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and let his mind drift back to a decade before, when he couldn’t think of anyone closer to him than Javier. Best friends that never acknowledged it. Strumming guitars in Pete’s bedroom, hustling students with a few weed sales here and there. They weren’t bad kids. Sure, they cut class, drank and smoked, listened to loud music, snuck out late at night to see the few punk acts with enough cash to make the trek down to Miami—but there were always other kids doing worse. Pete often found himself getting nostalgic for when the biggest problem was how to get to the mailbox before your dad did, to prevent him from finding that form letter from the school informing them his kid hadn’t bothered to show for class in a few weeks. Before Mike and Emily, there was Javier—his literal partner in crime.
    Those years, his first few at Southwest Miami High, were glorious times, fueled by cheap beer, weed and great music. He could almost feel the summer breeze whipping at his face as he and Javier sped down Bird Road in his dad’s battered red Mustang, well after midnight, listening to the title track from Let It Bleed on loop. Mick’s put-on drawl reminding the listener that we all need someone we can lean on. The words meant so much then. Pete hadn’t played that record in years.
    It had ended abruptly, like those things do. A few beers too many one night and they’d decided they were invincible. Strutting into a desolate 7-Eleven on Coral Way with nothing to lose. Both of them wearing big coats that screamed “We’re shoplifting!” on a humid Miami evening. They thought they were the shit as they slid a few forties of Olde English into their pockets, trying with little success not to giggle. They stopped laughing when the old man behind the counter pulled out a shotgun and ordered them to put their hands up. Extreme? Sure. Javier gave Pete a look that said “Let’s go, he won’t shoot.” But for Pete it was over. This was farther than he ever thought he’d get, and he wanted no part of being an actual criminal. Pete would never forget the look of betrayal in Javier’s eyes. He didn’t know it at the time, but that’s when their friendship died. Later that night, Pete’s father—looking more shamed than he’d ever seen him—walked into the police station, hat in hand, and dragged Pete back home. Pete remembered the cloud of guilt that hovered over him for weeks. Knowing that his father was already working himself to death chasing after a pile of unsolved cases, only to find his biggest problem was his own son. Pete resigned himself to his new life, more out of sheer embarrassment and shame at disappointing his father. By their junior year their friendship was nonexistent. Pete ran into Javier outside a party and Javier brushed off his half-baked attempts at reconciliation before driving off in the same Mustang that had been basically his, too, just a few months before. One of the last times Pete remembered seeing Javier was during freshman year in college, when he found Javier leaning against a fence for support outside Pete’s newly discovered hangout, the Gables Pub. He looked older, gruffer, his shirt wet with vomit. It had taken him a few moments to even recognize Pete. His words only cemented what Pete should have known years ago: “What, Pete? Come back to slum with the losers you left behind?” He remembered a shove and Javier was gone.
    Chaz’s words snapped him back to reality. “He’s not a bad guy, I guess. He seems to treat Kathy OK, from what I can tell.”
    “I have a few questions before this conversation goes any further,” Pete said, lifting his glass. Chaz nodded.
    “First, what is it exactly you want me to do that the police can’t do?”
    “Well, the police aren’t doing anything.”
    “Be specific.” Pete was growing weary of the conversation.
    “I called the cops, but they said they can’t really do much until they get more proof that she’s missing and not just avoiding her