Bone by Bone

Swahn looked wary, but curious, too.

Oren walked toward him. "That A carved into your skin doesn't stand for AIDS. Nobody heard that rumor until after you were attacked." He stood toe-to-toe with Swahn. "I think you believe that now. You're not even gay, are you? Even that was a scam. Back in LA when you were a cop, how many married women were you screwing? Was Mrs. Winston one of them?"

Swahn's gaze was fixed upon the window, the view of Sarah Winston in her tower. He closed his eyes.

Isabelle Winston reached over the paddock fence to feed a slice of apple to the horse, Nickel Number Two.

In her early childhood, Number Two had been her name for Addison. Legally, he was her father, the only one she had ever known. But once there had been another father, a natural one. What was his name? She had carelessly forgotten. Beyond a tie of blood, her sole co

If only Daddy Number Two could fade away so easily

Addison stood beside her, making a great show of looking around in all directions to be certain that they were not overheard. His lips close to her ear, he spoke in a stagy whisper. "Don't you have any curiosity? You never asked me about the day your mother buried Josh in the woods."

"I don't believe you."

"Sarah buried something else. Evidence of murder. I could show you where to dig."

27

Alerted by the cowbells on the judge's bedroom doorknob, Oren took the stairs two and three at a time, bare-chested, barefooted and zipping his jeans on the run. His father stood before the front door, shod in sandals and wearing a sweatshirt pulled over pajama pants. Frustrated by three dead-bolt locks, he scratched on the wood with a clawed hand. The sleepwalker's imaginary box was cradled in one arm.

Oren gently turned him around and held him by the shoulders. There was anguish in the old man's eyes when he said, "I need another miracle."

"You and me both." Oren embraced him and held him close. Out came the words he could only say when the old man was asleep. "I missed you. God, how I missed you." He breathed in the tobacco scent trapped in his father's beard. This moment was the homecoming he had ached for, and he did not want it to end.

The judge began to cry.

Ha

"Get the key," said Oren. "Unlock the door."

The housekeeper shuffled off in fuzzy purple slippers to return minutes later, wearing sensible shoes and holding the key, two jackets, Oren's cowboy boots and a whiskey bottle. "First aid," she said, by way of explaining the bottle. She wrapped one jacket around the judge's shoulders.

After pulling on his boots, Oren unlocked the door and placed his father's hand on the knob so the old man could open it by himself.

Once outside, Ha

Inside the garage, his father became anxious again. The Mercedes was locked.

The housekeeper folded her arms. "I'm not giving up that key."

The judge let go of the door handle. Two by two, Oren and Ha

"Don't worry," said Ha

The judge neatly skirted every headstone along his path and came to rest before the Hobbs family plot, which held a hundred years of generations. He unlatched the small iron gate and stepped inside to sit down by the grave of Oren's mother. The yellow stray sprawled on the grass beside him.

"Compared to Horatio, that dog is a freaking genius," said Ha

Oren entered the gated plot and sat down tailor fashion. By the light of the moon, he watched his father's face. The judge woke from the dream to see that it was not day but night, and he wore the same shy expression Oren had seen at the close of the last episode. The judge stared at his wife's headstone and then discovered his son seated beside him. This time, there could be no retreat into sleep and forgetfulness.

Finally, wits gathered, the old man said, "When will they give Josh back to us so we can have a proper funeral?"

"It won't be long," said Oren.

"I guess you believe me now." Ha

"I suppose that would explain a lot." The judge fished through the pockets of his jacket.

Ha

Oren took a proffered cigar from his father and unwrapped the cellophane. "I've never smoked one before."

"Nothing to it." The judge bit off one end of his own cigar, and his son did the same. He struck a match and lit both stogies, warning, "Don't inhale, boy. Just let it run around your taste buds, and then let it out." He opened his mouth to blow a perfect smoke ring in the still air. And then he blew a ring within a ring, a thing that had once delighted his son.

And it still did.

"Ha

"You talk in your sleep, sir." Oren filled his mouth with smoke and exhaled it with his next words. "You asked for another miracle."

"Well, that can't be right. I'm opposed to all things mystical. I most particularly do not hold with miracles." The judge looked around to see that Ha

"Sir, you asked for another miracle."

"But there never was a first-" The judge, lost in thought, stared at his wife's gravestone. "No, I'm wrong. There was a miracle-more like a joke. The miracle of the rain-it happened right here. I know you remember the Reverend Pursey."

"Yes, sir, I do."

"Anointing you as a teenage archangel-that wasn't the craziest thing he ever did. But I had a few words with him over that." The judge smiled at this memory. "That loony old bugger. Oh, but what a showman. He packed his church every Sunday. One time, he accused Ad Winston of being the devil himself. Addison was so pleased. A lawyer can't buy advertising like that."

"Sir? You went to church?"

"No, I never do. But I'm not your typical atheist, either." Henry Hobbs absently stroked the dog's fur, and the animal loved him back, nuzzling his hand. "The way I see it-it doesn't matter if God invented man or man invented God. It's a done deal, and you might as well try to uninvent the isosceles triangle. But a bona fide miracle defies logic in both camps. A man-made god precludes miraculous acts. And a true god wouldn't allow them. Why shake man's faith in sweet reason? Take the Reverend Pursey. He was shaken witless by the miracle of the rain."