he punches me hard in the stomach.

It is a total sucker punch, but I saw it coming. One of the great lessons of prison: You learn to always be on guard. That lesson gets honed every single day. In Briggs, you revert to primitive man, always wary, always prepared. When I was in high school, I played attack on the lacrosse team. My coach would consistently scream out, “Head on a swivel!” which means keep looking for someone blindsiding you. That becomes your life in prison.

I shift a little and tighten my abdomen. The blow still lands but not where it does me much damage. His knuckles graze my hip bone, and I bet that hurts him more than me. I react on instinct, even as some other part of me is saying to back off, that I can’t seriously hurt him, that I need him to get the information on Hilde Winslow.

But the hell with that.

Skunk isn’t going to tell me anything. I should have known that. My best chance at learning the truth?

Beating it out of him.

Before Skunk’s blow has fully landed, I start to swing my right arm around, using the big muscles near the shoulder, shifting my weight down and to the left, I am able to both neutralize his punch and gain momentum for my counter. I tuck my thumb in the palm and lead with the inner edge of my hand.

The strike lands hard against the side of Skunk’s skull.

I feel a vibration in my hand, something akin to a tuning fork for the hand bones, but there is no time to worry about that. I know that Skunk is ferocious and vicious in a thousand different ways. If I let up, he will kill me. That is true in every fight. Fights should never be something casual. That’s something most people don’t get. Every fight you see — drunks at a bar, idiots at a football game — there is the potential for ending up maimed or dead.

Skunk staggers from the shot to the side of his head. I stick out my foot and spin hard. My instep connects with his lower leg. It doesn’t knock Skunk down, but it keeps him off balance. He tries to stumble back, hoping to put some distance between him and me.

I don’t let him.

I step in and then I jump tackle him. He hits the ground hard, me on top of him.

I flip him onto his back and mount his chest. I make two fists and get ready to start throwing lefts and rights at his face. Soften him up, I figure, before I ask him about Hilde Winslow.

But when I cock my right fist, the doors burst open.

I hear someone shout, “Freeze! Police!”

I turn to see a cop pointing a gun at me. My stomach plummets. Then another cop enters the garage. He is pointing a gun at me too. Then another.

I am debating what to do when a small voice in my head reminds me that I’ve turned my attention away from Skunk.

Doesn’t matter.

Something hard — gun butt, tire iron, I don’t know — whacks me in the side of the head.

My eyes roll back. Someone — one of the cops, I think — delivers a body blow. I slide off Skunk. Another cop jumps on top of me. I try to raise my hands, try to fight back, but I have nothing left.

I’m on my stomach now. Someone pulls my arms back. I hear more than feel the handcuffs.

Another blow lands on the side of my head. Blackness swims in. I take one last gasp.

And then there is nothing.

Rachel had texted David that she had an errand to run.

She didn’t tell him where or why.

She took the train because David had her car and this phone didn’t have a ride-share app. She checked the time. Again. David had been gone almost an hour. There had been no word. She feared the worst — you always fear the worst in situations like this, she thought, as though situations like this were commonplace in her life — but she also knew that she had to compartmentalize and move forward. If this Skunk guy had done something to David, there was nothing she could do about it. If the police had found and arrested David, well, same thing.

Move forward.

When Rachel arrived at Toro, she thought about something frivolous: Her hair. The styling she’d gotten in New York City this morning had been intentionally designed to disguise her. It had been a long time since she’d seen him in person.

Would he recognize her?

That question was quickly answered. As soon as she entered the restaurant, he rose from his table and gave her the warmest smile. She returned it and for the briefest of moments, she fell through some kind of time portal and forgot why she was really here. Suddenly, this seemed like a reunion of sorts, a deep-dive one, nothing superficial when you bond in tragedy. She wondered how they’d let their friendship drift apart. That was life though, wasn’t it? You graduate from college, you move away, you take other jobs, you meet new people, partners, create families, divorce, whatever. Sure, you stay in touch, check social media, exchange the occasional text, promise you’ll get together, and meanwhile the years fly by and now here you are, in need of a favor, and suddenly you’re back together.

They both hesitated for a moment, not sure how to greet the other, but then she hugged him, and he hugged her right back. The years melted away. When you’ve been through a lot together — when your bond is formed in tragedies like theirs — you never really let go.

“It’s so good to see you, Rachel,” he said.

She held on to him another moment. “You too, Hayden.”

Chapter 28

When I wake up, I’m wearing handcuffs.

I’m also seated on a small airplane.

It’s over.

Skunk or the Fishers had sold me out to the cops. I’m an idiot. Truly. What had I expected? They’d set me up to take the fall for the murder of my own son — why would I be dumb enough to think they wouldn’t sell me out to put me back behind bars?

I try to crane my neck to look behind me. It’s hard because I’m also cuffed to an armrest. Two goons — plainclothes cops or federal agents or marshals, I don’t know which — sit in the back and fiddle with their smartphones. Both are bald with black tees and blue jeans.

“When do we land?” I ask.

Without glancing up from his phone, the one sitting in the aisle says, “Shut the fuck up.”

I decide not to antagonize. No point. We land half an hour later. When the plane comes to the proverbial full stop, the two goons unbuckle their seat belts and come toward me. Without warning, one goon throws a black bag over my head while the other snaps off the arm rail restraint.

“What’s with the blindfold?” I ask.

“Shut the fuck up,” Goon One says again.

The plane door opens. I rise. Someone pushes me forward, and I know something is very wrong — even before we reach the tarmac, even with the bag totally blacking out my vision.

We are not at Briggs.

I’m immediately perspiring. It’s hot. It’s humid. I may not be able to see the tropics, but I can smell, taste, and almost touch them. The sun is strong too, slicing through the black bag.

This isn’t Maine.

“Where the hell are we?” I ask.

No answer, so I say, “Aren’t you supposed to tell me to shut the fuck up?”

The two goons push me into the back of a vehicle with the air-conditioning cranked up. The drive is maybe ten minutes, but it is hard to figure out time when you have no watch and are blindfolded and think you may be headed back to prison for the rest of your life. Still, the ride doesn’t feel long. When the vehicle — I’m up high so it must be some kind of SUV — stops, the goons push me out. There is pavement beneath my feet, and it’s so hot I feel the heat coming up through my shoes. Music is playing. Awful music. Some kind of instrumental country-rock mix, like something a Carnival cruise band would play during the poolside “hairiest chest” contest.

I know I seem glib right now. Oddly enough, that is how I feel. Part of me is crushed, of course, because I failed my son again. Part of me is depressed because I seem headed back to prison or worse. Part of me is scared-yet-curious because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing in the tropics.

But part of me, maybe the biggest part, is — just for this moment — letting it all go.

I hopped on this crazy ride when I broke out of prison, and the ride is going to take me where it takes me. Right now, I don’t control it and I’m accepting that.

I wouldn’t say I’m not concerned. I am just doing a major mental suppression. Maybe it’s a survival instinct. The two goons — well, I assume it’s the same two goons, I’m still blindfolded — take my arms and drag-escort me indoors. They throw me onto a chair. Like the vehicle, this room also mercifully has the air-conditioning set on Hi Frost. I almost ask for a sweatshirt.

Someone grabs my wrist. I feel the pinch before the handcuffs slide off me.

“Don’t fucking move,” Goon One says.

I don’t. As I sit in this non-cushioned chair, I try to plan my next move, but the options before me are so grim my brain won’t let me see the obvious. I’m doomed. I can hear people moving around, at least three or four from the sound of it. I still hear the awful music in the background. It sounds like it’s coming over a loudspeaker.

Then, again without warning, the black bag is pulled off my head. I blink through the sudden onslaught of light and look up. Standing directly in front of me, mere inches from my face, is a wizened old man who looks to be in his eighties. He wears a straw hat and a yellow-green Hawaiian shirt blanked with jumping marlins. Behind him I see the shaved-head goons from the plane. Both have their arms folded across their chests and now wear aviator sunglasses.

The wizened man offers me his liver-spotted hand. “Come on, David,” he says in a voice that sounds like threadbare tires on a gravel road. “Let’s go for a walk.”

He doesn’t introduce himself, but I know who he is, and he knows I know. In most of the photographs I have seen of him over the years, he’s a robust man, usually in the center of groups of men, looking more like an explosive device than a human. Even now, with the years shrinking him down, he still has that incendiary air about him.

His name is Nicky Fisher. In another era, he’d have been called a godfather or don or something like that. When I was in school, his name was whispered in the same way a later generation of children would whisper “Voldemort.” Nicky Fisher ran the crime syndicate in the Revere-Chelsea-Everett area from the days before my father joined the force.

He is — was? — Skunk’s boss.

When we step outside, I blink into the sun. I look left and right, and I frown.

Where the hell am I?

These are indeed the tropics, but it looks like Disney-Epcot built a retirement community after a few too many mojitos. I see a housing development and a cul-de-sac, but it all has a round, cartoonish feel, like where the Flintstones live. The homes are all one-level and handicap accessible and built out of some kind of too-clean adobe brick. The cul-de-sac has one of those giant choreographed fountains, forcing the water to dance to the awful music that I guess plays nonstop.

“I retired,” Nicky Fisher told me. “Did you hear?”

“I’ve been sort of out of the loop,” I say, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“Right, of course. Prison. It’s why I brought you down.”

“What did you do to my son, Mr. Fisher?”

Nicky Fisher stops walking. He turns toward me, craning his neck so that his eyes, those cold ice-blue eyes that ended up being the last thing dozens or even hundreds of people had seen before meeting their demise, bore into mine. “I didn’t do anything to your son. That’s not how we do things. We don’t hurt children.”

I try not to make a face. I despise that mob-code bullshit. We don’t hurt children, we give to the church, we look out for our neighbors, all of that sociopathic babble to justify being criminals.

“This is Daytona,” Nicky Fisher says to me. “Florida. You ever been?”

“Not before now, no.”

“So anyway, I retired here.”

We circle the fountain. The dancing water splashes onto the faux marble, gently spraying us. The spray feels good. The two men are following us at a discreet distance. There are other old people milling about, seemingly directionless. They nod at us. We nod back.

“Did you see the big sign on the way in?” he asks me.

“I was blindfolded.”

“Right, of course,” Nicky says again. “Not my orders, by the way. My guys, they always go for the drama, you know what I’m saying? And I’m sorry about Skunk too. You know how he is. He was just supposed to put you on my plane. I told him not to damage the package, but did he listen?” Nicky puts his hand on my arm. I try not to pull away. “You okay, David?”

“I’m fine.”

“And having the cops grab you — that was stupid, though you gotta admire Skunk’s flair on that one. He wanted to make you think you were going back to jail. Funny, right?”

“Hilarious.”

“It was overkill, but that’s Skunk. I’ll talk to him, okay?”

I don’t know what to say so I just nod.

“Anyway, the sign out front says ‘Boardwalks.’ That’s it. That’s the name of this village. Boardwalks. It’s kind of a dumb name. I was against it. Lacks imagination. I wanted something fancy, you know, with words like ‘mews’ or ‘vista’ or ‘preserve.’ Like that. But the whole community voted, so...” Nicky shrugged a what-can-you-do and kept walking. “Do you know what retirement village is right down the street?”

I tell him I don’t.

“Margaritaville. Like the song. You know it?”

“The song? Yes.”

“Wasting away again in Margaritaville. Or wasted away. I don’t know. But right, that’s the name of the place. Ridiculous, right? Jimmy Buffett has his own goddamn retirement community. Communities, I should say. They got three Margaritavilles now. This one, another in South Carolina, and I forget where the third is. Maybe Georgia. It’s like someone took one of those crappy chain restaurants and made it into a place to live. Who’d want that?”

I don’t reply because that’s exactly what this place looks like to me.

“Anyway, it gave me an idea. I mean, I don’t know from getting wasted on Margaritas and hanging out on the beach. That’s not my fantasy place, if you know what I mean. So we did something different here at Boardwalks. Follow me, I want to show you something.”

We are on a sidewalk lined with palm trees. There is a sign with bright arrows pointing in various directions. One says POOL. One says FINE DINING. The one pointing left says BOARDWALK. We follow it. Nicky Fisher grows quiet. I can feel his eyes on me. When we break into the clearing, I can see why. He wants to gauge my reaction.

There, spanning as far as I can see in both directions, is a giant boardwalk.

The boardwalk is expansive. It’s also trying hard to feel vintage, but it’s far too neat and clean. Another Disney-like reproduction that may look nice but feels like something out of an old Twilight Zone episode. There are rides and arcades and soda fountains and chintzy shops and a merry-go-round. The rides are moving, but no one is on any of them, adding to the place’s unreal ghostlike feel. A man sporting a bow tie and handlebar mustache is selling cotton candy. Someone is dressed up like Mr. Peanut from the Planters peanut commercials. A sign advertises SKEEBALL-PINBALL-MINIGOLF.

“Boardwalks,” Nicky Fisher says to me. “With an S. We mostly based this place on the Revere Beach one, but we got stuff from Coney Island, Atlantic City, even Venice Beach out in California. And the rides, well, you can see we got coasters and Ferris wheels, but they’re a little gentler than in the old days for our older bones.” Nicky hits my arm, friendly-like, and smiles. “It’s fantastic, right? It’s like living on vacation every single day — and why the hell not? We earned it.”

He looks at me for affirmation, I guess. I try to nod through it, but I’m not sure he’s getting enough enthusiasm from me.

“Oh, and let me show you the main draw, David. Right over here. Man, I wish I could bring your old man down here and see it. I know, I know. We were enemies all our lives, Lenny and me, but come on — tell me your old man wouldn’t love this.”

He gestures to a white booth with a sign reading PIZZERIA NAPOLITANA on top. There are three men behind the counter wearing white aprons. Underneath them, another sign reads “Specializing In Italian Food” and some drink called “C.B. Coate’s Tonic.”

I look a question at him.

“It’s the old Revere Beach pizza stand that became Sal’s Pizzeria!” he exclaims. “Can you believe it? It’s an exact reproduction of what it looked like in 1940. Sit. I ordered us a couple of pies. You like pizza, right?” Nicky Fisher winks at me then, and it’s as creepy as you can imagine. “If you don’t like Sal’s pizza, I’m going to have Joey here put a bullet in your brain just to take you out of your misery.”

Nicky Fisher laughs at his own joke and slaps me on the back.

We sit under an umbrella. Two fans spit cold air at us. One of the aproned men brings each of us a personal-size pizza. We are then left alone.

“How’s your old man?” Nicky Fisher asks me.

“He’s dying.”

“Yeah, I heard that. Sorry.”

“Why am I here, Mr. Fisher?”

“Call me Nicky. Uncle Nicky.”

I don’t reply, but I’m not going to call him uncle.

“You’re here,” he continues, “because you and I need to have a little chat.”

Nicky Fisher talks like a movie gangster. I know a lot of tough guys now. None really talk like this. A hit man serving life at Briggs told me that real-life gangsters started talking like the gangsters in movies after those movies became popular, not the other way around. Life imitated art.

“I’m listening,” I say.

He leans forward and turns his eyes up at me. We are getting to it now. It is quiet. Even the piped-in music has stopped. “Your father and me, we have some bad history.”

“He was a cop,” I say. “You ran a crime syndicate.”

“A crime syndicate,” Nicky replies with a small chuckle. “Fancy words. Your father wasn’t pure either. You know that, right?”

I choose not to reply. He stares at me some more, and even in this humid hellhole, I feel a chill.

“You love your old man?” he asks me.

“Very much.”

“He was a good father?”

“The best,” I say. Then: “With all due respect, uh Nicky, why am I here?”

“Because I have sons too.” There is a small snarl in his voice now. “Do you know that?”

I do — and now I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like where we are going.

“Three of them. Or I had three. You know about my Mikey?”

Again, I do. Mikey Fisher died twenty years ago in prison.

My father had put him there.

Nicky Fisher makes sure I’m looking him in the eyes when he says, “Is it starting to make sense to you now, son?”

And oddly enough, I fear it does. “My father put your son in prison,” I say. “So you returned the favor.”

“Close,” he says.

I wait.

“Your father, like I said, he wasn’t clean. He and his partner Mackenzie arrested Mikey for killing Lucky Craver. Mikey was just supposed to hurt Lucky, but my boy, he often went too far. Did you know Lucky?”

