“This is wrong,” Johnny said.

“Take it easy, son.” Hunt looked at Johnny’s mother, who was close to tears, then focused on the boy. “I’m talking to your Uncle Steve. I think I can arrange for you to stay with him while this runs its course.”

“Steve is an asshole.”

“Johnny!”

“Well, he is, Mom.”

Hunt leaned closer. “It’s Steve or a court-appointed guardian. With Steve, your mother can visit when she wants. You’ll still be with family, at least until a final decision is made. If it goes to court, it’s out of my hands. The judge makes the call and you take what you get. It’s not always good.”

Johnny looked at his mother, but her face was in her hands. “Mom?” She shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” Hunt said. “But this has been a long time coming. In the end, it will be for the best.”

“We need to find my father,” Johnny said.

He didn’t hear his mother’s footsteps. Suddenly, she was just there, by the bed. Her eyes shone, large and dark and sad. “No one knows where to find him, Johnny.”

“But you said he wrote. You said Chicago, maybe California.”

“He never wrote.”

“But-”

“I lied.” She turned one palm, and it flashed white. “He never wrote.”

Johnny’s vision blurred. “I want to go home,” he said, but Hunt was unforgiving.

“That’s not going to happen.”

Katherine stepped to her son’s side. She lifted her chin, and Hunt saw the protectiveness, the thin measure of pride. “Please,” she said, and took her son’s hand.

“I want to go home,” Johnny repeated.

And for an instant, Hunt was kind enough to look away; but this was the job. He admired a lot of things about the kid, but whatever fantasy world the boy lived in, it was time to knock it down, before somebody else got hurt or the boy got himself killed.

Hunt crossed the room and picked up the paper bag that held the boy’s feathers, his rattles, and the lone, yellowed skull. He pulled out the necklaces and turned so that they hung at eye level. “You want to tell me about this?”

“What is that?” Katherine asked.

“Johnny was wearing these when he came in. He was painted with soot and berry juice, half dressed, his pockets stuffed with something they tell me is snakeroot, whatever that is. DSS is going to ask about that, about all of it. They’re going to push, hard, and I think maybe Johnny should start by telling me.”

Johnny stared at the feathers, saw that Jar had sliced one of them clean in half. Nothing, he realized, had changed. The cop was still a threat, his mother still weak. No one would understand.

“It’s not normal,” Hunt stressed.

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Tell me about Burton Jarvis.”

“No.”

“How did you find him? How many times did you go there?”

Johnny looked out the window.

Hunt dropped the necklaces, scooped up the pages that contained Johnny’s notes. “Are these notes accurate? This indicates more than a dozen visits. And others, too. Not just at the Jarvis place.”

Johnny glanced at the notes. “Those are just pretend.”

“What?”

“Like a game.”

“Johnny-” Disappointment hung on his features.

Johnny didn’t even blink. “Last night was the first time.”

“I understand why you feel the need to lie, son, but I need to know what you saw. You have five names on here, people that we’re aware of, known offenders that we’re watching. Then there’s the sixth man. The one that came to Burton Jarvis’s place on multiple occasions.” Hunt studied the page. “There’s a full page of notes on this man. You have a general description: height, weight, hair color. You have the make of his car and three different license plate numbers, all of which were reported stolen sometime in the past year. I need to know who this man is. I think you can help me.”

“No.”

“What is ‘small yellow’? What does that mean?

“You work for the same people as DSS.”

“Damn it.” Hunt’s patience evaporated, and Katherine stepped between her son and the cop. She spread slender fingers, and her words came with rare conviction.

“That’s enough,” she said.

“Half of these notes are illegible. There may be information here that is important in ways that Johnny doesn’t fully understand. He needs to talk to me.”

Katherine looked at her son’s writing. She scanned the notes, then read them more closely. It took some time, but Hunt waited. When she finished, she looked frightened. “If he answers your questions, will that help us with DSS? Or hurt us?”

“You have to trust me.”

“Nothing is more important than keeping my son,” she said.

“Not even getting Alyssa back?”

“Are you saying that might happen?”

“Your son, I believe, has discovered a previously unknown pedophile operating in the area. A smart one. A careful one. There could be a link.”

“Is that likely?”

Hunt’s doubt showed in his voice. “I don’t know.”

“Then I have to think about the child I still have.”

“I’m worried for your son.”

She held his gaze, and her voice was as sharp and brittle as a shard of glass. “You want us to trust you?”

“Yes.”

“Trust the police?”

“Yes.”

Katherine stepped forward, shoved the pages at Hunt. “You want to talk about this unknown pedophile. The smart one. The careful one. The one associated with the man that almost killed my son…”

Hunt tilted his head, and she pointed one finger at an ink scratch that only a mother could read. Her face paled into a porcelain mask of anger and fear. “That word,” she said, “is not ‘cup’ or ‘cap’ or anything safe. It’s ‘cop.’ It says the man with Burton Jarvis was a cop.” She pushed the pages into Hunt’s chest and stepped closer to her son. “This interview is over.”

After Hunt left, Katherine stood by her son’s bed. She stared at him for a long time but did not ask about the feathers or the notes or the things that Hunt had said. The color fell from her cheeks, and she looked calm. “Pray with me, Johnny.”

He watched her kneel, felt the anger stir someplace low. For a moment, she’d been strong, and for an instant more, he’d been so proud of her. “Pray?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

She scrubbed her palms on her jeans. “I think I forgot how good it felt.”

Johnny heard the words as if a stranger had spoken them. It was so easy for her to quit, to throw up her hands and settle for feeling better.

“He doesn’t listen,” Johnny said.

“Maybe we need to give him another chance.”

Johnny stared at her, so disgusted and disappointed that he could no longer hide it. He gripped the rail and felt as if he might bend metal with his fingers. “Do you know what I prayed for? Every single night until I realized that God doesn’t care? That he never would. Do you know?”

His voice was brutal, and she shook her head, eyes both sad and startled.

“Three things only,” Johnny said. “I prayed for the rest of our family to come home. I prayed for you to stop taking pills.” She opened her mouth, but Johnny spoke over her. The words came fast and cold. “I prayed for Ken to die.”

“Johnny!”

“Every night, I prayed for it. Family home. An end of pills. Ken Holloway to die a slow and painful death.”

“Please, don’t say that.”

“What part? For Ken to die? Slow and painful?”

“Don’t.”

“I want him to die in fear like he’s put on us. I want him to know how it feels to be helpless and afraid, and then I want him to go someplace where he can’t touch us anymore.” She laid a finger on his hair-sad eyes gone liquid-and he pushed her hand away. “But God’s not about that, is he?” Johnny sat up higher, anger gone to rage, rage taking him fast to tears. “Prayer didn’t bring Alyssa home. Or Dad. It never kept the house warm or kept Ken from hurting you. God turned his back on us. You told me that yourself. Remember?”

She did. A cold night on the floor of a depleted house, blood on her teeth and the sound of Ken pouring a drink in the other room. “I think that maybe I was wrong.”