Doyle’s mouth was clenched shut, the muscles in his jaw and neck pronounced, like he wanted to scream, needed to scream, but knew it’d fall on deaf ears, so what the hell was even the point? The moment was dragged out into the light, its soft underbelly a mark for violence in this cruel world. It was likely a matter of mere seconds before Doyle would inevitably curl into himself for protection, dig a hole to bury his shame and guilt, hiding everything under a smile of sunshine and jubilance up to heaven.
But right then, he just looked so…sad.
“Patrick,” Larkin whispered.
Doyle turned his head.
Larkin blinked his wet eyes a few times. “My first boyfriend. His name was Patrick.” He drew his hands back and forth over his knees. “He was murdered on August 2, 2002.”
The hardness in Doyle’s face, his eyes, diminished. “Why are you telling me?”
Larkin didn’t blink, didn’t look away. “My parents find my HSAM embarrassing. Dr. Myers finds it fascinating. Noah finds it exasperating. And none of them have wanted to hear me talk about Patrick. I know that everyone gets over their first love—like a rite of passage. But I can’t. I won’t. I wish I could, but my brain isn’t….” A tear ran along the contour of Larkin’s jaw and dripped off the tip of his chin. “In eighteen years, you were the first person who asked if I was okay. You were the first person to tell me I could talk about it, if I wanted—who didn’t tell me to shut up. I know I’m not very good at expressing myself, so I don’t think you have any idea what that meant to me.”
Doyle swallowed, his Adam’s apple working painfully. He took Larkin’s hand, his own completely enveloping it. Doyle squeezed so hard that Larkin’s knuckles popped. “Thank you for sharing that—for trusting me. And I know I said I could talk about her.” Doyle’s voice broke and he had to whisper the second part. “But I don’t think I can right now.”
“It wasn’t meant to be a quid pro quo situation.”
Doyle wiped his face with the heel of his hand, nodded, and leaned into Larkin for a hug. It lasted a long time—just the two of them, the cool concrete, the smell of motor oil, exhaust, and an urban summer. When Doyle finally pulled back, he said, “All these murdered kids… any one of them could’ve been me. It was dumb luck that kept me out of the hands of someone like Gary Reynold.”
Larkin nodded.
“None of them deserved that.”
Larkin answered, “Neither did you.”
Doyle looked away, staring at the concrete as he struggled to collect himself.
But Larkin gently took his face between his hands, forcing Doyle to meet his own gaze, and those pyrite eyes, with a luster that shone right through the mourning veil, they touched the smoldering embers deep inside Larkin, stoking the single flame that had refused to snuff out. And this touch—this intimacy—between them, nothing compared, not even the pleasure and sensuality of sex.
“Mourning used to be a public ritual.” Larkin drew his fingertips along Doyle’s brow ridge, tracing the contours. “No one was ever alone. I care for you, Ira. And when you’re ready—I’ll listen.”
Larkin parked inthe school zone on the corner of West 181st and Bennett Avenue. He turned off the engine, set an NYPD parking permit on the dash, then looked at Doyle, silent in the passenger seat. He understood the unique and incomparable heartbreak of having lost the unwinnable battle against death. Larkin understood it so well that he’d made it his life’s pursuit to seek justice in an unjust world. So he recognized, sympathized, with Camila Garcia’s tragedy. He knew Doyle’s sense of isolation and loneliness. But maybe Larkin was so surrounded with and so overwhelmed by death, had become so accustomed to compartmentalizing his thoughts and keeping the world at arm’s length, that he’d not realized Marco’s murder and Camila’s sorrow were too relatable for Doyle.
Larkin didn’t know the details of Abigail’s passing, of course. Hadn’t asked about her since March 31, when it’d become apparent hownot okayDoyle really was, but it was more the hurt and loss of a child in a general sense that was eating away at him. An association of Doyle’s very own. An ever-constant reminder of the depression unto death that he’d survived seven years ago and kept living with ever since.
Had it been selfish of Larkin to seek Doyle’s help on a case involving children?
“Why was Doyle assigned his current session.”
And Craig Bailey, Doyle’s supervisor and senior artist, had answered, “He always takes the cases involving children. Those are the worst ones, you know? But he always takes them.”
Self-flagellation?
Self-destruction?
Or perhaps, like Larkin, Doyle sought a future for his victims that he’d been denied while growing up, that his own child had been denied as well.
Who are you hiding, Larkin wanted to ask.Who betrayed your trust and broke your heart. Who made such a gentle man so angry inside.
“Ira.”
Doyle glanced over.
“I would like to preface this question with confirmation that I, in no way, think or feel you are incapable of doing your job.”
He raised both eyebrows.
“Was it wrong of me to ask you to work this case.”
