She had been right.

But she should never have had to be that brave to be believed, and the thing Cordell carried home from that case, more than the pride, was a quiet resolve: that for as long as he sat behind a counter, no child who walked up to it would ever have to be that brave again to get him to listen.

That was the whole of what he had to give.

It had turned out, this once, to be exactly enough.

THE END.