“He’s six years older than you?” I asked.

“Yes. I was this total pain in the ass-uh, I mean nuisance-”

Ethan laughed. “Dude, she’s not your mom. You can say ass and all kinds of other stuff. They’re cool with it.”

Caleb’s face reddened.

I could see the amusement in Frank’s eyes, which undoubtedly had more to do with the “mom” business than anything else, but I decided to ignore him. “So,” I said to Caleb, “you looked up to your big brother?”

He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. My brother isn’t a saint. I’d never say that about him. He wasn’t always easy to get along with. He liked being the rebel.”

“Hard on the rest of the family sometimes,” Frank said, none of the amusement of the previous moment anywhere in his voice. “My older sister was a rebel. Diana was always making it hellish for my parents, and I didn’t like that, but at the same time I also admired her. She was more daring than I was, but she was also always getting into trouble.”

I tried not to let my shock show. Frank was twelve when his sister Diana died, and his family had developed a code of silence about her that had lasted decades. That ban had been lifted awhile back, but old habits lingered-this was the first time I had heard him mention her to anyone other than his closest friends.

Caleb, unconscious of this honor, said, “Yes! That’s what it was like for me, too. Did she outgrow it?”

“No, she was killed in an accident, so we didn’t get a chance to see if they would have been getting along later.”

“Sorry.” He paused. “I guess that’s what I hate most about all of this-losing all the chances. I’ll never know my dad any better than I did when I was in high school. I don’t know what he’d say to me now, or if we’d even get along. I’ve already missed knowing what kind of bratty kid Jenny might have been over the past few years. I haven’t been able to be a brother to her. At first I thought it would only be a few days before someone would find her.” He paused again, and this time the silence stretched out before he went on.

After a while, he said, “Another thing-Mason and Dad never got the chance to be adults with each other. Our family was close, and I didn’t like to hear him giving my mom and dad shit all the time, but I think they were seeing that he was growing out of it. Mason was always braver than I was-still is. He can be funny, too.” He grinned. “I think I was ten before I realized that his biological father was probably not a guy named Mr. Jar. He replaced that story with half a dozen others, including one about my mom naming him after a jar because of the way she got pregnant with him-I was completely freaked out, of course, and he knew I’d never ask my mom if it was true.”

“That’s disgusting,” Ethan said, but he was laughing.

“Does he know who his biological father is?” I asked.

“No. Mom didn’t want the guy’s name on anything, because she didn’t want him to try to get custody of Mason. She’d never tell anyone the guy’s name-claimed she didn’t know, but none of us believed that. I asked Mason once if he wanted to know, and he said, ‘Only as a matter of idle curiosity.’ He also used to say that we had different fathers but the same dad.”

“Which doesn’t exactly fit the picture the prosecution painted of their relationship.”

“No.”

“You were saying that you know he didn’t drink because of this girl he dated,” Ethan said, demonstrating one of the reasons I think he’ll be a great reporter one day-he never loses track of any thread in a conversation.

“Right,” Caleb said. “Jadia. The way that happened was that one day Jadia showed up at our house, and she was drunk and wanted Mason to go somewhere with her. She was going to drive. Mason didn’t have a car of his own yet. My dad wouldn’t let Mason go with her. Mason acted all pissed off about it, but to be honest, I think he was relieved to have an excuse not to go with her.”

“So did they just hang out at your house?” Ethan asked.

“No,” Caleb said. “My dad tried to stop her from leaving, but when he went to the phone to call her parents, she took off. She made it home safely before anyone could do anything about it, but she was mad, and said some things about my dad that Mason didn’t like much, and so they split up.”

“So that’s why he stopped drinking?” I asked.

“No. Two weeks later, she hit a kid on a bicycle-killed him. He was eleven. I didn’t know him, because he went to a different school, but he was my age. Eleven. That’s how old I was when it happened. Mason kept saying, ‘It could have been you,’ to me. So I finally said, ‘It could have been you,’ right back at him. Kind of shut him up, you know? Anyway, he never did any drugs or booze after that.”

“He was lucky to have someone confront him,” Ethan murmured.

“I don’t know that it was what I said to him. I think he saw how many lives got totally screwed up because of that accident. The parents of the kid, the kid’s sister, Jadia’s parents-but it was really hard on Jadia, too. And I don’t mean because of the drunk-driving charges and all that. Mason told me that she never forgave herself for it. I think he knew that he was the type of person who never would have forgiven himself, either, if he ever did something that hurt somebody while he was drunk.”

Caleb glanced at his watch and said, “I’d better get going. I’m working on some things with Ben tomorrow morning.” He paused. “He’s always good about giving me Sundays off-that’s when I see Mason.”

“Is Ben doing okay?” I asked.

He shrugged.

When I saw he wasn’t going to say more, I said, “Thanks for bringing these notes over. I’ll look through them before I talk to the Garcias.”

“Thanks. There’s not much there. I never was able to be of much help to Mason.”

Our protests that he was wrong about that seemed not to make an impression on him. Ethan walked with him to the front door. As Caleb was leaving, I overheard Ethan say, “You believe in him. Don’t underestimate how much that means to someone.”

ETHAN asked Frank for a painkiller-something he almost always waits too long to do. When he first got out of the hospital, Ethan worried about the possibility of dependency problems with them, and talked things over with his AA sponsor. The decision was made to put Frank in possession of the pills, to dole them out on request, but he was supposed to call the doctor if the requests were too frequent.

So far, there had been no need for a call. If anything, Frank and I worried that Ethan was trying too hard to do without them, and losing sleep to pain.

“Tired of me yet?” he asked us as he headed toward his room.

“No,” we answered in unison, and wished him good night.

CHAPTER 31

Monday, May 1

9:30 A.M.

A CONDOMINIUM IN LAS PIERNAS

CLEO sat on her balcony wearing nothing but a fluffy white bathrobe. She sipped fresh-squeezed orange juice and watched the ocean. The morning was overcast, the gray clouds reflected in a gray sea. Her mood matched the grayness.

She stretched her legs out and rested her heels on a nearby chair. The onshore breeze made it a little nippy out here, but quieter than usual-the air was cool enough to keep all but a few joggers away from the beach.

Her own workout had gone well this morning. A little later today she might put some time in at the firing range. She reflected on the fact that much of her life was spent preparing for incidents that rarely occurred. Hours and hours spent training and planning for an action that might take place once a year. The most exciting part would be all over in a few moments. Adrenaline-loaded moments, to be sure, but few of them.

This didn’t bother her. She knew that many people worked for years in jobs that never produced one second of excitement.