Larkin removed his suit coat, folded it, and set it on the seat of the desk chair. He began his search in the desk drawers, confirming that highlighters were nothing but dried-out nibs and not impromptu storage devices for something else. Detective Kent had bet all his money on a horse named Drugs, but Camila had been adamant Marco wasn’t involved in the stuff. While parents could often be blind to the reality, Larkin agreed with her. Marco’s story, as he understood it, didn’t lend itself to the theory of a drug deal gone wrong, but still, he was obligated to be as thorough as possible. And because Larkin had once been a teenager—albeit he’d coveted copies of XY and Blueboy magazines, back when he’d been straddling that line of wanting to understand what it meant to be a queer boy at the turn of the century and simply wanting to see an absolutely hung man—he understood the necessity to hide secrets.

In the bottom drawer, which seemed to have been relegated to mostly junk, Larkin found a few well-read manga volumes of titles that had seen a surge in popularity outside of Japan in the ’90s and had been undergoing translation into English. Larkin shut the drawer, put his hands on his hips, and gave the desktop a second once-over. Then, clear as day, the discrepancy made itself known.

“Hamlet,” he murmured.

Marco had been writing a report on Hamlet, but there was no copy of the play in his stack of books. So where was it? Larkin scanned his surroundings, turning in a slow circle as he did. The room was limited in both furniture and hideaway options, but there’d been one place Larkin had used with relative success as a boy, considering his parents had been positively sidelined when he’d come out to them, and that was under the bed. Specifically, in between the slats and mattress—where a magazine or two could fit—because even the eyes of prying parents rarely remembered to look up while looking under. He pulled out his phone as he got on his knees, turned the flashlight app on, and belly to the floor, Larkin crawled partially under the bed. There were some dust bunnies that had avoided Camila’s cleaning habits, as well as plastic storage bags of what looked like linens, but otherwise, it was empty. Larkin shifted enough that he could crane his neck, and there in the far right corner at the front of the bed against the wall—where you’d never feel a lump because who laid their head on the edge—was a paperback wedged into the slats. Larkin slid along the floor sideways until he could reach the book, carefully tugged it from its hiding place, and then pushed himself free.