“Roberto,” Louis said.
The woman turned. Roberto did not.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“I know him,” Louis said. “What is he doing here?”
The social worker sighed. “He wanted to see his aunts before we left. He’s here to say good-bye.”
“I’d like to speak with him. Please.”
“I don’t think —-”
“I work with the police department,” Louis said.
The woman looked down at Roberto. “Do you want to talk to him, Robert?”
Roberto shrugged. Louis came back up the stairs.
“Can we be alone, please?” Louis asked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the woman said. “The boy is very upset and he might —-”
“I’m not going to take him anywhere,” Louis said.
The woman hesitated then let go of Roberto’s hand. She walked about twenty feet down the hall, sinking into a chair near the conference room door. She watched as Louis took Roberto by the shoulders and eased him down to the top step then sat down next to him.
Roberto kept his eyes on his new Nikes.
“Roberto, I want you to know how sorry I am,” Louis said.
Roberto said nothing.
“And that I know what you’re going through,” Louis said.
“You don’t know anything,” Roberto said. He pulled his knees to his chest. His eyes were on the two cops in the lobby below.
“When I was your age, I had to leave my home, too,” Louis said. “I didn’t want to go, but I had to.”
Roberto’s eyes welled. “I want to go home.”
Louis wanted to touch him, but he didn’t dare with the social worker watching.
“I know,” Louis said. “I felt like that, too. But I had to go live with somebody else for a while. Until things could be straightened out.”
Roberto didn’t look at him. “How long?” he asked.
Louis took a deep breath. “Well, there are some things that have to be sorted out first about your family, and if the judge decides...”
He stopped. He would only make things worse by lying. He knew what was ahead. “I don’t know when you can go home,” he said.
“Do I have to stay with her?” he asked.
Louis looked back at the social worker, who was still watching them closely.
“No,” Louis said.
Roberto’s chin quivered. “Then who’s going to take care of me?”
Someone good and kind? Someone who will make you believe that you might, someday, be able to trust people again, like Phillip Lawrence did for me? It had been a long two years and too many other shadowed houses before Louis had finally been placed with Phillip, his last foster father.
“They’ll find a place for you with a family and —-”
“I already have a family. I want to go home.” He was crying now. “I miss Papa and I want to go home. Why did you have to come? It’s all your fault.”
Louis reached out and touched Roberto’s hair. The boy jerked away.
Louis heard the social worker’s heavy footsteps coming toward them. He rose slowly.
“I think you should go,” the woman said.
Louis hesitated, looking down at Roberto. He went slowly down the stairs. At the bottom, he stopped and looked up. Roberto and the social worker were gone.
He pushed open the door and wedged his way through the reporters. When he reached the other side of the street, he looked back at the second-story window of the police station.
Horton’s words came back to him. Your whole fucking Rambo act is going to end up being for nothing.
He couldn’t let himself believe that. If he believed it was all for nothing, he would go crazy.
It wasn’t all for nothing. It was to save one baby’s life.
He felt a trickle of sweat make its way slowly down his back and the air was suddenly too thick to breathe in. He was standing but he felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He took a shallow breath and blew it out, looking across the street at the blur of faces and color in the media pack.
Wiping a hand over his brow, he turned, unsure where to go. He felt the urge to move, to run. But there was nowhere to go -—except back to an empty cottage. He started toward his car, reaching for his sunglasses.
Forget it, Kincaid. It’s just this case. Just those pitiful women, those small graves, and that damn baby skull. Nothing a six-pack and a nice sunset won’t cure.
He pulled out his car keys and reached for the door of the Mustang. A pay phone on the corner caught his eye.
He walked to the phone, fishing for change. He dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed the number.
CHAPTER 55
“You make a lousy hot dog,” Landeta said.