I settle into my seat and look straight ahead. “A couple of weeks after Frankie went to prison,” I say, “I found a newspaper article in Ethan’s trash can. Had a mugshot of one of the men who came into my house the night my parents died, the one who fought with my dad. Sam Bridges. The article said Bridges had been arrested on a drug bust. The police were looking for his partner.”

“Ponytail,” Caesar says. He knows Ponytail, or Donny Wharton, and has the scars to prove it.

“I didn’t know at the time why Ethan had that article, or why he threw it away. I kept it. And I decided I would find Ponytail.”

“You were, what, fifteen?”

“Old enough to know I didn’t know anything about how to track down somebody like him. So I waited. Kept that article under my pillow like a love letter. Took self-defense classes and learned how to shoot a pistol. Ran cross-country to get in shape. Even shadowed a PI for a day the summer before my senior year, learned about surveillance and skip tracing. The day I graduated from high school, I went to Uncle Gavin and showed him that article. He said he’d told Ethan he knew where both Bridges and Ponytail were, asked what he wanted him to do.”

Caesar stops at an intersection and lets an old couple walk across in front of the Frankenstein. “You mean he was asking if Ethan wanted them killed,” he says.

I stare at the old couple, both wearing enormous walking shoes like life rafts for their feet. The woman holds onto the man’s arm. The man raises a hand in thanks to Caesar. “Ethan said no,” I say. “Which he should have. If Uncle Gavin had had them killed on Ethan’s word, Ethan wouldn’t have been able to live with it.” I took a breath, let it out. “But I could.”

The old couple finally makes it across the street and Caesar drives through the intersection. “So you told your uncle you’d do it,” he says.

“Uncle Gavin had Bridges arrested, but Ponytail got away from the cops. I said I’d find him. I was pretty clear what I wanted to do to him. Told my uncle I wanted his help but I’d do it without him if I had to.”

Caesar takes a long curve smoothly, palming the steering wheel. “What’d he say?”