Prodigal

by TA Moore

  Boyd bought himself a second as he accepted the bottle and took a swig. His eyes looked distant, and Morgan absently scratched his wrists as he waited for Boyd to come back to him.

  “People want her to be crazy,” Boyd said slowly. “It’d be easier for them to deal with. She’s not, though. She’s just angry. And when she has to think about it, it just bubbles up and spills out over everything.”

  “Like your teacher’s car?”

  Boyd tilted his mouth at the corner in a shadow of a smile. “Exactly. Or Shay. Mac. Sometimes she’s so angry that she needs to make up a reason for it.”

  “She sounds lovely,” Morgan muttered.

  Guilt flashed over Boyd’s face. “I didn’t mean to sound—” He grimaced and tried again. “Most of the time it’s not like that. She goes to work—she works in pediatrics here, the kids love her—and she gets on with stuff. It’s just when stuff—anniversaries, birthdays, milestones—get on top of her that’s she’s at her worst. That’s when it just gets away from her. But she’s sorry afterward.”

  Of course. They always were.

  Down the hall, Mac stepped out of the room, his shirt pulled out from his body as he wiped something off the front of it. He glanced around and crooked his finger at Morgan. Old habits made Morgan balk sullenly at the summons, but Boyd headed obediently forward. Faced with being left behind, Morgan followed him.

  “I’ve filled Donna in about everything,” Mac said. “She knows about the DNA match and that you don’t think you’re Sammy. I’ve asked her not to… overcommit.”

  He brushed his hand down his wet shirt again at the same time he said that. The droplets that splattered over the tiles looked like tea. Morgan supposed he should be annoyed that Boyd hadn’t spilled the carefully edited story of Morgan’s childhood to Mac, but he couldn’t help but appreciate the loyalty.

  “So what should I do? Or say?”

  Mac shrugged. “Whatever you want,” he said. “Whatever feels right. Go on in.”

  He gestured to the door, which was still open a crack. Morgan uncomfortably shifted his weight and took a deep breath of chemical-sour air. The lie he was about to tell felt like a hook ready to drag into that room. He didn’t know if he was more scared that nobody would believe him, or that someone would.

  “You want me to come in with you?” Boyd asked.

  Morgan did, but it would make it harder to lie if Boyd were there. “No,” he said. “Thanks, but… umm… whatever happens, I should talk to her face-to-face first.”

  Boyd nodded, and then he pulled Morgan into a tight hug and slapped his back. It was about as platonic as Morgan could imagine anything that involved Boyd that close to him being, but Mac still pointedly cleared his throat.

  “And for the record, you would,” Boyd murmured against Morgan’s ear as he stepped back. His grin was quick and crooked, but his hand lingered on Morgan’s arm for a second. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be here when you get out.”

  Morgan almost changed his mind and dragged Boyd in with him, but instead he walked over to the door, rapped his knuckles awkwardly against it, and let himself in.

  “Hi,” he said uncomfortably as he hovered on the threshold. “I’m Morgan. I guess you wanted to meet me?”

  The woman on the edge of the bed didn’t look as Morgan had pictured, but he didn’t really know what he’d expected. She had faded blond hair in a practical cut and a grim cast to her face. She might have been pretty without that… or not. When she saw Morgan, her whole face lit up and walked over to him.

  “Morgan. That’s what they said your name is now,” she said carefully. “Can I… can I hug you?”

  She held out her arms and looked cautiously hopeful. Something in Morgan’s chest relaxed. He’d half expected to feel a twinge of recognition when he saw her, or of guilt for his plan to lie to her about her son’s real fate.

  Instead he just felt the cautious distance he always did when the social workers rolled him to a new home. The mothers were always on their best behavior, for a few weeks, anyhow, as they tried to coax the love out of him. It never worked, and eventually they got tired of him, and the hugs would dry up. Then they’d send him away and be ready with outstretched arms for the next kid.

