Larkin adjusted Jessica’s photos. Nathan’s hot dog stand was summer. Outside the theater, Andrew had been wearing a coat. Then the apartment perhaps a month or two later. Andrew’s nose wasn’t broken yet in any of them. Jessica had said that happened after they became roommates. Before graduating college, to be precise. Before meeting the jewelry designer who was, in theory, Andrew’s last romantic interest and by default a person of interest.

Larkin looked at Doyle again. Still sketching away.

He still couldn’t make complete sense of the nonfatal attacks. The ME suggested domestic assault. Doyle had too. And in the beginning, it had made sense: abuse that’d gone too far and then having to hide the body. But now? With the addition of the three victims earlier in the decade, also left in parks, also with death masks of a sort? It wasn’t simple IPV anymore. That wasn’t to say Andrew couldn’t have been an abuse victim too….

Perhaps the abuser and the killer were two different people and Andrew had been a very, very unlucky young man. Although, Jessica had insisted that Andrew’s nose was broken before meeting the jewelry designer, which would suggest he hadn’t been behind the assaults. She could have been wrong, though. It was twenty-two years ago, and she couldn’t remember the pseudoboyfriend’s name, so perhaps her memory of the timeline was off too. After all, only one person on this case had a nearly infallible memory, and it hadn’t been Jessica Lopez.

His cell buzzed with an incoming call at 8:32 at night. Larkin picked it up.

Noah Rider.

Larkin stared at the name. He nearly let it go to voicemail. But he knew Noah. His husband would call his desk next. Larkin tapped Accept, put the phone to his ear, and asked quietly, “What is it.”

“Wow, does everyone get that welcoming or just me?”

“I’m working. What do you need.”

“I’ve been texting you all day—”

“I’ve been working all day,” Larkin cut in. Never mind the morning meltdown or foot pursuit of an armed suspect or the rest of the fuckery that’d made up his Tuesday. Noah wouldn’t care about any of that.

“Well, you had time to read the messages.”

Larkin planted an elbow on the desktop, covered his eyes with his hand, and murmured, “I have to go.”

“When are you coming home? It’s already eight thirty.”

“I don’t know.”

“Everett.” And the way Noah said Everett, it was like he’d learned how to weaponize Larkin’s name, use it against him.

It made Larkin cringe. Made him despise a name he’d once quite liked.

Evie.

Larkin shook his head a little and said, “I’m working a big case, Noah. I don’t know when I’m coming home.”