THE SKY HAD TURNED GRAY while Conklin and I were inside Ernie Cooper’s pawnshop. Muted thunder grumbled as we walked to Twenty-first Street, and by the time we got into the squad car, the first fat drops of rain splattered against the windshield. I cranked up the window, pinching the web between my thumb and forefinger. I shouted, “Damn,” with more vehemence than was absolutely necessary.

  I was frustrated. So was Rich. The long workday had netted us exactly nothing. Rich fumbled with the keys, his brow wrinkled, exhaustion weighing him down like a heavy coat.

  “You want me to drive?”

  My partner turned off the ignition and sighed, threw himself back into the seat.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Give me the keys.”

  “I can drive. That’s not the problem.”

  “What is?”

  “It’s you.”

  Me? Was he mad at me for questioning Kelly?

  “What did I do?”

  “You just are, you know?”

  Aw, no. I tried to ward off this conversation by imploring him with my eyes and thinking, Please don’t go there, Richie. But the pictures flashed into my mind, a strobe-lit sequence of images of a late work night in LA that had turned into a reckless, heated clinch on a hotel bed. My body had been screaming yes, yes, yes, but my clearer mind slammed on the ............