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How many perps have walked under him?”
    “Nik, I don’t know. We worked together all of two days before he ruled the case a suicide.”
    “You agreed with his assessment?”
    “Yes.”
    “Any chance he’ll do that to Elise?”
    “Rule it a suicide?” I held his gaze. “No.”
    We both jumped when the front door banged open and a cheerful male voice called down the hall. “Dad? Is Sydney here? Where’s Clyde?”
    “I’ll tell him,” Nik said quietly, just before his son walked into the kitchen.
    Gentry Lasko, Nik and Ellen Ann’s golden child. The center of their universe, for whom they’d sacrificed everything to put him through law school. Brilliant, cheerful, with a tall and sturdy build, Gentry was the kind of guy who took over a room just by walking in. A handsome brute—as he called himself—who’d e-mailed me every day while I was in Iraq and earned my undying love for it.
    I stood to hug him.
    “Syd! I knew that was your unit parked in front.” He hauled me into a bear hug then pulled away and kissed both my cheeks. “Damn, girl, you look good. Pale, though. You need a few days on the beach. Am I right? Where’s Clyde?”
    Clyde had been waiting for Gentry to notice him. He barked and wagged his tail, his tongue hanging as he hopped up on his back legs. Gentry bear-hugged Clyde, too, then hauled him down to the floor to alpha-roll him. Other than myself, Gentry was the only person—man, woman, or child—whom Clyde genuinely loved. I figured it was because Gentry so resembled Dougie, who’d once been the love of Clyde’s life.
    And mine.
    For an instant, I could see Doug Ayers standing in front of me, grinning at something I’d said. Tall and blond and raucous, in my face and full of life. Looking at him, I laughed, too, and took his hand.
    Three of his fingers were missing, the stumps oozing blood. I lifted my eyes to his, but they’d gone dead.
    I blinked.
    Gentry play-wrestled Clyde for a few minutes, then rose and turned toward his father. Immediately he froze, the merriment leaving his face as if someone had doused him with ice water.
    “Dad? What’s happened? What is it?”
    Nik kept his eyes on Gentry. “Give us a minute, Sydney Rose.”
    I whistled to Clyde, and we went out to the porch. I looked for the kids playing soccer, but they had vanished, leaving behind one partially crumpled orange cone. I hunched against the wind, eyeballing the remnants of the swastika on Nik’s porch and wishing I’d brought the whiskey. Clyde pressed close against my legs, and I laid my hand atop his head, finding comfort in his steady presence.
    From inside the house, Gentry’s voice rose in a raw cry. Clyde barked. I heard Nik’s low rumble, another cry, and then Gentry slammed out through the front door. He gave me a wild-eyed stare and ran to the curb.
    “Gentry!” I hurried after him. “Wait!”
    But he threw himself into his cherry-red muscle car, started the engine, shifted into gear, and punched the gas, screaming away from the curb. The orange cone flew up from his wheels, bounced into the gutter. Seconds later he turned the corner and disappeared.
    I went back inside to find Nik in the hallway, fists balled, looking like he’d been pistol-whipped. I walked him back to the kitchen, and this time I was the one who poured the whiskey.
    Nik opened the kitchen window wider then rooted in a drawer and dredged up a pack of cigarettes even though I knew he’d promised Ellen Ann he had quit. He offered the pack to me. In the chill air, we sat at the table and lit up with matches from Pete’s Diner on Colfax. I hadn’t had a cigarette in a month, and the nicotine hit felt even better than I remembered. I pulled smoke hard into my lungs.
    “He’ll be okay,” I said, knowing the words to be a lie.
    Nik used an empty glass as an ashtray. “I know who did this.”
    I thought of the photos in Elise’s living room and kitchen, the hundred or so faces staring out through the lens of the