At the crest of the hill he paused to absorb the view. Southern California was at its best in April. Wildflowers had sprung up in the meadow and the long grass rustled in the wind. It was quiet up here, even against the faint noise of traffic that rose from the town below. Jon moved over to a table, where he stood, arms crossed, his hip resting against the edge. In early March, a storm had blown in with hard rain and high winds that had downed trees and torn off branches that now littered the area. Walker bent and picked up a stick. He flung it like a boomerang, though it whipped off without returning.

“I guess we better talk while we can,” Jon said.

Walker sat on a picnic bench, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together loosely. “I was thinking about it on the way over. This business with Sutton won’t work. I don’t want to be on the hook to him, you know? Waiting around for his next appearance. Fuck that. The whole point in coming clean is we don’t have to sweat this stuff. It’s over and done.”

“For you. We still have the problem of how I come out of it unscathed.”

“We already went through this—”

“I know we did. I was hoping you’d come up with a solution. So far, I haven’t heard one. Get me out of the line of fire. That’s all I ask.”

“I’m still racking my brain.” Walker looked at his watch. “What time did you tell him? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

“I told him half an hour.”

“Well, where is the little shit? You called me at noon.”

“That was twenty-five minutes ago. You’re avoiding the subject.”

“Which is what, how you keep out of the line of fire?”

“Right. I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

“Yeah, well, my thoughts are to stay clean and sober. To do that, I gotta get square, and I’m cool with that.”

“So you said. Have you any concern whatsoever about what this will do to me? I looked it up. The deal is, you make amends unless doing so would injure others. You don’t think I’ll be ‘injured’ if you blow the whistle on me?”

“I don’t think the admonition applies when there’s a serious crime involved,” Walker said. “I feel bad, Jon. I do. We were good friends, the best. Then this came between us, and I’ve regretted it. We can’t socialize. We can’t acknowledge one another in public. I can’t even talk to you by phone.”

“That’s more your rule than mine,” Jon said, mildly.

“Bullshit. That was your dictate from the beginning. I only ever called you twice in the last twenty-one years, and that was in the past few weeks. And you blew me off.”