“See, I am cooperating,” she said. “I didn’t even get a lawyer. Can’t you help me, please?”

“Who was the so-called night gardener?” Conklin asked.

“I don’t know. I was peeking through a curtain sixty feet above the ground. It was always dark. I would tell you if I could.”

“How do you get your food?” I asked.

“Nicole leaves it for me on the back steps. She’s that lovely girl who lives next door.”

“I’ll look into getting you released,” Conklin said. “But if we can do it, you can’t leave your house.”

“Don’t worry. I’m quite the homebody,” Constance Kerr said, “and, you know, I’ve got a lot of writing to do.”

Chapter 96

Chapter 96

WILL RANDALL SAT on the side of his bed and sent a text message to Jimmy Lesko. He used a disposable phone and identified himself as Buck Barry, one of Lesko’s private customers, a cautious man with an impressive drug habit.

The confirmation from Lesko came rocketing back, and the meeting was set for eleven that night; a transfer of cash for coke on a dodgy street in the Lower Haight.

It wouldn’t be the transfer Jimmy Lesko was expecting.

Will closed the phone, leaned over, and kissed Becky. He whispered that he loved her, left an envelope on the night table describing Chaz Smith’s double-dealing drug operation and how Smith had profited from being a cop. Then Will turned off the light.

He went to Link’s room and stood over the bed watching his son’s jerking, restless sleep.

His sweet boy.

Link should have been at Notre Dame now, on a scholarship. Should have been going out with girls. Should have been a lot of things he wasn’t and would never be, in a world of things he would never do.

Will kissed Link’s forehead, then went downstairs to the main floor and opened the door to the girls’ room. There were handmade quilts on the beds and a mural of a pastoral countryside painted on the cream-colored walls.

He picked stuffed animals off the floor, tucked them into Mandy’s bed, kissed her, then kissed her twin, Sara. Sara stirred and opened her eyes.

“I was flying, Daddy.”

“Like a bird? Or like a plane?”

“Like a rock-et.”

“Was it fun?”

“So fun. I’m going to go back now …”

Will covered Sara’s shoulders with her quilt, said, “Have a safe flight, sweetheart,” then went to the boys’ room across the hall.

The hamster was running on the endless track of his wheel. The two goldfish stared at him, almost motionless in the stream of bubbles coming up from the little ceramic diver at the bottom of the bowl.

Willie was asleep on his stomach, but Sam was awake and he grabbed Will’s hand and wouldn’t let go.