I start to have flashbacks to everything that Owen has put me through.

I take another breath, this time exhaling very slowly in an effort to steady my mind.

The behavior that Robert just described is, unfortunately, all too familiar to me.

“So what happened then?” I ask. He looks away and takes a few slow sips to finish his drink. When he is done, he looks at me.

“I have a feeling you know.”

“Please tell me.”

“She started seeing this guy Nicky we knew. And then they found her dead.”

“Did Nicky kill her?” I ask, clenching my fists.

He doesn’t know yet that he’s talking about Nicholas and that’s a good thing.

I want to know the truth.

I don’t want him to sugarcoat anything on my behalf.

Robert shakes his head furiously. “Nicky? No, he didn’t kill her.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Soon after that, Owen got arrested for that convenience store shooting and I got really freaked out about everything that had been going on,” Robert says, ignoring my question. “That’s when I decided to just take off and move in with my grandma. Get as far away from that whole life as possible.”

I nod. “That was probably a good idea.”

“But I still think about Nina all the time. Especially now that I have a daughter who is getting a little bit older. What would I think if something like that happened to her when she was a teenager? I’d want answers, that’s what.”

“My boyfriend is a suspect in her death,” I say slowly.

I don’t mention that he has officially been arrested for the murder of someone else as well and they are just building a case against him to include Nina’s case.

He furrows his brow and sits up in his seat. “Who is your boyfriend?”

“Nicholas Crawford. You knew him as Nicky C.”

Robert shakes his head, muttering no, no, no under his breath.

“He didn’t do it?” I ask.

Our eyes meet and he looks me square on without blinking. “Absolutely not.”

“Who did?” I ask.

I feel my body starting to tremble because I suspect that I know the answer before he even says the words out loud.

“Owen,” Robert says quietly.

“How do you know for sure?”

“He came to me and told me.”

Now, it’s my turn to sit back and absorb everything that he just said. “But why didn’t you come forward? Why didn’t you tell the cops?”

“I couldn’t.”

Because of some street code? I want to yell. What about her parents? What about now? Don’t you feel guilty?