Free Quid Pro Quo by Vicki Grant Page B

she was only fifteen or sixteen, but he also knew they could take the baby away. If that judge found out this was all Squirt’s doing, he wouldn’t be giving her back no baby to raise. So Byron just went along with his being the bad influence what led the poor girl astray. He got time, and she got off scot-free. That’s the truth, and I can see you don’t like it no better than I do … Maybe you should sit down, boy.”
    â€œNo, no. I’m okay. What happened to the girl?”
    â€œDon’t know. I heard she changed her name, and I bet right now she’s living a respectable life out in the suburbs somewhere. Probably married herself some nice tradesman who don’t have the first clue about what she used to get herself up to. But Byron? He loses his hand. He wastes six years of his life in Dorchester Pen. And now they’re after him again for somethin’ I knows he wouldn’t do. I’ll tell you somethin’, son. In life, things never add up right. They just don’t …”

chapter
twenty-four

Restitution
    Repayment for something that has been lost or stolen
    S tan Berrigan was wrong. This time, things did add up right.
    His story all made sense. Andy had calmed down as she got older, I guess, but not so much that I couldn't see her doing something demented like robbing a church.
    I could also see why she didn’t want me to find out about it. Throwing herself at a guy. Abandoning me. Stealing money from earthquake victims. Letting somebody else take the blame for it. Andy’d die of shame if I found out about even one of those things.
    No wonder she wasn’t very happy when Byron showed up at our door. She was afraid he was going to talk, but what could she do? She could hardly turn him away after what he’d done for us.
    Byron added up too. He did that hick routine, but I never really fell for it. I always knew he was smarter than that. Way smarter. Only a true genius could figure out how to be that obnoxious.
    I could even understand why he’d be like that. Byron had every right to hate us. Andy had an apartment and a law degree and, for a while there anyway, a career. What did Byron get out of being the good guy? A criminal record and half as many fingernails to clip as the rest of us.
    I’d be p.o.ed too.
    For a second there, I thought maybe that’s why he showed up. Just to make Andy uncomfortable. Just to make her squirm.
    But I knew there was more to it than that. Byron said he needed her for something. My guess, it was something to do with Consuela and the Masons’ Hall fire—but what? What did they have in common?
    I got back to the apartment by about ten in the morning and picked up the mail. Phone bill. Power bill. Water bill. Something about Andy’s student loan. The only good news was another package from War Amps.
    I almost laughed when I saw it. Andy and her stupid keys. Then it hit me why she’d been such a big supporter of War Amps all those years. It wasn’t just to get her keys back. It wasn’t just to help child amputees. It was to keep her honest. Every single day, that little tag on her key chain made Andy think of Byron and what he did. She might have treated him like dog dirt, but she knew she still owed him, big time. In fact, I figured she could spend the whole rest of her life going to anti-poverty protests and keeping crazy people out of jail and making sure no one ever got ripped off on their welfare check again and she’d probably still owe him.
    Believe me, if I went to jail and lost my hand as a FAVOR(!) to someone else, I’d be looking for a major payback.
    I went into the kitchen and tried to get organized again. I dumped all Andy’s work garbage back in the cardboard box except her daytimer, the messages and the photos. I put those on the table. I tore out the front page of the newspaper with the Masons’ Hall story on it and put it on the table too. I got out the