BAKER SAID FLATLY. “YOU’RE GOING to go up to Ottawa to find Paul’s father, and then what?” I didn’t say anything. She turned from the kitchen sink and faced me. “Okay, you kept Paul until he was comfortable talking. Probably you found out a whole lot more than the police would have by now. But now you know who he is. You know he was kidnapped. You know his mother was murdered. You know he has a father. Troy, you have to report this.” I could hear the tunk, tunk of her quartz-powered wall clock. The house was quiet. Her two oldest boys had left for school, and we’d stashed her youngest son and Paul at Holly’s, across the street. I was trying to formulate words, figuring out how to explain something that wasn’t entirely clear even to me. Finally I started to speak and, God help me, my voice cracked and a tear slipped down my cheek. Baker stared at me in something approaching horror, as I’d put my head in my hands and narrowly avoided outright sobbing. She’d never seen me cry.
