A text notification popped at the top of the screen.
Noah Rider.
Larkin didn’t want to deal with him. Not now. Not this early. Not when he was still seething from the night before—the genuine shock on Noah’s face when he learned Larkin was taking Xanax and he had the audacity to question why. Wasn’t the why obvious?
Because Larkin was a neurotic mess.
Because he cried every time it rained.
Because his life was hell.
Larkin tapped the bubble and opened his texts, because even still, Noah was his husband and ’til death do us part and maybe he was going to apologize.
I need you to communicate with me.
Larkin snorted and closed the app, leaving the message as read and without a response. Hadn’t he done that last night? Communicated? Or did he imagine that fight where Noah got pissy over their lack of intimacy as of late, and Larkin said, in no uncertain terms, he was exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally—and on medication that had clearly been wreaking havoc on his sex drive? He thought that had been quite clear. And as usual, Noah hadn’t listened, was more aghast that Larkin kept the medication to himself than the fact that Larkin had reached a point of needing pharmaceutical aid. And maybe Larkin should have said something six months ago. Probably. But Noah hadn’t been listeningthen. That’d been, in part, the reason Larkin had asked Dr. Myers for the prescription.
Larkin tucked his phone away and studied the corkboard of crayon drawings. One picture was clearly a rainbow, although it didn’t follow the ROY G. BIV arrangement of colors, and that sort of artistic irresponsibility would only lead to a future exhibiting at the MoMA. Another drawing might have been a dog or a four-legged child with no neck or a unicorn, sans horn. Larkin was still trying to figure it out—
“It’s a fairy princess pony.”
Larkin turned around. “What is a fairy princess pony.”
Doyle stood at the drafting table, wiping his hands on the apron. His eyes cut to the drawing over Larkin’s shoulder and he shrugged, smiled a smile that, for once, didn’t reach his eyes, and said, “Come take a look at the bust.”
Child victim, Larkin thought as he rose, but he said nothing. He looked at his watch—after eight—then followed Doyle back to the worktable.
John Doe had risen from the dead. At least, that’s what it felt like to Larkin, staring at the skull reconstruction. The muscles and tendons in his neck looked taut and alive, his cheeks were full and lacking that suggestion of slack seen in the death mask. John Doe had ears too, another feature that’d been missing from the mask, as well as eyebrows that’d been created by scoring the clay with some sort of tool along the brow ridge. Most importantly, Larkin noted, was that Doyle understood how to work genetic statistics into his art and had given John Doe brown eyes. The probability that he was correct was over fifty-five percent and would work in their favor when it came to databases like NamUs.
Doyle opened the door to a closet that was likely intended for coats, hats, umbrellas—you know, normal things. Instead, it was stuffed, floor to ceiling, back to front, with boxes. Thank God it’d all been hidden, because it would have undoubtedly been enough visual clutter to set Larkin off. Doyle grabbed a banker’s box by the handles and pushed the door shut with his foot. Setting the box on the worktable, Doyle flipped the lid and sorted through… wigs.
“You’re still thinking mid- to late ’90s?”
“It’s the most logical theory,” Larkin said, watching curiously.
Doyle removed a brown wig—nothing particularly high in quality, but Larkin could only imagine the hoops he’d jumped through to get departmental approval on such a purchase to start with. “Two abominations came out of that decade: frosted tips and middle parts.” Doyle moved around Larkin and took a moment to wiggle the wig into place on the bust. He combed the synthetic hair with his fingers. “But I don’t think John Doe was in a boy band. We’ll go with the Leo DiCaprio look.”
Larkin grunted.
“Not a Leo fan?”
“I was a gay preteen in the ’90s. What do you think.”
Doyle’s smile lit up the room. “Titanic.”
“Romeo + Juliet.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Baz Luhrmann is far more innovative than James Cameron,” Larkin replied. “Luhrmann’s utilization of exaggerated and evocative visuals—”
“I meant the romantic tragedy.”
“Romeo and Julietis strictly a tragedy. The romance is merely the vehicle that drives the hero, and most of the cast, quite frankly, to the required death at the play’s conclusion. Besides, they were two idiotic teenagers—children, really—and Romeo mistook a boner for love at first sight.”
“Is this the sweet talk that landed you your blond bombshell?”
Larkin pushed his suit coat back and settled his hands on his hips. “I think it was my badge, actually.”
