“You mind if we take a look?” said Ramirez, a little too eagerly.

“Not at all,” said Demerit, rubbing his jaw, “once we figure some things out. So let me get this right. The boy was caught breaking into his father’s old law office a few days ago. And then he’s at the scene of an arson where an old file cabinet is mysteriously discovered. And there’s a murder involved somewhere, because all of this is of intense interest to the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Department. How am I doing?”

“Pretty damn well,” said Henderson.

“For a suburban cop,” said Demerit.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. So tell me, Detectives, what is this boy looking for?”

Henderson glanced at Ramirez, who shrugged.

“We don’t know,” he said.

“Well, that boy does,” said Demerit. “And whatever the reason, it just took out a house in my township and set off a fireworks display that had the phone banks clogged for hours, so you damn well know I’m going to find that boy and get the truth. Now let me ask again, Detective Ramirez: Do you have any idea where to find Kyle Byrne so I can ask him what the hell is going on?”

Ramirez gave Inspector Demerit Kyle Byrne’s cell-phone number and a copy of the card of that friend of his, that Korean tax lawyer. In return, Henderson and Ramirez got to look into the file cabinet.

“It was his father’s file cabinet,” said Henderson as they drove east on Haverford Avenue back into the city. “And he took something from that bottom drawer, the one that was still open. And whatever it is, it is dangerous as hell.”

“You figure Toth was killed for the same thing?”

“Maybe.”

“By Kyle?” said Ramirez.

“Of course not. If he killed Toth in the office, he could have searched it then. Why would he go back later just so we could catch him? And you’re right, why would he leave his car in the driveway so that it would go up with the house and the fireworks? No, the kid didn’t do any killing, but I’d bet the killer is after him.”

“The guy who put him in the hospital.”

“Probably,” said Henderson, “unless his problems are bigger than we can imagine.”

“So who is it?”

“Don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same person that called in the burglary.”

“I’ll get hold of that tape.” She thought for a moment. “We need to find Byrne and warn him.”

“He already knows he’s in trouble, he doesn’t need our warning. But this whole thing seems to be about one of his father’s old files, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Which means it’s at least fourteen years old. And if it was dangerous now, it must have been dangerous then, too. How’d the father die?”

“No one seems to know for sure,” said Ramirez.

“Well, then,” said Detective Henderson, “don’t you think you ought to find out?”

CHAPTER 32

A MOTEL ROOM IS where romance goes to die.

The two Byrnes were in unit 207 of a cheap roadside motel in Bellmawr, New Jersey, just over the bridge from Philadelphia. The dark room was lit only by a flash of neon that slipped through a gap in the curtains. It smelled of yesterday’s urine, of indifferent adulterous sex, of the smoke that had permeated their skin and clothes from the night of fire they had passed through together.

Kyle sat in the tattered upholstered chair he had dragged across the floor so that it blocked the door, and he stared at his father, who lay sleeping on his back in one of the sagging beds. His father was wearing just his pants and socks, his thick torso was bare, his sagging breasts covered with gnarly gray hair. He was snoring loudly enough to drown out the strange goings-on in room 205 next door, which was just as well. Kyle sat in that chair, watching his father sleep the sleep of the unperturbed, the sleep of the innocent, and he brooded.

The love and astonishment that had overwhelmed him upon first seeing his father’s face in the beam of his flashlight had turned into something dark and sour. He thought of his years of vainly searching crowds for the father who had died. He thought of his mother sitting on the porch, staring out at the lonely darkness that had become her life. He thought of his own failures, one after the other, failures he had always secretly and comfortingly attributed to his fatherlessness. He thought of his mother lying withered and gray in the hospital, alone except for her brother and son, forcing that ironic smile onto her shivering lips one last time.

Where the hell have you been, you son of a bitch?

The ride through the city and over the bridge in his father’s green rental car had been tense and yet full of the excitement of their strange reunion and exhilarating escape. But as soon as they hit the room, Kyle’s emotions began to turn, and he started asking questions.

“I’m too tired to talk about it now, boyo,” said his father. “I’ve been following you around for days. I need to sleep. In the morning we’ll talk it all through, in the morning. I promise.” And just a few minutes later, the snoring began, a harsh, grabbing sound, like the endless emptying of a drain partially clogged with hair and globby deposits of fat.

So Kyle waited through the night in the chair, falling asleep for brief intervals, waking each time with a start, looking around desperately until he was sure the old man was still there, in the bed. There was a television on a stand, but he didn’t feel like watching. He had left his cell phone in the car at his old house, which put him out of contact with the world, but considering who was asleep in the bed, he didn’t much mind. He simply sat in the chair, and between fits of sleep he stared. He felt partly as if he were watching over his father like a protector and partly like a prison guard.

Because Kyle had to know.

The next time Kyle awoke, sunlight was streaming through the

BLOOD AND BONE 209

gap in the curtains and his father was gone. Kyle shot to his feet, dashed to the window, spread open the curtains. Light hit his face like a fist. Then, behind him, he heard the shower in the bathroom. A moment later the water shut off, and he could hear his father whistling, oblivious to the emotional turmoil bubbling in the bedroom. Kyle closed the curtains, sat down in the chair, and waited.

“Good morning, boyo,” said Liam Byrne when he came out of the bathroom, still wet from the shower. He was naked except for a towel held around his waist with one hand while he scratched at a wildly unkempt head of hair with the other. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fitfully.”

“You should have taken the other bed. I told you no one knows where we are.”

“I needed to be sure.”

“Well, you suited yourself as you always did, but I hope you obtained enough rest in that chair of yours, for we have much to do today, much to do.”