“No,” he said, and looked down at Ramón, still on his back in the dirt. His eyelids fluttered. He groaned. One side of his face was swollen. It looked like Kitty had broken his jaw with that second swing of the hubcap.

Luke kicked him in the ribs. Not hard, but hard enough.

“Hey. Motherfucker. Wake the fuck up.”

Ramón groaned louder, opened his eyes a crack. He coughed, and blood spurted from his mouth. “Ngggh,” he said. Luke kicked him again, then again. When, finally, Ramón opened his eyes fully, Luke crouched and pressed the revolver’s stubby little barrel to his forehead.

“You killed my fucking wife.”

“Ngggh.”

“And now I’m going to kill you.”

The revolver was double action, which meant that Luke didn’t have to cock the hammer, but he did anyway, for dramatic effect, because he was an actor, and he was all about the drama.

“Nggggggghh.”

“Fuck you,” Luke said, curling his finger around the trigger.

“Luke, NO!”

Kitty placed her hand on his shoulder and Luke glanced up at her, a sad, pleading look in his eyes. In hers, too.

“Don’t,” she said.

“He killed Lisa.”

“Please, Luke. This isn’t who you are.” She was almost in tears, trembling at the idea of more bloodshed. “You’ll never live with yourself.”

“I don’t care,” Luke said, staring into Ramón’s beady, frightened eyes. “Nothing matters anymore, only this guy, and making him pay for everything he took away from me.”

“No,” Ramón croaked, and shook his head.

“Yeah. Oh hell, yeah.” Luke exhaled shakily. He felt the adrenaline everywhere, even in his soul. “You killed my wife, and you’re going to pay.”

“I didn’t,” Ramón said, his voice cracked and tight. He blinked, and tears bloomed in his eyes. “I didn’t . . . didn’t . . .”

“Didn’t what?” Luke tapped the muzzle against his skull. His finger was still on the trigger. “You’ve got three seconds to talk.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“I don’t fucking believe you.”

“She’s alive. I swear. I fucking swear to you, man.”

These words dropped like pebbles into the vast lake of Luke’s grief, so small, making almost no sound, but producing ripples that spread across the surface and reached the lonesome shore on which he had been standing these past three years. He gritted his teeth, afraid to hope, but those ripples had symmetry and breadth.

“Alive?” Luke sobbed. He eased his finger off the trigger. “How do you know that?”

Ramón nodded, and the tears rolled from his eyes. He moved his right hand, dragging it through the dirt, slowly lifting it until he was pointing behind him.

“Because she’s locked in my basement,” he said.