Ricky followed Mr. Young back to the house. It wasn’t a large house, but it was nice. Javi’s grandfather had built it out of stone, bricks, and wood. There was one room with the kitchen and living area and two small bedrooms off that. The bathroom had been added on when Javi was a little boy, he said, which was why it was on the opposite side of the house from the bedrooms. Later, Javi had enclosed the porch. His garage was bigger than the house because that’s where he worked and he sometimes had four cars in there.

Mostly, it was quiet. No traffic, no people, no television. Javi had a radio that got two stations. One with news, one with music, all in Spanish.

Javi was sitting at the table with the FBI agent. Ricky looked at him, suspicious. He remained seated, drinking a bottle of water.

Mr. Young said, “Ricky doesn’t want to leave, but he will look at the pictures.”

“I’m Agent Nate Dunning,” the FBI agent said. “You can call me Nate, okay? Thank you for helping us.”

Ricky sat down and nodded. He kept his head up when all he really wanted to do was go to his room.

Nate had pictures of six men. He placed each in front of Ricky in a row. But Ricky knew who was in his house before he finished. He pointed. “Him.”

“You saw him in your house, the night your parents disappeared.”

And even though Ricky didn’t want to talk, he started talking. He couldn’t help himself. “He had keys. My dad’s keys, they had an Astros key ring. He came in and I hid. He wasn’t wearing a uniform or anything, but he said to the taller man with the voice that it was true about what happened to police in prison, just like the movies, and he wasn’t going to go to prison, so they had to find the deed. Then they went to my mom’s office and started going through all her stuff. He found it.”

“The deed.”

“That’s what he called it.”

“What about the tall man’s voice sounded different? You called him the ‘man with the voice,’ that sounds like an odd description.”

“I—I thought he sounded familiar. I didn’t really get a good look at him because I ran to hide, but his voice sounded like I heard him before. My mom would sometimes have her clients over to the house.”

“You think he was a client of your mom.”

“I don’t know. Can I go to my room? Please?”

He looked at Javi. Javi nodded.