Leo had been gone for three weeks. Hank had filed the required report and had told visiting officials that the boy was unstable, dishonest, and prone to running away. He had also spent an uncomfortable amount of time explaining why a child in his care had left through a second-story window. When a caseworker asked about injuries Leo had reportedly complained of at school, Hank said the boy exaggerated accidents to win sympathy.
He feared a real investigation more than he admitted. Jaden had become too quiet in recent days, and Mia would no longer look at him when he spoke. One careless interview outside his hearing could undo years of carefully rehearsed explanations. Leo was a problem not merely because he had run away, but because he had survived long enough to be found and questioned.
Hank went to the living room and found Mia reading on the couch. 'You hear from that boy?' he asked.
She kept her eyes on the book. 'No.'
'You sure?'
'Yes.'
He waited, trying to make silence do what shouting no longer accomplished. Mia turned a page with fingers she kept deliberately steady. He finally walked away, convinced she knew more than she was saying.
In his bedroom, he called a man named Carl Higgins. They had known each other for years, ever since a vehicle auction had brought them into the same room and a shared interest in easy favors had done the rest. Higgins was a deputy in Mohave County, where the report of a runaway teenager near an abandoned station might appear to be local business. Hank trusted him not because he believed Higgins was loyal, but because he had learned the deputy's price.
'Found a lead on the boy,' Hank said when Higgins answered. 'Need you to help me bring him back.'
'You got the paperwork?'
'I got what I need.'
'That's not what I asked.'
Hank became irritated. 'He's under my roof by state order. I'm the one responsible for him.'
Higgins was silent long enough to make Hank understand that the responsibility would cost him. Then he said, 'If we're going out there, we do it early. I don't want people stopping to watch.'
Hank agreed. The call ended with an amount of money neither man intended to put in writing.
While they made their plans, Sully was sitting in the back office of a motorcycle repair shop outside Kingman with a fresh bandage across his shoulder. The shop owner, an old friend named Teresa Vale, had replaced the damaged primary cover and examined the rest of the Road King in the unforgiving daylight. She had made Sully stand beside her while she pointed out the improvised copper bypass and the emergency plate Leo had fitted.
'Who did this?' she asked.
'A kid.'
'What kid?'
'Found him hiding in an old service station off the highway.'
Teresa turned the copper tube in her hand. 'The layout isn't stupid. But it isn't something you should've ridden far on.'