That fear is just love with its eyes open, and I had forgotten, in seven years of the smooth safe stone, how unbearably good it feels to be that afraid for someone again.

Chapter 10 — The Empty Urn

I drove the results to the county prosecutor.

He studied them under his desk lamp.

“This proves you’re his biological father, Mr.

Drake,” he said.

“It does not, by itself, prove he’s the child declared dead seven years ago.” “What else could you possibly need?” I demanded.

“Court authorization,” he said quietly, “to exhume the grave.”