“On Duchay? Turns out weekends at the construction site are for cleanup, but the supervisor said he’d never met Duchay. So either the story was bogus or Duchay was confused. Other than that, zippo to report. My working theory was that Duchay hooked up with some C.Y.A. bad guy buddy in order to do something bad. They got into conflict and the buddy did him.”

“What makes you think he was planning anything?”

“Because eight years in lockup is a Ph.D. in bad. The reason I figured a buddy was because Duchay’s pattern was criminal collaboration.”

“One crime’s a pattern?”

“When it’s a crime like his. And you need to consider this, Alex: The plan may have involved you. As in target.”

“Some theory,” I said.

“Step back and try to be objective,” he said. “A convicted thrill murderer phones you out of the blue, says he wants to talk about his crime but won’t give details. If it was really some confession-absolution deal, why wait eight years? He could’ve written you a letter. And why you? He had spiritual advisers— do-gooders who’d love to grant him absolution. The whole thing smells, Alex. He lured you out.”

“Why would he want to hurt me?”

“Because you were part of the system that sent him away for eight years. And his knife wounds say it wasn’t a vacation. Nine sticks, Alex, and three had gone deep. There were scars on his liver and one of his kidneys.”

Margaret Sieff— the woman Rand had called “Gram”— had been clear about my allegiance.

Randolph’s laywer said you weren’t necessarily on our side.

Maybe she’d transmitted that to Rand. Or Lauritz Montez had. He’d seen me as a prosecution tool, had gone along with Sydney Weider’s petition to keep me away from the boys.

Milo said, “Does your silence indicate I’m making sense?”

“Anything’s possible,” I said. “But he didn’t sound hostile over the phone.”

“I know, just troubled.”

“Back when I evaluated him there was no hostility, Milo. He was meek, cooperative. Unlike Troy, he never tried to manipulate me.”

“He had eight years to stew, Alex. And don’t forget: He cooperated and still got sent to hell. You know what C.Y.A.’s like. No more status offenders and mischief makers. This year there were six murders in the system.”

“Liver scars,” I said.

“Even with that, most people would think Duchay got off easy for what he did. But try telling that to the guy who went through it. I’m thinking one very bitter twenty-one-year-old ex-con. Maybe he had plans to pay lots of people back and you were first on the list.”

“Why do you have doubts about him hooking up with a prison buddy?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it was your working theory.”