Larkin was silent.
Camila sighed, and that single sound conveyed everything. She was certain no one understood this helplessness, this loss, this perpetual unknown, and Larkin had talked a good game, but he was like all the other cops who’d let her down before.
“I know your loss, Mrs. Garcia.”
“Do you?” But it was an absent reply. A question she did not expect an answer to.
“Yes. For eighteen years. It never goes away.”
Camila’s voice hitched.
“I can’t promise you that by closing Marco’s case, you’ll feel any sense of relief. A lot of people don’t. I wouldn’t.”
“Then why bother?”
“Because Marco deserves to be remembered and no one should mourn alone.”
Camila began to cry.
Larkin let her.
Doyle returned from the copy room.
Finally, between sniffles and shaky breathes, Camila asked, “Detective?”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone mourn with you?”
Larkin grew cold, as if all the blood in his body suddenly stopped pumping. His throat tightened, like a physical barrier had been erected to protect him.Stop speaking. He hated this. He hated playing the good cop. No matter how beneficial it could be for a case. “No,” he answered, and Larkin could feel Doyle watching him again.
“What was their name?”
Larkin’s chin quivered. His eyes stung. He said roughly, “Patrick.”
“I’ll say a prayer for Patrick.”
He raised his head up, stared at the acoustic tiles in the ceiling, and said nothing.
After the seconds stretched into a minute, Camila said, more calmly, “I can see you tomorrow. I’m leaving in the afternoon for California. My sister. Chemo. So… in the morning?”
Larkin hastily said, “Yes. Tomorrow morning works. Nine o’clock. Thank you, Mrs. Garcia.” He ended the call, pushed back from the desk, stood, and rolled his shoulders while making a circuit around the bullpen. He needed to move, to shake off the conversation, to tamp down the need to swallow a dozen Xanax and go lie down in the middle of the road.
Larkin walked down the hall toward the Fuck It, turned when he reached the door, then returned to the bullpen. He studied Doyle from across the room—he was still standing, now speaking on Baker’s phone and gesturing absently with one hand throughout the conversation. Doyle smiled at something said, laughed, and that smoky baritone had a way of seeping into every nook and cranny of the second floor.
By the time Larkin returned to his desk, Doyle was hanging up the phone. “Your flirting is palpable, Doyle.”
“I needed a favor.”
Larkin grunted.
Doyle motioned him closer. “Public relations bumped us from the slush pile, so these should be on the app by tomorrow morning.” He pointed to the sketches on the desk.
Larkin stared at the images. The unknown person of interest was handsome in his youth, but the aged interpretation suggested a wiser, more dignified man. “He’d be forty-five, right?”
Doyle murmured agreement. “I know he has a daddy vibe going on here, but Jessica had been adamant that he looked older, which of course can, in part, be how an individual acts or presents themselves, but I did want to make some of that physical.”
Larkin looked up. “How old are you.”
