Doyle tore a sheet from a paper towel roll on the messy counter, then took a step forward and handed it to her.

“I knew it,” she said, scrubbing her cheeks with the rough towel. “Deep down, I mean. Because your best friend wouldn’t up and leave. Not without a note, a phone call, hell, even some cash for next month’s rent, because believe you me, I was scrambling without him here.” Jessica took another, longer, sip of whiskey. “I guess it hurts less to ignore what you know is the truth.”

Larkin’s palms were sweaty against the worn wood. He resisted curling his fingers into fists. “That is true,” he agreed.

But Jessica didn’t appear to have heard him, because she asked with a spike of frustration, “What was I supposed to do? That cop, the one who took my report, he didn’t care. Kept saying Andy was a grown man capable of making his own decisions and he didn’t have to get his beard’s approval to do nothing. He said that. Called me Andy’s beard. What an asshole.” Jessica tore the paper towel into several smaller pieces. “Andy was proud of who he was. I worried, of course. Even twenty years ago, it was dangerous for him, but we weren’t like that. That cop was homophobic. I called for months, asking for updates. Nothing. Then I started calling yearly.” Her anger subsided, her voice hitched, and those big fat tears started rolling down her face. “Just so the cops knew I hadn’t forgotten Andy. Everyone else did, but not me. Not me.”

These were the worst cold cases.

Andrew Gorman had been gone twenty-two years, and Jessica Lopez had been living with a hole in her heart the entire time. And even now, she wouldn’t be any better off. The best she could hope for was that the truth could be used like gauze, to pack the wound, so she’d stop bleeding out.

Offering a personal connection was time and again Larkin’s least favorite tool in the detective arsenal, because he felt so raw, so vulnerable afterward, but sometimes he didn’t have a choice. Not in moments like this—when someone like Jessica, the closest he’d ever get to Andrew himself, deserved to know her pain was being acknowledged. He peeled one hand from the tabletop, rubbed it against his pant leg, then reached across the table to take Jessica’s. She gripped his tight, her knuckles blanching.

“I won’t forget Andrew,” he said simply.

PomPom’s whine broke the quiet. He scurried into Jessica’s bedroom and returned with a squeaky ball, which he dropped at her feet. He left to fetch another toy, this time a stuffed bunny.

She cried for a bit longer. Doyle fetched her another paper towel. When she’d… not calmed so much as ran out of stamina, she asked, “What do you need from me?”