Esperanza said, “Bastard.”

“What?”

“I have to do another meet-n-greet and now I’m going to start crying.”

“No, you won’t. You’re too tough.”

“True.” She rose and started for the door. “Myron?”

“Yeah.”

“How many times has Win asked for help?”

“I think this is the first.”

“We need to find Rhys,” Esperanza said.

* * *

Mickey was quiet on the ride home.

Uncle and nephew didn’t always see eye to eye. Mickey blamed Myron for a lot of what had happened to his father and mother. In a way, that was fair. Esperanza had wondered why Myron had never butted in to warn her about Tom. The reason involved Mickey. Way back when, Myron had butted in when his brother (and Mickey’s father) Brad had wanted to run away with troubled tennis wunderkind (and Mickey’s mother) Kitty Hammer.

That decision, made with the best of intentions, had led to disaster.

“The missing boy,” Myron said. “He’s your age.”

Mickey was looking out the window. He had been through a lot for someone so young—his unstable upbringing, his mother’s drug addiction, his father’s bizarre return from the grave. Mickey had also, it seemed, inherited the Bolitar “hero complex” gene. He had done a lot of good in a very short time. That made Myron equal parts proud and worried.

“I was thinking maybe you could give me some insight into what he’s thinking,” Myron said to his nephew.

“For real?”

“Yes.”

Mickey made a face. “So when I’m dealing with a guy in his forties, should I get insight into everything about him by asking you?”

“Fair point,” Myron said.

“He was kidnapped, what, ten years ago?”

“Right.”

“Do you know anything about where he was all this time?” Mickey asked.

Myron shook his head. “Just that we found him working as a street hustler.”

Silence.

“Myron?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me everything, okay?”

Myron told him the story. Mickey listened without interrupting.

“So Patrick is home now,” Mickey said.

“Yes.”

“And you’re supposed to see him tomorrow.”

“That’s the plan.”

Mickey rubbed his chin. “If that doesn’t go well, let me know.”

“What makes you think it won’t go well?”

“Nothing.”

“And what will you do if it doesn’t go well?”

Mickey didn’t reply.

“I don’t want you involved in this, Mickey.”

“It’s a missing teen, Myron. Like you said, I might have some insight.”

Chapter 14

Myron’s car climbed up past the nouveau riche mansions, so expansive they appeared to have been taking some sort of growth hormone. The lawns were overly manicured, the hedges cropped with too much precision. The sun shone down as though someone had pressed a button and cued it up to do so. The brick was perfectly faded, too perfectly, adding to the faux–Las Vegas–Disney effect of the surroundings. No one had a tar driveway. They were made of some kind of fancy limestone that you didn’t want to ruin by driving over it. Everything reeked of money. Myron rolled down the window expecting to hear a fitting soundtrack to this ideal setting, maybe Bach or Mozart, but there was only the sound of silence, which, come to think of it, was the ideal soundtrack.