After the door had shut behind him, Somers said, “It’s insane. First, Joyce told me she was home all night. Kirsta alibied her. When I pressed them—because, you know, Joyce acts like her daughter doesn’t exist most of the time—Joyce came up with another convenient alibi. She was with a detective from the Wahredua PD.” His voice tightened. “Learning home defense strategies.”

  “Carmichael?”

  Somers nodded. He tried to roll his eyes, but it turned into a shake of his head that looked, to Hazard, full of a frustration that threatened to overwhelm Somers’s control. “Goddamn prepper-level shit; she and Keller are doing classes for all these crazies. And, of course, you can bet Joyce enjoyed throwing that in my face. I believe it was something along the lines of ‘I assume an alibi from one of your detectives will be good enough?’ Fuck me.”

  Hazard turned that over in his head. Miranda Carmichael had intersected this investigation in all sorts of strange ways, and while Hazard could attribute some of it to coincidence and some of it to the natural overlap of people in a small town, birds of a feather and all that, it also raised significant questions. Questions, however, that he wasn’t quite ready to discuss with the chief of police.

  “That girl really hates you, by the way,” Somers said, his tone suggesting a conversational side path.

  “Joyce?”

  “Kirsta. When I was talking to her, she kept bringing you up. She’s fixated on you, God only knows why. She kept saying she wanted to press charges for harassment.” Somers’s voice took on cautious curiosity. “Have you been hounding her?”

  “Hounding her? Jesus, John. I called her once. I wanted to know if she’d stick to the party line when I asked her about Evan. I didn’t even get to talk to her; I left a message. Harassment? That’s some fucking bullshit.”

  “Well, that would be the cherry on top, right? God, I honestly think I’d lose my mind if she came after us with a civil suit.” Somers thumbed his lip, his expression shifting, becoming thoughtful. “She did give us something on Derrick. She told us he’s involved in a lot of online forums and chat servers, really ugly misogynistic stuff.”

  “The internet; there’s a community for every kind of shitbird. So what?”

  “It’s, I don’t know, suggestive. You saw how Joyce treated him; she practically took his balls off every time he opened his mouth in public. And I thought, ok, maybe he’s one of those guys that doesn’t mind that. Hell, some guys like that, Ree. But then I find out Derrick Sturgis hates women, and he’s married to one who treats him like crap. I don’t know.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I’m talking it out.”

  “He has priors,” Hazard said. When Somers raised his eyebrows, Hazard told him about the conversation with his police informant in Jeff City. “Indecent exposure and assault aren’t murder.”

  “But they do suggest a pattern of aggression toward women, especially women who might seem…unattainable.”

  “Like,” Hazard said drily, “a black lesbian intellectual?”

  “Something like that. And he was wearing the right clothes. We haven’t had an expert try to match the boots to the tracks or the sweatshirt to the fibers, but there’s a strong chance they’ll come back as matches.”

  They were both silent for a moment. The tick-tock from the wall measured out Hazard’s breaths. Gol, gol, gol, came from the over-enthused announcer.

  “John, I understand the points that you’re laying out, but they’re not incompatible with the possibility that Derrick is being made to take the fall for someone else.”

  Somers nodded.

  “Joyce could have orchestrated everything last night; she had access to the Ace, to the food truck, and to the knowledge of how to set up those traps. None of them was particularly complicated. Or Evan could have done it.”

  “Evan was at the rave.”

  “There were close to two hundred people there. Evan could have left for a time. He would have been familiar with the layout of the Ace and with where they kept the keys to the truck; he dated Kirsta, after all.”

  “And then, what? He killed Derrick, set up an elaborate trap, staged the body and the confession, came back, kidnapped Ashley, let himself get arrested, and then tried to commit suicide?”

  “Suicide attempts by hanging are not necessarily fatal; they’re more successful, statistically speaking, than many people believe, but the mechanics also provide for some wiggle room. He could have waited until he knew his parents would hear him, for example.”

