May 20, 2011, he had been driving in the late hours—something about New York at night settled Larkin’s restless mind—and had come upon a woman contemplating suicide from the Manhattan Bridge. He’d pulled over, asked if he could call for help, then talked with her for an hour while EMTs waited at a distance that wouldn’t provoke her. The conversation wasn’t a pleasant recollection by any means, but when she’d stepped away from the edge and taken Larkin’s hand, it had reinforced his desire to be a cop, when only hours earlier, he had been questioning whether to turn his badge in.

May 20, 2013, Larkin went on his second date with Noah. It had been a Monday night, and the Peruvian restaurant hadn’t been busy. They’d sat in a quiet corner for hours, drinking several rounds of Pilsen Callao, talking about their respective childhoods and careers and lamenting the challenges of dating seriously in a city hellbent on only hookups, and no matter what Larkin felt for Noah now, that night had been one of the best he’d had in a long, long time.

Larkin raised his head, grabbed a few tissues from the dispenser on the back of the toilet, and dabbed his face dry. He stared at his reflection. He was still a bit flushed, his eyes red-rimmed, but he’d managed to collect his wobbling pieces and adjust how they precariously balanced before he’d fallen apart. He threw the sodden tissues into the garbage, opened the door, and returned to the front room.

Camila looked up at the sound of Larkin’s heels on hardwood. “Are you okay, Detective?”

Larkin took his seat and said, “I do remember Patrick’s voice. Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

Camila considered Larkin, considered his honesty, for a long minute. Without prompting, she said, “Marco had a part-time job his senior year. He’d been accepted into CUNY for an art therapy program and didn’t want to depend on his mother financially. He was a good boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He worked as a youth mentor at an after-school program. He grew up with a lot of at-risk kids, you understand. He wanted to help. And this Center offered students an alternative to an unsafe home or the streets. There were tutors to help with schoolwork, counselors on-call to help with troubled kids, and they even had a lawyer on retainer. There was a kitchen—Marco said some of them got their only meal of the day at the Center. They offered lessons in art and cooking and physical fitness… that’s what Marco did. He helped teach classes. He loved it.”

“What was the name of this Center.”

“New York Youth Empowerment Center. All the kids called it, The YEC. Youth Empowerment Center.”

“I understand.”