Blunt Darts

that.”
    “‘Leverage,’” she snorted sarcastically. “That’s what my father uses to close computer sales. That’s how you’re going to stop the judge?”
    “Kim, I don’t know what your image of the judge and his power is, but nobody is all-powerful. There are things, facts or evidence, that can scare the judge, same as you or me. If Stephen knows or found out something, and that knowledge or fact was important enough to make him run, it may be important enough to bring him back and protect him from the judge.” paused. “What do you say?”
    The glare slid away, and she chewed her lower lip “I’m just so scared for him,” she said, the tears welling up.
    I dug out a handkerchief and she cried quietly into it for about ten seconds. Then she wiped her eyes and nose. “What do you want to know?” She was flushed and red-eyed, but cooperative.
    “What did you and Stephen talk about at lunch that day?”
    She sniffed and began. “The same thing we always talked about. His quest.”
    “His quest? You mean, like a search or a mission?“
    “Yes. Stephen and I got to be, like Ms. Jacobs said, close. I kind of watched him last year and the beginning of this year. He’s real intelligent-looking and, well, anyway, I saw that he didn’t seem to have any friends. I mean, he would talk to the other kids, but just kind of politely, like he was talking to a teacher of somebody’s father and he didn’t want any trouble. I think he just wasn’t much interested in what the kids were doing and talking about. Like, whenever he talked with me, it was like we were on a different level from the rest of the kids.”
    “You mentioned his quest.” m
    “Yes, I’m coming to that. One day I just sort of decided to try talking—really talking—to him. That was this year, maybe October or November.” She paused. “It was November, because the decorations were up. You know, the stupid stuff like cardboard turkeys and pilgrims?”
    “I know.”
    “Well, we just started talking, and it was amazing you know, the way he could explain things and understand the things I would say. It was like... it was like he was the best teacher I ever had, but he was my own age—actually a year older because he... lost a year. He understood me, but he acted older, so I could... I could...”
    “Respect him?” I said tactfully.
    She sniffed again. “Yeah, respect him. Anyway, it was maybe two months ago that he told me about his mother, and how he’d gotten sick and was in the hospital.”
    “Did he tell you what kind of illness he had?”
    She fixed me with her still-reddish eyes. “Yeah, mental illness. He was in a crazy house, out in the mountains somewhere. His father did it.”
    I tensed. “Did what?”
    “Huh?”
    “You said, ‘his father did it.’ What did his father do?”
    “Oh, his father put him in the crazy house. His grandmother didn’t want him to stay there, though, but he still had to stay a long time, like maybe a year. When he got out, he came home. That’s when he began his quest.”
    I held onto my patience. “What was Stephen’s quest?”
    Kim became very still. She looked down. “You have to promise never to tell anyone.”
    I promised.
    “You can’t even ever tell Stephen I told you. I’m the only one who knows, so you can’t even let him know you know or he’d know it was me.”
    “I promise,” I repeated.
    She twisted the earphones off her neck and played with them in her lap. I involuntarily noticed that the Woman in the red dress must have won again. This time she was literally smothering the host, who was no longer smiling, sportingly or otherwise. Kim’s first words snapped me back.
    “His mother was killed. Murdered. His quest was to get evidence. To prove his father did it.” She shivered.
    I gave her a moment, then: “Kim, what kind of evidence?”
    She began gnawing on her lower lip again. “A gun.“
    “A gun?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Stephen’s mother supposedly died in a car accident. Stephen believed his mother was shot?”
    Kim, crying again, now nodded vigorously. I heard soft footsteps, Valerie’s, I thought, approach and recede. I could just hear Val’s voice from the kitchen. She said, “They’re doing fine, Mrs. Sturdevant.”
    I wasn’t sure how much more Kim had left.
    “Why did he think that, Kim? Why did he think his mother was shot?”
    “Because,” she said, too loudly, nearly a wail. She dropped her voice. “Because he was