Mitch laughed. “Send up a flag when the prince arrives.”
Just as he clicked off, Busby was being led out. He caught Busby glaring at him and stepped directly in front of him. He said, “I’m a little sad over not blowing your fucking head off when I had the chance. But you’ve got no reason to look so downcast, Oz. You’ll still be on TV.” He spread his arms to encompass the studio. “We got it all on camera.”
The sedan that Dylan had driven from the fishing camp was parked at the curb in front of the Bowies’ house. Mitch pulled his old pickup behind it, got out, and went to the front door. Thinking that Andrew might already be down, he knocked rather than ring the bell.
Dylan opened the door. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
They stood looking at each other across the threshold. She said, “I got your text. You took Oz down.”
“Yeah. It’s done. Finally.”
Instead of calling her as he was leaving New Orleans for the drive back to Auclair, he’d texted that the operation had been a success, Oz was in custody, and he was on his way back. Up till then, he had been moving virtually nonstop since before dawn. He had needed time and solitude tothink. The drive had given him that opportunity.
His thoughts had taken him back to the night the two of them had fled the city, him bleeding, her frightened by the situation and mistrustful of him. That had been only days ago. Since then so much had happened that had drawn them closer. But they’d ended on a bad note there outside the medical building, and it had created the present awkwardness between them.
He said, “Can I come in?”
“This isn’t my house.”
“Mine neither, but you’ve got my kid.”
She gave a half smile and moved aside, and he stepped into John and Beth’s familiar living room. “Was he any trouble?”
“None. He’s in bed in the guest room. He didn’t want to go to sleep until you got here, but he conked out while I was reading to him.”
“Must not have been a very good book.”
She shook her head. “He said I wasn’t doing the voices like you do.”
“It’s an acquired skill. I’ll go in to see him, but I need a minute.”
He went over to an easy chair and sat down, placing hisforearms on his thighs and dropping his head between his shoulders. He was aware of Dylan taking a seat on the sofa.
She said, “How was it?”
He raised his head. “Catching him?” At her nod, he said, “Not like I thought.”
“In what way?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “That sounded like a leading question asked by a therapist.”
“It was. But I won’t charge you.”
He smiled but lowered his head again. “In all truth, it was a little anticlimactic. I haven’t quite absorbed that Malone and Oz are now part of my past, not my present or my future.”
“You fulfilled your vow.”
“No, I vowed to kill them. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.”
“Are you disappointed or relieved?”
He looked up at her again. “So damn relieved, Dylan. I can’t tell you how much. That’s not what Angela would have wanted. Not that legacy. Not for me, and especially not for Andrew.”
“No, I don’t believe she would’ve wanted that at all.”
“You told me as much.”
