I widen my eyes and thrust my head like a goddamn pigeon. “Hello? I’m standing here telling you that I saw the dead kid in that car on Saturday morning, and the homeowner was driving. What part of that isn’t registering?”

Buchanan gets righteous with how composed he is. So cool and calm, with a little smile, when he reclaims his laptop, turns it back around, nods and says nothing but, “I’ll look into it.”

“You will?”

“Of course. If there’s a discrepancy, we always look into it.”

Yeah. I’ve heard this before. “Listen—”

“Diaz. I said I’ll look into it.” He stares at the door. “Thank you.”

Interesting. Interesting because this feels awfully familiar. Too many blow-offs these days. Way too many to be coincidental. “Can I ask you something?”

“Hm.”

“Is this about the Voss case?”

“Is what about the Voss case?”

“This,” I say. “This way people keep shutting me out, then acting like they don’t know why I’m irked.”

“Come on, Diaz.”

“Is it?”

As if I’m putting him out—like I’m the one acting shitty, when he’s the one behaving as though he wants a place at the cool kids’ table and the only way to get there is to adopt the cool kids’ grudges—he says, “If you need it spelled out, then fine. Yes. It’s about the Voss situation.”

I manage not to scream or spit. I mimic Buchanan’s composure when I say, “That’s not fair.”

“Listen, Diaz. I get it. You’re passionate—”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Don’t get emotional.”

“I’m not emotional.” Well, that was the wrong thing to say. And the wrong way to say it. My delivery wasn’t flat enough. Not robot enough. Robot is what I have to be, constantly, between now and when I retire in twenty or thirty years. That’s all. I have to be that and I have to rock my scarlet letter: E for Emotional. Just that. I’ve got to encrypt myself because I showed a feeling once and earned a spot on some invisible internal watch list.

“It’s great you care,” Buchanan tells me, like I need his validation. “You should care. But you cannot let this job become your whole life. You can’t get wrapped up in other people’s problems, or you’ll go crazy.”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t call you crazy.” His tone, though: Not yet. “I’m just saying, be careful.”

“Heard. Loud and clear.”