The barrette, of course.The kind of thing you didn’t want a cop to catch you with.
They parked at a gravel pullout at the next intersection, and Tean called in the fire and the attack.The dispatcher told them to stay where they were.While they waited, Tean got wipes from the glove box and cleaned up Jem’s hands.He was careful.He took his time.You had to get all of it, because cops had good eyes, and they noticed things like that.
When he’d finished, he walked to the side of the road and picked up a handful of gravel.He brought it back.Jem gave him a bemused look, but when Tean motioned with the dirt and stone, he held out his hands.Tean dumped the gravel into Jem’s hands.Then he clasped Jem’s hands in his and worked them around the stones.When Tean thought it was good enough, he carried the stones back to the shoulder and dropped them and kicked them around.
Jem watched him.
“Your hands were too clean,” Tean said.“They’d notice.”
Jem only nodded.
“I’m sorry I didn’t shoot him.”
With a snort, Jem leaned his head back, as though trying to bring Tean into focus.“I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, I should have done something.”
“Tean, you got the gun.That’s what mattered.”
“You saved our lives.And I let them run away.”
Jem took Tean’s hands in his.The dust and dirt made the touch gritty.Jem squeezed once and met Tean’s eyes.“I don’t want you to shoot anybody, okay?I don’t ever want you to have to do that again.It was just—you know, I was in it, and I wasn’t thinking.”
Tean nodded.
“Plus, you’re already a hardened criminal,” Jem said.“Destroying evidence, concealing the commission of a crime, aiding and abetting.”His head tilted, as though considering the severity of this behavior, Jem added, “Lying to an adult.”
“It would have complicated things,” Tean said.“It’s better if the story is simple: we were looking at the ranch, and they shot at us and trapped us in the barn.”
“It would have complicated things,” Jem said.A hit of the grin slipped out.The crooked front teeth.“Spoken like a criminal mastermind.The dirt on my hands was a nice touch.”
Somehow, despite the exhaustion that was settling over him, Tean managed a smile.
A Vernal police cruiser found them first, the officer a fortysomething man with the kind of mustache Tean had once heard Jem call a taint tickler.Tean told him where the rifle was, and the officer politely—but firmly—asked them to sit in the back of the cruiser.
They sat there a while.And then he drove them—still in the back of the cruiser—to the station in Vernal.At that point, a heavyset man with salt-and-pepper hair and crumbs on his shirt separated them, and Tean found himself sitting in an interview room.Over the last few years, he’d gotten more familiar with this kind of space than he would have liked.Someone had scratched the word ASSMAN into the table.
An EMT checked him out.And then an older woman with hair to the middle of her back brought him a ham-and-mayo sandwich and a cup of water.Tean asked to speak to an officer, and she said she was sure someone would be with him shortly, but it was another hour before the man with crumbs on his shirt took Tean to the bathroom, and he wouldn’t answer any questions.Tean called Daniel to let him know they’d be late; the boy didn’t answer, but when Tean followed with a text, Daniel liked the message.
At some point, Tean knew he could insist on being let go.They either had to arrest him or let him walk.In theory.But he wasn’t ready to test that theory yet.
He didn’t see Jem.He didn’t hear him.He was probably fine; he’d weathered worse in his life.He wasprobably fine.He hated institutional spaces like this.He’d be worried about Tean.He’d be worried about the barrette.Even though it was self-defense.
He was fine.Jem had to be fine.
Better to worry about Jem than think about what he’d seen in the barrel.The dark hair that had looked fake in the harsh light from his phone.The clouded eyes.The burns, and the cuts, and the ripped-off nails—
Jem knew how to take care of himself.Jem was probably talking his way out of there right now, and in a minute, he’d open the door, and they’d leave together.
Tean took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and tried not to see her face again.
He didn’t realize, until he caught himself wondering when they’d let him use the bathroom again, that he hadn’t thought about the gun.Not even once.
A knock came at the door, and then it opened, and Jem stepped into the room.Following him was a balding man with graying hair buzzed short on the back and sides.Instead of a suit, this time he was dressed in jeans and a windbreaker.When he turned to shut the door, the words UTAH SBI were visible on the back.
“Lieutenant Orsino,” Tean said.
“Dr.Leon.”
