Not at the beginning, not at the end, not anywhere in between.

He called to manage the situation, to control the narrative, to enlist his son in protecting the Vance name, and in the entire conversation the actual child, the nine-year-old in the hospital bed at the center of everything, did not merit a single question.

Is he all right.

Will he recover.

Is he in pain.

Nothing.

And that absence told me, more than any of Arthur’s excuses, exactly who I was dealing with.

A man capable of genuine remorse would have led with the child.