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“Maybe,” I said as I began eating again

“Can I see it?”

“Maybe”

“How do I turn thewith amusement

I pretended to study hi, “I’ll let you knohen I’m ready to cash in my chips”

Caleb chuckled I grabbed my wallet and searched out the picture I kept in it It was an old, wrinkled photograph ofin front of a Christmas tree I handed it to him

“Wow,” he said as his eyes scanned the picture “How old were you here?”

“Fourteen It was the last Christrandfather died a couple ofsummer”

“I’m sorry, that must have been hard”

I nodded “What about you? Is your grandht you to cook?”

Caleb shook his head “She died about ano parent should outlive their child My irl and one by the tirandparent I had No aunts or uncles, either”

I’d figured there hadn’t been any other relatives, since it was his stepmother, Eli’s mother, Mariana, who’d had to take Caleb in after his father had been arrested

“Hoere things with Mariana?” I asked “Before you moved in with Mav and Eli”

Caleb began to pick at what little food was left on his plate “She was always really nice We got along well fros worse, you know?”

“How so?”

“I could tell she really lovedfro, it felt like I was lying to her about that too” Caleb lifted his eyes and quickly said, “Iat the time – I didn’t know Eli wasn’t into it”

I reached out to cover his hand on the table “I know, Caleb Your father was really good atpeople believe what he wanted the of shit who deserved a bullet to the brain like no one’s business I’d seen the proof myself that Eli had been led to believe for years that he’d drunkenly instigated the first sexual encounter between hione so far as to doctor a video of the brutal rape toparticipant, but that he’d started it The reality was that he had, in fact, been drugged I had no doubt Jack Cortano had played the saames with his sons