  Morgan relaxed and spread his arms for the embrace. She sighed and threw herself against his chest. He shouldn’t have worried, he thought with distant chill. He could lie to Donna. She was really just another foster mother, and they got to use each other to get what they needed. It didn’t count.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE UNION rep had told Boyd to shave. He’d done that. His cheeks were bare and shiny. She’d also said he should wear a tie. That was more of a problem.

  He scowled at his reflection in the mirror, his plain white-walled and wood-floored bedroom reflected in the background as he fumbled with the black strip of silk. It was attempt five and his second shirt after he managed to rip the collar buttons off the first one. He fumbled the silk in the simple sequence of loops and tucks he’d watched on YouTube.

  Over. Around. Under… or over? It probably didn’t matter, so he pressed on.

  It turned out it did matter. The wide part of the tie ended up at the back, dangling down to his trousers.

  Boyd hooked his fingers behind the knot and wrenched it loose again. The long strip of fabric was wrinkled and damp. It looked worse for wear. He impatiently smoothed it out between his fingers, but that didn’t help as much as he hoped.

  The hell with it. Boyd balled up the tie and tossed it onto the bed. He hadn’t been reliably able to tie his own laces until he was eight. So he wasn’t going to master ties in a morning, not when he couldn’t get his brain to shut up long enough to focus on what his fingers were doing.

  It had been three days since Morgan met Donna at the hospital, and also three days since he’d talked to Boyd. It turned out he didn’t need Boyd’s support after all and had lost interest in his ass while he was at it. The thoughts rattled around Boyd’s skull like dice, with snake eyes represented by the reminder that Boyd didn’t have any standing to care.

  He wasn’t the brother or the mother or the local cop. The only relation he could claim was that he was a one—and a half—night stand who should have been pretty clear where he stood. Morgan hadn’t led him on, and Boyd didn’t get to be put out that he’d fallen by the wayside.

  He was, but as long as he kept that to himself, it was no one’s business.

  Boyd tilted his chin up, the skin of his neck pulled taut, and flicked his collar open. He was a firefighter. What did it matter if he wore a tie? A ribbon around his neck wouldn’t prove he hadn’t done anything underhanded to come up with Morgan’s bail. He just hadn’t.

  He gave his shirt a tug to pull the fabric straight over his stomach and then plucked his glasses from his pocket to slide them on. The heavy black frames made him look smart, and he needed all the help he could get.

  His alarm went off, the iPhone noisy as it vibrated against the glass surface of the bedside table. Boyd gave himself one last look in the mirror as he tried to decide if he looked like someone who should be allowed in a fire engine…even if it wasn’t in Cutter’s Gap.

  Close enough, he guessed, although maybe he should have tried harder with the tie. He straightened his collar, grabbed his phone, and headed out. It would be fine. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Except maybe, an oily voice that sounded a lot like Robbie Fernfield snickering in his mental ear as he went down the steps, fucking the biggest reason they wanted to get rid of him. That could count against him.

  Boyd paused on the last step to consider. Maybe it would, but in that case, they could all go to hell. He had no regrets.

  Except the tie. He should have asked Harry to do it for him.

  Boyd paused and took a deep breath as he reached the street. The tie didn’t matter. He didn’t care what they thought about Morgan. He was a good firefighter, and that was all that should count. If he didn’t let the rattle of disconnecte
d thoughts inside his head screw him over.

  He bent down to shove a few bills into the cup of the homeless man on the corner, who was wedged into the doorway of what the faded sign in the window had promised was going to be a Starbucks two years ago. The slurred “Thanks, pal,” grunted on reflex from under the matted beard, meant Ken was still with them. Last year Boyd had to administer first aid a couple of times, twice in the summer and once in the winter.

  Somehow the memory steadied Boyd, and his distraction dropped to normal levels. No matter what anyone said, or why he’d committed to this career, he was good at it.

  “Wish me luck,” he told Ken. “Time to talk to my boss to keep letting me run into fires.”

