Larkin nodded.
And Doyle’s face lit up like sunshine on pristine snow. Blinding, but so beautiful, you didn’t want to look away until an afterimage was burned into the back of your skull.
“Andrew Gorman.”
Larkin turned toward Ulmer’s voice in time to catch the accordion folder thrown at him. That extra second to snatch the file and secure it against his chest had allowed Ulmer to penetrate Larkin’s personal space and back him against the wall, out of view from Connor’s open door. “Get away from me,” Larkin said.
“If you ever try that shit again,” Ulmer began, his voice an almost animalistic growl but low enough to not be overheard, “running to Connor, whining about how I run my investigations, demanding control ofmycaseload—”
“Get away from me right now,” Larkin said again.
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll break your nose and you can spend the next month explaining how you walked into a doorframe, no big deal.”
Ulmer slammed the meaty side of his fist against the wall beside Larkin’s head, hard enough that the reverb was like theboomof thunder.
—thesquishof mud underfoot and the devil about to steal the yellow of his summer flowers, the orange of his campfire, the red of his love—
—disgusting words he knew existed in an unjust world, but still, it shouldn’t happen to him, it wouldn’t happen to him, it couldn’t happen to him, and then thecrackof the baseball bat—
Boom. Squish. Crack.
Larkin reacted on instinct to protect himself, to protect his face,his head, and raised the file with the intention of whacking Ulmer across the face. But then Doyle was there, yanking the accordion file from his grasp. He put a hand on Larkin’s chest, pushed in between the two, and used the folder like a shield to force Ulmer back.
“Hey, man,” Doyle said to Ulmer, his voice steady, the smoke tangible—a buoy to anchor Larkin in the now. “I think you need to cool off for a few minutes.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Ulmer spat.
“Ira Doyle. I’m working the Gorman case with Larkin.”
“Oh yeah? Are you just like him? A fucking know-it-all faggot?”
Doyle’s fingertips tightened fractionally against Larkin’s chest, that touch like five simultaneous shots: little fiery bullets burning his ribcage to ash. But calmly—Doyle was still so frustratingly calm, Larkin distantly acknowledged—he said, “That’s enough. And I’m going to ask that you take a few steps back.”
“I stand corrected,” Ulmer replied, a cruel laugh chasing his words. “A condescending faggot is what you are.”
“Ulmer?” Porter was walking out of the breakroom with thin-as-a-rail-no-matter-how-many-donuts-she-ate-Miyamoto. He studied Ulmer, Doyle, and Larkin, still pinned to the wall. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Doyle answered. He looked at Ulmer a final time. “Right?”
Ulmer raised his hand, pointing at Larkin, but he didn’t—couldn’t—get any words out before he moved through the bullpen like a gale and down the stairs, the front door of the precinct crashing in his wake.
Doyle removed his hand from Larkin’s chest, turned, and asked quietly, “Are you—?”
He didn’t finish.
Larkin knew why. Could see himself through Doyle’s eyes. Pale face red and blotchy, ash-blond hair shaken free from its conservative side part, the panic in his washed-out gray eyes. Larkin gulped air like a landed fish, but none of it seemed to reach his lungs.
That had been just like—almost like—August 2, 2002.
“Come with me.” That request from Doyle penetrated the panic and stuck a pin in Larkin’s mental Rolodex, preventing it from spinning out of control. He gently took Larkin by the sleeve of his suit coat and gave a little tug. And when Larkin willingly moved with the momentum, Doyle plopped the accordion folder on his desk and guided him down the steps to the ground floor and into the men’s restroom.
Larkin pulled free from Doyle’s hold, moved to one of the two sinks, turned the faucet, and splashed his face with cold water. Again. And again. Until he inhaled and choked and coughed. Larkin turned off the faucet, gripped either side of the porcelain, and watched droplets fall from the tip of his nose.
Plunk.
“So Ulmer is a first-class asshole,” Doyle said, voice echoing off the tile walls.
