In Larkin’s fiveyears on the Cold Case Squad, he’d solved seventy-four cases. He averaged three times the closure rate than his fellow detectives. He garnered the squad positive press with the public and much-needed funding from the department. Judges rarely denied him a warrant.
He didn’t like to consider any of that a success, though.
How could he, when his victims were still dead and had been forgotten by everyone?
Justice was bitter when it came at the cost of someone’s mother, someone’s lover, someone’s best friend, and rain or shine, Larkin would visit their place of rest after he’d shelved the finished investigation and say their name, because you were only truly dead if there was no one left to mourn you.
And remembrance was the greatest act of love there was.
But there were times when a case was dropped on Larkin’s desk that still had someone else clinging to the dead. Those were the most difficult investigations—the ones where Larkin had to connect with another human. Because grief was complex and frightening andneverwent away. No one person handled loss the same way either, although Larkin had become adept at predicting reactions with a fair degree of accuracy, based on the relationship dynamics.
Except one.
Only one had thrown a metaphorical curveball right at his face.
On March 31, 8:36 p.m., Camila Garcia had said: Marco is always with me. My heart is always broken.
At 11:08 that same night, Doyle had said: I’m okay.
He wasn’t, though. He couldn’t be.
Because even though Doyle had insisted he could talk about Abigail, he never did. If Larkin caught Doyle studying one of Abigail’s photos, he’d smile that sunshiny smile and talk about something else. He was always busy, stimulated with some activity, like he didn’t want to be left to his own thoughts. Doyle never admitted to having a broken heart, but Larkin could now see, with a frightening sense of clarity, how just like Camila he was. And it was only because Doyle embodied the philosophical concept of “jubilant up to heaven” and “depression unto death” that Larkin had missed the initial mourning signs he knew so well.
Signs like lying.
Because Larkin, too, knew loss, he understood that propensity. The need to keep that grief tucked away, because it made people uncomfortable and theydidn’t want to know. They’d asked Larkin to stop talking.
Please stop talking.
Stop talking.
Shut up.
Shut up, Everett.
When the verbal abuse became too much, whenwhy can’t you get over itmade a mockery of those memories, lying was the only way to keep new hurts from becoming permanent. Because if they asked, “Are you okay?” and he said, “Yes,” no one told him to shut up.
But what Doyle had said that morning—listen—it’d been profound and perhaps more insight into Doyle’s hurt than he’d intended to put on display. When Abigail had passed and Doyle’s sorrow became all-encompassing, had they told him to stop talking, or had they simply stoppedlistening?
Contemporary society had a chilly and misguided view on death culture, this Larkin was hyperaware of. But regarding the death of children in particular—this was a discomfort they outright refused to be a part of. They’d hold their own to their bosom and cover their eyes, as if looking at mortal remains was a danger akin to meeting Medusa. When they’d all turned their backs, because a child’s wake was too much to see, a father’s cries too difficult to hear, there’d been no one left to listen.
The funeral pall had been draped.
The mourning veil lowered.
And Ira Doyle had become… a mystery.
Camila Garcia livedin the most northern neighborhood of Manhattan—Inwood—on tree-lined 204th Street between Sherman and Post Avenues. Larkin parked his black Audi on the corner at 8:10 a.m., climbed out, and tapped the lock on his key fob. He put his hands in his pockets and started east, walking past a bodega that doubled as the neighborhood hangout, if the plastic lawn chairs under the awning and grandfather-aged men populating them was anything to judge by. Larkin also passed a hair-and-nail salon, what he suspected was an employment office, although the sign was in Spanish and his parents had insisted he study French growing up, and then a Latina woman pushing a cart toward Sherman, laden with whole and sliced mangoes and shakers of lemon juice, salt, and chili powder.
Larkin’s stomach growled. He stopped, reached into his suit coat for his wallet to buy a bag of the sweet and spicy fruit, but found the forgotten protein bar he’d pocketed on his way out the door. Not nearly as satisfying, but it was certainly less messy, so he begrudgingly ate it in three bites before arriving at the front of an H-shaped apartment building. Larkin approached the front door as it banged open and a boy and girl—siblings—barreled outside.
“We’re gonna be late!” the brother shouted.
“My backpack’s unzipped!” the sister protested.
Larkin grabbed the door before it could fall shut and automatically lock. He looked over his shoulder, watched the older boy stop to zip the backpack his sister wore, then grab her hand again before they ran to the sidewalk and disappeared around the corner of the building. Larkin stepped inside. His derbiestip-tapped across the tile floor of the lobby, up the stairs, and down the fifth-floor hall before he came to a stop at 5D. Larkin had been here before, but Camila hadn’t opened the door for him. He had slipped his business card under the door and she had, weeks later, called.
Then he’d failed her.
