There. It was finally in the open.

Stormy eyes glowered from beneath dark brows. “I didn’t—”

“Uh-uh-uh,” she warned. “Come on, honey.”

His jaw worked and he looked out the window, pretending interest in the white trail of a jet that was slicing across the sky. His broadening shoulders slumped as if from an invisible weight. “The day that I took the Chevy—it was just because I was bored. Well, and because I was dared, I guess.”

“Dared?”

“By Miles Dean, don’t you remember?”

How could she forget? Miles Dean, a couple of years older than Stephen, was a bad influence on her son. “I didn’t lie about it. Wells caught me, made me do some extra chores that he didn’t pay me for and that was it. You know all this.”

“Go on.” Nerves strung tight, she walked to the stove and stirred the tangy sauce with a wooden spoon. Though it was warm in the kitchen, her fingers felt like ice. “What about the day that Isaac was last seen?” she asked and watched her son swallow hard, as if the lump in his throat was as big as a cantaloupe.

“Okay, okay. The next time, the last time I was there,” he said, nudging the edge of the carpet with his toe, “it was another dare, okay?”

“Oh, Stephen, no.”

“It’s true.” He shoved both fists into the front pockets of his baggy jeans. “Some of the kids knew I’d worked for the old guy and that I knew where he kept his keys to his vintage cars, since I’d spent a few days working for him, so . . . I . . .” He hesitated, as if he was afraid to say what was on his mind.

“So you what?” she prodded, surprised at his candor. This was a secret he’d managed to keep.

“Miles Dean, he dared me to swipe the keys.” Stephen bit his lower lip.

“Again? Why?”

“I—I don’t know.” He looked genuinely filled with regret. “Maybe he was gonna drive one of ’em. He liked that old Buick, but anyway it was the day the old man split.”

Her throat was as dry as a desert wind, her pulse pounding out, No, no, no, in her ears. Don’t ask it, Tiffany. You don’t want to know. But she couldn’t stop the question from forming on her lips. “And did you?”