The detective heaves a breath in. “His first offense is from when he was nine,” he prompts.
Any amusement drains from Melissa’s warm features. “He set a bookshelf on fire. In his classroom in year three, he took a match and just—stood there.”
Arson. Vince had called Reza ambitious the first night he’d driven him home. “And the one after that?”
Melissa is verging on gray, now. Briefly, silently, Vince wishes there was a way to make this someone else’s life, make it not belong to the woman in front of him. “He—there was this dog that used to…well. It lived a house down from us, when we were still in Calderdale. His name was Harry Winston. Ugly little thing. Nippy.” She stares into nothing, bewildered even now. “Didn’t deserve that, though.”
Vince isn’t sure he’s ever felt this cold. He t
