“We’ve discussed this. We’re going to meet with the judge. We’re going to get the final orders executed—”

  “—but now that someone has reported these things to the hotline, I’m obliged to address them formally, which means it’s not just up to my best judgment.”

  “What does that mean?” Hazard realized he was clenching a wad of Somers’s undershirts so tightly that his knuckles ached. It seemed to take a tremendous amount of effort to force his hand to relax so they could tumble into the washer’s drum. “What are you saying?”

  “I think it would be best for everyone involved if Colt temporarily—”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Hazard, if I’m being honest, it might actually help your chances with the final orders. It’s a chance to address any concerns, even though it means a few weeks’ separation—”

  “No. Ramona, no. Please.” His tongue was thick and heavy. “Please. He’s—it’s his last week of school. He’s been through so much. His friend was—you don’t understand what it would do to him.” Hazard’s face was hot as he listened to himself beg, when he wasn’t sure he’d ever begged before in his life. “I understand your position, but you’re not thinking about what’s best for Colt—”

  Her voice took on an edge. “It’s my job to consider what’s best for Colt.”

  “I know, I know. That’s not what I meant—” Hazard drew a deep breath. “Please. Not this week. Give us a few more days. Things will get back to normal. He’s been doing so well; you’ve said that to me.”

  Silence met him like a stone wall.

  “Ramona, please. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do. I’ll take classes. I’ll—I’ll write an apology. I’ll do the community service with him. Please.”

  The empty call yawned between them. Then Ramona sighed. “I’ll talk to my supervisor tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m not promising you anything. If she thinks that we need to move Colt, I don’t know that I’ll be able to change her mind.”

  “Thank you, Ramona. Thank you. Thank you.”

  “This is all stuff that we’ll have to address in the final orders, Mr. Hazard. The judge is going to have some tough questions.”

  “I understand. Thank you, Ramona. Thank you so much.”

  She said something else, but someone had pulled a plug inside Hazard, and everything was draining out of him. By the time he disconnected, he was empty, and he had to lean against the dryer. His face felt cold, and it wasn’t until he touched it that he realized a sheen of sweat covered him. He was holding, he now realized, the Budweiser frogs tee, the one that Colt had come to him in. He closed his eyes. He thought, if he could just feel angry, he could manage the rest of it.

  “Pops, Jaydog wants to know—” Colt stopped in the doorway; Hazard could sense him there, even with his eyes closed. “Are you all right?”

  Hazard shook his head. After a moment, he said, “No.” Then he opened his eyes. “What does John want to know?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m dealing with it, Colt. What does John want to know?”

  “Is it me? It’s about me.” Colt took a nervous step into the utility room. He hugged himself. “Was it Miss Ramona?”

  After a moment, Hazard nodded.

  “But I—” Colt’s face twisted. Then he shook his head. “Are they going to make me—”

  “No. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Colt nodded, but he ran the heel of his hand under his eyes, and Hazard remembered now that the boy had spent a restless night in the sheriff’s drunk tank, hungover and miserable and frightened, and then he’d spent the day worrying about Ashley, and he had to be close to as tired as Hazard and Somers. Exhaustion thinned the barriers, and Colt’s emotions welled to the surface as he blinked rapidly and looked away.

  “You’re staying here, Colt. I’ll handle it.”

  But Colt stared down at the floor, still half-turned away, and he couldn’t blink fast enough so he had to use the heel of his hand again. “You’re mad at me.”

  Why would I be mad, Hazard thought from that dead zone inside himself. Why would I be mad when it hasn’t once, not one fucking time, helped anything?

  What he said was, “I’m not mad.”

  Colt must have heard something in Hazard’s voice, though, because he dashed harder at the tears, and his shoulders curved inward. His voice was thick as he said, “I wasn’t going to go. They told me about the party, and I wasn’t going to go because—because we’ve talked about that, about me leaving the house, about how you guys worry. And I’m trying to be better. I know you think I don’t care, but—but I want to be good.”