  BOYD SAT on one side of the long table in the Town Hall’s only meeting room and tried not to look sullen as the clock ticked down toward the start of a third hour. The strain of being still for so long hummed between his ears like static. Despite enough bathroom breaks to make him look as though his medical problem was his kidneys, he still felt he could jump out a window.

  “I think this has gone on long enough,” the mayor said after a nudge from his secretary. He adjusted his tie, checked down the table to make sure everyone was in agreement, and cleared his throat. “We’ll take a few moments to discuss the matter before we decide how to move forward.”

  The mayor was there on a technicality, although everyone in town knew Denny Samms had the job because he did what he was told and leased the rest of the council new cars from his lot. The rest of the panel were the great and the good of Cutter’s Gap—old money and prestige positions, from the owner of the local bank to a stone-faced Captain Mackenzie, who’d also had to take his turn being raked over the Calloway coals.

  Tara put her hand on Boyd’s knee under the table and pressed his heel down to the ground. He hadn’t noticed he was bouncing his leg. “Before that, can we return to Mr. Maccabee’s previous request?”

  “Obviously we can’t disclose who made the complaint,” Judge Nate Fernfield said, his tone light and breezy as though his point were uncontestable. “Under the circumstances.”

  He glanced at the paperwork in front of him and then ostentatiously showed it to Betty Cutter next to him. The middle-aged woman, all Nevada-leather tan and turquoise bracelets, squinted briefly and nodded her agreement. As a teenager she was briefly married to the last descendant of the town founder, and she hung on to the name and her cut of the money through five subsequent marriages.

  Betty Cutter didn’t rock the boat. The boat, and the courts, had been very good to her over the years.

  “Nate’s right,” she said primly. “Quite inappropriate a request. I don’t know how they do things where you are from, Mrs. Martinez—”

  “Mz.,” Tara corrected through her teeth, the sibilant pointed as a wasp’s drone. “And I’m from West Virginia, ma’am, so I’m aware this isn’t an inappropriate request. How are we supposed to know if this complaint is founded or based on a grudge or homophobia?”

  Betty sniffed at her, and Nate leaned forward to reclaim control of the exchange.

  “The panel has thoroughly examined the issues raised,” Nate said as he sat back. He laced his fingers together on top of the file. “We’re satisfied that there is sufficient weight to them to justify this conversation.”

  Harry cleared his throat. “As Maccabee’s captain, I would like to go on record that I disagree. Maccabee has an exemplary—”

  A few of the panel made noises of support as they looked down at their notes and murmured to each other.

  Nate held up his hand. “I think we can just assume your support at this point, Captain,” he said with a smile. “It’s admirable but not actionable. Unfortunately. Now like the mayor said, we will need a chance to discuss this hearing.”

  “Panel,” Tara corrected him tartly.

  He chuckled. “Fair enough. Either way, wait outside. Please.”

  It was only the two of them who left. Harry, with a reassuring nod, stayed behind. Outside Tara pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her briefcase and tapped one out into her fingers.

  “I see what your friend meant about an agenda,” she said. Habit made her flick the filter of the cigarette with her thumbnail, even though it wasn’t lit. “Look, they’re going to reinstate you when we go back in. The financial malfeasance was just to generate smoke, and your captain shot down the accusation that your ADHD meant you couldn’t do your job. That’s this time. If you aren’t going to let them bury the Calloway case, you need to put in for a transfer now. I hear Charleston’s looking.”

  Tara glanced at the door and then down at her hand. “I need five minutes,” she said. “Don’t go back in until I’m back. It’s going to be okay, Boyd.”

  She patted his arm and then walked briskly down to the hall toward the back stairs. Boyd laced his hands behind his head, stretched his shoulders back until they clicked, and bounced on the balls of his feet. He still felt his nerves tingle and misfire with the need to move, but at least his muscles didn’t feel as though they were going to burst off his bones anymore. Much.

  The door creaked open behind him, and Boyd nearly gave himself whiplash as he spun around. Mac gave him a thin smile and gestured for him to calm down.

