“Followed him. Confronted him. Told him that if I caught him within five hundred feet of you, his hospital stay would be a lot longer than it had been when he mixed it up with Gabriel. He came at me. I knocked him around a little. That’s all I planned. But he . . .”

Ricky exhaled, hissing through his teeth, shifting his weight again. “I’m not used to guys who don’t fight back, Liv. I know that’s no excuse. And, yeah, he started it, but he had no idea what he was doing. What he did do, though, was talk. About you. Insulting you. Saying he was getting you back no matter what. Saying . . .” He shook his head. “I won’t repeat what he said, because words are no excuse for what I did. I’ll just say that he threatened you. And I saw red, like I did with that other guy. Except there wasn’t anyone to pull me off this time. I kept hitting him until he was out cold on the floor.”

He stepped back, lifting our hands so I could pull away without resistance. He looked down at his bruised and scabbed knuckles. “I hit him until he shut up.”

“And then?”

“I left him there, in that empty building, on the floor.”

“Did you strangle him?”

He shook his head. “But I don’t think he woke up after I knocked him out. He’d obviously been summoned there by his killer, who came in after me . . . and finished it. He never had the chance to fight. Which means even if I didn’t stop his heart from beating, I still killed him.”

I could argue, but Ricky didn’t want excuses. He had done something that led to James’s death, and he took responsibility.

I wanted to reach out for him. Hug him. Tell him I didn’t care. That no matter how horrible I felt over James’s death, whatever role Ricky played in it, I understood his intention had been only to stop whatever mad and hell-bent course James had been on.

But he wasn’t looking for absolution. He just wanted me to know what had happened.

“You’ve talked to Gabriel about this, haven’t you?” I said. “If you know the legal cause of death . . .”

He nodded. “I told Gabriel that night. I realized I’d fucked up, and I figured James would call the cops. So I drove back to the condo, and I was a block away when I saw Gabriel.”

“Saw him?”

Ricky nodded. “I think that’s one of the reasons he’s been charged. The condo security tapes must have caught him leaving the building.”

I remembered Pamela asking if I knew for certain Gabriel had been inside all night. Whoever had accused him knew he hadn’t been.