  Somers’s face was blank for a moment. Then his features tightened, hardening into a mask Hazard didn’t recognize. “That boy tried to kill himself because people terrorized him for being gay.”

  “He told you he’s not gay.”

  “You know what I mean!” The shout echoed in the space. With a visible effort, Somers brought himself under control, but his voice still sounded ragged. “Evan didn’t do this.”

  “You might not like the possibility—”

  “Will you drop it? Jesus Christ, Ree. You’re a dog with a fucking bone.”

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock. A custodian wheeled a cart past the waiting room, and a tiny speaker on the cart was playing rock—metal, something that suggested thrash. He stopped, emptying a trash can in the hall. It was, apparently, the most complicated process in the entire fucking universe. It’s one bag, Hazard wanted to tell him. Take it out. Put in a new liner. What the fuck is taking so long?

  It felt like hours when the cart finally started to move away. The music changed to cumbia, someone shrieking with excitement.

  “How the fuck does he get away with that in a hospital?” Hazard growled.

  Somers laughed—soft and short and swaybacked. He reached out and took Hazard’s hand, squeezed his fingers once. “I’m sorry.”

  “I understand that Evan isn’t our only suspect,” Hazard said. “I’m not convinced that Ayelet and Ruff are telling the truth, and even if they are, it doesn’t take them out of the running.”

  “Ruff, at least, is safe,” Somers said. “Dulac and Palomo followed up on his alibi. He’s on the casino security camera like he said he would be. There’s no way he got back to Okashka Heights and killed Loretta.”

  “But Ayelet doesn’t show up on a security camera.”

  “She does for part of the night,” Somers said drily. “Dulac and Palomo ran that down too. You can’t see her date, unfortunately—the other woman is careful to keep her face covered—but you can see Ayelet at the bar.”

  “For the whole window of time of death?”

  Somers sighed and shook his head.

  “So,” Hazard said, “she’s still a suspect.”

  “I suppose. Of course, she and Ruff have already gone back to New York, so good luck getting them to talk to you.” Somers shook his head again. “Ree, you’re not going to like this next part.”

  “Red Alvin and Brother Gary want to close Loretta’s case.”

  “How did you—yes, actually.” Somers cocked his head, studying Hazard. “Well?”

  “I think they’re wrong.”

  “They’re pretty sure the boots and the sweatshirt will match what they found at the crime scene.”

  “I understand, John. I’m not saying they’re criminally negligent. I’m saying it doesn’t feel right to me. Why take Ashley, only to kill himself and confess?”

  “He thought he was taking Colt.”

  “It’s the same question.”

  Somers grimaced and straightened the leg of his pants. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right to me either.”

  Raised voices from the hallway made Hazard look; Evan’s parents, Forrest and Shianne, were walking quickly along the hall on the other side of the waiting room windows. Forrest, stocky and sliding toward fat in his too-tight polo and khaki shorts, kept drilling a finger at his wife. From the back, she was nothing more than a Lululemon top and a mess of highlights.

  “—your fault,” Forrest was saying as he jabbed a finger at his wife, “you did this to him—”

  Then he spotted Hazard and Somers through the windows and came to a stop. His wife walked another pace before she stopped too. Forrest glared through the glass, and Hazard stared back.

  “Leave it,” Somers said in a low voice.

  But it wasn’t up to Hazard; Forrest threw the door open and came into the waiting room.

  “This is your fault,” Forrest said. “I’m going to sue your ass off for this!”

  “You’re spreading a lot of blame around,” Hazard said. “That’s typically a sign of a guilty conscience.”

  “Not you,” Shianne screamed. She was chinless, the effect made worse by what appeared to be oversized veneers. She pointed at Somers. “You!”

  Hazard glanced at his husband. Somers had lost some of his color, and although most people might have taken his expression for impassive, Hazard recognized the fault lines, the major structural stress coming to bear.

  “I’m sorry about Evan—”

  “She’s right,” Forrest said over him. “You did this to my boy. All that bullshit about him being a fag, and you had to stir it back up. He’s a good kid, and that bitch was trying to ruin his life, and now look what you did.”

