“Fuck you.”

“Shaw,” Matty whispered, plucking at Shaw’s shirt.

Reck held up his hands in protest. “Did I say something wrong?”

“You show up here, you fucking bully my client right in front of me when he’s done nothing wrong, you insinuate—”

“Shaw,” Matty wheezed, clutching a handful of Shaw’s shirt like he was trying to rein him in.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Aldrich. I think we’ve had a miscommunication.”

“Will you move? We’re getting his stuff and then leaving. If you need to talk to him again, you can do it tomorrow.”

Reck eased out of their path, but he trailed after them, his footsteps surprisingly quiet for a man so big. He rode the elevator up with them. He was humming something, and when Shaw recognized it, his blood pounded in his ears. The song was “Oh, Pretty Woman.” Shaw shot a furious glance at Reck, and Reck’s eyes crinkled again, and his shoulders lifted in a micro-shrug, and he burst into a full-on whistle.

When the doors opened, Shaw grabbed Matty’s arm and hustled him toward the loft so fast that he wasn’t sure Matty’s feet were even touching the ground. But he didn’t care; he needed to get out of here.

At the loft’s door, Detective Barr stood in their way, his chin jutting out toward them, his bushy little goatee glaring like carbon filaments under the hallway fluorescents.

“We’ve already talked to your asshole partner,” Shaw said. “And we’ve already done the whole song and dance, so he’s going to get some of his stuff and we’re going to leave.”

Barr glanced past Shaw at Reck and must have seen some kind of confirmation because he stepped aside. When Shaw tried to step into the apartment, Barr slapped a hand into his chest. It cracked against Shaw’s chest too hard, stung too much, for it not to have been meant to hurt.

“Just him,” Barr said. “We don’t want to contaminate the scene further.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous. You’re not doing some sort of CSI bullshit. You’re poking through his underwear and probably building your own private jerk-off collection—”

Barr’s face purpled, and he squared his shoulders and balled his fists. “Kid, I know who you are. And I know what you fucking owe me. I caught that son of a bitch, all right? The one that carved you up, I caught him. Me. You ought to be on your knees thanking me.”

“You caught a homeless man with substance abuse problems,” Shaw said. In his mind, the darkness of the alley rose like floodwaters. “You caught a guy who shouldn’t have been allowed to stand trial because he’s out of his mind.” Inside that darkness, Shaw could still see the glint of a gold tooth. A smile, he thought. The Slasher had smiled as he cut open Carl. The dark waters were higher now, and Shaw was struggling to breathe. “There wasn’t any fucking material evidence that put him at any of the attacks—”

“Listen here, you stupid piece of shit,” Barr said.