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Ava looked down at her hands, and shook her head.
 
“If you don’t take this job, I’m leaving, and I’m taking Jacob with me.”

“What?”

“I don’t have a choice.
 
If you put Marcus ahead of your family, then there is no point in staying with you because you aren’t the man I want raising my son.”

“Jacob is my son, too.”

Ava nodded.
 
“If you really understand what that means then there’s no problem.”

~

I’d known Sergeant Greg Nash since I was a kid.
 
When I was six he arrested my father for breaking my mother’s jaw.
 
When I was twelve, he arrested him again for throwing her through a sliding glass door.
 
She wound up needing forty-seven stitches that night to close a gash in her leg, and the next day I was taken from the house and put into foster care.
 
I stayed there until I was thirteen and stole a car.
 
After that my foster parents didn’t want me, and I was put in a juvenile home.
 

Sergeant Nash came by every couple weeks to see how I was doing.
 
Eventually I didn’t mind.
 
He was a friend.

When I got out, all I wanted to do was cook.
 
I’d spent most of my time in the home working in the kitchen, and there was something I loved about the organization and the creation and the pace of it.
  

For the first time, I knew what I wanted to out of my life.

By the time I got out and was on my own, my mother was in the ground and my father was in jail for putting her there.
 
It wasn’t hard to see it coming, but apparently no one did but me.
 

There’d been an insurance policy, nothing big, and I decided to put it toward school.
 
I applied to the Culinary Institute, and I was accepted.
 
Apparently they reserve a couple spaces each year for people with unusual backgrounds, and I fit right in.

After graduation, I kept in touch with Sergeant Nash.
 
I still considered him a friend, and now, as I walked up the steps to his office, I hoped he felt the same.
 
As it turned out, I didn’t have anything to worry about.

“It’s damn nice to see you, Jack,” he said.
 
“When I heard about your father, I wondered how you were taking it.”

“I’m not taking it anyway, I guess.”

He nodded as if I’d actually made sense.
 
“Well, I know he never made things easy on you.”

“You move on,” I said.
 
“Truth is, I don’t think about any of that stuff anymore.”

“That’s good.
 
That’s good.”
 

Eventually we got around to the diner and the fire.
 
He’d heard about the case, but it wasn’t his.

“Does that mean you can’t work it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I might have an idea who set the fire.”

“Who?”

“A guy named Max Stover.
 
He works at a strip club called the Body Shop.”

Nash leaned back in his chair.
 
“I know Stover,” he said.
 
“What makes you think he’s responsible?”

“All roads point to him.
 
I was going to try and get something out of him tonight to where I can be sure, but things have changed.”

“Damn good thing, too,” Nash said.
 
“The last person you need to fool with is Stover.
 
That guy would tear you up, Jack.
 
What the hell are you thinking?”

Right then, I felt like I was fifteen again.
 
It wasn’t a terrible feeling, but it wasn’t something I wanted to get used to, either.
 
“I’m thinking about helping my friend who owned the place, that’s all.”

“You won’t help him much by playing games with Stover.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.
 
I have to let it drop.
 
Ava found out and she’s not happy.
 
Besides, I landed a job cooking at the Settler’s Club.”

“That’s great.”

Neither of us spoke for a minute, then I said, “I came here to see if you could pick up the case.”

He shook his head.
 
“Afraid not.
 
I can keep an eye on it, and I’ll pass along what you told me to the detective assigned, but I can tell you not much will get done on it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a priority case.
 
That’s just the way it works.”

“Not a priority?”
 
I didn’t know what to say.
 
“I’m giving you a name.
 
All you have to do is follow up.”

“And I’ll pass it on, but all we had was a case of vandalism and arson.”

“There was a bomb.”
 
My voice was loud, and Nash leaned forward.
 

“I know you’re mad, Jack, but you can’t come in here and yell.
 
Do you understand?”

“Jesus Christ,” I said.
 
“How am I supposed to react?
 
You tell me there’s nothing you can do about this, and it’s not a high priority and my friend lost everything.”

I got up and walked out of his office.
 
Nash said something as I was leaving but I didn’t hear him.
 
I didn’t care, and I didn’t stop walking until I was home.

~

Jacob sat on a blanket in the middle of the living room beating a stuffed rabbit up and down on the floor.
 
