Doyle’s fingertips tightened fractionally against Larkin’s chest, that touch like five simultaneous shots: little fiery bullets burning his ribcage to ash. But calmly—Doyle was still so frustratingly calm, Larkin distantly acknowledged—he said, “That’s enough. And I’m going to ask that you take a few steps back.”

“I stand corrected,” Ulmer replied, a cruel laugh chasing his words. “A condescending faggot is what you are.”

“Ulmer?” Porter was walking out of the breakroom with thin-as-a-rail-no-matter-how-many-donuts-she-ate-Miyamoto. He studied Ulmer, Doyle, and Larkin, still pinned to the wall. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Doyle answered. He looked at Ulmer a final time. “Right?”

Ulmer raised his hand, pointing at Larkin, but he didn’t—couldn’t—get any words out before he moved through the bullpen like a gale and down the stairs, the front door of the precinct crashing in his wake.

Doyle removed his hand from Larkin’s chest, turned, and asked quietly, “Are you—?”

He didn’t finish.

Larkin knew why. Could see himself through Doyle’s eyes. Pale face red and blotchy, ash-blond hair shaken free from its conservative side part, the panic in his washed-out gray eyes. Larkin gulped air like a landed fish, but none of it seemed to reach his lungs.

That had been just like—almost like—August 2, 2002.

“Come with me.” That request from Doyle penetrated the panic and stuck a pin in Larkin’s mental Rolodex, preventing it from spinning out of control. He gently took Larkin by the sleeve of his suit coat and gave a little tug. And when Larkin willingly moved with the momentum, Doyle plopped the accordion folder on his desk and guided him down the steps to the ground floor and into the men’s restroom.

Larkin pulled free from Doyle’s hold, moved to one of the two sinks, turned the faucet, and splashed his face with cold water. Again. And again. Until he inhaled and choked and coughed. Larkin turned off the faucet, gripped either side of the porcelain, and watched droplets fall from the tip of his nose.

Plunk.

“So Ulmer is a first-class asshole,” Doyle said, voice echoing off the tile walls.

Plunk. Plunk. Plunk.

“It’s rhetorical, but are you all right?”

Larkin moved to the paper towel dispenser, grabbed a wad, and pressed the recycled paper to his face. He leaned back against the far wall, lowered his hands, and wadded the papers into a ball. “People don’t want to know,” he whispered, not looking up.

“Know what?”

“What makes them uncomfortable,” Larkin specified. “Sometimes they don’t know what to say, don’t want to make a bad situation worse. Other times, they only pretend to not know because the empathy required is too big a burden. They pull back. They become distant. They ask how you are the same way they ask if it looks like rain or if you watched that Mets game on TV. People don’t really want to know.”