He looked at the soup kitchen, where every Saturday he scraped the bottom of the kettle to eke out a final meal, then had to disappoint everyone else in the line. Every Saturday. He leaned forward to brace his forearms on the tops of his knees, twisting his hands and thinking.

He knew exactly how Mick had kidnapped that boy, because he’d personally scrubbed all the details out of the original manuscript, but Mick’s drunken confession still seared in Patrick’s mind. The Blackstones suffered the anguish of unanswered questions, and Mrs. Kellerman deserved to know the truth, but he couldn’t betray a client.

“I wish there was a way I could help you,” he said honestly. “I can’t.”

“Would it help if I doubled the reward?”

He shook his head. “It would only make it harder for me to turn you down. This isn’t fun for me, ma’am. You have no idea.”

She leaned across the table, her lemony perfume tempting him as she kept up the pressure. “With $100,000 you could get out of the Lower East Side,” she said. “You could put your talent to work someplace worthy. Buy yourself a better office. Take a better class of clientele; people who deserve your time and talent.”

He folded his arms across his chest in satisfaction, for she’d just made her first mistake. He wasn’t ashamed to work here. He was proud of it.

“Take a look at where I live.” He tilted away to gesture at the weeds growing in the cracked pavement, the trash collecting in the alley, and a drunkard slumped against a wall. “You look at a neighborhood like this and see a slum. I see the garden I was meant to tend.”

Mrs. Kellerman’s eyes widened. In admiration? He couldn’t imagine a low-rent lawyer like him could impress her, but the signs were unmistakable. A gleam of respect lit her eyes, but it vanished quickly, replaced by a hint of steel.

“You know something,” she said. “You know more than what Malone wrote in that book.”

He did, which was why he wanted to avoid this conversation. He gave a dismissive shrug.

“Did you know that in the years after it happened, my parents used to look into the faces of children they saw in parks and in church pews? They never gave up hoping.”

He glanced away, unable to imagine what her parents had endured. Mick was guilty down to the marrow of his bones, and his greed was about to victimize the people who loved Willy Blackstone all over again. Patrick struggled to find the words to mitigate the pain she felt.

“Both of your parents have passed on now,” he said gently. “I can’t do anything to help them, and learning the details of your brother’s kidnapping and death will only plant images in your mind that are better left in the past.”