Page 103 of I Will Find You

“You’re wrong,” I say.

“About?”

“What you did. It wasn’t the same as with my dad.”

“What wasn’t the same?”

And then I risk saying the name again. “Mikey did the crime. You said so yourself.”

Nicky Fisher scoffs. “Oh, and you’re going to tell me you’re innocent?”

He gestured to the goons with his right hand. They start toward us. I debate bolting. Maybe I have a chance of getting away here at the community. They won’t just shoot me, will they? But I don’t think running will work, so I try another route.

“I’m more than innocent,” I tell him. And I stare directly back into those soulless ice-blue eyes. “My son is alive.”

Then I tell him.

I tell him everything. I make my case and speak with a passion and urgency that surprises me. He sends the two goons back to their posts. I keep talking. Nicky Fisher shows me nothing. He is good at that.

When I finish, Nicky Fisher picks up a napkin again. He studies it for a moment. He takes his time with it, folding it into halves, then quarters, then placing it neatly back on the table.

“That’s some crazy story,” he says.

“It’s the truth.”

“My son is still dead, you know?”

“I can’t do anything about that.”

“No, you can’t.” He shakes his head. “You really believe it.”

I don’t know whether he is asking a question or stating a fact. Either way, I nod my head and say: “I do.”

“I don’t,” he says. His mouth starts twitching a little. “I think it’s crap.”

My heart sinks. He sits back, rubs his face, blinks. He looks off, toward the narrow waterway that pathetically doubles as an ocean. Then he says, “But some things aren’t adding up for me.”

“Like?”

“Like Philip Mackenzie,” he says.

“What about him?”

“He helped you break out of the prison. I know that part is true. So I ask myself: Why? He wouldn’t do that just to help your old man. And why now? And then that makes me wonder about more stuff.” His fingers start drumming the table. “Like once you were out, you could have gone underground, tried to make a new life for yourself, whatever. But you didn’t do that. Like a stupid lunatic, you ran straight to our phony witness. Why? And then after you see her, you’re stupid enough—check that, you’re suicidal enough—to come at my people in Revere. Skunk, of all people.”

I don’t interrupt. I let him keep going.

“So here’s my problem, David: If you’re telling the truth, then I helped put you in prison for a crime you didn’t commit. Not that I’m above that. I mean, we’ve had people take the fall before. But not—I mean, not for something like this. Bad enough to lose a child. To be put in jail for killing him? I don’t know. Right now, that doesn’t sit right with me. See, I thought I was balancing the scales. I wanted justice for myself, my Mikey—and, I don’t know, the world. You know what I’m saying?”

He hesitates, waiting for a response. I nod slowly.

“I was sure you did it. But if you didn’t, and if somehow your boy is maybe still alive…”

Nicky Fisher shakes his head. Then he stands. He looks off toward that ocean-cum-lagoon again. His eyes still glisten, and I know he’s thinking of his Mikey.

“You’re free to go,” he says to me. “My guys will fly you wherever you want.”

He doesn’t look at me when he says this. I don’t risk saying anything back.

---