Chapter 66

“At the same time, there was this kid, this scrawny little…Lewis Callahan. Gay as a maypole, but not out. Not to his parents, who were the worst kind of born-again bigots. Lewis was…fifteen? Maybe? Had a crush on Scooter the size of a Cadillac. Used to follow them around. Scooter got him a fake ID, so Lewis could hit the bars with them. He tell you he used to like to sing karaoke?”

Aaaand we’re back to dork…”Yeah.”

“They go in one night, and Scooter’s singing. He gets done, and Lewis and Brad are gone. Scooter wasn’t worried, thought they’d gone to have a smoke or something. They didn’t come back. So he went out looking for them.”

Jason scrubbed a hand over his face, considering his words carefully.

“The papers know what they could find evidence for. Lewis was terrified of his parents. It wasn’t his fault, but he was more scared of them than…well. Brad was in the process of…he…” Jason swallowed hard. “Brad Ripton raped that fifteen-year-old boy in a filthy alley.”