Quentin wasn’t normally a combative person. He took hits from his interview subjects without snapping back, and during rare arguments with Dean, he always made sure to listen carefully before responding. Hell, even Quentin’s tweets were thoughtful and even-handed. He’d worked on that. He’d spent years learning to tamp down the rage that sometimes pressed against his skin, his throat, the backs of his eyes . . .

Man, he’d fucked this one up, though.

The podcast he was working on was called Closure. And what had sold the station’s director of content on the idea was the personal aspect of it, how the Inland Empire Killers, both of them dead for forty years, continued to impact the lives of survivors and their descendants, including—and especially—Quentin himself.

The reunion with his grandfather should have been tender and surprising—a chance for Quentin to forgive his neglectful, damaged mother and the man who did such a terrible job of raising her and leave the past behind at last.

If the interview had worked out the way he’d hoped, Quentin and Reg would have taken a road trip to Death Valley, where April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy had perished in a fire at the site of their last attempted murder—a compound owned by a survivalist family called the Gideons.

He’d envisioned his grandfather and himself, reunited after twenty-seven years, watching the sun set over the craggy rocks. He’d imagined them making peace with the ghosts of the murderers, with Kate, with each other. Closure, the podcast living up to its title in the most satisfying of ways. But that hadn’t happened. Instead, Quentin had engaged in a two-and-a-half-minute-long yelling match with his mother’s father—a dumpster fire of an interview that was more Maury Povich than NPR.

When Quentin had finally arrived home, “Candle in the Wind” was playing on whatever station he’d most recently found. That was his mother’s favorite song and proof positive that God had a sick sense of humor. He felt his throat tightening, tears beginning to well in his eyes even now in his comfortable home with his sweet husband watching him, concern spreading across his face. Seems to me, you lived your life . . . Mom would sing it when she was high, in her cracked, broken voice. Just that one line, over and over, never finishing the sentence . . .

“What’s wrong?” Dean said.

He couldn’t lose it, not now. Instinctively, Quentin reached for his sunglasses—vintage Ray-Bans that Dean had given him their first Christmas together—but his shirt pocket was empty. “I lost my sunglasses,” he said.

“Quentin.”

“The ones you gave me. They’re gone. What the hell is wrong with me?”

“You’ll find them,” he said. “Tell me about the interview.”

Quentin took a deep breath, then handed the laptop bag to Dean. “On the bright side,” he said, “Terry Gross can rest easy.”

“Oh, honey.”