And there was Tom Walker, striding into the police station. He wore faded jeans tucked into boots and a black T-shirt that had a huge, colorful Walker Cove Adventure Lodge logo on the front. A dirty trucker’s hat was pulled low on his broad forehead.

He came to a stop in the center of the station, looked around.

Saw her.

Leni couldn’t have remained seated even if she’d tried, which she didn’t. She eased away from MJ and got to her feet.

She felt a flutter of energy that was equal parts anxiety and joy. She hadn’t realized until right now, this moment, how much she’d missed Mr. Walker. Over the years, she’d romanticized him. She and Mama both had. For Mama, he’d been the chance she should have taken. For Leni, he’d been the ideal of what a dad could be. In the beginning, they’d talked about him often, until it had become too painful for both of them and they’d stopped.

He moved toward her, pulled the hat from his head, crushed it in his hands. He looked different, more weathered than aged. His long blond hair was gray around his face and had been pulled back into a ponytail. He had obviously been working in the woods when Chief Ward called him. Dried leaves and twigs stuck to his flannel shirt. “Leni,” he said when there was nothing but a set of jail-cell bars between them. “I didn’t believe Curt when he said you were here.” He clutched the bars in his big, work-reddened hands. “I thought your dad killed you.”

Leni’s shame reared up; she felt her face warm. “Mama killed him. When he started in on me. We had to run.”

“I would have helped you,” he said, lowering his voice, leaning in. “We all would have.”

“I know. That’s why we didn’t ask.”

“And … Cora?”

“Gone,” Leni said in a thick voice. “Lung cancer. She … thought of you often.”

“Oh, Leni, I’m so sorry. She was…”

“Yeah,” Leni said softly, trying right then not to think of all the ways her mother was special, or how much her loss hurt. It hadn’t been long enough yet; Leni hadn’t learned how to talk about her pain. Instead, Leni stepped sideways, so he could see the boy sitting behind her. “MJ—Matthew Junior—this is your Grandpa Tom.”

Mr. Walker had always seemed impossibly, superhumanly strong, but now, with one look at the boy who looked so much like his son, she saw how it cracked him open. “Oh, my God…”

MJ popped to his feet. He was clutching a red plastic dinosaur in one fist.

Mr. Walker squatted down to be eye to eye with his grandson through the cell bars. “You remind me of another boy with blond hair.”

Hold it together.