  “I said my bit,” he said. “They know where I stand, and I need to have a word with you.”

  “Not sure I’m supposed to talk to you right now,” Boyd said. His throat felt gluey with resentment and regret. It wasn’t fair to blame Mac for any of this—not the disciplinary, or the fact that Morgan hadn’t called him—but he still sort of did. “Because this is all bullshit.”

  Mac winced and closed the door behind him. “I know. You said that already,” he noted. “But it’s not related to this… directly. Have you spoken to Donna since she left the hospital?”

  “No,” Boyd said. “I meant to go over yesterday, but I didn’t want it to kick off if Shay was there, and I had this to get ready for. Thought it would be best if I stayed out the way until someone asked me to come in. Why?”

  Mac ran his hand over his short-cropped hair and sighed. He tilted his head for Boyd to follow him and headed to one of the window alcoves. Once there he leaned back against the frame and crossed his arms, eyebrows drawn down in a frown.

  “Donna won’t give me a DNA sample,” he said.

  That wasn’t the roadblock Boyd had expected. “Doesn’t she believe Morgan could be Sammy?”

  “The opposite,” Mac said. “She’s convinced that he is Sammy, and she doesn’t need a DNA sample to prove it. Apparently a mother just knows.”

  “What about Morgan?”

  Mac’s face hardened, suddenly unreadable. “That’s not something I can talk about right now,” he said. “Not to you. This is an active investigation now, and you’re not a cop, Boyd. Even if you were, you’re too close to this.”

  “Since when?” Boyd protested. “The fact that I was friends with Sammy has never stopped you from asking for my help before.”

  Mac pulled the corners of his mouth down in an expressive grimace. “It’s not Sammy I’m worried about,” he said. “I already knew you’d gotten close to Morgan, and the pictures from the other day just confirm it. I don’t want you to get hurt, to get any more hurt than you’re already going to be when this all shakes out.”

  Heat flushed up Boyd’s spine and into his ears. All that energy banked in his muscles needed something to do, and anger seemed as good as anything. He swallowed the first tangle of fractured, angry curses that were sharp and scratchy against the roof of his mouth, and shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet again.

  He took a second to pull the objection into order and said, “You’re not my father.” The words sounded harsh, maybe more so because they both knew how useless Boyd’s actual dad had turned out. “You don’t get to pass judgment for me on whether something is worth being hurt or not. That’s my call, Mac.”

  Mac took that on the chin. He clenched his jaw and gave a brusque, one-time-only
dip of his chin.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Fair enough. I’m not, and I overstepped. It’s none of my business if Morgan breaks your heart or just leaves you with blue balls. The case, that’s mine. What Morgan told me was privileged information, and that? Is none of your business. If Morgan wanted you to know, he’d have told you.”

  And might have already, Boyd realized, if Mac meant the fractured memories of Morgan’s childhood. That possibility deflated some of his indignation, but the rest fizzed on with a mixture of momentum and “nowhere else to put it” energy.

  “So there’s some stuff that’s none of my business?” he said. “But other stuff that, I guess, you need my help with? Yeah, well, I’ve got my hands full, and maybe everyone’s right. I should focus on doing my job, keeping my job, and less on the Calloways.”

  Mac scratched his jaw. “Maybe. You run out of steam yet?”

  “No.”

  “Want to punch me?”

  Boyd gave him an annoyed look. “No.”

  “Hit me with a chair?”

  The snort of laughter was anemic and not entirely amused, but it punctured the sagging bubble of Boyd’s temper. He leaned back against the window, the glass hot against his shoulder blades, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Talk to Donna. Tell her that we have to be sure,” Mac said. “You want Sammy back nearly as much as she does, and she knows that. You can get through to her.”

  That sounded like the truth, but Boyd wasn’t sure it felt like it anymore. There were things he wanted more, things he wanted for himself. That didn’t mean he didn’t want Sammy back, or at least to find out what happened, but not as much as Donna did.

  “I don’t think Shay wants me there,” he said instead.