In my life, I have been close to two investigative journalists, both dead now. Mike Starling and Sebastian Crow weren’t the attractive, charismatic sorts you see on television. They weren’t rugged, go-get-’em types. People didn’t just fall into bed with them with little or no effort on their parts, and nobody with eyes would put them on television for a viewing public for their telegenic appeal alone. It didn’t matter that they weren’t pretty. What mattered was that they were good. They were the real deal. The ones who would never get famous, never be booked on American talk shows to talk about their work. When their work came out, it was relegated to the much shittier Canadian press, but they didn’t mind because it wasn’t about personal exposure; it was about the work.

They were obsessed with their stories.

This obsession I can understand. In truth, I’m feeling more than a little obsessed right now. I’m standing in front of Starling’s grave, reading the words on his tombstone. Unlike Seb, he got a quote. Someone was looking out for him. There, carved in marble—a nice touch—is part of a Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “. . . unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

It is a generous bit of dishonesty because everyone who knew Starling was aware that he was a Hunter S. Thompson man who liked to laugh into his rum and drunkenly mutter, verbatim, “It’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.”

But how he really felt about his profession isn’t tombstone material and, to be honest, the lie looks much better in the dim winter light. I’m feeling tenderly toward Starling. I was somewhat prepared for Seb’s death, through the writing of his memoirs and taking him to his appointments. Watching his rapid deterioration. But I wasn’t ready to see Starling go, because he had been murdered, found floating in a bathtub full of bloody water. Found by me, which was a strange bit of karma because it was his connection to me that killed him in the end.

Dao, the man responsible for this hit on me, was responsible for Starling’s death two years ago. He is responsible for the attack on Nate Marlowe and was the engineer behind Bonnie’s kidnapping.

Nothing stirs in this graveyard, not even the wind.

I feel a presence behind me. Leo’s eyes are bloodshot, and his tie is askew. He looks like he slept in the clothes he’s wearing.

“Where did you sleep last night?” I ask.