“I was supposed …” He stops. “I can’t,” he says.

Kateri leans forward on the table. “Did Bear Miller hire you to kill Pearl Jenkins?”

“The money is gone,” Kyle says. “I have … I have a kid on the way.”

She hears Hurt let a long breath out. “What happened at the house?” Hurt says again.

“I just couldn’t.” He ruffles his hands through his hair and then over his face, and Kateri sees that his hands are rough, dirty, like he has always worked outside with machinery. “I see Pearl all the time,” he says.

“Because you sell her drugs,” Hurt says.

Kateri nudges him under the table. She’s curious to hear this kid’s answer and she doesn’t want Hurt to deter him.

“She’s like … I don’t know,” Kyle says.

“Your mom died when you were little,” Kateri says, soft.

Kyle nods. “I just couldn’t. She’s like, the same kind of—” he says. “I mean, she’s a mom. The kid is still little. The girl,” he says.

“How much did Miller give you?” Kateri asks.

“A lot.”

Hurt says, “Miller was killed.”

“Oh,” Kyle says. “Oh, wow.”

“Were you friends with Shannon Jenkins?” Hurt asks.

Kyle huffs. “No,” he says.

“You were in school together,” Kateri says.

“I’m not friends with fucking faggots,” he says.

“But you’ll accept money,” Hurt says.

Kyle stands up, and his metal chair knocks over behind him, and all at once Hurt is on his feet. “It’s gone,” Kyle says. “I’m not giving it back.”

“Did Bear Miller ever come on to you?” Hurt asks.

“Fuck no,” Kyle says, and spits, there in the room, onto the shined concrete floor.

“No more cursing,” Kateri says, and points for Kyle to sit back down. “And do not spit in here.” She looks to Hurt.

“Excuse us,” Hurt says to Kyle, who shifts in his chair, panicky.

“I have a kid on the way,” Kyle says again.

“Not a great time to make mistakes, then,” Hurt says, and they duck out into the hallway, where one long fluorescent light is half out and half blinking, leaving the corridor to look like the way into a haunted house.

Kateri swings her workbag onto her shoulder and then pats the outer pocket.

“Come have a cigarette with me,” she says to Hurt.

They stand outside the back door, facing the lot where the staff park, underneath a sickly yellow light. Beyond them, in the lights that hang over the cars, the tiniest snowflakes gather, fluttering around each other but not coming down. The wind has a bite. Kateri leans her back against the brick wall and watches Hurt as he takes his first drag in years.

It goes smoother than she expects, and he smiles a little. “You don’t forget,” he says. She shakes her head and thinks that not drinking will be easier if she can just have the crutch of a cigarette.

“It’s debatable,” Hurt says then, “that if they took Miller to Upstate instead of Mercy, he might have made it through surgery.”