Page 111 of Lion & Lamb

“And then you buried it in the garden,” Cooper said.

“Yeah. But the police found it anyway. Or Mr. Mauricio did, and he told the police. I swear I didn’t mean to get Ms. Maya in trouble.”

“You didn’t, Archie,” Maya said, forcing a smile as if that would hold back her tears. It failed.

“Why did you do that, honey?” Veena asked. “Why did you shoot your dad?”

Archie Jr. swallowed. “Ihadto.”

Cooper nodded. “Tell us what your dad said.”

“It’s not what he said. It’s what he did.”

“What did he do?”

Archie Jr. didn’t reply, but the way he looked at his mother confirmed it for Cooper. The boy had knownexactlywhat was going on. Archie Jr. hadn’t cared if his father hit him. But his father hitting his mother was too much. What kind of young man could let his mother be beat up, even if it was his own father doing the hitting?

“Dad always said blood is thicker than water,” Archie Jr. continued. “Nothing was more important than Mom and me and Maddie. I think he forgot that. I was just trying to remind him.”

“How?” Veena asked.

“I didn’t mean it. I just wanted him to stop and listen to me. So I pointed Maya’s gun at him so he would stop. I didn’t want to…”

“It’s okay,” Cooper said. “It’s not your fault.”

“But itismy fault!” Archie Jr. yelled. “I should have known Dad wouldn’t stop! He tried to take the gun, and I just wanted to pull it away from him, and I must have pulled too hard and…” The boy trailed off and stared off into space as if it were happening all over again.

Cooper fought hard to control the tightening in his chest. It felt like the onset of a heart attack, but he knew he was just trying to avoid crying in front of everyone. He glanced around the room and realized he didn’t need to bother. All of them were sobbing.

Chapter122

THE SUNhad set by the time Cooper and Veena got on I-76 and headed back to Philly. It was rush hour but everyone was leaving the city, so they hit very little traffic. It seemed like someone had turned down the volume of the world. Philadelphia was cold and quiet.

“You going to tell that prick DA about this?”

“No,” Veena said. “Not about little Archie, anyway. You telling Francine’s lawyer?”

“Pretty sure she knows. Starting to think she hired me for window dressing. ‘We got the best, Your Honor,’ and so on.”

“So we finally know the truth.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“We should be happy about this.”

“We should.”

“So why does the truth feel so horrible?”

Cooper drove in silence, mostly because he knew the answer to that question. A lot of people thought that life was a struggle between virtue and temptation, angels and devils, good and bad. But that wasn’t the case. The truth was, life was often a choice between bad and worse. Neither of those options felt good, but human beings were compelled to choose, hoping everything would turn out okay despite all evidence to the contrary.

Chapter123

9:09 p.m.

“ARE WEdoing the right thing?”

“That’s a loaded question,” Cooper said. “So the only answer is to get loaded.”

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