brick, a fire escape hanging uneasily off the front. Maybe the fire escape needed those pole dancing lessons; it looked like it was clinging on for dear life.
Rufus slowed as he approached the cross-streets of Ninth and Forty-Ninth for a third time, watching the front door to Jake’s building open. A petite blonde in yoga pants, a tank top, and sunglasses straight outta Lady Gaga’s wardrobe stepped outside. 4D. And 4D made a repulsed expression as the heat and humidity of the day body-slammed her—enough that she seemed to be second-guessing her plans. But after a moment of internal deliberation, she squared her tiny shoulders and left the doorway, walking away from Rufus and toward Fiftieth. Rufus rushed across the Leaping Ladies and slipped inside the building before the door could shut and automatically lock.
He tapped Jake’s mailbox—3C—on the wall in the vestibule as he walked toward the stairs. He hadn’t forgotten. It was just a habit. Mailboxes grounded him. They were a tangible reminder of where he was, who he knew, what was real.
Tap.
Rufus took the stairs two at a time, quick and quiet on the balls of his feet, to the third floor. The building was clean and well maintained by the super, but its age showed. Water radiators hissed and sputtered in winter, landlord-white paint had been slapped on a little too thick in the hallways, and the apartments had ancient doorknobs that Rufus had picked on more than one occasion to make a fucking point to Jake that his home security was shit.
The third floor was silent. Then again, it was a Wednesday afternoon. With the exception of Yoga Gal out front, most people held regular day jobs—Rufus not being one of those people.
He stopped outside 3C and removed a thin metal tool from inside his jacket pocket. Rufus used to time himself, shove the door open, and loudly announce his new best time for breaking and entering.
Jake had never thought it was funny.
Rufus put the tool away, straightened, and leaned his shoulder on the door. It gently fell open and he slipped inside.
The studio was too warm. The curtains had been drawn open the morning Jake left for work and never came home. Rufus’s underarms immediately began to sweat as he stood in a ray of sunlight that cut across the floor.
He was alone.
Alone but for the ghost of Jake. And that hand on the back of his neck grew more and more distant as each day passed. Soon it’d be gone entirely. Rufus would have only memories and heartbreak and… little else.
To the right of the room was a queen bed, unmade. The television mounted to the wall was off. The basic kitchen looked as if it’d never been used. The closet door opposite the bed was shut. A bachelor pad in every sense, except that Jake hadn’t been a bachelor. He had Natalie. And when Rufus learned that tidbit, it’d been… a revelation. And not a welcomed one either.
Focus.
Rufus sucked in a deep breath through his nose, then let it out slowly through his mouth. He tugged his beanie off, took a step forward, and after an initial check in all the limited spaces the bogeyman could have possibly shoved himself into for hiding, Rufus set about methodically searching every square inch of Jake’s apartment.
Because he’d been asked to handle a pickup.
And someone had murdered Jake.
It might have been because of what the job entailed.
So Rufus owed it to Jake to at least find a scrap of information worth bringing to the NYPD and say: Here. This was the assignment and this was the man I saw—the one who took away the only person I had worth living for.
CHAPTER FOUR
Already the city was too much for Sam; for a moment, it paralyzed him. He had rented a locker and stowed his ruck, and now he stood just outside Port Authority bus station in the alcove under the crossed I-beams and the grillwork and then the finer meshwork that, he realized after a second look, was probably designed to keep pigeons and bats from taking up residence behind the metalwork. The hot air of the city felt compressed, ultradense with humidity, the stink of piss mixing with what Sam thought had probably once been a falafel sandwich broiling on the asphalt a few feet away. More smells: rubber, exhaust, sweat. When he leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths, focusing on the cool lick of air-conditioning against his back when the doors opened behind