"Sir. Step back."
Rhea's body had gone tight against me. Her hand was in the back of my jacket. She had her face all the way buried in my neck now and she was breathing the small fast way kids breathedwhen they were about to come apart. I put the side of my head against the side of hers. I said her name once, into her hair, low.
She didn't scream. She cried. Quiet. Into my neck. The wet of it spread down inside the collar of my shirt and I didn't move my head off hers.
The older officer came down the porch steps. He moved the way a man moves when he's done this part of the job too many times to count. Mid-fifties. Gray at the temples. His face had the kind of weather on it twenty winters left. Small notebook in his left hand. The right one came up to me palm out and then dropped.
"Son. Pete." He stopped a step away. He held my eye. "I'm sorry. They didn't make it. Both of them. Inside. The neighbor called in two gunshots a little after four."
I couldn't speak. I kept my hand at the back of Rhea's head.
He let the quiet sit for the count of three. Then he lifted the notebook hand.
"There was a note beside them. I want you to look at it before we bag it. If you don't know the name on it, we'll go from there."
I nodded. I followed him up the walk. He stopped me at the bottom of the porch because Rhea was still in my arms and he wasn't going to take her past the tape. He held up a folded piece of typing paper between two gloved fingers. He turned it so I could read it.
One line. Black ballpoint. The hand wasn't anyone's I knew.
We will see you again, Daniil Sorokin.
I read it once. I read it again. The white came in at the edges of my vision the way it did when my head was about to start hurting. I blinked it back. I put my free hand on the porch post to keep myself upright.
The name did something inside my chest the rest of my life hadn't been able to do. It didn't give me a picture. It didn't give me a face. It didn't give me a place. It gave me an ache. The kinda man feels when he hears a word he's known so long he stopped knowing he knew it.
I've heard this name. I've heard this name in a room. I've heard this name on a woman's mouth.
I didn't see her. I felt the shape of the name against my teeth. I felt the weight of it where my voice came from. I felt my own breath try to say it and stop.
Rhea lifted her head off my shoulder. Her face was wet. Her eyes were on mine. She hadn't let go of the front of my jacket.
"Brother. Are you okay? Please don't leave me too."
I bent. I pressed my mouth against the top of her head. I held her against me with everything in my arms that wanted to break loose.
"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
The officer waited. He had the patience of a man who had held people through this before. He didn't move his eyes off my face.
I turned back to him. My voice when it came was steadier than it had any right to be.
"We'll go to a hotel tonight. The girl needs to sleep somewhere that isn't this house."
"There's a room at the Pinegrove a mile up the road. We'll sit on the parking lot. Detective in the morning."
"Officer. One thing."
"Go."
"The name on the note. I need you to find the Sorokin family. I think they know me. I can't remember them. But the name is mine. The name is mine."
I heard myself say it twice and I didn't stop myself. His eyes changed. He'd heard it the second time too.
"Sorokin." He turned the word slow in his mouth. "Yes."
"Find them. Tell them anyone called Daniil. Tell them Pete is here."
He nodded once. He put his hand on my shoulder. He squeezed it once. The grip was the grip of a man who'd put his hand on a lot of shoulders over twenty years and meant it every time.