  For a moment, Somers was speechless, shaking his head like he was dazed.

  “We’re going to take everything you’ve got,” Shianne said. “Police harassment, isn’t that what it’s called, Forrest? We’re going to ruin you!”

  Forrest nodded. “I swear to God, if you didn’t have a badge—”

  Hazard could smell his cologne, a synthetic like a cobalt bit between his eyes. He stood. “I don’t have a badge.”

  After eyeing him for a moment, Forrest sneered. “Fuck off, faggot.”

  “Mr. Pawloski—” Somers began as he stood.

  Indecision shimmered like heat waves in Forrest’s face. Then he lurched forward and pushed Somers back into his seat.

  “You stupid motherfucker,” Hazard said, and he got both hands on Forrest’s chest and shoved him backward.

  Forrest hit the chair behind him at about fifteen miles per hour, and he and the chair flipped over together. Shianne started to scream. Forrest was silent for a moment, and then he made a weird, high noise as he tried to suck in air; apparently he’d had the wind knocked out of him.

  “Help!” Shianne screamed. “Help! Help!”

  “What’s going on?” Brendan Boone, Ashley’s father, stood in the doorway, with his wife, Anais, next to him. “Shianne?”

  “They’re killing him,” she screeched, fumbling for a phone that was apparently concealed in what Hazard’s grandmother would have called her bosom. “They’re killing Forrest!”

  Forrest was still squealing as he tried to catch his breath, his legs kicking restlessly, making the chairs clatter against one another.

  “All right,” Brendon said. He crouched, and apparently the presence of another white, cis, straight male was enough to force Forrest into a semblance of decent behavior because he sat up and recovered remarkably quickly; a few moments later, Brendon was helping him to his feet. Forrest made a turn as though to face off with Hazard and Somers again, but Brendon steered him toward the door. “Uh uh. Let’s get out of here, and you can cool off. You don’t want to do anything stupid.”

  “Too late,” Hazard called after them.

  Brendon surprised him with a tiny smile when he looked back. Then his face grew serious, and he said, “Shianne, come on. Let’s walk him around and get him some water.”

  The sound of Forrest’s voice faded as they moved down the hall, the querulous tone dropping away as the demands of heteronormative masculinity made him butch it up.

  “Jesus Christ,” Hazard muttered. To John, he said, “Are you ok?”

  Somers nodded and got to his feet, but he was still pale, and there was that strange distance in his expression again, and Hazard thought that the past was a foreign country. He had read that somewhere. But when he opened his mouth, Somers gave a tiny shake of his head.

  Anais was still standing there, chafing her arms as though she were cold. After a moment, she said, “Thank you.”

  “I should be the one thanking you,” Hazard said. “That moron put me in serious danger of wanting to shoot myself.”

  The words flittered past her; if she heard them, they didn’t register in her face. She was looking at the linoleum, and then her gaze came up, taking in Hazard restlessly, her eyes drifting away and coming back. “I know that we’ve had our differences. I’m—I’m sorry about that. When they told me you found Ash—” She stopped with a noise of overwhelming emotion, and she touched her eyes and looked away. When she spoke again, she said, “Thank you.”

  Hazard glanced at Somers, but it was obvious his husband wasn’t going to bail him out of this one. “Ashley took pretty good care of himself. You should be proud of him; he held himself together in a situation that would have made a lot of adults completely ineffectual.”

  She nodded, but he still wasn’t sure she had heard him. “It—it has been hard, watching him with Colt, not knowing—” She stopped again, and this time, she gave a helter-skelter laugh. “Not knowing anything, I suppose. Not knowing my own son. Realizing that I don’t know him the way I thought I did. That all the things I’d dreamed for him—” She stopped again. Something seemed to come to life in her face, and this time, she met Hazard’s eyes. “I am sorry, Mr. Hazard. I’m sure you and Chief Somerset would have done the same for anyone in that situation, but I wanted you to know that Brendon and I think Ash is lucky to have Colt as a friend, and, I hope, that you will give us a second chance.”

