Dance told him, “That’s right. Rashiv and Wes were friends. Then Wes just stopped seeing him. I don’t know what happened.”

“Donnie and the others were bullying him, extorting money, beating him up. They stole a game console. Rashiv told Wes about it. There wasn’t anything they could do themselves—you’ve seen Nathan?”

“Yes. Big.”

“He was the muscle in the crew. He’d do anything Donnie told him. Including hurting people badly. Wes’d heard that Donnie and his friends were into some illegal things—the D.A.R.E.S. game was being talked about in school, though nobody knew exactly what it was. Wes decided to find out and—these were his words—‘collar the bastard.’ He talked his way into the clique and finally got Donnie to trust him enough to let him play.

“He even set it up with Rashiv to meet, quote, ‘accidentally’ and Wes’d pretend to steal a comic or something from him, threaten to hurt him. Donnie bought it all.”

“And today? At Goldschmidt’s.”

“Wes’d noticed Donnie acting strange lately. More erratic. The night Donnie tagged Goldschmidt’s house? Wes saw him pick up a rock. He was going to attack somebody who was approaching where they were hiding. Near Junipero Manor.”

Dance whispered, “Me. That was me.”

O’Neil said only, “I know.” He continued, “Wes couldn’t give himself away to Donnie that night but he turned his phone volume up and scrolled to ringtones. It played a sample, like he was getting a call. Donnie got spooked and took off.”

Dance closed her eyes and her head dipped. “He saved me. Maybe saved my life.”

“Then tonight he caught a glimpse of something in Donnie’s pocket and thought it might be a gun. So he decided, whatever evidence he had, enough was enough. It was time to call in the cavalry.”

“Why didn’t he just report it in the first place? A month ago? Why play undercover?”

O’Neil’s eyes swept her desk. “I don’t know. Maybe to make you proud of him.”

“I am.”

But even as Kathryn Dance said those words she wondered, but did he know it? Really know it?

Or, Dance suddenly thought: to make you proud of him, Michael.

Silence filled the room. Dance was thinking of the conversation she would have to have with the boy. Whatever the good motives, there were some minefields here. Dance had amassed capital in Monterey County with the prosecutor’s office; she’d have to see how much currency, and how negotiable it was. And, she thought too, Donnie’ll need help. Not just jail time. At that age, nobody was irredeemable. Kathryn Dance believed this. She’d do what she could to get him into treatment, whatever facility he was sent to.

Then she looked at O’Neil, to see that his expression and posture had changed dramatically. No kinesic subtlety here.

And everything she saw set off alarms within Kathryn Dance. She thought: As if what Michael just told me about Wes weren’t enough. What was coming next?

He said, “Look, as if what I just told you wasn’t enough…”