Stolen by Daniel Palmer

following year I sent Amanda another letter, unprompted this time, and the attorney didn’t contact me to complain. I was more open about my feelings and better able to express myself, conveying the real bone-gnawing guilt that sabotaged my sleep and clung to me like an angry shadow. It became a tradition after that. I didn’t expect Amanda to respond to my letters, and she never did. Still, I kept those letters coming, thinking that if she didn’t want to hear from me, she’d let me know. Maybe I was helping her—that was my hope, anyway. I later found out, through other sources, that she had remarried and now has two kids, twins, one named Brooks. The Internet gives up a wealth of information if you know how to look. But not everything can be known via a clever Google search. I took precautions to make certain Amanda never found out that I was the guy who set up an online fund-raiser for a children’s charity that both Brooks and Amanda supported. I didn’t want her knowing I was involved, thinking the donations shouldn’t be tainted with the memory of what I’d done.
    Clegg and I usually meet up at Chaps Sports Bar in Kenmore Square. Even though Clegg lives in Hingham, he works in Boston, so it makes for a good meeting spot to grab a drink. This time, however, I insisted we meet at O’Brian’s Sports Bar, which was a couple of blocks from our Brookline apartment. I didn’t want to travel very far in case Ruby needed me for something. In truth, I wished Ruby had come along with me, but she insisted I go alone.
    “He might not want to talk with me around,” she had said.
    I relented, but only after Ruby had made plans of her own, drinks—well, Diet Cokes—with her friend Elisa at the Deco Bar, a short distance away from O’Brian’s on Beacon Street. Ruby needed to get out, it seemed to me, enjoy some fresh air, so I encouraged her.
    At six o’clock in the afternoon O’Brian’s would be sparsely occupied or packed to the edges, depending on the Red Sox schedule. The Sox were playing Tampa Bay in Tampa, so there were plenty of open seats at the long oak bar. Clegg used to dress in his police officer blues, which made him easy to spot and usually kept the stools next to him unoccupied, but that was before his promotion to detective. Clegg’s new uniform was a tweed blazer and khaki slacks. Of course, he also carried a holstered firearm, pepper spray, and handcuffs, but those items weren’t on display when I showed up.
    Clegg raised a half full glass of Sam Adams, signaling the bartender to bring me the same while getting one on deck for himself to drink. He stood, and we exchanged bro hugs, basically light taps on each other’s backs while we clinched in a weak embrace. It was both difficult and comforting for Clegg and me to hang together. In a way, we were cursed, because neither of us wanted to relive the past, while at the same time we didn’t want to forget it, either.
    Reading people was something better left to Ruby, but still, I appraised Clegg carefully, looking for behaviors that were directly antithetical to his usual mannerisms. I could tell something was wrong: clouds in the eyes, an atypically weighty demeanor, but I didn’t get the sense that it had anything to do with me. I wished I could have told him about Uretsky, because that guy, for all his ghoulish antics, still lingered front and center in my mind.
    Clegg might have been several years older than me, but his unwrinkled face and full head of dark hair would win him a prize at any carnival’s “guess your age” booth. His nose was slightly crooked, set that way from years of youth hockey, which, when combined with his icy blue eyes brimming with street smarts, tinted his every expression with a hint of menace. Clegg could be smiling, and you’d still think, This guy wants to kick my ass or arrest me. Fit and trim because he continued to climb, Clegg was the closest thing the Boston PD had to a detective who looked like an actor