When I was alone again, I began bouncing the ball. I received a text from Gates.

No??? was all it said.

Yes

That lying scumbag. I’ll string him up myself

What’s the point? Let’s just find the kid

I’m sorry I told you he could be trusted

Don’t worry about it. You didn’t know

I rose and tucked the phone into my pocket. All I could do now was wait for the cops to do their jobs and snag him somewhere along the way to his sister’s or uncle’s place and for Will to get a warrant to search his home.

I decided I couldn’t just wait in the office for the police to call me, so I went to Adam’s house.

I knocked and opened the door. No one inside. I went up to the bedroom, and Adam was fast asleep. No pills or booze around, so hopefully it was just a nap and he wasn’t blacked out.

As I went down the stairs, I stretched my neck from side to side. Tension had built itself up in me and came out of my head in intense, throbbing headaches. No migraines yet, but I was sure they weren’t far away.

I searched the medicine cabinets in the bathroom and didn’t see any ibuprofen. I went into my dad’s office and glanced around. I remembered he used to keep medicine he used only for himself in his desk.

One of the lower drawers was locked—Adam never locked anything. I looked around the room for keys. Back upstairs, I wriggled his keys out of the pocket of his pants, which were lying on the back of a chair, and went downstairs.

I tried each key in the lock. The sixth or seventh one finally worked, and the drawer popped open.

Inside were letters and a couple of medals from his days in the army. A bottle of ibuprofen was tucked in the back. I grabbed it and was about to close the drawer when the name on one of the letters caught my eye. It was addressed to my father in my mother’s handwriting.

I flipped through the letters. At least five of them were from my mother, though the return address wasn’t anywhere I recognized. I took out my phone and googled the address. It was the state hospital in Saint George.

I read a couple of them. They were mostly my mother telling my father about her day, though I couldn’t remember a time when my mother had been away long enough to write him. I looked at the dates . . . I would’ve been nine, a year before she died in the car accident.

The third letter made my heart stop. It read: