Larkin slid his fingers over the tabletop, lingering on the spot still warm from Doyle’s hands. He swallowed, imagining the lump in his throat to be the split pit of a peach, mold infecting him all the way down, rotting him from the inside out. Larkin quickly passed his other hand across his face and dabbed at his nose before noticing that Doyle had left the sudoku puzzle half-finished and had instead been drawing in the bottom righthand corner when he’d entered the room. Larkin reached, turned the book around, and was met with a startling, realistic execution of himself in ballpoint pen. He was in profile, seemingly studying himself in the mirror, and adjusting his tie in the reflection. Larkin looked over his shoulder at the direct view of the french doors and into the bedroom beyond.

He glanced at Doyle.

The other man stood sideways at the counter, holding a bowl and studying Larkin in return.

Pulling back the right sleeve of his suit coat to check his watch, Larkin stood and said, “I have to go.” He pocketed the protein bar and moved away from the table.

Doyle set the bowl down with a clatter and—gently—took Larkin by the elbow, stopping him. He asked, “The mother you’re going to speak to… she’s the same woman who called during the Gorman case, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

Doyle was contemplative, silent for eight seconds that could have been eight years, the gravity around him was so great. Finally, he smiled, but for the first time since they’d met, Larkin saw the crack, the crumble, the broken inner self reflected back, like viewing Doyle through a funhouse mirror. And it wasn’t like he’d been privy to an audience from the “real Doyle,” because the real Doyle was the man standing right there.

It was more like, for a split second, Larkin had simply seen more—the part of himself that Doyle buried deep down underneath the light and sunshine and fool’s gold personality.

“My son was a victim of homicide too, Detective.”

The pat, pat, pat of rain on the windshield.

“I self-medicated after losing Abigail.”

“Be gentle,” Doyle suggested. “And… listen to her.”

CHAPTER FIVE

In Larkin’s five years on the Cold Case Squad, he’d solved seventy-four cases. He averaged three times the closure rate than his fellow detectives. He garnered the squad positive press with the public and much-needed funding from the department. Judges rarely denied him a warrant.

He didn’t like to consider any of that a success, though.

How could he, when his victims were still dead and had been forgotten by everyone?