"It doesn't belong to me," Silas said slowly. "And I'm not accusing you of stealing it." He turned the lighter once more, unable to take his eyes from the broken chain. "What did you say your father's name was?"
"Richard Harris, sir." Toby added, "My mom is Sarah Harris. She says he was the best mechanic she ever met." At the mention of Sarah, Silas's lips parted, and the room seemed to tilt around him.
He looked carefully at the boy for the first time. Toby had his father's dark hair, an angular chin, and eyes whose wary steadiness reminded Silas of a face he had been unable to forget. But memory could distort any resemblance, especially when grief wanted an answer more badly than reason did. Silas understood that, and perhaps for the first time all afternoon he deliberately forced himself to slow down.
"Sarah Harris," he repeated. "Does your mother know you're here?" Toby lowered his eyes. "Not exactly," he confessed, and Bones made a rough sound in his throat that might have been the beginning of a laugh before Silas looked at him.
"Then the first thing we do is let her know you're safe," Silas said. He took the other objects gently from the bar and placed them back in the canvas pouch, leaving the lighter out. "You didn't come here for trouble, Toby. You're not going to leave here with any. But I need to speak to your mother about your father, and I won't pretend it can wait."
Bones moved toward the front windows and glanced at the bright gravel lot. "Want me to close up?" he asked. Silas considered the question before nodding toward Sal. "Keep the place quiet while I'm gone, and tell the boys there is to be no talk outside about the kid or his family. Not a word until we know what we're dealing with."
Toby looked from one man to the next. "Am I in trouble?" he asked, afraid to hear the answer. Silas crouched until his eyes were level with the boy's, an awkward movement in his heavy boots. "No," he said. "I think you may have brought something home that a lot of people gave up hoping to see again. And I think I owe you an explanation before you owe me another one."
Toby clutched the pouch against his chest. For the first time since arriving, he saw something in the face of the man everybody called Reaper that had nothing to do with danger. It was grief, as familiar in its shape as the sorrow Toby sometimes caught on his mother's face when she thought he was asleep. Silas rose and held out his hand, not to seize the boy but to invite him toward the back door.
"Let's go see Sarah," he said. The name sounded strange in his mouth, as if it had lived there unspoken for many years. Toby followed him past the pool tables and through the steel door, aware of the men watching without a single joke or whisper. On the bar behind them, a pale ring remained in the sticky varnish where the silver lighter had rested, a small mark left by the first thing that had disturbed the Rusty Anchor in fifteen years. Outside, the heat of the San Joaquin Valley hit Toby like an open furnace.