Healing Sands Read Free Page B

which was what Dan always wanted. Say you’re okay, and then I can go on making art and making nice and making believe all’s right with the world. Say you’re not, and I will still go on making art and— “
    I’ll be right here if you need me,” he said to Jake and followed Detective Baranovic out.
    Silence frosted the room that had moments before been a sauna. Jake didn’t look at me until he suddenly seemed to realize we were alone. His face came up, ashen and twitching and no longer able to hide the fear that obviously raked at him.
    â€œI’m taking you home with me,” I said, “so we can talk this thing through.”
    â€œI’d rather go to detention,” he said.
    His words kicked me in the gut. “You’re in serious trouble, son.”
    â€œI know !” He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, and I watched his bony shoulders shake, sure they’d grown smaller and more gaunt in the last two hours.
    â€œAll right—we won’t go there right now. Let’s just go home where it’s quiet and try to sort this out.”
    â€œI’ll go home.” He turned the stormy eyes on me. “With Dad. That’s my home.”
    â€œYou bet, buddy,” Dan said from the doorway. “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
    Jake collapsed onto his arms on the table, and I stormed out the door. In the hall, Dan stopped beside a drinking fountain and assumed the position: back against the wall, arms folded across his chest, crossing me out as his brown eyes surveyed the floor tiles. Jake had learned it from the master.
    â€œâ€˜It’s going to be okay , Jake’?” I said. “What’s going to be okay, Dan? The food in detention? Those cool shackles he gets to wear around his ankles when they drag him into court? What are you thinking ?”
    Dan dragged his eyes up to me and held them there. “I’m thinking you hate to lose, Ryan. But for once, it isn’t about you.”
    I was stunned, and I must have shown it. Why did he choose now to grow a spinal column?
    â€œI know it isn’t about me,” I said. “It’s about what’s best for Jake. If I can get him away from here, I can get him to talk—”
    â€œSince when? He won’t even have a pizza with you and tell you about his day.”
    I didn’t notice until then that Dan was covered in white dust up to his elbows, and the front of his jeans was streaked in it as well, as if he had been rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. He’d obviously torn out of his studio without even stopping to wash off the plaster.
    Something dawned on me. “Where’s Alex?” I said.
    â€œHe’s with Ginger.”
    â€œOh.”
    Ginger was Dan’s “significant other,” Alex had informed me. If my ten-year-old had used that term for anybody else, I would have been amused. I’d only seen her once, from afar, when I’d dropped Alex off one evening. She’d struck me as a candidate for Deal or No Deal , one of those women who stood around with suitcases.
    I shoved my hair off my face, though it tumbled back immediately onto my forehead and left several chopped-off, dark strands in my right eye. “Look, you have Alex to be concerned with, and this is going to be huge for him too. You can’t deal with both of them, so—”
    â€œWhy not? I’ve been doing it for a year.”
    â€œRight,” I said. “And now one of them has been arrested for attempted homicide.”
    â€œYou’re saying this is my fault?”
    I could only stare at the man whose voice teetered on the edge of anger. Dan usually left the anger to me.
    â€œJake wants to come home with me, so I’m taking him,” he said. “Otherwise he’s going to detention, and I don’t want that, and I don’t think you do either. I already signed the papers.”
    I charged across the hall to the