“I don’t know, ride around in the truck all day?” Morgan said. He shook his head in self-directed mockery. “Rescue the occasional cat and be home in time for dinner.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” Boyd said. “The rest of us have to put out fires. I should get back to work. I’ll see you later. If Mac needs me, he knows where to find me.”
He started to walk away, but Morgan’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
“Whatever he tells you, it’s probably true,” Morgan said. “You know that. You know me. What he says about us, though, that ain’t true. You’re the only thing I’ve got that matters to me.”
Maybe Boyd had wanted to hear the wordloveorlike. It didn’t matter, though. They had today, maybe tomorrow, and Boyd wasn’t going to sour that over word choice. So what if Morgan didn’t say or feel exactly what Boyd wanted. Boyd had the memory of his hands on his face and the desperation in his kiss to know what he meant.
“Good,” he said. “And next time you come to town, I’ll definitely dump my next boyfriend for you.”
The humor didn’t quite strike the right note. Morgan didn’t laugh. He just looked rueful as he let go of Boyd’s shoulder.
“I should get out of the way,” he said. “Just remember what I said… about us. I’ll see you later.”
Boyd watched him walk away. For a second, he thought about going after him, or maybe he’d find Mac and ask him to explain, but before he could decide, a panicked voice yelled for a paramedic.
They’d tell him eventually, he decided as he shoved the question to the back of his mind and jogged over to the panicked man and his unconscious wife. Until then—Boyd checked the woman’s pulse and rejected the helpful offer of a glass of whiskey—he had work to do.
“WHAT DOyou think?” Donna asked Boyd. She sat on the blue leather chairs in the hospital’s family room and chewed on her already raw cuticle. The nurses had taken Shay to irrigate his eyes—he’d had an allergic reaction to something in the smoke—and she’d reluctantly agreed to relocate her planned meeting with Sullivan to the hospital. A folder of printouts lay in her lap, story after story of fakes and mistakes Sullivan had collected for her. “Should I do it? Would you do it?”
A week ago that was an easy answer. Now he wasn’t so sure.
He’d told Morgan it wouldn’t change anything if he was or wasn’t Sammy. It wouldn’t change Boyd’s feelings. That didn’t mean other things wouldn’t change. He’d be an exhibit, pinned for dissection by every true crime enthusiast with more enthusiasm than empathy.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Sullivan gave him an exasperated look for that sudden reversal, and Boyd avoided his eyes. He still wanted to know, but he also didn’t want anything to change. Stripped out of his gear to black trousers and T-shirt with the Cutter’s Gap station badge, Boyd shrugged and leaned back in the chair.
“I don’t need to know.” Boyd edited his own answer. “And I don’t get a say in this anyhow. I’m not family. So—”
“You’re family,” Donna corrected him. She took her thumb away from her mouth and wrapped her other fingers over it to avoid temptations. The initial shock of the fire had worn off, but she was wiped and gray. The last time Boyd had seen her like this—not grieving, not angry, not in denial, but justdone—was when they called off the search for Sammy. Her mouth twisted in a pale attempt at a smile. “His family. You were alwayshisfamily. All this time, all this pain, and the two of you are still joined at the hip.”
Boyd felt his neck sting as he flushed and desperately tried not to think about exactly how he’d been joined to Morgan that morning. He didn’t look at Sullivan.
“I don’t know if that’s true, Mrs. Calloway. We’re—”
“It’s true,” Donna said. She leaned over the arm of her chair and gripped Boyd’s hand with her damp, cold fingers. “You know him better than anyone. What would he want?”
That sounded romantic, but it probably wasn’t true. Boyd loved Morgan, but that didn’t mean he knew if Morgan was a cat or a dog person, what his favorite TV show was, if he’d rather have pho or pizza for dinner. Although he might have learned that tonight if everything hadn’t gone tits up.
Besides, he might have run out of selfless. He didn’t know if he could separate what was best for Morgan from how much Boyd wanted “the best” to be him.
“I… I don’t know,” he repeated. He took his hand back and turned it over to look at the blisters that ran in raw bumps under his fingers. “Morgan doesn’t need me to speak for him, anyhow. He already gave his permission. This isn’t about him. It’s about you… and Shay.”
Donna flinched and absentmindedly started to chew on her thumb again. Blood speckled her lips as she got down to the quick.
“Shay thinks we should send him packing,” she said. “Maybe I should. Is that what you mean? Pick Shay for once, even if it means—”
“Shay needs to know, one way or the other,” Boyd said. He braced his elbow in the low arm of the chair and awkwardly pushed himself up. “He doesn’t think he does, but he can’t live with not knowing either. Do the test, Donna. That’s what I think.”
She stared up at him for a second and then passed her hand wearily over her eyes.
“I don’t want to lose my son again,” she said roughly from behind the shield of her fingers. “But if I don’t, I might lose them both.”
Sullivan leaned forward. “Does that mean you’ll do it?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
She cracked a laugh as she dropped her hand. “No, but I haven’t been much of a mother. One gone. One ignored. So this isn’t for me, it’s for them. Do it.”