“No.”

“They called him that because he never ever had a moment of luck in his life. Including at the end there obviously. But anyway, your old man arrests Mikey for it. You know the deal. But the problem is, your old man and Mackenzie couldn’t make the case. I mean, everyone knew Mikey did it. But you gotta prove it in a court of law, am I right?”

I stay quiet.

“Your dad had done some solid work on the case. No question. Located some key witnesses. Got Lucky’s ex to testify. But see, the cops have to follow the rules. Me? I don’t. So I sent some of my guys out to talk to the witnesses. Guys like your old pal Skunk. Suddenly, the witnesses’ memories got real hazy. You know what I’m saying?”

“I do.”

“Lucky’s ex was a little more stubborn, but we took care of that too. There was some evidence in the police locker. Angel dust. A claw-back hammer. They vanished. Poof. So you see, it became hard for your old man to make a case. Must have been real frustrating for him.”

I don’t move. I barely breathe.

“So that’s when your father and Mackenzie, they crossed the line. Suddenly they come up with new evidence. No reason to go into details on the how. They don’t matter. But the phony evidence that put my son away? Your old man and Mackenzie planted it.”

Nicky Fisher takes a bite, savors it, tilts back in his chair. “You’re not eating?”

“I’m listening.”

“Can’t do both?” He still chews. “I get it. You want to hear the rest, but I think you see it now. My Mikey goes down for the crime, but really, it wasn’t that big a deal. I had it worked out so that the conviction would be overturned by a judge friend. So I told Mikey to just lay low in the joint for a few weeks. But he couldn’t manage that. My Mikey, he was a sweet boy, but what a hothead. Thought he was a tough guy because his father was the boss. So in the yard he got into a beef with two big guys. Gang members from Dorchester. One of them held Mikey’s arms. The other stabbed Mikey in the heart with a shiv. You know about that, right?”

“Yes. I mean, I heard.”

Nicky Fisher starts to lift the pizza to his mouth, but it’s as though the memories are making it too heavy for him to do that. He lowers his gaze. His eyes glisten. When he speaks again, I can hear the sadness, the anger, the raw. “Those two big guys. You don’t want to know what I did to them. It wasn’t quick. I’ll tell you that.”

I wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, I ask, “Did you hurt my son?”

“No. I told you. I don’t do that. I didn’t even blame your father. Not right then and there. But then, you know, years pass. Then I read about how you killed your son—”

“I didn’t—”

“Shh, David, just listen. The problem with you kids today. No one listens. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”

I tell him that I do.

“So like I said, your dad wasn’t above bending the law when it suited him. Like with Mikey. We both know a lot of cops push it. They drop the dime bag on the floor of the car. They got the throw-down piece in case they need a reason to blow you away. You know the deal. So after your son — what was his name again?”

“Matthew,” I say, and I swallow.

“Right, sorry. So after Matthew was murdered, a cop found that baseball bat in your basement.”

I make a face. “The bat wasn’t found in my basement.”

“Yeah, it was.”

I am shaking my head.

“You hid it down there. In some vent or pipe or something.”

I am still shaking my head, but again I think I see where he is going with this. I think I’ve seen from the moment we sat down.

“So where was I? Oh, right. The baseball bat. So a cop found it in your basement. New guy on the force. Named Rogers, I think. Why I remember his name, I don’t know. But I do. So Rogers, he wanted to make friends with your old man. Thin blue line, all that. So he told your father about the bat. Your dad, he knows this bat cooks your goose. You’re a dead man walking if the DA finds out about that bat. Your old man can’t have that. He has to protect his boy. But he also can’t get totally rid of the bat. That would be going too far.”

Nicky Fisher grins at me. There is tomato sauce on his lower lip. “You can guess what your dad decided to do, right? Come on, David. Tell me.”

“You think he planted the bat in the woods.”

“I don’t think. I know.”

I don’t bother contradicting him.

“It was smart. See, if you were the killer, the bat would still be in the basement. Hidden. In the vent or whatever. But if someone else was the killer, he would have run away. Dumped or buried the bat somewhere nearby.”

I shake my head. “That’s not what happened,” I say.

“Sure, it is. You, David, killed your son. Then you hid the weapon, figured you’d get rid of it when you had the chance.” He leans across the table and flashes that smile again. His teeth are thin and pointy. “Fathers and sons. We are all the same. I would have done anything to keep Mikey out of prison, even though I knew he was guilty. Your father was the same.”

I shake my head again, but his words have the stench of truth in them. My father, the man I loved like no other, believed that I had killed my own son. The thought pierces my heart.

“The DA had a problem now,” Nicky Fisher continues. “It’d rained that night. There was a ton of mud and dirt in those woods. Forensics, they checked all your shoes and clothes. No dirt. No mud. So once your old man planted that bat — once it was found in the woods — it helped keep you free. That didn’t sit well with me, you know what I’m saying?”

I nod because I see it clearly now. “So you got Hilde Winslow to testify that she saw me bury the bat.”

“Bingo.”

“You set that up.”

“I did, yeah.”

“Because you wanted vengeance for Mikey?”

Nicky Fisher points at me. “You say my boy’s name again and I’ll pull out your tongue and eat it with this pizza.”

I say nothing.

“And for crying out loud, have you been listening to a word I’ve said?” he snaps, pounding the table with both fists. The two goons look over, but they make no move. “This had nothing to do with vengeance. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”

“I’m not following.”

“I did it,” he said through clenched teeth, and now there is real menace in his voice, “because you murdered your own son, you sick crazy son of a bitch.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

“Your old man knew it. I knew it. Oh, maybe you had some kind of blackout or amnesia thing going on, I don’t know. Who gives a shit? But the DA had you dead to rights. Then your father, the decorated cop who used false evidence to put my son away, fixed it so you’d get off. You ever see a statue of Lady Justice? Your old man put his finger on the scale, so what I did is, I put my finger on the other scale to balance it out. You get it now?”

I don’t even know what to say.

“Justice was served. You were doing time like you were supposed to do. There was, I don’t know, cosmic balance or some such shit. But here’s my problem: My son, my Mikey, is still dead. And here you are, David, living and breathing and enjoying a fucking pizza.”

Silence. Dead silence. It’s like the entire boardwalk is trying to stand still.

His voice is low now, but it slices through the humidity like a reaper’s scythe. “So now I have a choice. Do I put you back in prison — I figured a life sentence is as good as death — or do I kill you and have my boys here feed you to the gators?”

He starts to wipe his hands on the napkin as though this is over.

“You’re wrong,” I say.

“About?”

“What you did. It wasn’t the same as with my dad.”

“What wasn’t the same?”

And then I risk saying the name again. “Mikey did the crime. You said so yourself.”

Nicky Fisher scoffs. “Oh, and you’re going to tell me you’re innocent?”

He gestured to the goons with his right hand. They start toward us. I debate bolting. Maybe I have a chance of getting away here at the community. They won’t just shoot me, will they? But I don’t think running will work, so I try another route.

“I’m more than innocent,” I tell him. And I stare directly back into those soulless ice-blue eyes. “My son is alive.”

Then I tell him.

I tell him everything. I make my case and speak with a passion and urgency that surprises me. He sends the two goons back to their posts. I keep talking. Nicky Fisher shows me nothing. He is good at that.

When I finish, Nicky Fisher picks up a napkin again. He studies it for a moment. He takes his time with it, folding it into halves, then quarters, then placing it neatly back on the table.

“That’s some crazy story,” he says.

“It’s the truth.”

“My son is still dead, you know?”

“I can’t do anything about that.”

“No, you can’t.” He shakes his head. “You really believe it.”

I don’t know whether he is asking a question or stating a fact. Either way, I nod my head and say: “I do.”

“I don’t,” he says. His mouth starts twitching a little. “I think it’s crap.”

My heart sinks. He sits back, rubs his face, blinks. He looks off, toward the narrow waterway that pathetically doubles as an ocean. Then he says, “But some things aren’t adding up for me.”

“Like?”

“Like Philip Mackenzie,” he says.

“What about him?”

“He helped you break out of the prison. I know that part is true. So I ask myself: Why? He wouldn’t do that just to help your old man. And why now? And then that makes me wonder about more stuff.” His fingers start drumming the table. “Like once you were out, you could have gone underground, tried to make a new life for yourself, whatever. But you didn’t do that. Like a stupid lunatic, you ran straight to our phony witness. Why? And then after you see her, you’re stupid enough — check that, you’re suicidal enough — to come at my people in Revere. Skunk, of all people.”

I don’t interrupt. I let him keep going.

“So here’s my problem, David: If you’re telling the truth, then I helped put you in prison for a crime you didn’t commit. Not that I’m above that. I mean, we’ve had people take the fall before. But not — I mean, not for something like this. Bad enough to lose a child. To be put in jail for killing him? I don’t know. Right now, that doesn’t sit right with me. See, I thought I was balancing the scales. I wanted justice for myself, my Mikey — and, I don’t know, the world. You know what I’m saying?”

He hesitates, waiting for a response. I nod slowly.

“I was sure you did it. But if you didn’t, and if somehow your boy is maybe still alive...”

Nicky Fisher shakes his head. Then he stands. He looks off toward that ocean-cum-lagoon again. His eyes still glisten, and I know he’s thinking of his Mikey.

“You’re free to go,” he says to me. “My guys will fly you wherever you want.”

He doesn’t look at me when he says this. I don’t risk saying anything back.

“I’m an old man. Made a lot of mistakes. I’ll probably make a few more before I’m done. I’m not trying to make it right with the man upstairs. Too late for that. I think... this place. It’s not just about nostalgia for me. It sometimes feels more like a do-over. You know what I’m saying?”

I don’t. Not really.

“If your old man feels better, I’d like to fly him down here. As my guest. I want to sit right here and have a pizza with him. I think we’d both like that, don’t you?”

I don’t, no, but again I keep that to myself.

And then Nicky Fisher leaves me.

Chapter 29

“I took the liberty of letting the owner order for us,” Hayden said. “This place has the best tapas.”

Rachel nodded, trying not to seem too distracted. She left the phone on vibrate and willed it to sound. David had been gone for far too long. The fear that he’d been captured — or worse — hardened in her chest. She pushed it away and looked into Hayden’s green eyes. He wore the idle-rich uniform of khaki pants and blue blazer with some kind of crest on the chest. His hair had thinned and was now plastered against his skull. He was still handsome, still boyish, but there was more softness now. His jowls sagged a bit. His complexion had grown ruddier. Hayden was, she thought, transforming into one of those old family portraits they kept at the Payne Museum.

They exchanged pleasantries. Hayden commented on her new hairstyle. He claimed to like it, but that didn’t feel like the truth. She’d told him about her divorce in an email, so they didn’t have to cover that. Hayden had discovered a few years ago that he had a son via a B-movie Italian actress he dated a few years back — a boy named Theo — and was now helping to raise and support him. Hayden had spent most of the last decade overseas, purportedly watching over the family’s European interests, but mostly Rachel figured that he was skiing in St. Moritz and partying on the French Riviera.

Maybe that wasn’t fair.

When they moved on to the story that destroyed her journalism career, Hayden said, “Going after your old enemy.”

“I pushed too hard.”

“Understandable.”

“I know I should have told you...”

He waved it away. Hayden had been there, all those years ago, the night of the Halloween party at Lemhall University during their freshman year. They had, in fact, met that night by the beer keg. They flirted a bit. She knew who Hayden Payne was — everyone on campus knew the scions of wealthy families — and so it had been fun. Hayden had been charming and sweet, but for Rachel, no sparks commenced.

She dressed as Morticia Addams, and she probably drank too much. But that wasn’t the issue. She’d been roofied, she’d later learn, and somewhere, maybe two hours after she met Hayden, her night derailed like a runaway train. She felt stupid, even now, falling for not watching her drink closely after all the warnings.

There was a young humanities professor named Evan Tyler, whose mother was on the board of trustees. He was the one who slipped the drug into her drink. The rest of the night was a blur. She had vague recollections, visions that she saw through internal gauze — her clothes being torn off, his curly hair, his mouth on hers. She could feel the weight of Evan Tyler on top of her, crushing her, suffocating her. Rachel had tried to say no, tried to scream for help, tried to push him away.

That was the image that ended up seared into her brain. Evan Tyler. On top of her. Grinning with maniacal glee. The image still visited her in her sleep, of course, but it popped up when she was awake too, an awful jack-in-the-box, startling her whenever she felt relaxed and at ease. Even now. Even after all the years, that image — that maniacal grin — was always with her, walking a few steps behind her, taunting her, sometimes tapping her on the shoulder when she felt any confidence. It followed Rachel day and night for days, months, years, fueling her anger, urging her to work harder and harder, to do the story, to seek justice, to smother that awful maniacal grin, to pressure everyone and anyone, including Catherine Tullo...

But right then, on this horrible Halloween Night, when she couldn’t breathe, when it might have ended up even worse for her — or maybe, who knows, she would have passed out and forgotten it all — Evan Tyler suddenly vanished from atop her.

The weight was gone from her chest. Just like that. Poof, gone.

Someone had tackled him.

Rachel tried to sit up, but the brain impulses still couldn’t reach the muscles. She just lay there, her head lolling to the side, where she heard Hayden let out a primal scream. Then Hayden punched Tyler and then punched him again and then again. His fists just flew, spraying blood across the room. There was no tiring, no letup, and Rachel was sure that Evan Tyler would have been killed if two other guys hadn’t heard the commotion, burst into the room, and pulled a bloodied Hayden off him.

Evan Tyler was comatose for the next two weeks.

Rachel still wanted to press charges, especially after she heard that she had not been Tyler’s first victim, but the school wanted it swept under the rug. Tyler was in a coma, after all, with facial fractures that would take months to heal. Hadn’t he suffered enough? His mother was an important woman. Did Rachel really also want to drag the school through the dirt? What was the point in that?

Rachel didn’t care about any of that.

She did, however, care about Hayden.

That was the issue. The beating had gone well beyond the act of stopping a crime, and while the Payne fortune would certainly assure a soft landing, Hayden’s family wanted it kept quiet for all the obvious reasons. So that was how it went. Deals were made. Money might have exchanged hands.

Swept away for the greater good. Over. Onward.

Except for those images of Evan Tyler, who would later become president of the college, seared into her brain.

As for Rachel and Hayden, they became close friends. That, she realized, happened often when you are bonded in either tragedy or a secret — or in their case, both.

When David and Cheryl met Hayden during a visit to Lemhall University, David pulled Rachel aside and said, “That guy’s in love with you.”

“No, he’s not.”

“He may be settling for the Friend Zone,” David said. “But you know better.”

She did, but that seemed to be the origin story of ninety percent of boy-girl friendships on campus in those days. The guy likes you, wants to sleep with you, doesn’t get to, settles on being a friend, the tension goes away. Either way, she and Hayden became close confidantes — the kind of close confidantes where you could never really date after all you knew, even if you wanted to.

The waiter came over with a plate. He placed it between them. “Lobster paella,” he said.

Hayden smiled at him. “Thank you, Ken.”

It smelled wonderful.

He picked up his fork. “Wait until you taste this.”

“I didn’t call you about Lemhall or that story,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Do you know if there was a Payne Industries event on May twenty-seventh at Six Flags amusement park?”

He frowned. Hayden still wore the Lemhall University ring, a tacky thing with a purple stone and the school crest, and she never understood why. He was, in fact, fiddling with it now, turning it around his finger like it was some sort of stress reliever. Perhaps it was. Still, the ring seemed too much to her. She wanted to forget the place. She guessed that for some reason he needed to remember.

“May twenty-seventh?” he repeated. “I really don’t know. Why?”

She took out her phone, swiped, showed him a photo of a family standing in front of the backdrop with logos. Hayden took the phone from her hand and studied it.

“I guess there was,” Hayden said. He handed her back the phone. “Why do you ask?”

“It would have been, what, a corporate event?”

“Probably. We buy a bunch of tickets to a theater or a ballpark or an amusement park. It’s a perk for employees and clients. Is this for a story you’re doing?”

She pressed on. “You’d have had photographers on hand, right?”

“I assume so.”

“I mean, like this photo in front of that backdrop. A photographer you guys hired probably took pics like this?”

“Again: I assume so. What the hell is this about, Rachel?”

“Can you get me all the photos?”

