Down River Read Free Page B

nodded, and I felt her eyes on me, brief glances when the road straightened out. “It’s good to see you, Adam. It’s hard but good.” She nodded again, as if still trying to convince herself. “I wasn’t sure that it would ever happen again.”
    “Me neither.”
    “That leaves the big question.”
    “Which is?” I knew the question, I just didn’t like it.
    “Why, Adam? The question is why. It’s been five years. Nobody’s heard a word from you.”
    “Do I need a reason for coming home?”
    “Nothing happens in a vacuum. You should know that better than most.”
    “That’s just cop talk. Sometimes there is no reason.”
    “I don’t believe that.” Resentment hung on her features. She waited, but I did not know what to say. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said.
    A silence fell between us as wind bent around the car. The tires hammered against a sudden spot of rough pavement.
    “Were you planning to call me?” she asked.
    “Robin—”
    “Never mind. Forget it.”
    More wordless time, an awkwardness that daunted both of us.
    “Why were you at that motel?”
    I thought about how much to tell her, and decided that I had to square things with my father first. If I couldn’t make it right with him, I couldn’t make it right with her. “Do you have any idea where Danny Faith might be?” I asked.
    I was changing the subject and she knew it. She let it go. “You know about his girlfriend?” she asked. I nodded and she shrugged. “He wouldn’t be the first bottom-of-the-heap reprobate to hide from an arrest warrant. He’ll turn up. People like him usually do.”
    I looked at her face, the hard lines. “You never liked Danny.” It was an accusation.
    “He’s a loser,” she said. “A gambler and a hard drinker with a violent streak a mile wide. How could I like him? He dragged you down, fed your dark side. Bar fights. Brawls. He made you forget the good things you had.” She shook her head. “I thought you’d outgrow Danny. You were always too good for him.”
    “He’s had my back since the fourth grade, Robin. You don’t walk away from friends like that.”
    “Yet you did.” She left the rest unsaid, but I felt it.
    Just like you walked away from me.
    I looked out the window. There was nothing I could say that would take away the hurt. She knew I’d had no choice.
    “What the hell have you been doing, Adam? Five years. A lifetime. People said you were in New York, but other than that, nobody knows anything. Seriously, what the hell have you been doing?”
    “Does it matter?” I asked, because to me it did not.
    “Of course it matters.”
    She could never understand, and I didn’t want her pity. I kept the loneliness bottled up, kept the story simple. “I tended bar for a while, worked in some gyms, worked for the parks. Just odd jobs. Nothing lasted more than a month or two.”
    I saw her disbelief, heard the disappointment in her voice. “Why would you waste your time working jobs like that? You’re smart. You have money. You could have gone to school, become anything.”
    “It was never about money or getting ahead. I didn’t care about that.”
    “What, then?”
    I couldn’t look at her. The things I’d lost could never be replaced. I shouldn’t have to spell that out. Not to her. “Temporary jobs take no thought,” I said, and paused. “Do that kind of stuff long enough, and even the years can blur.”
    “Jesus, Adam.”
    “You don’t have the right to judge me, Robin. We both made choices. I had to live with yours. It’s not fair to condemn me for mine.”
    “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
    We rode in silence. “What about Zebulon Faith?” I finally asked.
    “It’s a county matter.”
    “Yet, here you are. A city detective.”
    “The sheriff’s office took the call. But I have friends there. They called me when your name came up.”
    “They remember me that well?”
    “Nobody’s forgotten, Adam. Law enforcement least of all.”
    I bit down on