Seth and Irene and Jack were playing Frisbee, with Deke and Dunk doing their best to add a little chaos to the game. After a second interception, Jack put Seth on his shoulders. Seth giggled wildly.
Elena sat on a blanket, watching them. He continued down to the beach.
“Mind if I sit here?” he asked Elena.
She looked up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun. “I don’t if you don’t.”
They sat in silence for a time, then he said, “Hitch did a little more talking.”
She kept watching her son.
“He said that Dane deposited money in your account by forging your endorsement on a check and threatened to say you had extorted it from him. And Hitch threatened to back him up. That you refused to keep the money, but were afraid no one would believe you.”
“I like your friend Jack,” she said. “He’s good with Seth.”
He looked out at the water. “Jack’s a good man,” he said quietly. “My best friend, really.”
She looked at him in surprise, but didn’t say anything.
“I should have started out by saying I’m sorry,” he said.
“You have nothing to apologize for. I wasn’t much of a cop.”
“There’s more to life than being a cop. You were surprised when I said Jack was my best friend. You thought, ‘Why didn’t he say Pete?’”
“Okay, I admit it, I did.”
“But even though I love Pete like a brother — it often
“Why not? You grew up in a cop family, right?”
He nodded. “My dad was more like Pete — true-blue. But I guess I don’t have their zeal. Sometimes, I take a step back, I don’t know that I really do any good.”
“Are you crazy?” she said.
“Take this week. What the hell did I accomplish? Lefebvre is no more alive than he was ten years ago. Whitey Dane is dead — but not because of anything the police did to stop him.”
“I hear Myles Volmer survived.”
“Yes — word is, just before the bomb went off, he stepped out into one of the hallways of the new building to see if he could sneak Dane in to see Kerr. Even if he had been killed, Derrick or some other asshole would take over Dane’s kingdom from here — and I doubt Hitch’s testimony is going to be able to deliver anything to change that.”
“That doesn’t mean that what you did this week is unimportant.”
“Worse than unimportant. Carlson hates me more than ever, Bredloe’s hardly able to speak, and the Wheeze is fawning over me — which is unbearable. We’ll probably lose the lab. The taxpayers just had a new building blown to hell. And as Internal Affairs learns more about Haycroft’s ‘experiment books,’ more lawsuits will be filed and violent offenders released. You ask me, I did more for the forces of evil than good this week.”
“You saved my son’s life in that fire.”
“You would have saved him — you would have gotten out without me. At best, I saved a guinea pig. And maybe if I had just played it the way the department asked me to, there never would have been a fire in your home. You’d have been living there in peace.”
She shook her head. “Whatever else you can say about my existence before that fire, I was not at peace. And I only recently realized how much that was costing Seth. You want to know what good you did this week? Look at my son. Right now. Look at him.”
Seth was searching through the sand. He picked up a flat rock and smiled at Jack. “Have you found one yet?”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I’m ready.”
“You first.”
Jack grinned and skipped his rock.
“Three!” Seth announced. “Now it’s my turn.” His face was a picture of concentration. He threw the rock exactly as Frank had shown him. “Four!”
Before Frank could say anything, they heard a voice call, “Hey, it’s Nereault!”
A group of four boys who appeared to be brothers came running over. Deke and Dunk positioned themselves at Seth’s side.
“They live in our condo complex,” Elena said. “The middle two are twins who are his age.”
They were peppering him with questions about the dogs, the fire at the condo, and asking if My Dog had survived.
“Yes,” Seth said, pointing to Frank, “my friend saved him. But my name isn’t Nereault anymore. It’s Lefebvre.”
“Is that true?” one asked Elena.