Hayden’s eyes flared for a millisecond. “Pardon?”

“I need to go through them.”

“Corporate events like this,” he began, “we sometimes rent half the park. There could have been, I don’t know, five, ten thousand people at it. What are you looking for?”

“You won’t believe me if I told you.”

“Tell me anyway.” Then Hayden added, “I assume this has something to do with your brother-in-law escaping prison.”

“It does.”

“You can’t still have a crush on him, Rachel.”

“What, I never had a crush on David.”

“You talked about him nonstop.”

“You almost sound jealous, Hayden.”

He smiled. “Perhaps I was.”

This was a minefield she didn’t want to wander into. “Do you trust me?” she asked him.

“You know I do.”

“Can you get me the pics?”

He picked up the water glass, took a sip. “Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“So what else?” he asked.

She knew him well. “This favor is trickier.”

The waiter came over with a second dish. “Jamon Iberico with caviar.”

Hayden smiled at him. “Thank you, Ken.”

“Enjoy.”

“You’re going to love these,” Hayden said. He scooped some of the paella onto her plate. It smelled fantastic, but Rachel ignored it for the moment. Hayden took a bite, closed his eyes as though savoring. When he opened them again, he said, “So what’s the favor?”

“One of the logos on that backdrop,” Rachel said, “is for the Berg Reproductive Institute.”

“Makes sense,” Hayden says. “It’s one of our holdings. You know that.”

“I do.”

“So?”

“So ten years ago, I made an appointment at one.”

Hayden stopped midbite. “Pardon?”

“I called Barb.” Barb Matteson was the institute’s manager at the time. “You introduced us.”

“I remember. At the family holiday party.”

“Right.”

“I don’t understand.” Hayden put the fork down. “Why did you make an appointment?”

“I told her I wanted to look into getting pregnant via donor sperm.”

“Are you serious?”

“About making the appointment? Yes. About going through with it? No.”

“I’m not following, Rachel.”

“I made the appointment for Cheryl.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. Then: “I’m still not following.”

“She didn’t want David to know.”

“Ah.”

“Right.”

“So Cheryl made the appointment in your name so her husband wouldn’t find out?”

“Exactly.”

Hayden tilted his head. “You realize that’s probably against the law.”

“It’s not, but I know it’s an ethical breach. Anyway, Rachel checked in under my name. She used my ID. We look enough alike. The bills came to my house.”

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“I even made the appointment for Cheryl at your satellite office in Lowell — in case Barb was around at the Boston one.”

“All to protect your sister from telling her husband?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“She was going through some stuff. I thought it would be harmless.”

“Doesn’t sound harmless,” Hayden said. “Did David ever find out?”

“Yes.”

“He must have been furious with you.”

“He doesn’t know about my part in it.”

“But he knows Cheryl went to look into donor sperm.”

“Yes.”

“And you never told him your role in this — shall I use the word ‘deception’?”

“I never told him,” Rachel said softly.

The waiter came by and poured some wine. When he left, Hayden asked, “So what do you want now?”

“David doesn’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“Doesn’t think what’s a coincidence?”

“You’re going to think this is insane.”

“We’re past that, Rachel.”

“He thinks... that is, we think...” It sounded so ridiculous that for a moment, Rachel couldn’t finish the thought. Then: “We think Matthew was at the amusement park with your group.”

Hayden rapid-blinked as though he’d been smacked across the face. Then he cleared his throat and asked, “Who is Matthew?”

“My nephew,” she said. “David’s son.”

More blinking. “The one he murdered?”

“That’s the point. We don’t think he’s dead at all.”

Rachel handed Hayden the phone again, this time with the photograph of Maybe-Matthew. “The boy in the background. The one holding the hand.”

Hayden took the phone and held it in front of his face. He used his fingers to try to blow up the image. She waited. He squinted. “It’s so blurry.”

“I know.”

“You can’t really think—”

“I’m not sure.”

He frowned. “Rachel.”

“I know. It’s crazy. It’s all crazy.”

Hayden shook his head. He handed the phone back to her as though it were on fire. “I don’t know what you want me to do here.”

“Can you send me all the pics from Six Flags?”

“Why?”

“So we can scour through them.”

“And what would you be looking for?”

“Any other photos of this boy.”

He shook his head. “This blurry boy who looks like a million other boys?”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

“You’re right about that.”

“But for my sake, Hayden. Please? Will you help?”

Hayden sighed. Then he said, “Yes, of course.”

Chapter 30

Like most decent interrogators, Max employed a variety of tactics on his perps. Currently his most effective method involved disruption. He teamed up with Sarah to keep suspects off balance with a constantly evolving rotation of accusations, humor, disgust, hope, friendship, threats, alliances, skepticism. He and Sarah played good cop and bad cop and switched roles in the middle and then sometimes both were good and sometimes both were bad.

Chaos, baby. Create chaos.

They peppered suspects with a barrage of questions — and then they let them linger in long silences. Like the best of major league pitchers — and baseball being the only sport Max even mildly understood — they kept changing it up: fastballs, changeups, curveballs, sliders, you name it.

But right now, as he sat across from Warden Philip Mackenzie in the corner booth at McDermott’s pub, Max threw all of that away. Sarah was not with him. She didn’t even know he was here. She wouldn’t approve — Sarah was very by-the-book — and moreover, he was (to keep within his piss-poor metaphor) throwing a scuffed-up spitball, clearly illegal, and if someone was going to get thrown out of the game, it might as well be him and him alone.

Mackenzie had ordered an Irish whiskey called Writers’ Tears. Max was going with a club soda. He didn’t handle spirits well.

“So what can I do for you, Special Agent Bernstein?” Mackenzie asked.

Max had chosen to meet Mackenzie at the warden’s favorite watering hole because this wasn’t about intimidation or pressing an advantage. Just the opposite, in fact.

“I need your help finding David.”

“Of course,” Mackenzie said to him, sitting a little straighter. “I want that too. He was my prisoner.”

“And your godson.”

“Well, yes. All the more reason to want him back safe and sound.”

“I can’t believe nobody picked up on that before now.”

“Picked up on what?”

“On your relationship with him. But I also don’t care. Look, we both know you helped break him out.”

Mackenzie smiled, took a deep sip of his drink. “You heard my attorney. The CCTV backs up my story. Burroughs was seen holding a gun—”

“Look, this is just us talking. I’m not recording this. It isn’t a cute trap.”

Max placed his phone on the grossly sticky table in front of them.

“Oh my,” Mackenzie said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Your phone is on the table. Now there is no way you can possibly be recording this.”

“I’m not. I think you know that. But for the sake of anyone maybe listening, we are having a hypothetical discussion. That’s all.”

Mackenzie frowned. “Seriously?”

“Look, Phil, I want this to be nice. I don’t want to add threats. Okay? You know I’m going to nail you for aiding and abetting. You’ll go down. Your son will go down. You’ll both go to prison or if I really mess up, you’ll just lose your jobs and pensions. It’s going to be bad, and if I’m angry — forget me, if Sarah is angry — you’re going to be toast. She will crawl up your sphincter and make a home there.”

“Colorfully put.”

“But today I don’t care about any of that. Today I want to know why you did it. Why now. Hypothetically.”

Mackenzie took a swig. “Sounds like you have a theory, Special Agent Bernstein.”

“I do. Would you like to hear it?”

“Sure.”

“David Burroughs gets no visitors for years. Suddenly his sister-in-law shows up. I’ve checked. There were no letters exchanged before her visit, no phone calls, nothing. I’ve also seen the video of her first visit. He didn’t know she was coming. With me so far?”

“Sure.”

“She showed him a photo. I can’t make out what it is. That’s the thing. But when Burroughs sees it, everything changes. You can feel it right through the CCTV. When the visit is over, he contacts you — again, from what I can see, for the first time. Do you want to help me here and tell me what he wanted?”

“I already said—”

“Okay, you’re not going to help, fine. Let me go on then. You respond to his visit by going to see your old police partner, who happens to be Burroughs’s father. As soon as you come back, you help break Burroughs out. I’m not sure how the fight with Ross Sumner fits in. I’m also not sure about the correctional officer Ted Weston. He’s one of your men. You know him better than I do. Anyway, Weston lawyered up after we found out someone was bribing him. Did you know about that?”

“No.”

“Surprised?”

“That he took a bribe?”

“Yes.”

Mackenzie took another sip, shrugged.

“Okay, don’t answer. But here’s why it’s important. I don’t think Burroughs attacked Weston. I think it was the other way around. Weston went after him. So that’s weird to me. And one last thing: When Burroughs does escape, the first person he goes to is a key witness from his trial. An old woman who changed her name and moved away right after the trial ended. And that old woman? I talked to her. She’s lying about what Burroughs said to her during his visit. I think for some reason she’s protecting him.”

Max spread his hands. “So I add this all up, Phil, and you know what I come up with?”

“What’s that?”

“Burroughs’s sister-in-law, who used to be a very good investigative journalist, found something that could free him. She brings it to him. Shows it to him through that plexiglass. Burroughs goes to you. Tells you what Rachel Anderson has. You agree to help. Thing is, you’re too good to have rushed an escape like that, leaving so many things to chance. So my guess is, the Sumner or Weston attack — or both — forced your hand.”

“This is some story, Special Agent Bernstein.”

“Call me Max. I don’t have it exactly. I’m missing parts. But we both know I’m close. Here’s the thing. We have to bring David in. You get that. And I don’t know why this evidence couldn’t just be given to his attorney or something. I assume there is a good reason for that.”

Mackenzie still gave him nothing.

“And Sarah? She is strictly by the book. If Burroughs was set up, if he didn’t do it, I’m not like that guy in The Fugitive — remember that movie?”

Mackenzie nodded. “I even remember the TV series.”

“Before my time. But there’s the great scene when Harrison Ford tells Tommy Lee Jones — Tommy plays the federal agent trying to capture him — ‘I’m innocent,’ and do you remember what Tommy Lee Jones says?”

He nodded. “He says, ‘I don’t care.’”

“Right. That’s Sarah. She doesn’t care. We have a job to do. Bring Burroughs in. Period, the end. It’s why you and I are meeting alone in this bar. I’m vulnerable now. You could tell them what I said. But unlike Tommy Lee Jones, I do care. If Burroughs didn’t do it, I want to help him.”

The warden picked up his drink and held it up to the light. “Suppose,” he said, “I told you that you’re mostly right.”

Max felt his pulse quicken.

“But suppose,” Mackenzie continued, “I also told you that the real story is stranger than what you’ve concocted.”

“Stranger how?”

“Suppose I told you that the real reason David escaped was because a child may be in grave danger.”

Max looked confused. “You mean another child?”

“Not exactly.”

“You mind explaining?”

Philip Mackenzie smiled, but there was no joy in it. “Tell you what,” he said, draining his whiskey and sliding out of the booth. “You draw up papers giving my son full immunity, we can finish this chat.”

“What about immunity for you?”

“I don’t deserve immunity,” Mackenzie said. “At least, not yet.”

The same two goons escort me back to the plane. No handcuffs, no blindfold, no rough stuff. When we arrive at the tarmac, I speak for the first time.

“I need my phone back.”

The “Shut the Fuck Up” Guy reaches into his pocket and tosses it to me. “Charged it for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Heard you beat up a cop.”

“No.”

“In New York City. Said so on the news. He’s in the hospital.”

“I was just trying to escape.”

“Still, my man. Props to you.”

“Yeah,” the other goon says, speaking for the first time. “Props.”

“Thank you” doesn’t seem the appropriate response, so I say nothing. We board the same plane and take the same seats. I check the incoming texts, all from Rachel, of course, getting progressively more panicky.

I text back: I’m fine. Sorry. Waylaid.

The dots start dancing. Learn anything important?

To Rachel’s credit, she hadn’t wasted time asking for a full recap or even where I’d been. Still focused.

I text: Hilde Winslow won’t lead us to Matthew.

Dead end?

More or less, yeah.

I wait for the plane to take off and get high enough for the Wi-Fi to kick in. I look behind me. My escorts are both wearing headphones and watching their phones. I call Rachel.

“What’s all that noise?” Rachel asks. “I can barely hear you.”

“I’m on a plane.”

“Wait, what?”

There is no way to continue without giving her some details, so I give her the nonthreatening sketch recap of what happened since I left her in Revere.

“How about you?” I ask when I’m done. “Anything new on your end?”

Silence — and for a moment I think that the call has dropped.

“I may have a lead,” she says. “You remember my old friend Hayden Payne?”

It takes me a few moments to place the name. “The rich guy who had the big crush on you?” And then I see it: “Oh wait. His family is involved in those corporations, right?”

“Owns them. All part of the Payne group.”

I think about that. “Another can’t-be-a-coincidence.”

“What do you mean?”

But I don’t want to derail her. “What about Hayden?”

“They had a corporate event at Six Flags. That’s where that photo was taken. I asked him to get me all the photos taken that day.”

“Can we also get a list of attendees?”

“I guess I can ask, but he said it would be in the thousands.”

“It’s a place to start.”

“It might be, yeah. Also the company didn’t rent out the whole park. Matthew could have been with someone else.”

“Still worth a try.”

“I know.”

“What else?” I ask her.

“Are you flying back to Boston?”

Answering a question by asking a question. “No.”

“Then where?”

“I’m heading to New Jersey.”

“What’s there?”

“Cheryl,” I say. “I need to talk to her face to face.”

Chapter 31

“Please tell me you’re joking,” she said.

Max tried to stare her down. He wasn’t good with eye contact. Never had been. Like he said before, he felt it was overrated. Still, he persevered. Her name was Lauren Ford, and she ran the Criminal Investigations Unit for the Boston area. Right now, Lauren was the one giving off the much more fiery glare.

“I’m not good with jokes,” Max said.

“So let me make sure I got this straight.” Lauren stood behind her desk and started pacing. “You want me to authorize my lab to run another DNA test to make sure the murder victim was really Matthew Burroughs?”

“Precisely.”

“A case that’s, what, five years old?”

“More like six.”

“And where we already arrested and convicted someone.”

“That’s correct.”

“And where said perpetrator recently escaped from federal prison.”

“Again: Correct.”

“And where it’s your job, as far as I know, to apprehend him and put him where he belongs, not retry him.”

Max did not reply.

“So,” she asked, hands spread, “why do you need a DNA test on a long-deceased victim to find an escaped convict?”

“Did you run one the first time?”

Lauren sighed. “Did you hear me say ‘another DNA test’?”

“I did.”

“Does that imply we already ran one?”

“It does,” Max agreed.

“And let me explain that’s not protocol. We already had a positive ID, despite the body’s condition. People watch too much CSI. In reality, we rarely do DNA tests on murder victims. No law enforcement in the land does. We don’t do fingerprint tests either. It is only done when there is doubt about the victim’s identity. There was none here. We knew who the victim was.”

“But you still did one?”

“Yep. Because like I said before, every jury member watches too much TV. If you don’t have all the forensics and DNA, they figure you don’t know what you’re doing. So it was overkill, but we did it.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you compare the victim’s DNA to the mother’s DNA or the father’s or...?”

“Who remembers? You realize, of course, this was a high-profile case for us?”

“I realize that, yes.”

“We didn’t make any mistakes.”

“I’m not saying you did. Look, you still have the victim’s blood on file, right?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s stored in the warehouse, but yes, we have it.”

“And we have David Burroughs’s DNA in the system.”

That was a routine matter now, Max knew. Every prisoner’s DNA is automatically added into the databank when they are convicted.

“Doing another test, opening this door in any way,” Lauren Ford said, “it’s a big deal.”

“Then keep it quiet,” Max said. “This is just between you and me.”

“Do I look like a lab tech?”

“You, me, a lab tech. You can keep it down-low.”

She frowned. “Did you really just use the term ‘down-low’?”

Max waited.

“I could just tell you to get the hell out of my office,” she said.

“You could.”

“It was a righteous bust. It was done by the book. A cop’s son — a popular cop’s son — was the perp, and we still made sure no one played favorites.”

“Admirable,” Max said.

She leaned back, started gnawing on a fingernail Max-style. “I’m going to tell you something in confidence. Because any way you look at it, this was a righteous conviction.”

“I’m listening.”

“The DNA lab back then.”

“What about it?”

“They made a few mistakes.”

“What kind of mistakes?”

