He'd given her an out by pretending she meant not having talked to her mum since Darrow, but a year of not talking to her mum wasn't even the beginning of it.

There was a reason Russell was a good cop, even if he said he fell into it. He knew how to handle people and how not to treat them. It all came down to courtesy and decency, but they both knew that wasn't common anymore, if it ever had been.

"That's rough," she agreed. "I don't really have a place I'm from. Moved around a lot when I was a kid. And then more after I stopped talking to my mum."