  You are good, Hazard thought. You are my son, and you’re smart and strong and one of the best people I’ve ever known. But despair and exhaustion held him like a net, and he couldn’t find the words.

  “But then—then Ash called, and when I told him no again, I could hear Gwen in the background, and she was—she was talking shit about me not going, about how I was a pussy, and—” Colt stopped. He knuckled his eyes. “I knew you didn’t want me to go. And then, when we were there, she and Ash were drinking so much, and I told them—I told them I didn’t really want a beer, and they both started making jokes about how I was, I don’t know, the chief of police’s kid, and then other stuff, like, Gwen said I didn’t want them to put me in a home again, and…” Whatever else Colt had to say, it dried up in his throat. He shook his head and managed to look directly at Hazard. “Pops, I know I messed up.”

  Hazard nodded. He bent over to continue sorting the clothes.

  “Pops?”

  Hazard nodded again, but what he said was, “I need to get this laundry started.”

  Colt lingered in the doorway, hugging himself again. And then, after a minute, he went upstairs, and soon enough Hazard couldn’t even hear the sound of his steps anymore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MAY 21

  THURSDAY

  7:16 PM

  HAZARD COULDN’T HELP IT; he kept walking through the living room.

  Colt and Ashley were on the couch together. The smells of Chinese takeout, garlic and hot chilis and sesame oil, lingered, even though Somers had taken out the trash. The TV was tuned to Decoded: The Lincoln Assassination, which explained—although that was a loose term—the conspiracy theory that an international cabal was behind the president’s death. For all the boys cared, it might have been tuned to Barney. They sat close together, touching at the shoulders and hips and knees. Every time Hazard made a pass, the boys were giggling and showing each other stuff on their phones, which was apparently how adolescents communicated these days, even when they were in the same room. He tried to catch what they were saying, but their voices dropped to whispers every time he got close. He wondered what level of parental sneaking was appropriate.

  “Coming in for a landing,” Somers said in the kitchen as Hazard prepared to loop through the main floor once more.

  Hazard shot him a the-best-husbands-are-silent look and wondered, absently, if he might have better luck wearing slippers. Or really fuzzy socks.

  This time, Colt’s head came up when Hazard walked—quietly—into the room. The boy stared at him and then, flatly, asked, “What?”

  “What?” Hazard asked back.

  “Oh my God.”

  Ashley didn’t look up, but he appeared to be biting his lip.

  “You’re being a creep,” Colt said and got up. “Come on, Ash.”

  “Door open,” Hazard said.

  Colt made a disgusted noise as he took the stairs two at a time, Ashley trailing after him.

  When Hazard got back to the kitchen, Somers said, “He knows you’re worried about him.”

  “I’m not worried about him. I’m worried I should have scotchgarded that sofa.”

  Somers laughed quietly as he sprayed the sink down, the hiss of water and the chiming metal soothing.

  Hazard needed soothing. The last few days had been, in their own way, hell. Or at least a kind of limbo. Every day the same. Every day awful in its own secret way. With the investigation into Loretta’s death all but officially closed, Hazard had, in theory, been free to resume working on outstanding jobs—an insurance case in St. Elizabeth, a background check for a Jeff City law firm, a search for a Columbia man’s stolen collection of Bette Midler lithographs (sentimental value, he insisted). And while Hazard had worked those cases, in the long spans of waiting that came with most private investigator work, he nibbled around the edges of Loretta Ames’s death because he wasn’t sure—hell, he didn’t believe—that Derrick Sturgis had killed her. He tried getting in touch with Evan Pawloski, but, of course, the boy refused to answer his calls. He examined traffic camera footage, trying to track the movements of Ruff and Ayelet, but that kind of work required tremendous manpower, and all he got was a headache and a tendency to snipe at his husband at the end of the day. He even tried talking to Joyce Sturgis, but he couldn’t manage to get her alone. When he’d gone to her house, Kirsta had come to the door. She hadn’t opened it, but she had stared at him through the half-lite, and Hazard had realized with the kind of numbness that came with the cold, that Somers had been right: the girl hated him, although he had no idea why.