“The kind where you suddenly quit your job when an internal investigation starts and move overseas.”

Silence.

“Shit,” Lauren said. “Are you telling me it’s not the kid?”

“I’m telling you,” Max said, “to run the test. And while you’re at it? Run the DNA through all the missing person databases. If the dead boy wasn’t Matthew Burroughs, we have to find out who he is.”

Rachel’s car is allowed on the tarmac, one of the perks, I guess, of flying private. After we deplane, the two goons shake my hands with much gusto.

“Bygones?” the STFU guy asks me.

“Bygones,” I say.

I get in Rachel’s car. She looks at the plane and says, “The perks of criminality.”

“Yep.”

We start driving.

“You wanting to see Cheryl,” Rachel says to me. “Is this about that fertility clinic?”

“It’s not a coincidence, Rachel.”

“You keep saying that.” Her grip on the wheel tightens. “I need to clear the air about something.”

“About what?”

“It’s old news. It shouldn’t matter anymore.”

But her tone says that it matters a lot. I turn to her. Her eyes are too focused on the road in front of her.

“Go on,” I say.

“I helped Cheryl make the appointment at that fertility clinic.”

I am not sure I understand what she means. “When you say ‘helped’—”

“I met the manager of Berg Reproductive through Hayden Payne,” she said. “So I called her and made the appointment.”

“Instead of Cheryl?”

“Yes.”

“That hardly seems like a big deal,” I say. “I mean, I wish you’d told me about it—”

“I said the appointment was for me.” Rachel swallows, her eyes still on the road. “When Cheryl went, she used my ID instead of her own.”

I take in her profile. My voice is oddly calm. “Why would you do that?”

“Why do you think, David?”

But the answer is obvious. “To hide it from me.”

“Yes.”

I feel tears push their way into my eyes, but I don’t even know why. “I don’t really give a shit anymore, Rachel.”

“It isn’t what you think.”

“I think Cheryl wanted to explore getting donor sperm and for me to never know about it. I think you conspired to help her. Am I wrong?”

Rachel kept both hands on the wheel.

“You learn in prison,” I said. “Nobody’s on nobody’s side.”

“I’m on your side.”

I say nothing.

“She’s my sister. You get that, right?”

“So you went along with it?”

“I told her it was a bad idea.”

“But you still went along with it.”

Rachel carefully hits the turn signal, checks her rearview mirrors, changes lanes. Even after not seeing her for five years, I still know her so well.

“Rachel?”

She doesn’t reply.

“What are you leaving out?” I ask.

“I didn’t agree with what she was doing. I thought she should tell you.”

I wait for the proverbial shoe to drop.

“And once Cheryl didn’t go through with it, I thought...”

“Thought what?”

Rachel shook away my question. “How did you find out Cheryl went to Berg?”

“Someone at the clinic left a message on the home answering machine.”

“Think about it,” Rachel said. “Why would they do that if her patient records were all in my name?”

I stop. It takes me more time than it should. “You?”

She keeps her eyes on the road.

“You left that message?”

“It was over. She didn’t go through with it. I hadn’t liked being dragged into it, and no matter how I try to justify it, I betrayed you. That didn’t sit right with me. So one night, I had too much to drink, and I thought shit, Cheryl should tell him. For her sake. For his sake. Hell, for my sake. So we wouldn’t all be living with this awful lie hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives. You two were starting a family of your own.”

I sit there. Just when I think nothing can stun me again, there it is.

“I’ve learned the hard way,” Rachel said. “Lies like that, they stay in the room. They never leave. They rot you slowly from the inside. You and Cheryl couldn’t build a family on a secret like that. And yeah, okay, it wasn’t my secret to tell. But Cheryl made me part of the deception. That secret was poisoning our relationship now too. Yours and mine.”

“So you decided to end the secret,” I say.

Rachel nods. I turn away.

“David?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Like you said, it was a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Something else in me breaks; I need to get off this subject. “Does Cheryl know I’m coming?”

Rachel shakes her head. “You told me not to tell her.”

“So she thinks—”

“She thinks it’s only going to be me. We’re supposed to meet in her office.”

“How much longer?”

“Half an hour,” Rachel says, and we fall into silence.

Chapter 32

Rachel parks in the visitor lot at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey. We both don surgical masks. Since Covid, no one thinks twice about seeing someone with a mask, especially near a hospital. Again, it’s a pretty effective disguise.

We start toward the front entrance.

“How long has Cheryl been working here?” I ask.

“Three years. They have a good kidney transplant program.”

“But Cheryl loved working at Boston General.”

“She did,” Rachel agrees. “But staying became untenable after your conviction. The hospital called her a” — Rachel made quote marks with her fingers — “distraction.”

I stare up into the sky.

“One more thing,” Rachel says. “She goes by Dr. Cheryl Dreason now.”

Another pang. “She took Ronald’s name too?”

“It gave her more anonymity.”

“That was really clever of her,” I say.

“Seriously?”

I make a face.

“She lost everything too.”

New husband, fresh pregnancy, still doing the transplant surgery she loves — Rachel’s words don’t seem quite accurate, but it feels ungenerous to say so.

We move inside. Rachel heads to the desk and grabs us visitors passes. We take the elevator to the fourth floor and follow the signs reading RENAL AND PANCREAS TRANSPLANT. Rachel pulls down the mask and waves to the receptionist.

“Hey, Betsy.”

“Hey, Rachel. She’s waiting for you in her office.”

Rachel smiles one more time and then pulls the mask back up. I keep walking by her side, as though this is routine and I know where I’m going. My pulse starts picking up speed. My breath shallows.

I am mere yards away from Cheryl — my ex-wife, the mother of my child, the only woman I ever loved.

I feel myself start to well up. It is one thing to think or imagine this moment. But now that it’s here...

Rachel stops short. “Shit.”

Cops, I figure in the millisecond before I see that no, she isn’t talking about anyone in law enforcement. She’s talking about Ronald Dreason, Cheryl’s new husband. I know Ronald, of course. He was an administrator at Boston General who was always “looking out” for Cheryl. You know what I mean. He just wanted to be her “friend” and it was obvious to me and everyone else, including Ronald’s wife — who, to be somewhat fair, he was separated from at the time — that was bullshit. Naturally I wasn’t happy with the constant “work” texts because, again, obvious. Cheryl laughed them off.

“Okay, yeah, Ronald probably does have a little crush on me,” Cheryl would say. “But it’s harmless.”

Harmless, I scoff now, almost saying it out loud.

Ronald looks at Rachel first. He starts to smile. Cheryl and Rachel are close, so I am sure that Rachel visits here often enough. This encounter is probably, if not familiar, nothing particularly surprising or new. I lower my head and veer a little to my right. I have the mask pulled up. I slow down and turn behind me, as though I’m not with Rachel. Rachel doesn’t miss a step. She keeps walking toward Ronald, takes hold of his arm, and says a little too merrily, “Hey, Ronald.”

Ronald kisses her cheek.

The kiss is stiff, but then again, so is everything about Ronald. I stop right there, not taking that thought any further. I start walking back toward them, staying close to the wall, my face turned toward it. I don’t break stride. I don’t risk a glance in his direction.

I close my eyes and move past him.

Safe.

Rachel is trying to escort him away from us, but he stops her.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Ronald says to her. “Did you hear about David’s escape?”

I hurry-walk away. There are three unmarked doors in front of me. One is where my wife — ex-wife, sorry — will be. Time is ticking. I take hold of the knob on the first door, turn it, step inside.

And there she is.

I had interrupted Cheryl typing on some kind of tablet. She looks up. I still have the surgical mask on and my head is shaved, but that doesn’t matter. She recognizes me right away. For a second, neither one of us moves. We just stare. I am not sure what I feel or, more apropos, what I don’t feel. I feel it all and then some. Every emotion surges through my worn-out veins. It is overwhelming.

For her too.

Cheryl and I fell in love in high school. We dated, got engaged, married, and had the sweetest little boy together.

A weird thought pops into my brain: Ronald might come back. Or a nurse or colleague might come in. I turn and lock the knob. That’s it. That’s the first move I make after seeing Cheryl. I turn back to her, not sure what I will get, what sort of reaction, but Cheryl is already on her feet and running around the desk, and when she gets to me there is no pause, not the slightest hesitation, and as she throws her arms around me and pulls me toward her, I half collapse and she, I swear, holds me up.

“David,” Cheryl says softly, with a tenderness that tears my heart out of my chest and rips it into little pieces.

I hold her. She cries. I cry. I can’t. I just can’t. I have a million questions, but there is a reason I’m here, and it’s not this. With perhaps a little too much edge, I take hold of her arms and pull her off me.

There is no time for a preamble.

“Our son may still be alive,” I say.

She closes her eyes. “David.”

“Please listen to me.”

Her eyes are still squeezed shut. “No one wants that to be true more than I do.”

“You saw the pic?”

“It’s not Matthew, David.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Tears start flowing down her cheeks. She lifts both hands and takes hold of my face. For a moment, I fear I may collapse again and never get up. “Because Matthew is dead,” she says almost too softly. “We buried our little boy. You and I. We stood together and held hands and we watched them put that tiny white coffin into the ground.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t kill him, Cheryl.”

“I wish so much that was true.”

The words sting more than I would have imagined. She looks down. Pain etches its way onto her face. I don’t want to go there, not now, not ever, but I can’t help myself.

“Why did you give up on me, Cheryl?”

I hear the pathetic whine in my voice and hate myself for it.

“I didn’t,” she says. “Not ever.”

“How could you think I did it?”

“I never blamed you. Not really.”

I open my mouth to ask again why she stopped believing in me, but I make myself stop. Again: Now is not the time to go down that road. Stay focused.

“He’s alive,” I say a little more firmly, and then: “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. I need to ask you something. Then I’ll leave you be.”

The pity on her face is so cruel. “What is it, David? What do you need from me?”

“Your visit to Berg Reproductive,” I say.

The pity turns to confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“That clinic, the one you visited.”

“What about it?”

“It has something to do with what happened to Matthew.”

She takes a step back. “What... no, it doesn’t.”

“That picture Rachel showed you? It was taken at a company event. For Berg Reproductive. It’s connected.”

Cheryl shakes her head. “No.”

I say nothing.

“How can you think that?”

“Just tell me, Cheryl.”

“You know everything.”

“You didn’t tell me you pretended to be Rachel.”

“She told you that?”

No need for me to reply.

“I don’t understand.” Again, Cheryl’s eyes squeeze shut, as though she’s wishing it all away. “What does that matter now?” Her voice is more a plea than a question. The pain is growing, consuming her. I want to offer some kind of comfort, even now, even after all this, but there isn’t a chance I’m going to do that. “I should have never gone to that clinic.”

I say nothing.

“It’s all my fault,” she says.

I don’t like the timbre in her voice; it drops the room temperature ten degrees.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I went there behind your back. I’m so sorry.”

“I know. That doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

I almost wince. “Cheryl.”

“We were falling apart. Why, David?” She tilts her head the way she used to and for a second we are back in our yard with our coffees and books and the morning sun is making the yard glow a golden yellow and she’s tilting her head to ask me a question. “We weren’t the first couple to experience the strain of infertility.”

“We weren’t, no.”

“So why did we fall apart?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Maybe the cracks were always there.”

“Maybe.” I don’t want to hear any of this. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“But it was a terrible betrayal.”

I don’t say anything because I don’t think I can speak.

“And because of that” — there is a hitch in her voice now — “because of what I did to you, our son...”

Then Cheryl bursts into tears.

I have, of course, known my ex-wife a long time. I have seen her go through pretty much every emotion. I have seen her cry. But never like this. Not even when Matthew died. Cheryl was never one to let go. Not fully. Even when she made love or held our son, there was a part of her that maintained control. You felt a coolness, a detachment, which sounds like a criticism, but it is not. She just never lost complete control.

Until this very moment.

I want to do something. I want to hold her or at least offer her a shoulder. But I also feel a sudden chill blowing through my heart.

“What is it, Cheryl?”

She continues to sob.

“Cheryl?”

“I went through with it.”

Just like that. I freeze. I know what she means, but I ask it anyway: “Went through with what?”

She doesn’t answer. “You knew.”

I shake my head.

“You knew,” she said again. “The anger, the resentment, the stress.”

I still shake my head.

“You started sleepwalking again.”

“No.”

“You did, David. Because of what I did. You got angry. You started to unravel. I should have seen it. It was my fault. And then one day, I don’t know, you had too much to drink maybe. Or the strain got too much.”

I keep shaking my head. “No.”

“David, listen to me.”

“You think I killed our son?”

“No,” she says. “I think I killed him. Because of what I did to you.”

I can barely breathe.

“I was sure the procedure didn’t take, that Matthew was yours, but that didn’t matter. Going through with it. My betrayal. It changed you.”

I fight through it, try again to stay on message, swim through the emotional battering. “You tried to get pregnant with donor sperm.”

“Yes.”

“You told me you didn’t.”

“I know. I lied.”

I don’t know what to say here. “And you thought...?”

I see it now — how she thinks it all played: I found out she’d used donor sperm, and I lost my mind. I thought Matthew wasn’t mine. “The anger, the resentment, the stress.”

Plus the sleepwalking. In her mind, I didn’t do it intentionally, but somehow my hidden rage manifested itself and I had too much to drink or a bad mix of antidepressants and alcohol, or whatever past trauma rushed back into my damaged psyche, and unconsciously I rose from my sleep and grabbed a baseball bat and walked into Matthew’s room and...

So much of what happened makes sense now. Cheryl blames herself. All this time. She hasn’t only lost her son. She believes I did it — and worse, she believes that she is responsible.

“Cheryl, listen to me.”

She bursts into tears again. Her knees give way. I can’t let that happen. Whatever, I can’t let her fall like that. I hurry over, and she grabs onto my shirt and sobs. “I’m so sorry, David.”

I don’t need to hear this. I don’t want to hear this. Focus on the goal, I tell myself. “None of that matters anymore.”

“David...”

“Please,” I say. “Please look at the picture.”

“I can’t,” she says.

“Cheryl.”

“I can’t give myself that kind of hope. If I do, I’ll break.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“I want so badly to believe, David, but if I let myself go there...” She stops, shakes her head. “I’m pregnant again.”

“I know,” I say.

And that is when I hear a key jangle the lock on the door. A second later, it swings open.

It’s Ronald.

It takes him a few seconds to recognize me. When he does, his eyes go wide.

“What the hell is going on here?”

I don’t have time for this. I look back toward Cheryl.

“Go,” Cheryl says to me, wiping her eyes. “He won’t say anything.”

I hurry toward the door. For a moment I think Ronald is going to block my path. He doesn’t. He steps aside. I want to say something like “You better be good to her” or even “I’m happy for you guys” but I’m not that selfless and I’ve had enough melodrama for one afternoon.

I give him the slightest nod and am on my way.

Chapter 33

Max saw the call was from Lauren Ford’s office. He glanced around the room to make sure he was alone before he answered it. Sarah wouldn’t like it. As Lauren had pointed out, their job was to apprehend David Burroughs, not help clear him. Sarah would not approve.

“Hello?”

“I got something,” Lauren said.

“Is Burroughs the father?”

“That one I don’t know yet. Believe it or not, it took a while to get into the prisoner databank. But I did run the victim’s DNA through the missing kid database.”

“And?”

“And he doesn’t pop up.”

“It was a long shot, I guess.”

“No, Max — may I call you Max?”

“Sure.”

“No, Max, it’s not a long shot. The missing child databases are pretty complete. When a kid goes missing, the DNA is collected in some way the large majority of time. Not always. But most of the time. And that’s not all.”

“What’s not all?”

“I ran a description through every missing kid database. Not just DNA sites. All the missing kid sites. Put in the age, size, whatever. And to make sure I didn’t miss anything, I made the search federal. The entire United States. Got my best people on it. Because, well, if the victim isn’t Matthew Burroughs — Christ, it sounds crazy just to say that — but if Matthew isn’t the victim, then some other little boy was brutally murdered that night.”

“Agreed,” Max said. “And?”

“And nothing. No matches. Zero. No one even close.”

Max started twitching.

“You hear what I’m saying, Max?”

“I do.”

“There’s no one else. It has to be Matthew Burroughs who was in that bed.”

He gnawed on a fingernail. “You got anything else?”

