His father pressed a hand over his eyes. Jack saw his lips tremble and thought he was going to sob.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “I never should have told you.”

Dad looked at him with wet eyes. “Never? I wish you’d told me back then! I’ve spent the last fifteen years thinking he was still out there, unnamed, unknown, some kind of wraith I’d never get my hands on. You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake and imagined my hands around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.”

Jack couldn’t hide his shock. “I thought you’d be horrified if you knew what I’d done.”

“No, Jack. The real horror was losing you all those years. Even if you’d been caught, you could have pled temporary insanity or something like that and got off with a short sentence. At least then I’d have known where you were and could have visited you.”

“Better for you, maybe.”

A jolt in the joint, even a short one…unthinkable.

“I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight.”

Jack still couldn’t believe it. “I killed a man and you’re okay with that?”

“With killing that man, yes, I’m okay. I’m more than okay, I’m—” He threw his arms around Jack. “I’m proud of you.”

Whoa.

Jack wasn’t into hugs, but he did manage to give his dad a squeeze, all the while thinking, Proud? Proud? Christ, how could I have read him so wrong?

Once again Anya’s words from that first day came back to him.

Trust me, kiddo, there’s more to your father than you ever dreamed.

They broke the clinch and backed off a couple of feet.

Jack said, “If I’d have known you felt that way, I might have asked you for help. I could have used some. And you would have been doing something instead of waiting for the police to do it for you.”

Dad looked offended. “How do you know I wasn’t doing something? How do you know I didn’t take a rifle and sit in the bushes, watching that overpass, waiting to see if someone would try again.”

Jack managed to suppress a laugh but not a smile. “Dad, you don’t own a rifle. Not even a pistol.”

“Maybe not now, but I could have back then.”

“Yeah, right.”

They stood facing each other, his father staring at him as if seeing a new person. Finally he thrust out his hand. Jack shook it.

Dad looked around and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s get going on these omelets.”

“You start the eggs,” Jack said, “and I’ll finish dicing the ham.”

A good night. A surprising, shocking, revelatory night. Like nothing he could have anticipated.