There had been a lot of questions Olivia had wanted to ask, but in the interest of appearing tolerant and sophisticated, she had not. And she had realized the next day, while Lemuel was in his day sleep, that no matter how curious she might be about Lemuel’s past and how he’d managed to live his life under his strange circumstances, the most important thing to her was that she had him now. Lemuel was not “hers,” like her car or her bed was hers. And she knew he would outlive her, barring extraordinary circumstances. But he was hers in a way no one else had ever been; that certainty gave her a fixed point.

Her cell phone rang, the secret one. The caller would be her agent or someone preapproved.

A man said, “Is this Rebecca?”

“I can get a message to her.”

“I have a job for her.”

“Who and where?”

“My bitch of an ex-wife has a family heirloom. She’s holding it for ransom. If I want it back, I have to make concessions in having my kids on the weekends. If I have it, I can tell her to go to hell and I’d see my kids more often.”

“I don’t need to know why. I need her name and address and a description of the item. Details about her routine.”

There was a pause. “Sure. Where can I send all that?”

Olivia gave him an address in Oklahoma.

“Okay. How do I pay you?”

“You already know that.” What was he trying to pull? The money went to her agent first, and he took his cut. Then he sent the bulk of it to her account, which wasn’t in America. Lemuel had asked her once how she could be sure her agent was honest. “I know where he lives,” she’d told him.

“When . . . ?”

“Soon. I’ll call you at this number when I’ve gotten it.”

And she hung up, as abruptly as Lemuel had. That thought made her smile. But the smile faded immediately as she thought over the man’s story. She didn’t believe him, at least not entirely. He had tailored it to make her feel good about the theft. He might be a terrible father, and his soon-to-be-ex-wife a paragon of virtue. But it didn’t make any difference to Olivia. She was not a social worker. She took the side she was paid to take.

She would not go to check the mailbox for another two or three days. It was a long drive. Maybe, in the interim, she could take care of Manfred’s problem. Then the Rev would be off her back, the news media would never again come to Midnight, and the mysterious fast-growing boy—whoever he was—would be safe. And when Lemuel returned, he would not be spotted by anyone who shouldn’t come to Midnight.