“What do you mean, do I have anything else? Are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“Shit,” Lauren said. “You still want me to run the paternity test.”

“I do.”

“I don’t have to,” Lauren said.

“I know.”

“Shit. Fine. And then we put this to bed. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“I should have the result soon.”

Lauren hung up.

From behind him, Sarah asked, “Who was that, Max?”

“Another case,” he mumbled. “What’s up?”

“What other case?”

Max knew that she wouldn’t let this go. “It was a guy, okay?”

“A guy?”

“I met him on a dating app. It’s new. I didn’t want to say anything.”

“I’m happy for you,” Sarah said.

“Thank you.”

“I’m also not buying it. But we can deal with that later. Let’s go.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“Burroughs just left St. Barnabas Hospital in New Jersey. That’s where his ex-wife works.”

“I just wanted to have a normal day,” Hayden said. “Is that too much to ask? And you should have seen him, Pixie. Just a boy at an amusement park. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Theo so happy. It was all so wonderfully” — Hayden looked up at the ceiling as though searching for the right word before settling on — “normal.”

Normal, Gertrude thought. Nothing about this family or their lives was normal. No one wanted normal. Not really. She remembered when she brought Hayden’s father and his siblings to Disneyland a million years ago. She paid the park a ton of money, and so the park opened early for them. The Payne family spent two hours alone, the park closed to the “normal,” and then, when the park opened for real, a senior vice president took them around the grounds and moved them to the front of any line.

No one who waited two hours to go on Space Mountain wanted to be “normal” on that day.

“I wish you had told me you planned to take him.”

“You would have stopped me,” Hayden replied.

“And now you know why.”

“I was so careful. I wore a baseball cap and sunglasses. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. I kept him away from all the company photographers. And come on, Pixie, what are the odds? He was a little boy when I rescued him. Even if you were looking dead straight at him, there is no way you’d know. And it’s not as though he’s a missing boy. The world believes he’s dead.”

Gertrude flashed back to that night five years ago. Hayden hadn’t consulted with her first. He hadn’t warned her either, because he’d known she would never allow it. It was almost morning when he’d brought the little boy here to the Payne estate.

“Pixie, I have to tell you something...”

It is startling what the human mind can justify. We all live via self-justification and self-rationalization. Pixie was hardly immune. Morality is subjective. She could have done the “right” thing that night, but we only do the right thing when it doesn’t cost us. It reminded her of the old chicken-extinction question. There is an argument that if we didn’t eat chickens, they’d go extinct, ergo it would be bad for chickens to stop eating them. A vegan friend of hers had told Gertrude that this was nonsense, but that wasn’t the point. Certainly, millions of chickens get to be born and live, however briefly and brutally, because they will eventually be eaten. Is that life better than none at all? Is it better for the chicken to have a life of, say, six weeks than never exist? Who are you to decide that for the chicken? Is it better to stop eating chicken altogether and let the chickens go extinct? Are we actually doing a good thing by eating chicken? On and on, like that.

The point isn’t that one side is right or wrong. The point is, if you want to eat chicken, you’ll use this argument, even if you don’t care in the slightest about chickens or their survival as a species. Because, well, you want to eat chicken.

Apply that tenfold to the family. Family matters. Your family, that is. Rich, poor, ancient times, modern days — that’s a constant. We all know this. Those who deny it are either delusional or lying. We pay lip service to a vague greater good, but only when it serves our interest. We don’t really care about others, except when convenient. Don’t believe it? Ask yourself this: How many lives would you trade to save your child or grandchild from being killed?

One person? Five? Ten?

A million?

Be honest with that answer and perhaps you’ll understand what Gertrude did that day.

She chose Hayden. She chose her family. We all know the saying that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. That was true, of course, but in most cases, as in this one, the eggs were already broken, so the question becomes, Do you make an omelet or a mess?

“And yet,” Pixie said, spreading her arms, “here we are. It’s time for you to go, Hayden. Both of you.”

Hayden was looking off. “The red stain,” he said in a soft voice.

Gertrude closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear this again.

“There was a reason God gave him that on his face.”

“It’s a birthmark, Hayden.”

“It’s how they spotted him. There’s a reason.”

She knew that wasn’t so. It wasn’t fate or God’s will or any of that. You see a street crossing. Millions of people cross that street every year. Nothing happens. Then one day, a combination of things — ice on the road maybe, a driver texting, too much drink, whatever — and a pedestrian gets hit and killed. It’s a one-in-ten-million thing, but it isn’t a coincidence. It happens. If it doesn’t, there is no story.

That photograph was their one in ten million.

Or perhaps Hayden was right. Perhaps a higher entity wanted it to happen.

“Either way,” Gertrude said, “it’s time for you both to leave.”

“It will look suspicious,” Hayden said. “Rachel asks me for the amusement-park photos, and I suddenly end up out of the country?”

“Pixie, I have to tell you something...”

He’d sounded like such a little boy that night, but that’s what men always sounded like when they were in trouble and needed to be saved. So she saved him. She saved her family. She saved them all. Again.

And had she saved Theo?

It didn’t matter. She would keep this secret. Again.

She had also created a fresh secret, one about the boy, one that no one, not even Hayden, knew.

That didn’t matter now. None of it did. Once again, Gertrude Payne was left to save the family. And so, no matter the cost to others, she would.

Max and Sarah were entering St. Barnabas Medical Center to question Cheryl Burroughs when Max’s phone buzzed. He saw the incoming call was from Lauren.

“Give me a second,” he said to Sarah.

He moved away from her so she couldn’t hear. Sarah still eyed him. He put the phone to his ear and said, “What’s up?”

“I got the paternity result,” Lauren said.

She gave it to him. Then she said, “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Maybe nothing. Give me an hour.”

He hung up the phone and came back to Sarah.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Uh, my new guy.”

“Again? He’s kind of needy.”

“Sarah—”

“Did you two meet at summer camp? Does he live in Canada?”

“Huh?”

“Who called, Max?”

“You’ll see in a minute.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Where’s Burroughs’s ex-wife?”

“She’s in her office.”

“Let’s go.”

“Her new husband is here too,” Sarah said. “Ronald Dreason.”

Max thought about that. “Should we divide and conquer?”

“No, Max. I think we should stay together on this. I have him cooling off in another room.”

He didn’t protest. They moved down the corridor and into Cheryl Burroughs’s office. Cheryl Burroughs greeted them professionally, as if they were there as patients. She sat behind her desk. They sat in the two chairs in front of it. The office was sparse. Max looked for the diplomas on the wall and saw none.

Sarah let Max take the lead. Max dove straight in.

“What did your ex-husband say to you?”

“Nothing.”

Like with Hilde Winslow. Max shifted in the chair. “He came here to see you, no?”

“I don’t know why he came here,” she said.

“You didn’t talk?”

“He ran out before he could say much.”

Sarah and Max exchanged a look. Sarah sighed and took that one. “We have the security footage, Dr. Burroughs.”

“It’s Dreason now,” she said.

Sarah was in a mood. “Yeah, whatever. Your ex-husband, the escaped convict who murdered your son, was in this very office for eight minutes before your husband entered. Are you telling us he didn’t say anything in all that time?”

Cheryl took her time. She turned toward the office window and now Max could see the red in her eyes. She’d been crying, no question about it. “I’m not compelled to speak to you, am I?”

Sarah looked at Max. Max looked at Sarah.

“Why wouldn’t you want to speak with us?” Sarah asked.

“I have patients. I would like you to leave.”

Max figured that it was time to drop the bomb.

“Your ex-husband,” he said. “He’s not Matthew’s father, is he?”

Both women stared at him stunned.

“What are you talking about?” Cheryl asked.

Sarah’s face was asking the same question.

Cheryl said, “Of course David is Matthew’s father.”

“Are you sure?”

“What are you getting at, Agent Bernstein?”

Sarah was looking at him as though to say, I’d like to hear the answer too.

“When Matthew was murdered,” Max continued, “you already knew your current husband, Ronald Dreason. Isn’t that correct?”

“We were colleagues.”

“You weren’t sleeping together?”

Cheryl didn’t rise to the bait. In an even tone she said, “We were not.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very,” Cheryl said. “What are you getting at, Special Agent? Get to it, please.”

“I visited the district attorney’s office who handled your son’s murder case. They still have Matthew’s DNA on file.”

Something in Cheryl’s face was changing. He could see it.

“Your ex-husband’s DNA is on file too. All convicted inmates have to submit a sample. So I had them do a paternity test.”

Cheryl Dreason started to shake her head no.

“According to the test, David Burroughs, the man convicted of murdering Matthew Burroughs, is not the father of the boy found in the crib.”

Sarah’s eyes widened in surprise. “Max?”

Cheryl’s voice was barely a whisper. “Oh my God...”

Max kept his eyes on Cheryl. “Dr. Dreason?”

She just kept shaking her head. “David was Matthew’s father.”

“The DA’s results are conclusive.”

“Oh my God.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Then David is right.”

“About?”

“Matthew is still alive.”

Chapter 34

I have finally managed to access my old email account when Rachel turns into a parking lot at a PGA golf store off the Garden State Parkway. I am looking for an email from eight years ago. The search engine helps me find it. I read it just to make sure. Then I read it again.

“David?”

The PGA store parking lot is huge, much too large for the store, and I wonder what else is going to be built here. There is a car parked alone in the distant corner near the woods, a Toyota Highlander. I can see a golf course through a strip of trees. Convenient location, I guess.

“What happened with Cheryl?” Rachel asks.

“She went through with the sperm donation.”

Silence.

“Did you know?” I ask.

“No.” Her voice is soft. “David, I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

She doesn’t reply to that.

“Even if I’m not the biological father, he’s still my son,” I say.

“I know.”

“And he is mine. Not that it matters. But I know it.”

“I know it too,” Rachel says as she parks next to the Toyota Highlander.

A man in a Yankees cap gets out of the Highlander.

Rachel says to me, “Let’s go.”

She leaves the keys, and we head for the Highlander. The man in the Yankees cap says, “Drive out in the lane hugging the tree line. The CCTV doesn’t cover that area.”

We switch cars. Simple as that. Rachel’s attorney arranged it. We both realized as soon as we left the hospital that we couldn’t trust that Ronald wouldn’t make a call or that somehow our covers weren’t blown.

Rachel pulls back onto the highway. The man with the Yankees cap left us new burner phones on the car seat. We set them up so that any communications to our old burners will be forwarded to us. There is also a hammer inside one of those reusable grocery store bags. At a Burger King up the highway, I jump out with our old burners and the hammer. Once inside the bathroom, I close myself into a stall, obliterate the burners with the hammer, dump the remains in a garbage bin.

Rachel picked up food at the drive-thru. I always hated fast-food restaurants. Now a Whopper with fries feels like a religious experience. I scarf it down.

“What’s our next move?” she asks.

“Only two leads left,” I say, between bites. “The amusement park and the fertility clinic.”

“I asked Hayden to get us all the pictures from the company photographers.” We hit a red light. Rachel checks her phone. “In fact...”

“What?”

“Hayden came through.”

“He sent the photos?”

The traffic light turns green, so Rachel says, “Let me pull over and take a look.”

She veers onto the ramp for a Starbucks and parks. Rachel fiddles with the burner. “They’re in some kind of cloud we have to access. The files are too big to download.”

“Can we do that on a burner?”

“I think we’re going to need a laptop or something. I have mine, but they might be able to track it.”

“I think we need to take the chance.”

“I have a VPN. That might be enough.”

Rachel reaches into her bag and takes out a superthin laptop. She turns it on and gets to the relevant page. We don’t want to stay on too long, so we fly through the photos. They are all taken in front of that corporate banner/backdrop.

“How long should we sit here and go through this?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe you should drive? A moving target might be harder to locate.”

“I doubt it, but okay.”

I keep going through the photographs. I speed through a bunch, but this feels like a waste of time. If you’re going to an amusement park with a kidnapped boy, you don’t pose in front of the welcoming screen. Or do you? It’s been five years. He’s grown. Everyone believes he’s dead. No one is doubting it. So maybe you do. Maybe you figure enough time has passed. No one is going to spot a boy they believe is dead. And even if it is somewhat risky, what else can you do? Keep the boy locked up in a cage forever?

I skip around, but it all feels futile. I start blowing up photographs, trying to look in the deep background, because that, I figure, is where the gold lay. The files are so large that I can magnify and see pretty much every detail in every shot. At one point, I spot a little boy who might have been about the same age as Matthew, but when I zoom in, the similarities are only on the surface.

I hear a phone buzz. It is coming from Rachel’s burner. She checks the number and picks it up. She signals for me to move closer so I can listen.

“Hello?”

“Can you talk?”

“Yes, Hester.”

Hester Crimstein, I know, is Rachel’s attorney.

“You’re alone?” Hester asks. “Just say yes or no. Don’t say any names.”

She means my name, of course. In case someone is listening in.

“I’m not alone,” Rachel says. “But it’s safe to talk. What’s up?”

“So the FBI just paid me a visit,” Hester says. “Guess who is now considered a ‘person of interest’?”

Rachel looks over at me.

“You, Rachel,” Hester says. “You.”

“Yeah, I kind of guessed that.”

“They have you on video from your sister’s hospital walking with an alleged escaped convict, so your cute new hair? It isn’t a good disguise anymore. I told the FBI it’s not you on the video. I also told them it’s a photoshop. I also told them if it is you, you’re clearly under duress. I told them some other stuff too, but I don’t remember it all now.”

“Any of that help?”

“Not a bit. They’ve issued an APB on you. A photo featuring your new do will be on the news any minute now. Fame awaits.”

“Terrific,” Rachel says. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“One last word to the wise,” Hester says. “To the world at large, your brother-in-law is an escaped murderer. The worst kind. A child killer. He stole a gun from a prison warden. He assaulted a police officer who remains hospitalized. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“I think so.”

“So let me make it clear then. David Burroughs is considered armed and extremely dangerous. That’s how he’ll be treated. If he’s found by law enforcement, they won’t hesitate to shoot. You’re my client, Rachel. I don’t want any of my clients caught in a crossfire. Dead clients don’t pay their legal bills.”

Hester hangs up. I stare down at the computer screen at a picture of three men in their early thirties on a Ferris wheel. The men are all smiling. Their faces are red, and I wonder whether it’s from sun or drink.

“You should let me do this on my own,” I tell her.

Rachel says, “Shh.”

I smile. She won’t listen and I’m not going to push it hard anyway because I need her. My fingers are still fiddling with the screen, zooming in close, and then a thought comes to me.

“The picture of Matthew,” I say.

“What about it?”

“You said your friend Irene showed you a bunch of photos?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. She probably blew up ten, fifteen of them.”

“I assume after you saw Matthew, you looked through them all?”

“I did, yeah.”

“How did she take them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Film, digital, phone—”

“Oh, right. Her husband Tom is a photo buff. But I don’t know. I asked Irene about other photos, but she said that’s it.”

I turn toward her. “Can we reach Pretty-Funny Irene?”

“I tried right before I visited you, but they were in Aspen for a wedding. I think they came back last night. Why?”

“Maybe she or Tom can blow the picture up. Or other photos. Like we can do here. Get a better look. Or whoever brought Matthew there, I don’t know but it seems they kept him away from the professional photographers. The only person we know who got a shot of him is Tom.”

“So maybe we can find some other clue in his photos.”

“Right.”

Rachel mulls that over. “I can’t just call Irene.”

“Why not?”

“If I’m on the news as a person of interest and Irene sees that...”

“She may call it in,” I finish for her.

“I would say it’s likely. She’s certainly not going to welcome me with open arms.”

“She might not be here at all.”

“We can’t take that chance, David.”

She’s right. “Where do the Longleys live?” I ask.

“Stamford.”

“That’s only about an hour from here.”

“So what’s our plan, David? We just drive up and I ring her doorbell and say I want to look at the photos?”

“Sure.”

“She might call the police then too.”

“If she heard the reports, you’ll see it on her face and we can run.”

Rachel frowns. “Risky.”

“I think it’s a chance we have to take. Let’s head up that way and then we can decide.”

The orphanage in the tiny Balkan nation called the baby Milo.