  And then, at night, he’d come home and try to breach Somers’s Fortress of Fucking Solitude. Since Sunday, Hazard’s husband had been like a man half-asleep. He went to work. He came home. He packed lunches for Evie and Colt. He talked about his day. Things were better, much better, with Peterson handling the patrol officers officially now. And while the police were still cooperating with the sheriff’s department on the investigations into Loretta’s death and Ashley’s kidnapping, things were actually fairly calm. It was a small town, and barring the occasional outlandish murder, it was a quiet town. Somers did all those things the way he normally did, and he smiled and listened and talked. And he wasn’t there. Not all of him, anyway.

  On Monday night, after Colt had gone upstairs—nominally to do his homework, but in reality to FaceTime Ashley—Somers had watched TV, and Hazard had tried to read a book (Ambient Air Temperatures for Crime Scene Investigation: You’re Getting Warmer). Hazard was in one of the good chapters, with a beautiful graph about body temperature, but he just couldn’t do it anymore. It had seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask: What’s going on? Are you ok? You don’t seem ok. What happened? And Somers had kept his eyes on the TV, answering with noncommittal non-answers: Nothing’s going on, I’m fine, nothing happened. Hazard had reached over and turned off the TV. His hackles were up. He was ready for the fight.

  He got nothing. Somers stared at the blank screen, his gaze so distant he might as well have been trying to watch SportsCenter on the moon. Hazard had tried again, more questions, and gotten nothing. Finally, he’d gone to bed. He’d woken once, around eleven, when Somers had come to bed. And he’d woken again, at two, when Somers went downstairs to pace.

  Every night since had been like that: sleepless night, Somers wandering in his own private hellscape. Then the workouts began: Somers pushing himself on the weight set in the basement until the clatter of the bar falling back onto the rack was more like a crash. When Hazard sent Colt downstairs to spot, the boy was back in less than a minute, shaking his head, wordless because he didn’t have any answers. Somers would finally emerge from the basement, flushed an ugly red from the exercise, hand shaking when he tried to drink water. Then he’d go for a run. He’d get back looking even worse and promptly puke in the front yard.

  On one of these occasions, Hazard got the hose and began to wash the vomit toward the storm drain in the street. He eyed his husband. Somers was hinged at the waist, hands on knees, his whole body shaking.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  Somers had wiped his eyes. Sweat. Maybe. And then he’d tottered inside. That night, he’d been up again, at three this time, hobbling around. And the next day, he’d done it all again.

  So now, watching his husband clean up, Hazard fought with himself. He lost, and he asked, “What’s going on, John?”

  Somers didn’t do anything to betray himself—no sudden, jerky movement, no tension in his back and shoulders. He was running a rag over the counter, picking up a day’s worth of crumbs, wiping them into his cupped hand. He shook most of them out over the trash can, and the rest he rinsed down the disposal.

  “You’re not going to say anything?”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. I told you, nothing is wrong.”

  “Nothing is wrong. Great.”

  Somers gave a tiny shake of his head as he tossed the cloth into the rag bucket.

  “So, I’m supposed to, what? Pretend you’re not trying to kill yourself with exercise and pretend you’re not up the half the night and pretend you’re not being so fucking weird that I’m scared out of my fucking head?”

  The smile was 2-D, and seeing it was so disorienting that for a moment, Hazard thought, Maybe it’s me; maybe I’m the problem, and I just need a stereoscope or anaglyph glasses or for somebody to shove a stick of dynamite in my ear.

  “How am I being weird?” Somers asked from behind that smile.

  Hazard opened his mouth, the words, I’ll tell you exactly fucking how already forming, when shouts came from upstairs. Hard, angry shouts. Furious shouts. Then a thump. And then a crash.

  “What—” Somers began.

