Oddly, this fact eradicated my confidence. I was not sure we were meant for dates, Ray and I, that somehow we’d already gone far past them and yet would never get to them, either. For his part, at first, he barely looked at me, and our conversation circled awkwardly around Nelson and Layla. It would take some time to gather the evidence necessary to convict Nelson of Calvin’s death, as well as his attempts on our lives. Layla’s testimony was key to this, and she was insisting she’d been manipulated by Nelson since she was a minor and should be prosecuted differently. It was all very complicated, and I sensed that Ray was obsessing over the details on a daily basis.

“I still don’t understand how you lost a fight with him,” I said.

“I didn’t lose. I made him mad enough to kill me,” Ray said, his tone matter-of-fact. At my inquiring silence, he went on. “When he left my brother, Calvin was still alive. Calvin drowned in the bathtub later. So the whole time, I knew I was looking for an almost murderer—someone who would mess up, somehow. Someone who was afraid to strike again. I had to force him to strike, and then I had to fight back enough to make him want me dead.”

I tried to picture the blow that shattered Ray’s shoulder, but the image that came was Nelson’s bloody, dangling ear. Ray had ripped it from his skull with his bare hand. The force it must have taken.

“How did you know he wouldn’t just kill you then, in your own apartment?” I said.

“Because he needed to be rid of me. I knew about his secret room,” Ray told me. “I guessed he was hiding black market goods somewhere. He owns no properties except the house and the gallery. When you mentioned the wine cellar entrance to Nelson’s house, I went and looked there. I left behind enough hints of my presence to rattle him. By then, I figured it had to be the Westing. Something about that long hallway you said you had to drag the shoes down, and only one door. It didn’t add up.”

Then his tone dropped its pride and turned formal, humble, as if he were arguing a losing case. “The thing is, because he saw you digging in his trash on the surveillance camera, he connected me and you, and that put you at risk,” Ray said. “When I pushed him, he went after both of us.”

“You didn’t make me do anything.”

“I should have recognized that you would become a target,” said Ray. “Though if you hadn’t, I might not be alive. I’m caught between apologizing and thanking you, and both seem too weak to be appropriate. In this circumstance.”