Milo had been left for dead in a public bathroom. No one knew who his parents were, so he was brought to the orphanage. He looked healthy, but he cried all the time. He was in pain. A doctor diagnosed him with Melaine syndrome, a rare but fatal inherited condition caused by a faulty gene. A child rarely survives past the age of five.

Under most circumstances, a boy like Milo would be dead within weeks. Reaching the age of five and living in any kind of comfort would require a massive amount of money, and even this orphanage, one of many funded by a generous American family, wouldn’t use that much of its limited resources on a child who had no chance. One would have to use extreme measures at great cost to prolong a life that would be miserable and painful in any event.

Better, most would agree, to arrange for a peaceful, even merciful, death.

Except that wasn’t what happened.

Hayden Payne, a member of the generous American family, heard about this boy’s plight. Why a scion of the Payne fortune would hear about this particular case or take such a strong interest no one was certain. People gossiped, of course, but unbeknownst to most working there, Hayden had put in a request that if a boy matching this general size and physical description was located, he should be notified. When Hayden heard the boy was also in ill health, his interest became more acute. Why such a man would care to find a boy fitting this specific profile was a question no one at the orphanage dared to ask.

Why? Simple. Because the Paynes funded the orphanage.

Whatever their shortcomings, the facts were the facts: No Paynes, no orphanage, no saved children, no jobs.

To everyone who witnessed Hayden with the little boy, however — and that wasn’t a great number of people — Hayden Payne was a godsend. He did all he could for Milo. This was so important to Hayden. He did all in his power to make certain that the little boy’s short life would be rich with pleasure. No expense was spared. Nearly every day, Hayden took the boy on exciting adventures. Milo was a fireman for a day and got to ride on a big truck. He was a policeman on another and loved pressing the siren button as they drove. Hayden took the boy to football matches where he got to suit up with the players and watch from the field. Hayden took Milo to horse races and car races and town fairs and zoos and aquariums.

Hayden made Milo’s short life as great as it could be.

He didn’t have to, of course, but this became important to Hayden. The truth was, if Hayden hadn’t intervened, Milo would have died long ago and in pain. Thanks to Hayden — thanks to Hayden’s generosity — the boy’s limited days were happy and fun-filled. In Hayden’s mind, he should be commended for what he did. He didn’t have to do it this way. He could have been more pragmatic about it. He could have taken a healthy child that no one would miss. That would have been easier for Hayden. It would have worked far better because then Hayden could have done the deed faster and with less risk. But no, Hayden bided his time instead. He did the right thing. The moral thing. He found a life that would have been lost anyway, made it special and sparkly. All of us have a limited time here on Earth. We understand that. Milo’s time was both extended and tremendously enhanced because of Hayden Payne.

And then one day, when the time was right, when the boy was exactly the right size and weight, when the plan was laid out perfectly and, even with the medicine, little Milo was starting to suffer again, Hayden flew him on a private jet to the United States. He drove him to a home in Massachusetts. He gave the boy a small sedative, one that wouldn’t show up in the bloodstream, just enough so he wouldn’t feel anything. He took him upstairs to the other boy’s bedroom. He gave the other boy the same sedative and brought him to the car. He had already made sure the whiskey, the father’s favorite, contained a slightly stronger sedative.

Then Hayden put Milo in the other boy’s Marvel-themed pajamas.

Milo was asleep in bed when Hayden raised the baseball bat above his head. He closed his eyes and thought about Professor Tyler and that bully in eighth grade and that girl who wouldn’t stop screaming, all the times he had lashed out before, always with good reason. He channeled that rage and opened his eyes.

Hayden hoped and believed that the first blow killed Milo.

Then he raised the bat again. And again. And again. And again.

When he arrived with the boy at the Payne estate, when he finally could feel safe, that, oddly enough, was when Hayden Payne started to panic.

“Pixie, I have to tell you something...”

What had he done? After all the planning, all the years waiting to make this wrong finally right, why was he suddenly consumed with doubt? Suppose, he voiced to his grandmother, he had made a terrible mistake. Suppose the boy wasn’t really his. Could he somehow go back in time and make it all okay?

Was it too late?

But as always, Pixie had been the prudent, calm, rational one. She sent Stephano to make sure Hayden had made no mistakes, left no clues that could lead them to Payne. Then just to quiet any doubts, she had Hayden do a paternity test. It took a full day for the results to come back — a day that felt like an eternity to Hayden — but in the end, Pixie proudly announced that the test confirmed that Hayden had done the right thing.

Theo — once known as Matthew — was his son.

Pixie’s voice knocked him back to the present. “Hayden?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, Pixie.”

“You sent her the photographs,” Gertrude said.

“From two of the four photographers,” Hayden said. “They were nowhere near where we were. I also looked through them myself.”

“Either way, I think you and Theo should go now.”

“We’ll leave in the morning,” Hayden said.

Chapter 35

We pull up to Irene and Tom Longley’s three-bedroom ranch on Barclay Drive in North Stamford. I looked up the house on Zillow while we drove. It sits on a one-acre corner lot and is valued at $826,000. There are two and a half bathrooms and an in-ground pool in the back.

I lay in the backseat, a blanket over me so I stay out of sight. Barclay Drive is a cookie-cutter suburban street. A man sitting alone in a car will draw attention.

“You okay?” Rachel asks.

“Peachy.”

Rachel has her burner. She calls mine. I answer. We do a quick test where she speaks and I listen. Now I’ll be able to hear her conversation with Irene or Tom or whoever answers the door, if indeed someone is home. Primitive but hopefully effective.

“I left the keys in the car,” she says. “If something goes wrong, just take off.”

“Got it. I have the gun too. If you’re caught, just tell the cops I forced you.”

She frowns at me. “Yeah no.”

I burrow back down and wait. We don’t have headphones of any kind, so I press the phone against my ear. It feels weird hiding in the backseat of a car, but that’s the least of my issues.

Through the phone, I hear Rachel’s footsteps and then the faint echo of the doorbell.

A few seconds pass. Then I hear Rachel say softly, “Someone’s coming.”

The door opens and I hear a woman’s voice say, “Rachel?”

“Hey, Irene.”

“What are you doing here?”

I don’t like that tone. No doubt in my mind: She knows about the APB. I wonder how Rachel is going to play it.

“Do you know those pictures you showed me from the amusement park?”

Irene is confused: “What?”

“Were they digital?”

“Yes. Wait, that’s why you’re here?”

“I took a photo of one with my camera.”

“I saw that.”

“I’m wondering whether I could see the others again. Or the files.”

Silence. It’s not a silence I like.

“Listen,” Irene says, “can you just wait here and give me a second?”

I know what I’m about to do is stupid, but I’m working off instinct again. Instinct is overrated. Going with your gut is the lazy man’s way. It’s an excuse to not think or consider or do the heavy lifting needed in good decision-making.

But I have no time for that.

When I roll out of the car, the gun is already in my hand.

I sprint toward the front door. Even from this distance I can see Irene’s eyes go wide in surprise. She freezes. That’s good for me. My worry is that she will step back into the house and close the door. But I have the gun raised.

Rachel says, “David?” but she doesn’t have time for the “what the hell are you doing?” before I reach Irene and say in a half yell/half whisper, “Don’t move.”

“Oh my God, please don’t hurt me!”

Rachel shoots me a look. I shoot her one back saying I had no choice.

“Look, Irene,” I say. “I just don’t want you to call the police. I won’t hurt you.”

But her hands are up and her eyes are growing wider.

“We just need to see the photos,” I say to her. I lower the gun and take out the photograph in my pocket. “Do you see that boy? The one in the background.”

She is too terrified to take her eyes off me.

“Look,” I say a little too loudly. “Please?”

Rachel says, “Let’s move this inside, okay?”

We do. Irene only has eyes for the gun. I feel bad about this. No matter how this turns out, she will never be the same. She will know fear. She will lose sleep. She lost something today, and I took it from her the moment I took out the gun. That’s what any kind of threat or violence does to a person. It stays with them. For good.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, but I’m babbling now. “I’ve spent the last five years in jail for killing my son. I didn’t do it. That’s him in the picture. That’s why I escaped. That’s why Rachel and I are here. We are trying to find my boy. Please help us.”

She doesn’t believe me. Or maybe she doesn’t care. Instinct is working here for her too. The most primal instinct — survival.

“He’s telling the truth,” Rachel adds.

Again I don’t think it matters.

“What do you want from me?” Irene asks in a panicked voice.

“Just the pictures,” I say. “That’s all.”

Three minutes later, we are in Irene’s kitchen. There are dozens of photos stuck to the refrigerator of Irene and Tom and the two boys. She sits at the kitchen block and with a shaking hand, she opens her laptop. I notice the way she keeps glancing at the refrigerator. I don’t know if she’s finding strength in her family or reminding me that she has one.

“It’s going to be fine,” I tell Irene. “I promise.”

That doesn’t seem like much of a comfort to her. I feel the pang again, not for myself, but for what I’m doing to her. She’s an innocent in all this. I try to find some consolation in the fact that when I’m vindicated, whatever hint of PTSD that I’m leaving her with today may vanish.

“What do you want me to do?” Irene asks.

Rachel tries to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Irene shrugs it off.

“Just bring up the photographs from that day, please,” I say.

Irene mistypes, probably due to nerves. I have tucked the gun away so that she can’t see it anymore, but it remains the proverbial elephant in the room. Eventually she clicks on a folder and a bunch of thumbnails start crisscrossing the screen.

She stands up from the stool and gestures for one of us to take over. Rachel sits and clicks on the first photograph. It’s of one of the boys grinning and pointing at a huge green roller coaster behind him.

“Can I go now?” Irene asks. Her voice is shaky.

“I’m sorry,” I say as gently as I can. “You’ll call the police.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Just stay with us another minute, okay?”

What choice does she have? I’m the guy with the gun. We start clicking through the photographs. There are more shots involving roller coasters mixed in with shots of costumed characters and some kind of water-dolphin show, that kind of thing. We scour through the background of every photograph.

Eventually we land on the photograph that launched all this. I point to it and ask Irene, “The boy in the background. Do you remember him at all?”

She looks at me as though my face will hold the correct answer.

“I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“He has a port-stain birthmark on his face. Does that help?”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t... he’s just in the background. I don’t remember him. I’m sorry.”

Rachel zooms in and right away I feel my heart race. The online quality of the photograph is excellent, especially against the version I saw in that visitors’ room, where Rachel snapped a photo of the photo and then had it printed out. I don’t know how many pixels this file has, but as she gets closer to the boy’s face, pressing the plus key to slowly zoom in, I feel my entire body well up. I risk a quick glance at Rachel. She is seeing it too. The blur is gone. Soon the boy’s face takes up the entire screen.

We look at each other. No doubt about it anymore.

It’s Matthew.

Or again, is that just a projection on our part? Want becoming reality. I don’t know. I don’t care. But as I start to wonder whether this is a dead end, Rachel starts to hit the right arrow key. The image slowly moves off the boy’s face.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

Rachel doesn’t respond. She hits the right arrow key some more. We are traveling up Matthew’s little arm toward his hand. And when we do, when we reach his hand, I hear Rachel gasp out loud.

“Rachel.”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

She points to the man’s hand gripping my son’s. “That ring,” she says.

I can see the purple stone and school crest. I squint and try to get a better look. “Looks like a graduation ring.”

“It is,” she says. Then she turns to me. “It’s from Lemhall University.”

Chapter 36

“Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on, Max?”

Sarah was driving. Max was in the passenger seat. Her eyes were on the road, but it felt like her gaze was boring through his skin.

“I’m not sure Burroughs did it.”

“Did what?”

“Killed his kid.”

“You’re a defense attorney now?”

“No,” Max said. “I’m a law enforcement officer.”

“Who is assigned to capture an escaped convict,” Sarah said. “If he didn’t do it, there are courts and laws and an entire legal system that can remedy that. It’s not your job. It’s not my job. Our job is to bring him in.”

“Our job is about justice.”

“He broke out of prison.”

“That’s up for debate.”

“What?”

“He had help. We both know that.”

“You’re talking about the warden.”

“Yes. I spoke to him.”

Max filled her in. Sarah’s face reddened.

“My God,” Sarah said. “We need to arrest Mackenzie.”

“Sarah—”

“Are you listening to yourself, Max? You’re being played.”

“The DNA test—”

“—shows he’s not the father. Big whoop. If anything, this hurts his case.”

“How so?” Max asked.

“The wife. The one we just visited. She’s not telling us everything. You can see that, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s pretty simple, Max. She had an affair. Or a boyfriend. Heck, probably with her current husband. Maybe Matthew is his son, that Dreason guy’s, and David Burroughs found that out.”

“So Burroughs killed the little boy?”

“Sure, why not? You think he’s the first cuckold to kill an offspring? But either way — and I need you to listen to this, Max — we have a legal system to remedy these things. A perfect system? No. In your free time, you can go through all the prisons and find innocent people who have been incarcerated and help free them. Do it. I’ll admire it. But don’t break them out of prison, Max. Don’t give them guns. Don’t let them destroy whatever is left of our tattered, flawed system. We need to capture Burroughs. That’s it. He’s an armed and dangerous felon. We need to treat him like one. You got that?”

“I want to know if he did it or not.”

“Then I’m calling this in,” Sarah said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m getting you removed from this case, Max. You don’t belong on it.”

“You’d do that to me?”

“I love you,” Sarah said. “I also love our oaths and our legal system. You’re not seeing straight.”

Her phone buzzed. She answered it. “Jablonski.”

“Burroughs just broke into a home in Connecticut. He held a woman hostage at gunpoint.”

What else could I do?

I couldn’t shoot Irene Longley. I couldn’t tie her up. That all looks good on television, but the practicality of it made no sense. I guess if we had more time, we could have taken her phone and locked her in a closet, but she was trying to get us out of the house fast because her boys would be home and so they’d find her and again did I want to leave this poor woman with any more mental scars, not to mention what finding their mother locked in a closet would do to two young boys?

So we begged her not to call the police. We explained as best we could that we were trying to rescue my son. She nodded, but as I’ve now mentioned several times, she was only doing this to placate me. She wasn’t listening. And so we drove fast and hoped for the best.

What else could we do?

The police would find us. It was only a question of time. We debated changing license plates with a car in a lot again or trying to get Hester Crimstein to send us another vehicle or even just taking an Uber. We concluded that any of that would just slow us down.

In the end, the drive from Irene’s house to the Payne estate would be a little over two hours. The police had no idea where we were going. It was best, Rachel and I decided, to go for it.

We were now at the end game. There was no reason to run anymore.

Rachel has given me the wheel now. I am driving over the speed limit but not fast enough for us to get stopped. It is odd to be driving a car after five years. It isn’t like I forgot or anything. The old line about never forgetting how to ride a bike applies to cars too, I guess. But the experience, after spending the last five years in a cage, is strangely invigorating. I am focused solely on finding my son, on rescuing him, on learning the truth about what happened on that horrible night. That was the only reason I wanted to escape. I didn’t care about freedom for myself. But now that I’m out, now that I am tasting what life used to be like, I can’t help but want to be free. I am not saying it was something I took for granted. It just didn’t matter with Matthew gone.

“I don’t understand this,” Rachel says to me. “Why would Matthew be with Hayden Payne?”

I have some theories, but I don’t want to voice them yet.

“Should I call him?” she asks.

“Hayden?”

“Yes.”

“And say what?”

She considers this. “I don’t know.”

“We have to drive up there.”

“And then what, David? They have a gate. They have security.”

“I’ll hide in the back again.”

“Seriously?”

“We can’t tip him off, Rachel.”

“I get that, but I also can’t just show up out of the blue. We don’t even know if Hayden is home.”

In a sense, it doesn’t matter. There is only one direction for us now. The Payne estate in Newport on Easton Bay. If Hayden Payne isn’t there, we park somewhere nearby and hide and wait.

He has my son.

“Maybe we should call the police,” Rachel says.

“And tell them what?”

“That Matthew is alive and we believe Hayden Payne has him.”

“And what do you think the police will do with that information? Issue a warrant on one of the country’s wealthiest families off... off what? That photograph?”

She doesn’t reply.

“And if that boy becomes a threat to the Payne dynasty, do you think they’ll produce him — or do you think they’ll get rid of the evidence?”

I drive, spending too much time looking in my rearview mirror, convinced that any moment I’ll see the flashing lights of a squad car. We are making good time.

“Look at my phone,” I tell Rachel.

