Blood Ties by S. J. Rozan

one of the places I went, they already had a picture. A real one,” she added. “Of Gary, not you. I took a copy. I’ve been passing it out with the other one.”
    â€œWell, now it’s different. Now the police’ll be looking for him as a suspect, not a runaway. They’ll look harder.”
    We were silent for a few moments, me out here, stopped, in a peaceful town, where a house was destroyed and a girl was dead, Lydia in action in the never-still city.
    And Gary, I thought, somewhere, alone, on the run, looking over his shoulder, trying to do something important.
    â€œBill?” I realized Lydia had spoken, was repeating herself. “I said, do you want to hear about that camp?”
    â€œYes. Sorry.” I didn’t try to tell her it must have been the phone, because it wasn’t the phone.
    â€œHamlin’s Institute of American Sports, Plaindale, Long Island. Building Men by Building Character through Competitive Sports.” Her voice told me what she thought of men built that way.
    â€œSupposed to be any good?”
    â€œIf you like that kind of thing. It’s been open about fifteen years. Parents send kids over weekends and in the summer. Sometimes schools send whole teams in the summer, too. And right now, they’re running this thing called Seniors’ Camp.”
    â€œI heard. Teams that make the play-offs, their seniors get to go to Hamlin’s, to get their game ready for college.”
    â€œRight. I think there are about half a dozen schools with boys there. But Bill, it’s only seniors. Gary’s a sophomore, you said.”
    â€œI was hoping. Anybody out there seen him?”
    â€œI talked to Tom Hamlin, the director. He hasn’t, and he doesn’t know why Gary would go there. Until Saturday,” she added. “For the game. The Warrenstown underclassmen come here and play the seniors?”
    â€œI heard about that, too. Listen, Gary has at least one friend who’s there, a kid named Randy Macpherson, a receiver. See if you can talk to him.”
    â€œSo you want me to keep going?”
    â€œYes. Sullivan told me to lay off, but he didn’t tell you to lay off.”
    â€œThat wouldn’t be because you failed to mention me, would it?”
    â€œWell, yes,” I said. “It probably would.”

five
    I closed the phone, thought how quiet it was here on this shady suburban street without Lydia’s voice. The gardener was gone now; on the lawn where he’d been working a wood thrush flitted from branch to branch, tree to tree. It chirped a little on each perch, flew on to another one, seeming unable to find a place to settle. The fall weather had been warm so far, and maybe this thrush thought he wouldn’t have to go south this year, could just stay and find shelter under golden-leaved trees until spring. Or maybe he already knew what he had to do, and was gathering his strength.
    I sat for a while, just looking. Then I started up the car, headed into town: I was starving.
    The Galaxy Diner occupied a prime spot in Warrenstown’s downtown, a corner where from one part of the L-shaped room, the part that looked out on the streets, you could see who was coming and going, and from the part overlooking the parking lot you could see who’d decided to stay. I took a booth on the street side, ordered coffee and a turkey sandwich. The coffee came first. I drank it and watched the light change and tried to think of nothing.
    The waiter was right on top of things, bringing back the coffeepot just before I finished my first cup. He filled it again and as he did a short girl, blond, maybe seventeen, slid onto the banquette across from me. She wore wide-legged jeans, a pink tee shirt with long white sleeves, a gray hooded sweatshirt she unzipped and pulled off as she sat. “I’ll have some coffee,” she told the waiter, smiling, and he smiled, too, and went to get her a cup.
    â€œHi.”