Odessa walked into the kitchen. The teacup was on her kitchen counter, still unwashed.

The cup from which Hugo Blackwood had drunk. The one he had held.

Odessa endured the glances, the eyes following her in the hallway, as she moved through the New Jersey Field Office in Claremont Tower. Only something like this could have made her return there. Her friend Laurena was waiting for her in a secure conference room.

They hugged. Laurena studied her face, and Odessa knew she was scrutinizing her complexion as an indicator of health. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” said Odessa. There was water—a fancy mason jar and two glasses. She poured herself one. Hand trembling.

“I’d be a blotchy, dried-out mess. I miss you. What do your lawyers say?”

Odessa shrugged. “What can they say? What can anyone say?” She sipped the water.

“I can say, it’s all bullshit. You’re a good agent, Dessa. I don’t know what happened that night, but I know you didn’t lose your shit.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s rumors…I don’t believe them, but I’m telling you because I’d want to know…rumors about you and Leppo.”

Odessa felt a wave of sickness and anger. “Fuck.”

“I said that. I said, ‘Fuck that.’ People looking for explanations, for reasons. How one agent shoots another. They can’t get their male heads around the fact that maybe their buddy Leppo lost his shit. Maybe it was the man who went off the reservation. Wouldn’t that be a novel idea.”

“He was going to kill the girl. It sounds terrible because it is terrible. I can’t explain it—maybe nobody can. But he had the knife and he was going to cut her throat. And people think we were sleeping together?”

“It’s tribal, male versus female. That’s how they think. Forget it.”

“His poor wife,” said Odessa, thinking about Leppo’s widow, and not for the first time.

“She’s in rough shape. But of course.”

But she couldn’t help thinking of Walt Leppo’s wife hearing rumors about her husband, who was a straight arrow, getting shot over some sordid romantic fling. It didn’t even make sense, really…but she hoped Leppo’s wife was spared that.

Odessa remembered the paper bag in her hand. “Will you do me another huge favor?”

“Anything,” said Laurena. But then, remembering what she’d done for her before, getting Odessa the crime scene photos from the Peters house, she pulled back. “Wait. What favor is it now?”

Odessa handed her the lunch bag. Laurena held it, not opening the top fold.

“Oh shit,” she said. “What is this?”

“A teacup. I want you to run a full biometric analysis, including DNA casework and latent prints.”

Laurena stared at Odessa, her face slowly breaking into a smile. “You realize what you’re asking me?”

“I do.”

“This breaks, like, every protocol we have.”

“I know.”