“What?”

“I took a screenshot of an old email. Look at it.”

She does. When she puts the phone back down, she asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No time now. We need to focus on this first.”

Rachel and I come up with a plan of sorts as we hit RI-102 South. She picks up her mobile and calls Hayden.

I can hear the phone ringing. My heart is in my throat.

“Rachel?”

His voice. Hayden Payne’s. I hear it and I know. He has my son. He took him from me. I think I even get why now, but none of that matters.

Rachel clears her throat. “Hey, Hayden.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Did you get the photographs I sent you?”

“I did, thank you. That’s why I’m calling. Can I come see you?”

“When?”

“Like, in ten minutes.”

“I’m at the Payne estate.”

“Yeah, I’m just driving into Newport. Can I come by?”

There is a long pause. Rachel looks over to me. I try to keep my breathing even. Another second passes. Rachel can’t take it.

“I want to talk to you about a few of the photos.”

“Do you think you see this mystery boy in any of them?” he asks.

“No, I think you were right about that, Hayden.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t think Matthew is in any of the pictures. I think my nephew died five years ago. But I think someone is trying to set David up.”

“Set him up how?”

“I need your help in identifying some of the people in the photos.”

“Rachel, thousands of our employees were at the event. I’ve been overseas. I don’t really know—”

“But you can still help, right? I just need to show you the people I mean and maybe you can ask around? I’m almost at your gate. Can you just help me with this?”

“Is David with you?”

“What? No.”

“The police think you’re involved in his escape. It’s on the news.”

“He’s not with me,” she says.

“Do you know where he is?”

And now Rachel sees her opening. “Not on the phone, Hayden. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She hangs up. We find a quiet spot to pull over and move fast. I open the back hatch door and squeeze in. There is a black plastic top to hide whatever you might store in there. I fold myself down and drop it on top of myself. I’m hidden. We call each other so I can hear all. Rachel takes the wheel.

I lay in darkness. Five minutes later, Rachel says, “I’m pulling up to the guardhouse.”

I hear muffled conversation and then I hear Rachel say her name. I don’t know what’s going on, of course. I’m in a dark hatch. I try to stay perfectly still.

Rachel says in a faux cheery voice, “Thank you!” and we start moving again.

“David, can you hear me?”

I take the phone off mute. “I’m here.”

“In about fifteen seconds I’m going to pull around the curve I told you about. You ready?”

“Yes.”

We had discussed this. The road up to the estate is lined with emerald evergreens. There is something of a blind curve, Rachel told me, where I can hop out and duck behind the trees and perhaps — perhaps — not be seen.

“Now,” she says.

The car stops. I ease out of the back, hit the ground, shut the back hatch. It takes me no more than three seconds. I keep low and roll behind an evergreen. She continues to drive. I move to the other side of the shrub. When I stand up, the view laid out before me is beyond awe-inspiring. The Payne estate is built on a cliff. In the distance, over an expanse of green, I can see the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The lawn has gardens that must be manicured by the gods. There are shrubs shaped as animals, as people, as skyscrapers even. The fountain in the middle is a large-scale sculpture, modern, a giant head seemingly made of mirrors with water spouting from the mouth. It reminded me of the Metalmorphosis by David Cerny down in North Carolina. The mansion is up to the right. You’d expect an old opulent masterpiece, but the Paynes had gone with something white and cubist. Still, despite the modernity, I can see climbing vines and ivy along the side. To the left is what appears to be a golf course. I can only see two holes, but this is private grounds along the prime real estate of Easton Bay, so how many holes would make sense? There are two waterfalls and what looks like an infinity pool blended into the ocean.

There is no one outside. It is silent other than distant echoes of the crashing waves.

So what now?

Our plan, which we admit is piss-poor, is for me to skulk around the property and see whether I can spot... anything really. Ideally, Matthew. I know, I know, but what other plan is there? Rachel is going to talk to Hayden. Confront him even. And if none of that worked, if we couldn’t find Matthew or any clues...

I still have the gun.

I feel oddly safe. I assume, of course, that Pretty-Funny Irene has called the police. At some point, they will find traffic cameras or whatever and may be able to trace us into Newport, but we still have time. Or at least I think that we do.

I make my way up the drive, sticking close to the evergreens. When I’m close enough to see the front door, I duck down and watch. Rachel heads for the door. I’m probably fifty or sixty yards away. The estate, no surprise, is massive.

When Rachel approaches the front door, it opens.

Hayden Payne steps out.

Chapter 37

Gertrude Payne finished her laps in the indoor pool. She had been doing forty-five minutes of pool laps every day for the past thirty years. She mostly stayed here in Newport, but her mansion in Palm Beach and the ranch in Jackson Hole also had both indoor and outdoor pools. They were important to her. The exercise was great, of course. She swam slower than she used to, which was hardly a surprise at her age. When she was young, she had wanted to be a competitive swimmer, but she’d been maddeningly caught up in a time when her father still believed “girls’ sports” were a waste of time. Still, she loved the water, the quiet of it, the utter stillness in your head where the dominant sound was the steady rhythm of your own breathing.

One of her great-grandsons called it “Pixie’s little mental health break.”

He wasn’t wrong.

As she slipped out of the water, Stephano was holding a towel for her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Rachel Anderson has just arrived.”

He filled her in on Hayden’s call with his old college chum. They’d been monitoring Hayden’s calls since Burroughs had broken out of prison. Hayden could be irrational and childlike. He worked off emotion and could vacillate with the best of them.

When he finished, Pixie said, “What should we do?”

“This is spinning out of control,” Stephano said.

“You don’t buy that she wants his help identifying someone in the photograph?”

Stephano frowned. “Do you?”

“No. Do you have a plan?”

“According to the news reports, Rachel Anderson is aiding and abetting a convicted child killer with his escape from a federal penitentiary,” Stephano began in his customary matter-of-fact way. He never raised or lowered his voice. He was always calm, always in control, never flustered or ruffled, no matter how dire the situation. “I will put this coldly. We should grab her when she is here. We find out where David Burroughs is hiding. She has to know. We find him. We make them both vanish. For good. I get one of my people to drive her car out so if the police find out she was here, we have evidence she drove out. If asked, we say she asked to see some photographs.”

“So they just... vanish?” Gertrude said.

“Yes.”

“The police will think, what, that they escaped?”

“Probably. They will continue their search, of course.”

“But they will never find them.”

“Never,” Stephano said.

“Suppose they told someone already.”

Stephano smiled. “No one would believe it. And even if they did, between your attorneys and my work, we would shut it down hard.”

Gertrude thought about it. In a way, this was not unique. The best way to get rid of any problem is to get rid of the problem.

“There really is no other way, is there?”

Stephano did not reply. There was no need.

“So when does Rachel arrive?”

“She’s just pulled in,” Stephano said. “I’m just waiting for your approval.”

“You have it.”

Hayden stepped outside and hugged Rachel. She let him, doing her best not to squirm away or even cringe. But now she knew. There was no question about it. She could feel it in him now — the lies, the deception, the evil. He had hinted at it to her so often over the years. His propensity for violence. The times his family had covered it up. She had accepted it, embraced it even, because it had benefited her. He had saved her that night. She knew that. And so her vision of him became skewed. Part of her knew that. Part of her could feel something wrong in him, but she’d allowed herself to be deceived. He had helped her. He was also rich and powerful and in truth, being around that was fun and exciting.

“It’s good to have you here again,” Hayden said, still holding her against him. “It’s been too long since you’ve been to Payne.”

When he backed away and looked at her face, she tried to smile through it.

“What’s wrong?” Hayden asked.

“Can we just take a walk through the gardens?”

“Of course. I thought you had photographs you wanted to show me.”

“I’ll show you in a bit. I want to talk first, if that’s okay.”

Hayden nodded. “That would be nice.”

They walked in silence toward the side yard. Up ahead, Rachel could see the mirrored-head fountain and hear the ocean in the background.

“Beautiful, isn’t he?” he said.

“Yes.”

“You are seeing it the same as I am, aren’t you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Hayden.”

“We both see this beauty. We both experience the same thing. We have employees here. We have people who work inside the house and outside the house. They have eyes, just like mine, and see the same view I do. We experience it the same. There’s no special platform here just for the rich. So why are they so envious? We see the same thing. We can experience the same pleasure.”

Hayden liked to do this, she knew — justify his wealth in various ways. This was not a rabbit hole she wanted to go down right now. She scanned down the row of hedges looking for David, but he was either well hidden or not there.

“Hayden?”

“Yes?”

“I know.”

“Know what?”

“You have Matthew.”

“Pardon?”

“Can we just skip the denials? I know, okay? You made up the Italian actress. You moved overseas so no one would see the boy. Your family is uber rich, but you’re not gossip fodder, so it isn’t as though paparazzi are dying to take pictures of this son you’re supposedly raising.”

Hayden walked with his hands behind his back. He looked up at the sky and squinted.

“I was able to get the digital file of that photograph and blow it up,” she continued. “The boy in the picture is holding a man’s hand. The hand is yours, Hayden.”

“And you can tell that how?”

“Your ring.”

“Do you think I’m the only one with a graduation ring?”

“Were you at the amusement park? Yes or no?”

“And if I say no?”

“I won’t believe you,” Rachel said. “Whose body was in Matthew’s bed?”

“You sound crazy, Rachel.”

“I wish I was. I really do. David came up with a theory.”

“David Burroughs,” Hayden said, forcing up a chuckle. “The escaped convict you’re abetting.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’m dying to hear it.”

“He thinks you were in love with me.”

“Does he now?”

“I saw it somewhat. I mean, that you had a crush on me in college. I figured it was because we bonded over something so awful.”

“By ‘so awful,’” Hayden said, with just a hint of steel in his voice, “do you mean when I saved you from being raped?”

“Yes, Hayden, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“You should be grateful.”

“I was. I am. But we handled it wrong. We should have reported it. Let the chips fall where they may.”

“I would have ended up expelled or worse.”

“Then maybe that’s what should be.”

“For saving you?”

“Yeah, well, if that’s the case, then the powers that be would have understood. But we will never know. Instead, we kept it a secret. And that’s what always happens with the Paynes, isn’t it, Hayden? Your family uses its resources to bury what they don’t want to see.”

“Oh yes,” Hayden said. “The rich are bad. What an intriguing insight.”

“It isn’t a question of good or bad. There is no accountability.”

“Do you believe in God, Rachel?”

“What difference does that make?”

“I do. I believe in God. And look what He gave me.” He spread his arms and circled. “Look, Rachel. Look at what God gave the Payne family. Do you think that was just happenstance?”

“Actually, I do.”

“Nonsense. Do you know why the rich feel special? Because they are. You either believe in a just God that rewarded us — or you believe the world is chaos and random luck. Which do you believe?”

“Chaos and random luck,” Rachel said. “Where’s Matthew, Hayden?”

“No, no, I want to hear David’s theory. You were saying that he felt I was in love with you. So go on from there.”

“You were, weren’t you?”

He stopped, turned toward her, spread his arms. “Who’s to say I’m not right now?”

“And when I asked Barb Matteson to make an appointment for Cheryl at the fertility clinic, she told you, didn’t she?”

“And if she did?”

“You would have been upset. You wanted me for yourself. Now suddenly I’m going to have a baby with donor sperm. That made no sense to you, did it?”

Hayden grinned. “Do you have your phone on you?”

“I do.”

“Let me have it.”

“Why?”

“I want to make sure you’re not recording this.”

She hesitated. He was still grinning like a crazy man. She glanced around again, trying with as much subtlety as she could to see David. No sign of him.

“Give me your phone, Rachel.”

His voice had an edge now. No choice. She reached into her pocket, hoping to find the red hang-up button so she could disconnect the call before he saw it, but he grabbed her hand to stop her.

“Ow! What the hell, Hayden?”

He reached into her pocket, took the phone from it, looked at the screen.

“What kind of phone is this?”

“It’s a burner.”

He stared down at it. “I want to hear the rest of your theory, Rachel.”

“How did you feel when you heard I was getting donor sperm?” she asked.

“The same way I felt whenever you got some contemptuous, pathetic new boyfriend. What a waste.”

“It should have been you,” Rachel said.

“It should have been me. I rescued you, Rachel. You should have been mine.”

“Your family owned the fertility clinic.”

“Go on.”

“So it would have been easy to set up. Did you threaten someone or pay them off?”

“I rarely see a need to threaten. Money and NDAs are usually enough.”

“You made sure that they used your sperm for the donation.”

Hayden closed his eyes and smiled and lifted his face toward the sky.

“It’s only you and I here, Hayden. Might as well come clean.”

“I wish you hadn’t done this.”

“Done what?”

He shook his head, the smile gone now.

“What did you think would happen, Hayden?”

“I thought that you’d have my son. That I’d tell you about it later.”

“And that would make me fall in love with you?”

“Perhaps. Either way, we would be a family, wouldn’t we? At worst, you’d push me away and raise my child. But chances are, you’d let me in your life. You’re not immune to my family’s influence. Remember that spring break when we took the family plane to that mansion in Antigua? Your face, Rachel. You loved it. You loved the parties. You loved the power. It’s part of why we became close. So yes, my plan was to impregnate you. Why would you want some anonymous donor sperm when you can have mine?”

“Someone special in the eyes of God,” she added.

“Exactly. Great genes. Someone who cares about you. It made perfect sense.”

“Except, of course, I never went to the clinic.”

“Yes. Your charade fooled everyone at Berg. It’s ironic when you think about it. Here you are, talking about how destructive my family was with burying secrets—”

“—when my sister and I were doing the exact same thing.”

“Yes, Rachel.”

“When did you figure out it was Cheryl and not me?”

“When you never got pregnant — and Cheryl did. So I went to the Berg clinic you supposedly visited. I showed the doctor your photograph. She didn’t recognize you. Then I showed her Cheryl’s photo...”

He shrugged.

“And then?”

“Then I waited. I planned. I watched. David was falling apart anyway. You know that, don’t you? The marriage wasn’t going to last. What Cheryl did. That lie ate him up. I think he always knew the boy wasn’t his. So I kept an eye on them. I remained patient.”

“You killed another child.”

“No, Rachel.”

“Someone was murdered that night.”

“That was part of the delay. I waited. I gave that child a spectacular life.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It’s not important.”

“It is to me.”

“No, Rachel, all that concerns you is the little boy whom I rescued that night. My son.”

“You set David up for the murder.”

“Not really. When that old woman testified at the trial about seeing him with the baseball bat, I confess that I was shocked. Do you know what I thought?”

“Tell me.”

“That he started to believe he had done it, so he buried the bat himself. Later I learned there was some grudge against his father. But no, I didn’t intend to send David to prison for life. None of this was his fault. He had done his best in raising my son. I didn’t want to hurt him more than necessary.”

“Why such extreme measures?”

“What else could I do, Rachel? I couldn’t admit I had made my clinic use my sample.” He held up his hand. “And before you get all high and mighty, let’s remember who started all this. You and your sister. Your lies.”

There was, Rachel knew, some truth to that. “So who knows?”

“Pixie, of course. Stephano. That’s about it. I brought my son here when I made the switch. I confess I was in a panic. I worried I had made a terrible mistake. Pixie ran a paternity test. It came back that the boy was mine. We stayed at the Payne estate for almost six months. I never left the property. The boy was upset at first. He cried a lot. He didn’t sleep. He missed his mother and... and David. But kids adapt. We named him Theo. We came up with the cover story about the Italian actress. Eventually I took him overseas. I put him in the most exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. And I waited for that damn birthmark to fade away. The doctor said it would. But it didn’t. It stayed there, stubbornly. And yes, no one was looking for Matthew. He was dead, not missing. But the resemblance between him now and the boy taken...”

“Hayden?”

“What?”

“We can still make this work.”

“How?”

“Give Matthew back.”

“Just like that?”

“No one has to know where he was or who had him.”

“Oh, come on. Of course they will. And you can’t prove any of this, Rachel. You know that. You’ll never get your hands on the boy, and if you do, do you really think you’ll be able to compel a Payne to take a DNA test? Besides, the DNA test will show what? That I’m the father and Cheryl is the mother. I’ll say Cheryl and I had an affair.”

It was then that David stepped out from behind the shrub. The two men just stared at one another.

Then David said, “Where’s my son?”

