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“They got your guy in there, hidden. Claiming some kind of religious sanctuary, am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“Got a warrant yet?”

“It’s on its way.”

Conversation at its curtest. Like pulling teeth, only a lot less fun.

“You talked to Herson.”

“Yes.”

“So—what did he have to say? ‘Bout your boy, I mean. Or is he still playing it strictly non-interference?”

Beck lowered his eyes, raised them. Gave me a stare, stretched long and level. Contemplative, almost.

“This is the last time I ever talk to you directly, David,” he said finally. “Ever. Unless I’m reading you your rights.”

“I know.”

A sigh. “The murderer’s name is Luther Louvin. He’s been with them for five months. Herson said they all knew what he was going to do—knew it long before he did it. Apparently, he talked about it all the time.”

“And natch, they didn’t feel this meant they had to do anything to stop him.”

“Herson said, and I quote: Love comes the way it comes. All its forms are equally valid.”

An echo in his voice, almost familiar. Four years ago, he would have given me that crooked smile—shared insight acknowledged, the whole partner thing at work. But not now.

Never now.

Love comes the way it comes.

“But you . . . don’t share that view.”

“You know I don’t.”

The barely-veiled implication: And both of us know why.

Then, briskly: “I don’t have a lot of time, so here’s the rest. Herson only said one other thing, that if I couldn’t understand why they gave Louvin shelter, then I didn’t know what real love was. The kind of love that’s the purest expression of who you are.” A pause. “But that I would . . . and soon.”

“He said that.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I guess—” slowly—“you probably wouldn’t believe me, if I told you that was a threat.”

This time, Beck really did smile: All thin and straight, these days—not wry, so much, as bitter. Replying, with deceptive ease: “It wouldn’t surprise me. Although, to be fair, the only person who’s ever threatened me with love . . . is you, David.”

Fever, rising fresh. Glass cough shattering on impact, lodging deep; black ice splinters of night air in the back of my throat, unmelted. Beck saw, and opened the car door. He sat down, gun still kept on me—one-handed, so he could turn the key. The ignition roared, caught.

But before he could shut it, I said, quickly: “Beck—I won’t say ‘I love you’ any more, okay? ’Cause I know you don’t believe me. But what I did—to you—”

“Yes?”

His dark stare, waiting for some kind of easy answer. The name of the puzzle: Human evil. The proof: His rapist ex-partner, drunk and crazy, straining to explain why he broke every bond of trust imaginable—to make it all clear and clean, somehow. Wash it away with a few choice words, if nothing else.

Trying. And failing miserably.