  Hazard checked his husband again and saw, yet again, no help there. So, he went with the truth: “Well, I was a bit of an asshole myself.”

  “A bit?” Somers murmured.

  Hazard spared him a scowl, and Anais laughed softly.

  “How is Ash?” Somers asked.

  “He’s fine.” She laughed, a normal laugh. “He was dehydrated and hung over; apparently he’d had quite a bit to drink. I hope he enjoyed it since that was the last time he’ll be leaving the house. He’s talking to a hospital counselor now, and then, assuming everyone agrees, we’ll take him home.”

  Hazard watched her as he said, “Colt would like to know.”

  “Yes, of course. I should have thought of that. Would you like me to—”

  “I’ll call him.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hazard. Again. From the bottom of my heart, as corny as that sounds.”

  Hazard met her eyes as he put the phone to his ear. “Emery.”

  Leaving the hospital was its own long process of disengagement; Darnell and Noah were still waiting to hear about Dulac’s surgery, and Colt wanted to talk to Ashley, although it was obvious that both boys were painfully aware of the four adults watching them, and the conversation—what Hazard could hear of it—was stilted, broken by whispers and fits of genuine laughter. Bit by bit, Ashley came alive again, his face growing more animated as he and Colt talked, until the horror was a palimpsest.

  On the way home, Hazard checked the rearview mirror every few minutes. His son sat with his head against the window, smiling—not his mouth, his whole body, a kind of relieved joy that transmitted itself in the relaxed limbs and the way he let his head bounce against the glass.

  When they’d gotten inside the house, Somers opened the fridge and stared into it. A moment slid past. And then another. And Somers was still staring, unblinking.

  “John?”

  He startled, and his hand slid up the refrigerator’s handle. When he finally looked over, the smile had all the stuffing knocked out of it. “Pizza?” He checked Colt. “Pizza?”

  “God, yes.”

  Hazard nodded. He opened his mouth to ask if everything was ok, but his phone buzzed. When he checked the screen Ramona Andrews’s name flashed there.

  Hazard put the phone to his ear, grabbed the hamper waiting at the top of the stairs, and headed down into the basement. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Hazard, it’s Ramona.”

  “Hello, Ramona.” He flipped on the lights in the utility room; fluorescent panels made him squint. The silence had a squirming quality to it, and Hazard opened the washer’s lid more forcefully than he needed to. He broke first, saying, “May I help—”

  A heartbeat later, Ramona said over him, “Mr. Hazard, there’s been a call.” She stopped, and when she spoke into his silence, her voice sounded smaller. “Someone called the KidsFirst hotline and reported that you and your husband are neglecting Colt.”

  Hazard paused in the act of separating lights and darks. “Who?”

  “Callers may choose to remain anonymous.”

  “That’s some secret-police level bullshit.”

  Ramona took a bracing breath. “Calls are screened and evaluated—”

  “You wouldn’t be talking to me if someone had decided it was a crank call. What’s going on, Ramona?”

  The silence lasted until Hazard felt trapped in his skin. When Ramona spoke, it was clear that she was trying for professional detachment. “The caller reported several items that are causes of concern, including, among other things, the fact that Colt has been arrested twice in the last week, most recently for possession of alcohol. There also seems to be a question about Colt’s performance in school; it seems that he needs corrective eyewear, which hasn’t been addressed—”

  “Wait, what? Colt’s eyes are fine—” Hazard stopped himself, thinking of Colt worrying about the eye exam to get his driver’s license, of Colt squinting when he drove, of how the boy sometimes held his phone or a book closer to his face than Hazard expected. He pushed all of that aside for the moment. “Ramona, what’s going on? You knew about the arrests, or the one from last week, anyway. We talked about this. Everything is fine, and the best thing—”

  “Mr. Hazard, you’re not the one who decides what’s best for Colt. I’ve tried to be understanding, considering the unique nature of your and Colt’s situation—”