Read Winter and Night for Free Online Page B

I thought: You make the play-offs, you go to camp and everyone else gets the week off. You screw up, everyone stays in school. But no pressure.
    "Intriguing place, Warrenstown," I said.
    "Scott always said that," she agreed with me, either not hearing, or totally ignoring, my tone.
    I asked her, "Where is this camp?"
    She tilted her head in thought. "Hamlin Sports Camp," she finally said, not sounding entirely sure. "Somewhere on Long Island. The sophomores and juniors from the varsity team, plus some of the boys from the junior varsity, go up there on Saturday to play against the other boys. Gary's excited about that game." She bit her lip, looked away again. "Why?" I heard a whisper of hope in her voice. "Is it important?"
    "I don't know. But New York's between here and Long Island. Maybe he's headed there."
    "Why would he do that?"
    "I have no idea. And I suppose the police already checked that."
    "Well, if they talked to Randy, it would have to be there. I think they said they talked to him. Or maybe they talked to Morgan." She looked up at me with a hint of the same desperation in her blue eyes that I'd seen in Gary's, in my apartment, in the middle of the night. "I don't remember what they said—"
    "It doesn't matter," I told her, trying not to grit my teeth at the tremor in her voice. "You don't have to. I'll talk to the police and I'll find whoever I need." I slipped a card from my wallet, handed it to my sister the way I do when I meet a new client. "Here's my office number, my cell phone. I want to look at Gary's room, and then I'll be in town for a few hours at least. I'll let you know what I find."
    She held my card, studying it as though every piece of information on it was elusive and valuable. Maybe it was, now; but nothing on that card except the number of my cell phone was anything she hadn't had for years.
    * * *
    We walked in silence through the crisp morning air back to her house. I followed her upstairs; she showed me which room was Gary's. Standing just inside the door, looking around, I did it the way I was taught: start in front of you, back and forth, fanning out, nothing but your eyes until the place has lost its newness, is familiar. Then you can go inside.
    The room was neat, but not so much you'd say this wasn't a normal kid. A plaid spread was stretched over a bed made dutifully if not overly well. The bookcase was full and more books sat in piles on the desk and floor. I looked them over: schoolbooks in the piles; thrillers, science fiction, and, from Gary's younger days, stories of knights and pirates in the bookcase. The top shelf held sports books, mostly football: training manuals, playbooks, athlete's biographies. On top of the bookcase trophies crowded each other, again mostly football, but also baseball and track: school championships, summer league teams, division winners. A Jets poster hung on the wall above the bed, the entire team in three rows, helmets under their arms, grease on their cheekbones, fierce unsmiling faces.
    "Was Gary always a Jets fan?" I asked Helen. "Or just since you moved here?"
    "No, in Florida he liked the Dolphins," she said. "And when we lived in Kansas City it was the team there."
    "The Chiefs."
    "Chiefs, that's right. I don't always remember." She gave an apologetic shrug. "I think it's part of how he makes himself belong. The way you used to learn the language every place we moved to."
    I turned to her, surprised. After a moment I said, "You remember that?"
    "Of course. I wanted to, too, but I couldn't. You were smarter."
    I shook my head. "Just older."
    "Well, anyway," she said. "Besides, Dad didn't like it."
    That stopped both of us. We looked at each other in this bright room in this still-new house, the quiet suburban day just outside the windows. Goddamn it, I thought: It's over twenty years.
    "I don't think he cared that I spoke the language," I said, deliberately not giving it up. "What he didn't like was the friends I made."
    "No, you're wrong." She