don’t draw often except at the range,” Ethan explained. “You don’t want to fumble or hesitate when the moment comes you need to. The more you’ve used a particular weapon, the less you have to think about it, which allows you to focus on the situation.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “So how come you’re here, if you don’t want a new gun?”
Ethan gave his standard response. “I like to keep up on what’s out there.”
“’Cuz cops aren’t the only ones with guns.”
Feeling the rueful twist to his mouth, Ethan scanned the ever-growing crowd filling a hall that had to be sixty thousand square feet or more, packed with weaponry and shoppers. “You could say that.”
“Have you ever been shot?”
Ethan shook his head. Shot at, yes. Which wasn’t the same thing. “Hasn’t happened yet. I try not to make myself a target.” He raised an eyebrow. “You have a name?”
Alarm flickered in the boy’s eyes. “Oh. Um, yeah, but...my dad says I shouldn’t tell strangers my name. You know.” He started shuffling backward. “I should go find Dad now anyway. He might worry. I’ll, um, maybe see ’ya.”
The clear subtext was, But not if I see you first.
He awkwardly flipped a hand and melted into the crowd. Only he didn’t wander slowly and browse this time. He walked fast, casting a couple of looks back over his shoulder.
Ethan went down the next aisle, keeping pace. If the kid thought he’d lost him—
But one of those darted glances back spotted Ethan, who cursed his height, and not for the first time.
Alarm segued into panic, and the boy began pushing through the crowd, his eye fixed on the doors that led outside. He was quick, and small enough to squeeze between people where Ethan had to bull his way, so he reached the exit first.
So much for the fiction of a father elsewhere in the exhibition hall.
Ethan stepped out and momentarily failed to see him. More people were streaming in, either from the parking lot or the covered walkway that led—
Oh, yeah, there he was, and running now.
Ethan broke into a run, too, unsure why he was so determined to get his hands on this kid, but set on it anyway. The boy couldn’t possibly be old enough to drive, which meant a bus or the light-rail.
Sure enough, he was headed for the light-rail station. Ethan didn’t see a train, but knew they ran often between the expo center and downtown, something like every fifteen minutes.
Eight or ten people waited beneath a shelter. No restroom to disappear into. The boy tucked himself behind a family group as if he thought Ethan would assume he belonged.
When he saw Ethan’s jog settle to a purposeful stride, he took a few steps back, his head turning in panic, but, with the rails behind him, there was nowhere to go.
“Excuse me,” Ethan murmured as he sliced through the cluster of people.
“I don’t know this man!” the boy cried. “He’s been following me.” He shuffled his feet, edging behind a beefy guy whose gaze first dropped to the holstered gun on Ethan’s belt, then rose to meet his eyes in challenge.
Ethan dipped a hand in his pocket and held up his badge. “The boy knows why I want to talk to him.”
The kid’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”
They all heard the train coming. Ethan latched a hand around the boy’s skinny upper arm.
“I didn’t say you did. But we need to talk.”
“Can’t I just go home?” he begged. “All I wanted was to look.”
“I’ll be glad to take you home,” Ethan agreed.
The white bullet-like light-rail train glided to a stop and disgorged a whole lot of people. Everyone waiting climbed aboard. Ethan turned his young captive back the way they’d come.
He deliberately dawdled so they fell behind the eager beavers headed for the expo center. He had the time now to assess the boy, who was good-looking and dressed in blue jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt and expensive, gleaming white athletic shoes. Common for his age, his feet looked too big to go with the rest of him. This was no homeless kid—somebody bought him nice clothes, kept them clean, trimmed his hair regularly. At first sight, Ethan would have guessed Hispanic, but wasn’t so sure now despite the near-black hair and brown eyes.
“Why didn’t you want to tell me your name?” he asked.
The boy shot him a defiant look. “Why should I?”
“Because I’m a police officer, and I asked. Because I suspect you cut school to come to the gun show.”
Ethan felt like a jerk when the kid’s lower lip trembled.
“Mom is going to be so mad.”
“What about Dad?”
This sidelong look glittered with tears. “Dad’s dead.”
Truth at last. “How old are you?” Ethan asked, more gently.
The answer was a mumble. Ethan raised his eyebrows.
“Eleven.”
He blinked as he calculated. “That means you’re not even in middle school.”
The boy shook his head. “I’m in sixth grade. I left after lunch.”
“It ever occur to you that the school probably let your mother know you’d disappeared?”
His mouth fell open in horror. “I thought since I was there in the morning when they did roll call...”
Ethan nudged him toward the parking lot. “I can pretty well guarantee somebody noticed you weren’t there come afternoon.”
“Oh, man.” He raised desperate eyes to Ethan’s. “Please don’t tell her where I was! She hates guns. She’ll freak!”
“What were you going to tell her if she found out you took off?” he asked, keeping his voice easy to encourage continuing confidences.
“I don’t know.” Back to mumbling. “Just that, like, I had a fight with one of my friends or something.”
Ethan drew him to a stop beside his GMC Yukon. “Here’s your ride.”
His head turned back toward the light-rail station. “I’ll go straight home, I swear! Please, mister. I mean, Detective.”
Ethan shook his head. “We’ll talk to your mom. She may be more understanding than you think she will be.”
“She won’t! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“In,”