Chapter 38

“Where’s my son?” I say.

I stare at this man who destroyed my life. My whole body is quaking.

Rachel says, “David.”

“Call the police, Rachel.”

“She can’t,” Hayden says. “I have her phone. It wouldn’t matter anyway. The police wouldn’t be allowed on this property without a warrant.” He steps toward me. “But David, I think we can make this work.”

I glance at Rachel, then back at him. “Where is Matthew?”

“There is no Matthew. You killed him. If you mean Theo—”

I don’t need to hear this. I start toward the house. I’ll tear it apart if I have to. I don’t care anymore. I’m going to see my son again.

They both follow me. “Don’t you want to hear my proposal?” Hayden asks.

I make a fist. He’s too far away for me to hit him with it. “No.”

“He’s not your son. I’m sure you know that by now. But you were wronged. I always felt bad about that — about you taking the fall, about you ending up in prison. So let me help. Listen to me, David. The Paynes have means. We can get you out of the country, set you up with a new identity—”

“You’re a lunatic.”

“No, listen to me.”

And that’s it. We are about twenty yards from the front door now. I turn and rush him and grab him by the throat with one hand.

I hear Rachel again say, “David.”

But I don’t care. I am about to throw Hayden Payne to the ground when I hear another voice, a man’s, calmly say, “Okay, that’s enough.”

The man is heavyset with dark hair. He wears a black suit.

He also has a gun in his hand.

“Let him go, David,” the man says.

The man speaks casually, softly even, but there is something in the tone that makes you pull up and listen closely. His eyes are cold and dead in a way I’ve seen too often in prison.

And right there and then, I have an epiphany.

I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it’s close enough. It all happens in less than a second. I know men like him. I know the situation. I know that he is armed and on a private residence. I know that he is here to kill me. I know in the end I have to protect Rachel and Matthew and that for me, there are no consequences.

With all that in mind, I move very fast.

I still have my hand around Hayden’s throat. I pull him in front of me, using him for the briefest of moments as a shield.

With my free hand, I pull out my gun.

This isn’t the first time I’ve handled a gun. My father was a police officer. He was big on gun safety. He and Uncle Philip used to take Adam and me to the range with them in Everett on Saturday afternoons. I became a pretty good shot, not so much with stationary targets, but the simulation exercises where cardboard cutouts pop up at random times. Sometimes it would be a bad guy. Sometimes it would be an innocent civilian. I wasn’t the best at differentiating the two, but I remember what my father taught me.

No head shots. No aiming for the legs or trying to wound. Aim for the center mass of the torso and leave yourself the most room for error.

The man quickly sees what I am doing.

He raises his weapon. But my boldness, the suddenness of my actions, plus using Hayden Payne as a temporary shield, gives me the advantage.

I fire three times.

And the man goes down.

Hayden screams and runs toward the front door. I turn to follow him, but then I spot another man pulling out a gun.

No hesitation.

I fire three more times.

This guy goes down too.

I don’t know whether the two men are dead or injured. I don’t care. Hayden is inside the door.

I run toward the first fallen man. His eyes are closed, but I think he’s still breathing. I don’t have time to check. I bend down and pry the gun from his hand. Then I turn back toward Rachel.

“Come on!” I shout.

Rachel does. We hurry toward the front door. I worry that it may be locked, but it’s not. Who needs to lock a front door when you live in a place like this? We enter the foyer. I close the door behind me and hand her one of the guns.

“David?”

“For protection. In case anyone tries to get in.”

“Where are you going?”

But she knows. I’m already heading up the stairs where I hear running footsteps. I don’t know how many armed men they have. I have already shot two men. I don’t care how many more I’ll need to shoot. I just worry about the bullet count.

The home is pure white, sterile, almost institutional. There are very few splashes of color. Not that I see any of that. Sound echoes. I follow it.

“Theo!”

Hayden’s voice.

I tighten my grip on the gun and continue down the corridor. An old woman steps out into it and says, “Hayden? What’s going on?”

“Pixie, look out!”

When the old woman turns, our eyes meet. Hers widen in recognition. She knows who I am. I hurry down the corridor where I heard Hayden’s voice. The old woman doesn’t move. She stands and stares in defiance. I’m not ready to bowl over an old woman, though I will if I have to, but I don’t think there is a need. I rush past her on the side and keep running,

“Pixie?”

It’s Hayden again. He’s right up ahead, in the bedroom on the left. I rush into the room and raise my gun because he’s going to tell me where my son is or...

And there’s Matthew.

I freeze. The gun is in my hand. My son is staring up at me. Our eyes meet and the eyes are still my boy’s. In Times Square I felt a sensory overload. Here I experience something similar, but it is all internal, in my blood and veins, a thrum that rushes through every part of me with no outlet, no way to escape. I may be shaking. I’m not sure.

Then I notice the hands on his shoulders.

“Theo,” Hayden says, trying hard to keep his tone even, “this is my friend David. We’re playing a game with the guns, aren’t we, David?”

My first thought is a strange one: Matthew is eight years old, not four. He’s not falling for that line. I can see it in his face. Part of me just wants to end this now, to raise my gun and blow this motherfucker away and deal with the aftermath. But my son is here. Like it or not, this is the man he sees as a father. My son is not scared of him. I can see that. He is, heartbreaking as it sounds, scared of me.

I can’t shoot Hayden in front of Matthew.

“David, this is my son Theo.”

I feel my finger on the trigger. Then again, I’ve already shot two people. What is one more?

In the distance I hear a noise. The room, like the rest of the house, is modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows. I move toward them and look out. A helicopter comes into view, landing on the open lawn.

The old woman he’d called Pixie comes in and stands next to me. “Come on, Theo. It’s time to go.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” I say.

Pixie meets my eyes and there is the smallest smile on her face. “What’s your plan here, David? We’ve called the local police. Freddy — that’s the chief of police here — is on his way with probably half the force. They know you’re armed and dangerous and that you’ve already shot two men. I think Stephano is dead. Freddy loves Stephano. They play poker once a week. If you’re lucky — if you put the gun down and now stand on the lawn with your arms high in the air — you may, may not get shot.”

“I know what you both did,” I say.

“But you’ll never be able to prove it. What evidence do you have?”

I look over at Theo. He doesn’t seem particularly scared anymore. He looks more puzzled and engaged, an expression that’s a heartbreaking echo of his mother’s.

“You think, what?” Pixie continues. “They’ll run a DNA test on the boy? Not a chance. You need a court order. You need to convince a judge that there is compelling reason, and we know every judge in the land. We have the best attorneys. We work hand in hand with every politician. Theo will be back overseas by the time you’re back rotting up in Briggs.”

“Besides,” Hayden adds, “it’s like I told Rachel — what do you think a test would show?” He grinned. “You want to raise a boy with the Payne blood coursing through his veins? He’s my son.”

I glance at the old woman and see something cross her face.

Then I say, “No, Hayden, he’s not.”

Hayden looks puzzled. He looks toward the woman he calls Pixie. Her eyes are on the floor.

“I never believed my wife when she said she didn’t go through with it,” I say. “It was, I think, the final straw in our marriage. We tried with Matthew, but I’m not sure as a couple we would have survived.”

Hayden looks at Pixie. “What’s he talking about?”

I take out my phone. “I was able to get into my old email address. Here. These emails are eight years old. When I found out Cheryl went to a fertility clinic, I took a paternity test. Two, in fact. Just to be sure. It confirms that I’m Matthew’s father.”

His eyes almost bulge out of their sockets. “That’s impossible,” he says. “Pixie?”

She ignores him. “Come along, Theo.”

“Don’t,” I say.

“You won’t shoot me,” she says.

“But I will.”

It’s Rachel. She steps into the room with gun in hand. “Hayden?”

He’s shaking his head no.

“Let me guess,” Rachel says. “You brought Matthew back here. You were in a panic. You wondered whether you’d done the right thing. That’s what you told me, right?”

He still shakes his head. I hear the sirens approaching.

“If the paternity test came back that you weren’t the father, what would you have done? Told the truth probably. Confessed.” Rachel looks over toward Pixie. “She couldn’t have that. She lied, Hayden. You aren’t the father. It shouldn’t matter. A father isn’t about biology. But he’s David’s son. David and Cheryl’s.”

Hayden’s voice is that of a little boy. “Pixie?”

I hear sirens. For a moment I figure she’s going to deny it, but there doesn’t seem to be that fight in her. “You’d have given him back,” she says. “Or worse. Either way, you’d have destroyed the family. So yes, I told you what you wanted — needed — to hear.”

Squad cars, at least ten of them, race up the drive and set up in formation outside the house.

“It doesn’t matter, Hayden,” Pixie says. “You two need to go to the helicopter.”

“No.”

It’s my son speaking now.

“I want to know what’s going on here,” Matthew says.

“This is all part of the game, Theo,” Pixie says.

“How stupid do you think I am?” He looks at me. “You’re my father.”

I can’t tell if it’s a question or a statement. The cops are in the house now, running up the stairs, shouting about coming out with my hands up and all that. But I barely hear it. I ignore it all. I only see my son.

My son.

I am tempted to get down on one knee, but in truth, Matthew is an eight-year-old boy, not a toddler. I meet his eye and say, “Yes. I’m your father. He kidnapped you when you were three.”

My son is looking at me. Our eyes meet. He doesn’t turn away. He doesn’t blink. Neither do I. It is the purest moment of my life. My son and I. Together. And I know he gets it. I know he understands.

And as that realization washes over me, the first bullet hits my body.

Eight Months Later

I stand to the left of my aunt Sophie as my father’s casket, a plain pine box, is lowered into the ground. Philip and Adam Mackenzie are both pallbearers. Cops young, old, and retired have come out in big numbers. My father had a lot of friends. He hadn’t been in their lives in a long time, but they’ve come out to say a final goodbye.

I can feel Uncle Philip’s eyes on me. He gives me the smallest of nods, but it says a lot. He was there. He’ll be there.

I was shot three times at the Payne estate.

It would have been more. That’s what I was told. But Matthew ran over to me. When the cops saw that, they stopped firing. I wasn’t conscious for any of that.

From my right side, I feel a small hand slip into mine. It’s comforting. I turn and smile down at Matthew. I look past my son to Rachel, who holds Matthew’s other hand. She gives me a small smile, and my chest fills. I meet her eye and let her know I’m doing okay.

My father had been sick for a long time. He was more than ready to go. I think he held on long enough to see me exonerated — and to see his grandson again.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.

We all lower our head for the Kaddish. I am first in line to throw ceremonial dirt on my father’s grave. Aunt Sophie goes next. I hold her arm as she does it, more for my balance than hers. I spent two months in the hospital and went through six operations. I’m told that it is unlikely I will ever walk without a cane again, but I’m going to work my ass off in physical therapy.

I like trying to defy the odds. I’m good at that, I guess.

After the funeral we head back to the old house in Revere to sit shiva. The ghosts are there, of course, but they seem respectfully quiet today. None of us are religious, but we find solace in the ritual. Friends have sent us enough food to fill Fenway Park. I sit in the low chair, as is the custom, and listen to stories of my dad. It is a comfort.

Aunt Sophie will live here alone now.

“This neighborhood,” she told me. “It’s all I know.”

I understand, of course.

When there is a break in the line of mourners, Aunt Sophie nudges my arm and gestures toward Rachel. Rachel is helping set out yet another plate of sloppy joe sandwiches.

“So you and Rachel...?” she asks.

“Early days,” I say.

Aunt Sophie smiles. She will have none of that. “Not so early. I’m very happy about it. Your father was too.”

I swallow and stare at this woman I love. “She makes me happy,” I tell my aunt. And I’m not sure I’ve ever meant something so much in my life.

Special Agent Max Bernstein is at the end of the mourners’ line with his partner Sarah Jablonski. They both shake my hand and offer their condolences. Bernstein’s eyes dart all over the room.

“I don’t know if this is the right time,” Bernstein says to me.

“For?”

“For giving you an update.”

I look at his partner, then back to him. “It’s the right time,” I say.

Jablonski takes that one. “We may have a lead on... on the victim’s identity.”

The little boy in Matthew’s bed. I look toward Bernstein.

“There’s an overseas orphanage the Payne family runs,” he says. “That’s all we know right now.”

“But we’ll learn more,” Jablonski adds.

I believe them. But I don’t think it will be enough.

It took three months for me to be freed. Philip and Adam both lost their jobs. There is still talk about prosecuting them and even Rachel for aiding and abetting. They also make noise about the two “security guards” I shot at the Payne estate. But our attorney Hester Crimstein seems to think nothing will come of any of that. I hope she’s right.

I need to stretch my legs, especially the one that took the bullet, so I stand. I am about to head toward the kitchen when I stop.

Nicky Fisher stands in the corner with his arms folded. He is watching me.

The night before, Nicky flew up from his Florida compound and came right to the house in Revere. He asked me to step outside, so we could talk in private on the front porch. My two goon friends were on the walkway, standing by a black SUV. They waved to me. I waved back.

Nicky Fisher stared up into the starless black sky and said, “I’m sorry about your old man.”

“Thank you.”

“Tell me everything, David. Leave nothing out.”

So I did.

You, like Nicky Fisher, will probably want to hear how both Gertrude and Hayden Payne are now serving long prison sentences. They are not. After I was shot, Max showed up at the estate. Uncle Philip had confided in him, and so he understood a lot of it. That helped. Still, when I was stable, I was taken back to the Briggs infirmary. The wheels of justice churn slowly. There was, as the Paynes had pointed out to me, not much evidence of any crime committed by Hayden or his grandmother. No clue Hayden had been involved in any murder or kidnapping other than, well, having Matthew. No clue Gertrude Payne knew anything other than that Hayden had told her that this boy was his son. How did Hayden end up with the boy? Hayden told a story about an Italian actress being the mother. Yes, these were lies. Some were obvious. But when you have a team of powerful lawyers, judges, and politicians who can gaslight with the best of them, those wheels grind to a halt.

Money greases the wheels. Money can also stop them.

I explained all this to Nicky Fisher on the front porch last night. Nicky Fisher listened without interrupting. When I finished, Nicky said, “That can’t stand.”

“What can’t stand?”

“Them getting away with it.”

Then Nicky Fisher walked off the front porch, and the SUV drove him away.

Now he’s back. Our eyes lock, the old man’s and mine, and he too nods at me. But this nod is different from Uncle Philip’s. This one sends a cold finger down my spine, but a cold finger that could be good or bad.

I’m going to go with good for me, bad for the Paynes.

I make my way through the mourners, nodding, smiling, shaking hands. When I reach the kitchen, I see Ronald Dreason, Cheryl’s husband, looking out the back window into my old yard. I stand next to him.

“You doing okay?” Ronald asks me.

I nod. “Thanks for being here.”

“Of course,” he says.

We stand side by side looking out that kitchen window. Cheryl is there. She is holding her four-month-old daughter, Ellie, in her arms. I sneak a glance at Ronald, the proud father, and see him smile at them. He loves Cheryl. I’m happy about that too.

“Your daughter is beautiful,” I say to him.

“Yeah.” Ronald is practically bursting. “Yeah, she is.”

And there, standing in my old backyard with his mother, is Matthew.

It is new, all of this, but for now Cheryl and I are sharing custody of our son. He spends one week with Cheryl and Ronald. Then he spends one week with Rachel and me. So far, it seems to be working.

And how is Matthew?

He has nightmares, but fewer than you’d think. Children are resilient, him especially so. Will there be long-term adverse effects? Everyone says that’s likely, but I’m more optimistic. Eight years is a curious age. He’s old enough to understand most of it. You can’t lie about what happened or try to sugarcoat it. Hayden treated Matthew well, thank God, but the boy had spent most of his life parentless in a ritzy Swiss boarding school. He seems to miss his friends and teachers more than the man he once believed was his father. But he has nice memories of Hayden. He asks me about that, about how a man who could have done such evil could also be kind. I try to explain to him that human beings are more complex than we know, but of course, I don’t really have an answer.

I watch now as Cheryl hands little Ellie to her brother.

Matthew loves his sister. He holds her gently, carefully, like she’s made of glass, but his face beams. As I stare out at him, at my beautiful son, I feel Rachel’s arm snake around me. She stands there and watches too. We all do, all of us struggling to make a life together, and maybe somewhere my father is watching too.