whenever she talked about her boyfriend.
J. P. Sanchez had beaten the odds. His friends at the Medical Center had called in a few favors. They’d imported the best specialists from Houston and Los Angeles to oversee the reconstructive surgery. Sanchez would be in the hospital for weeks, physical therapy for months, but his long-term prognosis was good.
“I’m glad,” I said. And then, when she gave me a skeptical look, I added: “Seriously.”
“He’ll be asking you to serve as best man,” Erainya said. “Just so you’re warned.”
The sun suddenly felt a lot warmer. “Me?”
“I’d ask you to be a bridesmaid, honey, but the dress would look terrible on you.” Then she shouted, “Come on, Laura! Good!”
The ball made another futile loop around the field. It sailed toward Jem. It bounced off Maria.
Erainya turned to me. “Honey, look, J.P.’s only got his daughter. No male friends he’s really close to. He knows how Jem and I feel about you. He wants you there. Think about it.”
I felt a weight on my chest, the unresolved need to say something I couldn’t quite say.
Jem crouched at the goalie net, his hands down, knees bent-the exact position I’d told him to keep. He wore the same crazy grin he always got whenever he was on the soccer field. Saint Mark’s had only scored one goal off him so far. Then again, we’d scored zip.
“Guess you’re closing the agency?” I asked Erainya.
She shrugged. “I can’t run it anymore.”
“Oh. Right.”
She looked completely unconcerned. “You’ll get along.”
I had expected this. I should not feel bitter. Maia Lee would be delighted.
“Besides,” Erainya said, “I’ll be around if you need advice. I ain’t going to turn it over to you just to let you run it into the ground.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t look at me like that, you big idiot. I’m giving you the Erainya Manos Agency. My clients. My files. My fabulous resources. My unpaid bills. With both me and Sam retiring, we’ve got to have one decent PI in town. And if you’re smart, you’ll keep the name. It’s lucky.”
Paul was taking the ball in the right direction. Somehow, he managed to kick it to Jack.
“Well?” Erainya asked me. “You’re not gonna disappoint me, are you?”
Will Stirman was gone. Erainya was happy.
I could say nothing.
But the weight was there still, smooth and hard as a river rock.
“Laura!” I yelled. “To the middle! Help him out!”
Only because it was her love interest Jack, Laura followed directions.
Jack passed. Laura kicked. The ball sailed into the net.
Our team erupted into cheers, dog barks, taunts about Saint Mark’s being poop-butts.
The ref blew the whistle.
The kids swarmed us-sixteen hot sweaty little bodies, dying for water and a chance to play forward.
The last quarter: 1-1. Jem wanted to keep the vest.
I hated the idea. Saint Mark’s only needed one goal. I didn’t want Jem responsible for losing the game.
Still, nobody else wanted the job. We ended with seven forwards and Jem as keeper.
“You doing okay, champ?” I asked him.
“Yeah.” He looked up a moment longer, squinting into the sun, like he understood he needed to prove to me that he really was okay. Something silver glinted around his neck-a Saint Anthony medallion I’d never seen before. He said, “I’m good. Watch.”
They went out on the field again.
Erainya stood next to me, cupping the sun out of her eyes. I thought about how many times she’d whacked me with that hand, or cut the air at some stupid comment I’d made.
“Stirman talked to Jem,” I said, “the night at the museum.”
She kept her eyes on the field. “Yeah?”
“They had maybe a minute alone together, out on the roof.”
“Miracle Jem wasn’t hurt.”
“No miracle. Stirman never wanted to hurt him. I wouldn’t have brought Jem along otherwise. Stirman wanted to take him.”
The ref’s whistle blew. Saint Mark’s kicked off. The ball was lost in a forest of little cleats and shin guards.
Erainya looked at me the way she normally looked at Sam Barrera-as if I was about to snatch away her last bread-and-butter contract.
“So,” she said, her tone carefully neutral. “What do you figure he told Jem, in that one minute?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he told Jem the truth.”
Saint Mark’s drove the ball toward our goal. Their coach yelled for their best kicker to stand ready at the penalty line.
Erainya was silent, watching me.
“Jem’s birth date was the same day Stirman was arrested,” I said. “Other than that, the adoption papers were a pretty good forgery. You never went to Greece that year, did you?”
She hesitated a couple of heartbeats. Then the shield she’d been trying to put up melted. “Fred didn’t want me to keep the baby.”
“That’s what your last argument was about-why you shot him,” I guessed. “He wasn’t just threatening you. He was threatening the baby, too.”
She flexed her hand, as if remembering the trigger of the gun. “That night in Stirman’s apartment, the baby had stopped breathing. I guess the shock of the gunfire… I don’t know. I did CPR. I brought him back to life. Fred… well, I wasn’t going to lose the child after all that. After I shot Fred, I sent Jem to stay with a friend of mine, lady named Helen Malski, until the trial was over.”
“I found a letter she wrote you. Jem was the package she was keeping safe.”
Erainya nodded. “Once I was released, Jem and I disappeared for a while. I’d done enough work on adoption cases. Faking Jem’s paperwork wasn’t hard. I made up his birthday. I kept thinking somebody would question… Stirman would raise hell. Barrera would squawk. But nothing like that ever happened. Eventually, I figured Stirman thought the child was dead, or he just didn’t care enough to protest. I felt safe enough to come back home, take over the agency. I couldn’t have left a baby like that, with his mother dead.”
“You made Jem’s birth date a clue.”
“I know. Stupid.”
“Classic guilt. Part of you wanted to get caught.”
“Stop talking like a PI.” There was a challenge in her eyes, but it was frail.
She was a few weeks away from a whole new future. She was about to re-create herself for the second time. I could bring it all crashing down if I wanted to.
“You caught me,” she said. “Question is: What are you going to do about it?”
The game caught my attention. I shouted, “Jem, heads up!”
He crouched, ready for a challenge.
The Saint Mark’s kicker drove the ball straight toward the goal.
Jem dove. The ball sailed right past him into the net.
The other team cheered like crazy.
Jem picked up the ball, ran it to the line, and threw it like it was still in play. He kept smiling like everything was good. The Saint Anthony medallion had come untucked from his collar. It gleamed silver against his goalie vest.
“Honey?” Erainya said to me, her voice growing tense. “What do you want to do?”
Maybe everything was good. I caught Jem’s eye and gave him the thumbs-up sign.
He grinned, delighted.
I didn’t know what Stirman had told him. It didn’t matter.
The ref blew the whistle. Game over: a 2-1 loss.