I watched him from the couch.
 
I’d planned on taking a short nap, but all I could think about was Marcus.
 
I hadn’t spoken to him since the day after the fire.
 
I still had his car, and I told Ava I was bringing it back to him tonight.
 

She’d asked about my talk with Sergeant Nash, and I told her it went fine.
 
I’d be starting my new job on Monday.
 
When I finished speaking, she’d leaned in close to me and whispered, “Thank you.”

It was a sweet sound that I felt deep inside.
 
I knew if things didn’t work out and I wound up losing her, that whisper would stay with me for the rest of my life.
 

Some things are like that, whether you want them to be or not.

~

The parking lot across from the Belmont Hotel sat in the shade of several willow trees.
 
The streetlights shone through the trees, creating pools of light and dark.

I waited in the dark with Marcus’s .44.
 

When I gave Max Stover the address for the hotel, I told him to meet me in the lobby at eleven.

It was five till.
  

I started to worry.
 
What if he’d parked somewhere else?
 
What if he didn’t come alone.
 
I knew a guy like Max Stover didn’t need a body guard, but it was something I hadn’t considered.
 

At exactly eleven o’clock, a gray Mercedes pulled into the parking lot and parked in the far corner.
 
Max got out, alone.
 
He looked smaller than when I saw him at the Body Shop.
 
He’d been sitting down that time, but I’d still expected him to be bigger.
 

As he got closer to where I stood, I felt a rush of confidence.
 
I waited until he walked past me toward the hotel’s backdoor, then I stepped out and pressed the gun into his back.
 
“Don’t make any sudden—”

Max spun around –fast, grabbing my hand that held the gun.
 
I felt his other hand press up under my chin and one leg come in behind both of mine and sweep them out from under me.
 
There was a sick feeling of detachment as I fell backward, then my head struck the pavement and flowers bloomed electric behind my eyes.

My ears were ringing and I couldn’t focus.
 
I pushed myself up onto my knees and saw Max standing over me.
 
He had the gun.
 
He pulled the clip with the grace of a man used to handling guns and shook his head.
 
“What the fuck were you planning?”

I lost my wind when I hit the pavement, and I struggled to breathe.
 
When I did, I said, “You tried to blow up the diner.”

“Is that what this is about?”
 
He kicked me and I felt the toe of his boot connect with my ribs.
 
Something popped inside, and the pain screamed across my chest.
 
“That shit-hole restaurant?”

He grabbed my hair and forced the barrel of the gun into my mouth, snapping off a piece of a tooth.
 
I felt it slide between my tongue and my cheek and into the back of my throat.
 
I swallowed.
 

“You pull a gun on me?”
 
He was shouting.
 
“Over some fucking diner?”

My eyes crossed, and I couldn’t see.
 
My ears were ringing and I felt my bladder let go.
 
When Max noticed he took the gun out of my mouth and stepped back.
 

“You’re a pathetic piece of shit.”
 
He spit and I felt in land in my hair.
 
“If I see you again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

He turned back toward the grey Mercedes, and that was when I found my voice.
 
“Why?”

Max turned and swung the gun, hitting me in the face.
 
I felt my nose go, and the world exploded in light.
 
I fell forward and blood pooled under me.

Max grabbed my hair and leaned in close, shouting.
 
The noise in my head was too loud, and his words were lost in the roar.
 
Blood ran down the back of my throat and I coughed.
 
Max pulled away –fast, letting me fall.
 

And this time, in darkness, there was no ground to catch me.

~

“Jack?”

The voice seemed too far off to be aimed at me.
 
I was lost somewhere else, adrift in the haze.

“Jack, can you hear me?”

The voices moved closer.
 
I tried to open my eyes, and the light dug into my brain.
 
The pain seemed to come from everywhere at once.
 
I pushed myself up.
 
“Wh—”

Someone put a hand on my chest.
 
“Easy, you’re in the hospital.”

I waited, letting my eyes get used to the light.
 
When I opened them again, the pain was still there but it was further away, muted by whatever painkillers I was on.
 

Ava was standing over the bed.
 
Sergeant Nash was behind her, smiling.
 
He reached forward and touched my leg.
 
“Good to have you back.”