  Hazard sprinted across the living room and up the stairs. The door to Colt’s room was closed, of course, but unlocked; he threw it open. Ashley was on top of Colt, and Colt had seized Ashley’s wrists. Colt’s lip was split, and blood covered his chin and his cheek. Hazard was distantly aware that a hole that had been knocked in the drywall and that Colt’s nightstand was lying on its side, but then his attention focused on the boys.

  “You fucking piece of shit!” Ashley was shouting, auburn hair swinging in front of his face as he tried to get his hands loose. “You are such a fucking bitch!”

  “Ashley!” Hazard shouted. He grabbed the boy from behind and hauled him off Colt, and Ashley fought to get free.

  Colt scrabbled backward until he hit the bookcase. Aside from the blood, his face was white, and he was panting—on the verge of hyperventilating.

  “I hate you,” Ashley was shouting, still writhing as Hazard forced him toward the door. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

  “She did it to you, bruh!” Colt shouted back in a wavering voice that sounded on the brink of tears. “While you were getting kidnapped, she was fucking that dude! I was just looking out for you—”

  “Shut up!” Ashley screamed. He went still in Hazard’s arms. Then he laughed, and the sound was so hurt and adult and un-Ashley that Hazard thought, for a moment, it had come from the TV. “You’re a fucking loser, bruh. You did it because you’re jealous—”

  “I’m not—”

  “—and fuck you for being jealous, Colt, because you had your chance, and you were too much of a fucking pussy to do anything about it!”

  Colt’s jaw dropped, and pain snowed out everything else in his face. It was so intense that Hazard had to look away. He heaved Ashley toward the hallway, and a moment later, he was marching the boy down the stairs.

  “What the hell is going on?” Somers asked, phone in his hand.

  “I’m going home,” Ashley said, trying to tear his arm free.

  “He can’t drive like this,” Hazard said. “Can you handle him? I need to check on Colt.”

  Somers nodded and put a hand on Ashley’s shoulder. The boy flinched, but he didn’t rear back, and when Somers said, “Ashley, come sit down for a minute. I’m going to call your parents, and we’ll get you a ride home.”

  Ashley was protesting, but softly now; he was a good kid, Hazard thought, and it was a strange contrast in his mind to the memory of the hurt in Colt’s face, the sudden, visceral desire to kill whoever could hurt him that badly. Hazard left them there and went back to Colt’s room.

  His son lay on his side, sobbing so hard that he sounded like he was choking.

  “Colt,” Hazard said, hunkering down beside him. “I need to take a look at you. Did you hit your head? How bad is your lip—”

  Before he could finish the question, Colt struck at him. The boy was lying down, unable to generate any force, but the blows still came in a stinging flurry, connecting with Hazard’s head and shoulders, until he rocked back, off balance, and tried to shield himself with one arm.

  “Get out!” Colt screamed. “Why can’t you ever leave me the fuck alone?”

  Hazard retreated to the doorway.

  “This is all your fault! I hate you! You made everything worse! Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  Hazard stumbled down the hall, and a moment later, the door slammed shut, and behind the crash came a hissing, staticky silence that swallowed Hazard.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  MAY 21

  THURSDAY

  7:53 PM

  SOMERS LOADED ASHLEY INTO Anais’s truck and promised they’d talk the next day. Tonight, they’d been lucky; she’d been half a mile away, picking up something at the Tractor Supply. Ashley hunched over in the seat, his face like negative space—despair that was a kind of vacuum. Even after the headlights bounced across Somers, even after the truck had disappeared down the block, Ashley’s face hovered in front of him. He had seen it before, after all. When he forgot, got careless, and looked in a mirror.

  Inside, he found Hazard standing on the stairs, looking up. The sound of violent weeping came from Colt’s room.

  “What happened?”

  Hazard’s shoulders slumped. Somers wasn’t sure if it was the light or his imagination, but he thought he saw the first silver at Hazard’s temples in that wavy dark hair.

  “Ree, honey, what happened?”

  He shook his head like a man coming back to himself and glanced down. “I…don’t know. They were fighting when I got there, and Ashley said—” He shook his head. “John, what the fuck? He—he won’t even let me talk to him.”