Silent Witness by Rebecca Forster

she had misunderstood. ''Wasn't that part of the deal between us? Our time started when we met. I had pictures of Lexi. You asked about her. I told you. You never asked about Tim.''
    ''I asked why you never had children,'' she reminded him. ''You didn't talk about Tim then.''
    ''I didn't lie, Jo. I said, if Lexi and I had kids, they would have been beautiful. The bottom line, Tim wasn't ours. He was hers. There was no reason to talk about him. Why should I want to talk about him when he represented a terrible time in my life? I didn't even think about Tim again until yesterday. But Lexi? I've thought of her everyday since she died.''
    Josie toyed with her cup feeling her own anxiety but unable to detect any from Archer. He touched her hand and stopped her fidgeting. Time and memory and Josie's attention were softening him. Or, like a good actor, Archer knew when to change the pace and the tone to draw his audience into the web of his fiction. Either way, Archer would make a fine witness if it came to that.
    ''Jo, you're looking for me to say Tim was like a son to me but I won't lie. Tim was so damaged it was impossible to have a relationship with him. I didn't grieve for him when he died, but I hurt because Lexi hurt. That's not a bad thing, Jo. It's an honest thing. It's what I did. It's who I am. You know that.''
    Josie eased her hand from under Archer's. Okay. She believed him but Archer's explanation wasn't good enough. Josie detected half truths lying dormant, waiting to be brought to life by a prosecutor.
    ''It must have been hard to live with this boy if he was as bad off as you say. You must have been frustrated. Were you angry all the time, Archer?''
    ''Lawyer tricks, Jo? Christ, I haven't been retired that long.'' Archer laughed in disappointment. ''If you want to know if I was ticked off enough to do something to that kid, ask me.''
    ''Were you?'' There. It was on the table. Archer sent it right back at her.
    ''No. And if I was I wouldn't have waited five years to take him out. I wouldn't have done it in an amusement park with ten thousand people around to watch and his mother sitting right next to him. There would have been better ways, easier ways, to get rid of him.''
    ''Then tell me what it was like to live with a boy who couldn't control his body, who couldn't carry on a conversation, who probably needed to have his diapers changed even though he was almost as big as you,'' Josie insisted.
    ''It sure as hell wasn't as peachy as having Hannah hanging around,'' Archer scoffed. ''Tim needed twenty-four/seven care by the time he was seven so he didn't live with us. Colin left Lexi when Tim was three, when they figured out he was never going to be normal. What a pisser, a guy like him making a buck off a kid he hasn't seen in what, ten years?'' Archer's bottom lip disappeared under his teeth for the briefest moment. When he spoke again his voice was steady but still colored by bitterness. ''Lexi worked her butt off to pay for a place out in the Valley. She went to see Tim every week. She took him out as often as she could. She didn't ask me to go with her until the kid started getting too big for her to handle. She never asked for Tim to live with us because that would have been a deal breaker. I told her straight out I wouldn't marry her if that's what she wanted.''
    ''Did she resent you for that?''
    ''Lexi was practical. She married me hoping I'd have a change of heart but she knew I wouldn't. She lived with it,'' Archer said matter-of-factly.
    ''Than why would the district attorney think you killed Tim Wren?'' Josie pressed.
    ''I don't know.'' Archer threw up his hands. ''Christ, Jo. I swear, if I knew I would tell you.''
    Archer's admonition was the cry of an animal suddenly wounded by a hunter he did not see, the one he failed to smell, the one he couldn't outrun. Josie saw Burt reflected in the bar mirror. His hand was on the phone. He was ready to call for help if trouble came. Josie tore her eyes away from