THERE WAS A TEENAGE BOY sitting in Stevens’s living room when he returned from Brooklyn Center. The kid was sprawled out on the couch, watching some kind of gross-out teen comedy, soda cans and empty potato chip bags everywhere. He sat up quickly when Stevens walked in.
“Oh, hi,” he said. “You’re Mr. Stevens.”
The boy was Andrea’s age, tall and skinny, his hair sandy blond. He wore flower-print shorts and a faux-vintage tee, a typical teenager, and he blushed and shifted his weight and looked away quickly when he caught Stevens’s eye.
“Dad?” Andrea Stevens poked her head in from the kitchen. “Hey,” she said, hurrying into the living room and picking up the garbage from the couch. “Hi. You’re home early. We’re just watching a movie. I’m making some lunch. Are you hungry?”
Stevens regarded his daughter, then her companion. “Am I to assume this is Calvin?”
Andrea blushed bright red. “Dad.”
“Calvin Tanner,” the kid said, holding out his hand. “It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Stevens. Andrea said you were away on business?”
“I was.” Stevens shook the kid’s hand. “I will be again shortly.”
“You’re a cop, Andrea said?”
Andrea was still blushing. “A BCA agent, I said.”
“So what are you working on?” Calvin asked. “Anything crazy? Andrea said you hunt down crazy bad guys, like that guy from our school, Tomlin. That was you, right? What are you working on now?”
“Nothing so crazy,” Stevens said. “Where’s your brother?” he asked Andrea.
“At Greg’s house,” she said. “I think they went swimming or something. Are you going away again?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow probably. Billings, Montana.”
“It has to do with that woman? From up north?”
“It does,” he said.
“Cool.” She shifted her weight. “Okay, so you met him, Dad. Can I have some privacy now?”
Stevens looked at her. At Calvin. At the TV, where a man in a diaper was running through a shopping mall. Calvin glanced at the TV and then grinned up at him, sheepish. “It was sure nice to meet you, Mr. S.”
Mr. S., Stevens thought, as he went upstairs to pack. Can I have some privacy, Dad?
Maybe he was romanticizing things a little, but Stevens figured it wasn’t so long ago that his daughter would have run to the door to greet him, would have begged him to tell her all about his new case. Hell, she’d even started talking about becoming a cop herself. Now, his biggest case yet, and all she cared about was a little privacy with Calvin.
Kids these days, Stevens thought. No wonder Nancy’s frustrated.