Another slow shake of the head.

“When you were with him, did you notice anything in his apartment? Did he say anything?”

“Like what?”

“Well, maybe he talked about where he grew up. Or maybe he mentioned clubs or hobbies. Or a favorite team. Or he talked about where he’d gone to high school or college.”

“What—I mean, it wasn’t really that kind of conversation.”

“Did you see anything that might help? We’re looking for clues about where he might have gone. Believe it or not, most people aren’t very smart when they run. They go to friends. Or they go to places they’re familiar with, where they feel safe. Any kind of clue you could offer about his background, anything at all, that would help.”

Matty’s eyes grew distant, and then his head came up sharply.

Shaw felt a flicker of triumph. “What? What is it?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Really? Because it looked like you might have—”

“I just realized this is my fault. Again. If I’d paid better attention, if I’d asked more questions, if I hadn’t been so naïve—”

“That’s ok. It’s ok. You’re sure?”

Matty nodded.

“I needed to ask; if you think of anything, you’ve got to let us know. But that’s not why you came here. What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to see if you’d found anything.” But he was chewing his lip, and his eyes slid up and away.

“Matty?”

He looked over his shoulder—past the locked door, past the house’s brick walls. “It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have come here.”

Shaw shut the computer—the New Yorker, like he was fooling anybody—and came around to stand in front of Matty. The boy was trembling. Physically shaking. And now there were tears in those huge, amethyst eyes, and Matty kept shaking his head like if he tried hard enough, he could knock the tears loose before they fell.

“Matty, what’s going on?” Alarm bells were going off in the back of Shaw’s head, and a voice that sounded suspiciously like North’s telling Shaw to pull his head out of his ass, but it had been such a fucking terrible day. First Regina, and then North, and seven years of humiliation and secrets exhumed. And this felt good, this chance to be kind, this chance to be strong—not weak, the way he’d felt weak when Regina had pressed him deeper and deeper into the pantry, but strong. “Come on. You came here for a reason.”

“I think—I think someone’s following me.”

Shaw almost laughed, and he caught himself. “Following you?”

“I know. It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. But—but I swear I’ve seen the same two guys all over the city today. And it’s not just my mind playing tricks on me. It’s not. I’m not going crazy.”

After Carl had died—been murdered, said that voice that sounded like North—Shaw had seen their attacker again and again and again. In the basement laundry room at the dorms; at the shadowed alley behind Dressel’s; once, behind a clump of rhododendrons outside the Chouteau Student Union. Even in the dark, Shaw could stare into the emptiness and see the glint of a gold tooth. So he nodded his head.