Miles still didn’t respond.

“Let it go, you got that?” Charlie was speaking now not simply as a friend, but as Miles’s boss as well.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I just told you why.”

Miles looked at Charlie closely. “But there’s something else, isn’t there.” Charlie held Miles’s gaze for a long moment. “Look… Otis says you got a little rough when you arrested him, and he filed a complaint-” Miles slammed his hand against the table, the noise reverberating throughout the restaurant. People at the next table jumped and turned to stare, but Miles didn’t notice.

“That’s crap-”

Charlie raised his hands to stop him. “Hell, I know that, and I told Harvey that, too, and Harvey isn’t gonna do anything with it. But you and him aren’t exactly best friends, and he knows what you’re like when you get worked up. Even though he’s not gonna press it, he thinks it’s possible that Otis is telling the truth and he told me to tell you to lay off.”

“So what am I supposed to do if I see Otis committing a crime? Look the other way?”

“Hell, no-don’t be stupid. I’d come down on you if you did that. Just keep your distance for a while, until all this blows over, unless there’s no other choice. I’m telling you this for your own good, okay?”

It took a moment before Miles finally sighed. “Fine,” he answered. Even as he spoke, however, he knew that he and Otis weren’t finished with one another yet.

Chapter 3

Three hours after meeting with Charlie, Miles pulled into a parking space in front of Grayton Elementary School just as classes were being dismissed. Three school buses were idling and students began drifting toward them, clustering in groups of four or six. Miles saw Jonah at the same time his son saw him. Jonah waved happily and ran toward the car; Miles knew that in a few more years, once adolescence settled in, Jonah wouldn’t do that anymore. Jonah leapt into his open arms and Miles squeezed him tight, enjoying the closeness while he could. “Hey, champ, how was school?”