Shaw shot him another warning look. Not even enough, apparently.

“When he was doing that in Arkansas,” Chuck said, “he really believed in what he was doing. He thought it was the right thing. The best thing. I mean, he felt like he’d been converted himself. He even married a woman. They’ve got three kids together. It’s not like he was expecting anyone to do something he hadn’t.”

North opened his mouth, but Shaw touched his arm.

“How’d he end up here?” Shaw said.

“I don’t know the whole story. I know there was a lot of opposition in Arkansas at the end. A lot of protestors outside the building. A lot of angry family members. One day he just walked away. He couldn’t do it anymore. He left his wife and kids and wandered around for a while. Somehow, he ended up here. I think it was kind of a rock bottom thing, you know?”

“And all of a sudden, he discovered that he was still gay. What a shock.”

Shaw threw North another look.

“What? I’m behaving.”

“You’re basically right,” Chuck said. “The way he tells it, he kind of just figured he was still gay. And then he started up Iris. That was a couple of years ago. Three, actually. 2015. At first, it was just a basement room in the J, but he got donations, funding, and somebody leased him the Tower Grove house at basically nothing, so he moved Iris there, and it’s still growing. We have fifteen staff. We have activities every night and most afternoons. We have snacks—I know you were joking, but you’d be surprised how many of these kids miss meals. And we’re making a difference.”

She looked up, and North was surprised to see tears in her eyes. That, more than anything else, cooled the inferno inside him.

“You know all this about him, and you still work with him? You can look him in the face? No, Shaw, hold on. I’m not attacking her. Those are serious questions. You don’t seem like the kind of person that would have a lot of patience for Shep Collins, Chuck. What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I met him. I started volunteering. He hired me, and I was really happy because I loved it there, I love what we do. By the time I found out, I already loved Shep.”

“You love him?” Shaw asked.

“Everybody loves him. You might think you won’t, but everybody does.”

“How did you find out?” North asked.

“People started showing up. Kids—I mean, they’re adults now, most of them in their twenties—but the ones who’d been sent to Arkansas.”

“Jesus,” North breathed.

“Most of them wanted, I don’t know, closure. They were angry, yeah, but they’d talk to him, they’d see what he was doing. Sometimes they’d shout at him. A lot of times they’d cry. But usually they left better. Happier. Or more at peace, that’s a better way to say it.”

“Most of them?”

“Some of them were just plain angry.”