He took a second to pull the objection into order and said, “You’re not my father.” The words sounded harsh, maybe more so because they both knew how useless Boyd’s actual dad had turned out. “You don’t get to pass judgment for me on whether something is worth being hurt or not. That’smycall, Mac.”
Mac took that on the chin. He clenched his jaw and gave a brusque, one-time-only dip of his chin.
“Yeah,” he said. “Fair enough. I’m not, and I overstepped. It’s none of my business if Morgan breaks your heart or just leaves you with blue balls. The case, that’s mine. What Morgan told me was privileged information, and that? Is none of your business. If Morgan wanted you to know, he’d have told you.”
And might have already, Boyd realized, if Mac meant the fractured memories of Morgan’s childhood. That possibility deflated some of his indignation, but the rest fizzed on with a mixture of momentum and “nowhere else to put it” energy.
“So there’s some stuff that’s none of my business?” he said. “But other stuff that, I guess, you need my help with? Yeah, well, I’ve got my hands full, and maybe everyone’s right. I should focus on doing my job, keeping my job, and less on the Calloways.”
Mac scratched his jaw. “Maybe. You run out of steam yet?”
“No.”
“Want to punch me?”
Boyd gave him an annoyed look. “No.”
“Hit me with a chair?”
The snort of laughter was anemic and not entirely amused, but it punctured the sagging bubble of Boyd’s temper. He leaned back against the window, the glass hot against his shoulder blades, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Talk to Donna. Tell her that we have to be sure,” Mac said. “You want Sammy back nearly as much as she does, and she knows that. You can get through to her.”
That sounded like the truth, but Boyd wasn’t sure it felt like it anymore. There were things he wanted more, things he wanted for himself. That didn’t mean he didn’t want Sammy back, or at least to find out what happened, but not as much as Donna did.
“I don’t think Shay wants me there,” he said instead.
“Not Shay’s call,” Mac said. “Will you do it? If she won’t do this, I’ll have to ask for an order to exhume Sammy’s grandmother. Once I do that, even if they don’t let me do it, she’ll never cooperate with me again. My relationship with her has always been tenuous. As much as she needs me to find Sammy, she hates me just as much because I didn’t. You know that.”
Before Boyd could answer, the door to the hearing—because they all knew that was what it really was—opened, and Nate stepped out. He posed in the doorway for a breath, still lean and fit for a man in his fifties, and then looked around in annoyance as he realized he had no audience. His gaze fell on Mac and Boyd, and he hitched his smile back up as he strode toward them.
“Boyd,” he said as reached them. He cocked his head to the side, aggressively sympathetic, and let his smile linger. It was how he’d talked to them all as kids when Robbie got in trouble, his “Let’s get to the bottom of this” face. Somehow it always turned out Robbie was being mistreated. Nate had been a good lawyer. Or, now Boyd thought about it, maybe it just wasn’t that hard to confuse a ten-year-old. “I thought you’d run out on us there.”
“Just trying to take his mind off it, Nate,” Mac said. He put his hand on Boyd’s shoulder and squeezed. “It’s the kid’s career on the line.”
Nate sucked air between his teeth. “He should have thought about that before he got involved with ex-cons and bail bondsmen, shouldn’t he?” he said. “Not exactly the sort of tourism we want to bring to town. Robert’s opening a hotel out on the Daley Farm, not a halfway house.”
“So I’m fired?” Boyd asked. He expected to feel… something. Relief, regret, anger. Instead he felt a lot of somethings, too many to pick just one. “That’s—”
Nate held up his hand. “No, although I appreciate that you’re taking responsibility for what happened. We decided to give you another chance. You’ve been reinstated, Boyd. Congratulations.”
That didn’t simplify Boyd’s jumble of emotions. “Oh,” he said. “Right.”
Nate mirrored Mac as he reached out and awkwardly patted Boyd on his free shoulder.
“Just don’t waste it,” he said. “The Calloway case has ruined too many lives. Let the boy rest in peace, let the con artist go home, and let the rest of us get on with living, huh? Once your rep is back, come back in, and we’ll officially give you the good news.”
He squeezed Boyd’s shoulder, gave Mac a brisk nod in parting, and left.
“I’ll try,” Boyd told Mac grimly. He wasn’t ten now. Nate Fernfield couldn’t talk rings around him anymore. “But if it doesn’t work, I think I know who she might listen to.”
THE FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLDfront page of theDispatchwas blown up to poster size and framed on the wall. Boyd tried to ignore it, but it was hard. The oversized headline drew his attention like a magnet.
Was He His Brother’s Keeper?
Boyd doubted he actually read the article when it first came out. He’d been eight and still sounded out really big words. It didn’t matter. Everyone in town knew what the article said, and eventually it trickled down to him.
