and Amanda had been returned to Helene's home. By me.
"You owe, Patrick."
"What?"
"I said you owe."
I could feel the rage again, a tick-tick turning into a tom-tom beat. I had done the right thing. I knew it. I had no doubt. What I had in place of doubt, though, was this rage-murky and illogical and growing deeper every day of the last twelve years. I put my hands in my pockets so I wouldn't punch the wall with the white subway map on it. "I don't owe anyone anything. I don't owe you, I don't owe Helene, I don't owe Lionel."
"What about Amanda? You don't think you owe her?" She held her thumb and index finger a whisker from touching. "Just a little bit?"
"No," I said. "Take care, Bea." I walked toward the turnstiles.
"You never asked about him."
I stopped. I dug my hands deeper into my pockets. I sighed. I turned back to her.
She shifted her weight from her left foot to her right. "Lionel. He should have been out by now, you know, a normal guy like him. The lawyer told us when we pled guilty that he'd be sentenced to twelve years but only do six. Well, that was the sentence. They told the truth about that." She took a step toward me. She stopped. She took two steps back. The crowd streamed between us, a few people giving us looks. "He gets beat up a lot in there. Worse things, too, but he won't talk about that. He isn't meant for a place like that. He's just a sweetie, you know?" She took another step back. "He got in a fight, some guy trying to take whatever my husband didn't want to give? And Lionel, he's a big guy, and he hurt this guy. So now he has to do the full twelve and he's almost done. But they're talking about new charges maybe unless he turns rat. Helps the feds with some gang that's running drugs and things in and out of there? They say if Lionel doesn't help them, they'll mess with his sentence. We thought he'd get out in six years ." Her lips got caught between a broken smile and a hopeless frown. "I don't know sometimes anymore, you know? I don't."
There was no place for me to hide. I held her eyes as best I could but I eventually dropped my gaze to the black rubber flooring.
Another group of students walked behind her. They were laughing about something, oblivious. Beatrice watched them go and their happiness shrank her. She looked light enough for the breeze to toss her down the stairs.
I held out my hands. "I don't do independent work anymore."
She nodded at my left hand. "You're married, uh?"
"Yeah." I took a step back in her direction. "Bea, look-"
She held up a hard hand. "Kids?"
I stopped. I didn't say anything. I couldn't find the words suddenly.
"You don't have to answer. I'm sorry. I am. I was stupid to come. I just thought, I dunno, I just..." She glanced off to her right for a moment. "You're good at it I bet."
"Huh?"
"I bet you're a real good father." She gave me a wadded-up smile. "I always thought you would be."
She turned into the crowd exiting the station and vanished from my view. I went through the turnstile and down the stairs to the subway platform. From there I could see the parking lot that led out to Morrissey Boulevard. The crowd streamed from the stairwell onto the asphalt, and for a moment, I saw Bea again, but just for a moment. Then I lost sight of her. The crowd was thick with high school kids, and most were taller than her.
Chapter Four
My commute was only four stops on the Red Line. Still, when you're crammed into a moving can with a hundred other people, four stops can wrinkle a suit pretty good. I exited South Station and shook my arms and legs in a futile attempt to restore luster to my suit and topcoat, and then I walked over to Two International Place, a skyscraper as sleek and heartless as an ice pick. Here, on the twenty-eighth floor, sat the offices of Duhamel-Standiford Global.
Duhamel-Standiford didn't tweet. They didn't have a blog or pop up on the right side of a Google screen when someone typed in "private investigation greater boston." Not to be found in the Yellow Pages, on the back of Security and You magazine, or begging for your business at two A.M.