A silence followed, both men lost in their own memories of war, and in the stillness, a phone rang, shrill enough to make them flinch. Burklow answered the phone and listened. “Yeah, he’s here. Hang on.”

He held out the receiver.

“This is Detective French.”

“Detective, hi. This is Lauren at dispatch. I’m sorry to bother you so late. I tried your home first, but no one answered.”

“It’s all right, Lauren. What’s the problem?”

“I hate to give you more bad news.”

“Best just say it, then.”

“Yes, sir. Four minutes ago, I took a radio call from a patrol unit working the industrial corridor on the south side. They found your son beaten senseless, facedown in a ditch two hundred yards from the Carriage Room. He’s alert now, and declining medical attention. Patrol is still on-site, but they say he’s hurt pretty badly. I can send paramedics, but thought you might want to keep this one quiet, given the past few days and the news and all.”

French felt disconnected from the voice, the room. Maybe it was sleeplessness or the scotch, but what he’d heard made little sense. “I think you have a bad ID, Dispatch. Jason’s in lockdown at Lanesworth.”

“I’m sorry, Detective, but I’m not talking about Jason.”

French drove fast, Burklow on shotgun. Beneath the hood, the engine screamed. On the roof, the cherry flashed. “You can’t help him if you kill us getting there.” They crested a hill, and the car rose on its shocks. “He’s safe. He’s with our people.”

But the hammer stayed down. Words. None of them mattered.

“Bill, slow down. I mean it.” They blistered an intersection, the stoplight steady red. “Jesus Christ.”

French understood the concern, but something wild had filled his heart. “He’s different, Ken. He’s changing.”

“Your son is changing. Fine. Slow down and we can talk about it.”

French drifted a hard right, and left rubber on the road. “I think it’s Jason,” he said. “He’s opened up something rebellious and dark. Watch Gibby’s eyes, the way he looks at his mother and me, his whole life. He’s trying to prove something.”

“How about you get us there alive, and then we see what’s what?”

It was hard to do, but French slowed enough to get them across town in one piece. It was a dismal part of the city, a place people lived because they had no choice, or because they wanted the drugs, the bought sex, the loss of self. Cops patrolled, but rarely.

Gibby shouldn’t be here …

And yet he was. French saw the lights from four blocks out. They split the darkness; painted the ground. His youngest son sat on the curb, and looked painted, too: wet and red, and in places, black.

“Head wounds. You know how they bleed.”