“Hey, man, you got the wrong girl.” I touched the gun again to make sure it was still there, then I stepped out from behind the carved headstone.

His shoulders tightened as if he was taking a firmer grip on her. He turned awkwardly, pulling her with him. His skin was lighter than Lupe’s and his arms below the short sleeves of his shirt glistened against her. He was close to my dad’s age: late fifties. He wore sunglasses with thick black frames. His hair had a lot of gray in it. His mustache was all gray. He was an ordinary-looking man.

“We know what you did,” I said.

Lupe’s eyes were wide; she seemed surprised now by these turns of events. I had tried to send her away ever since the beginning. I knew the kind of monster I was. Desperate and needy. Now she would have to rely on me. I was afraid and my training hadn’t prepared me for improvisation.

“Don’t make me hurt your friend here,” he said. “You are friends, aren’t you?” He added a peculiar and nasty lilting emphasis to this. How long had he been following me? Maybe he had seen Lupe stay at my place.

“You’re not going to hurt her. You’ve already got enough trouble. Let go of her. I don’t think you can kill both of us.”

“I can. And I’m going to.” He laughed a loony laugh.

Lupe must have thought this was a strange reaction, because she twisted frantically in his arms and tried to knee him in the nuts. He pulled her tighter, and I heard her catch her breath as if he had hurt her. My hand gripped the butt of the gun, and as I started to step forward, I realized I’d rather have him hurt me than Lupe. Wrenching her to one side so that she was off balance, he withdrew a switchblade. The air buzzed as he flicked it open, and it gleamed dully in the shadows.

The trouble with determinate sentencing is that people know ahead of time how much trouble they’re in. He couldn’t get any more time for killing Lupe or me. Once they racked him with Cathy’s and Monica’s deaths, we were a free ride.

I drew the gun from my waist and pointed it at him. Could he see my arm shaking? I could barely hold the gun. “Let her go. Turn yourself in. You’ll have a fair chance. They’ll give you a public defender.” I had a sudden hysterical recollection of a woman PD I knew from Santa Monica who had been assigned to represent a guy she recognized as having burglarized her apartment.

Armando Diaz would have to be crazy to believe me.