He nods solemnly, but Lazarus is right: it doesn't make him feel any better. Knowing that these things can happen despite best efforts is not a comforting thing at all. His investigators died, Mello died . . . The only thing anyone can do when they happen is find some way to deal with it.

"There was . . . talk of kidnappers. My Other had suspected there to be a spy connected to them in the SPK. Theorized that one of the dead was the spy, killed so they could not be traced back."

That had been Near's plan, too, he remembers now. But this had happened before he'd gotten to it.

But now that he is more clearheaded, something about the phrasing that Near had used jumps out at him. "... He never said it was Kira. About the kidnappers: 'Now that they've got the notebook.' As if it had recently changed hands."