This time, I heard it, although only barely. He said, “I want to die.”

I squeezed his shoulder a little harder. “No. I mean, yeah, I believe you. But no.”

He cried for another couple of minutes. The front of my shirt was wet with tears and snot. He slipped from my grasp, dug into his pocket, and brought out some ragged tissues.

“I got more in the car,” I said.

“It’s okay.”

He dabbed his eyes and blew his nose. Then he just sat there, staring straight ahead, trying to regain his composure.

“Feel good to let it out?” I asked.

“Maybe a little.”

There was a muffled rumbling sound. Jeremy looked at me and said, “What was that?”

“That was my stomach,” I said. “I am, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking starving.”

He actually laughed, briefly. “Yeah, I guess I could eat something too. But I can’t go back in there.” He was looking at Bette’s. “Everybody in there has seen me losing it. They’ll all be staring at me. Can we go someplace else?”

“Sure.”

He got up first. I extended a hand and he helped me up. He might have been the one with the emotional breakdown, but I was the one with old knees.

I unlocked the car and we got back in.

“I don’t care about going to New York,” he said as I keyed the ignition.

“Yeah, well, there may be a change of plan anyway,” I told him.

“What?”

“I’m waiting on a call from your great-aunt. I’ll let you know after she gets back to me.”

He nodded complacently.

“Jeremy,” I said gently, as we left the diner parking lot, “during the trial, and since—ever since all this first happened—have they gotten any help for you?”

“Help?”

“You know. A counselor? Someone you could talk to about all the shit that’s happened?”

He shook his head. “Like a shrink?”

“Yeah, like a shrink, but not necessarily.”

“My mom said what I needed more than anything was love.”

“Yeah, well, that’s nice, no doubt about it. But when you say something like what you said a few minutes ago, that tells me maybe you need somebody to talk to about those, you know, kinds of feelings.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I like talking to you.”

“I’m not a professional,” I told him.

“Maybe I don’t need a professional,” he said. “I just need someone who gives a shit.”

Did I give a shit? I guessed I did, to a point.

My eyes were looking about half a mile ahead. “I think that’s another diner.”

“Okay. Do I have to get breakfast stuff?”

“You can get whatever you want.”

My cell phone rang. I fumbled for it in my jacket, put it to my ear.

“Weaver,” I said.

“It’s Madeline Plimpton.”

“Hi.”

“The beach house is available.”

“Okay.”