“Your sister?”

“Yes. And her son.”

“Which one?”

“What?”

“Which one is dead?”

The question was his second mistake, compounding the first by drawing him further in. He knew the moment he asked it that he should have just insisted that she take the names of the two private detectives and been done with it.

“My sister. Gloria Torres. We called her Glory. That’s her son, Raymond.”

He nodded and handed the photo back but she didn’t take it. He knew she wanted him to ask what had happened but he was finally putting on the brakes.

“Look, this isn’t going to work,” he finally said. “I know what you’re doing. It doesn’t work on me.”

“You mean you have no sympathy?”

He hesitated as the anger boiled up in his throat.

“I have sympathy. You read the newspaper story, you know what happened to me. Sympathy was my problem all along.”

He swallowed it back and tried to clear away any ill feeling. He knew she was consumed by horrible frustrations. McCaleb had known hundreds of people like her. Loved ones taken from them without reason. No arrests, no convictions, no closure. Some of them were left zombies, their lives irrevocably changed. Lost souls. Graciela Rivers was one of them now. She had to be or she wouldn’t have tracked him down. He knew that no matter what she said to him or how angry he got, she didn’t deserve to be hit with his own frustrations as well.

“Look,” he said. “I just can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

He put a hand on her arm to lead her back to the dock step. Her skin was warm. He felt the strong muscle beneath the softness. He offered the photo again but she still refused to take it.

“Look at it again. Please. Just one more time and then I’ll leave you alone. Tell me if you feel anything else?”

He shook his head and made a feeble hand gesture as if to say it made no difference to him.