“And that’s when you offered Megan five hundred dollars in exchange for allowing you to take pictures of her in your home.”
Reynold licked his chapped lips and nodded.
“So where’s Dicky.”
“I have no idea. I swear.”
Larkin started to speak, but the hospital room door opened. Larkin turned as Doyle entered, set his portfolio bag against the wall as the door clicked shut, and then approached Reynold’s bedside. “Did you—”
Doyle lunged before Larkin could finish his thought. He grabbed the front of Reynold’s hospital gown, tore a heart monitor free from his chest, the machine beeping erratically, and drew Reynold up so they were face-to-face. “She’s a child,” he shouted. “A fuckingchild, you disgusting pig!”
“Doyle!” Larkin grabbed his arm and yanked, but Doyle was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked.
Reynold was screaming.
The door was thrown open a second time, the uniformed officer putting a hand to her service weapon, then faltering as she took in the sight.
Larkin sidestepped, wrapped both arms around Doyle’s chest, and yanked him backward so hard, so fast, they both tripped and stumbled into the wall on their left. Shoving Doyle off, Larkin turned, got in the path of the bed before Doyle could go at Reynold a second time, and shouted, “Get out of here.”
“He’s been abusing children his entire life.”
“I know what he’s done.”
“I don’t touch the kids,” Reynold cried from the bed at Larkin’s back.
“Shut up,” Larkin ordered, turning his head long enough to address Reynold. He looked at Doyle again and pointed to the open door. “Get out.”
“Evie—”
“Right the fuck now, Ira.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Larkin found hisAudi parked on the third floor of the hospital’s parking complex at West 165th Street.
More specifically, he found the Audi wedged between a matte black Hummer and silver Subaru Outback, with Doyle sitting on the concrete, back against the passenger door, knees drawn up and elbows resting atop. His portfolio bag lay discarded near the Audi’s front bumper, like he’d chucked it upon reaching the vehicle and really didn’t care how it landed.
Larkin’s derbies grated against the uneven surface as he moved into the stall. He tugged his trouser legs up before crouching and lowering himself to the ground beside Doyle, their shoulders close but not touching. He stared at his vague, distorted outline bouncing back from the body of the minivan. Just a blob of ash-blond sitting atop of bigger blob of charcoal gray. The silence between them was punctuated only by the distant honking of rush-hour traffic on the street below and the occasional echo of a car doing loops throughout the complex, looking for that one available parking spot the garage employee swore was still available.
Doyle asked, “Is Reynold pressing charges?”
“I don’t think so,” Larkin answered. “I explained prison social hierarchies to him and where among inmates molesters found themselves. I told him I’d need his full and absolute cooperation if I was to put in any good word about keeping him isolated from the general population.”
They were both quiet again.
From the street, someone yelled, “Hey, hey, hey, fuck you!”
Larkin closed his eyes.
—sandy-brown hair highlighted in gold, his freckled skin wet and sparkling like a hundred thousand diamonds, the stubble on his chin dark after a few days’ growth, but it made his profile more handsome, more adult—
Larkin opened his eyes. The intruding and disjointed memories brought on from the tase were still behaving erratically, ballooning bigger and bigger like those toys that grew up to 300 percent their original size—just add water! He felt beaten down, wrung out, his inside glass and outside lead, but when he glanced sideways, it was Doyle sitting beside him.
Doyle.
Not Patrick.
A few unexpected tears slid down Larkin’s cheeks and he hastily batted them away.
