For a while, there was only the sound of the old building settling and the distant wail of a siren on Ponce. Angie reached out and touched the scar on his cheek—the one shaped like a question mark, the one he never talked about. Her fingertip was cold and trembling.

"Don't," Angie said, reading him like the dyslexic mess of a file she'd known since they were both twelve. "Don't you dare go noble for me, Will. I don't need saving. I need you to sit down."

Will’s jaw tightened. Lenny Brock was a vice detective, which meant he was just a badge with a worse drinking problem. Will’s mind, that relentless, precise machine, was already cataloging: Lenny’s shift schedule, his favorite bars, the unmarked Crown Vic he parked in a handicapped spot every day. He could solve this. He could make Lenny disappear into the system so deep he’d be filling out traffic citations in North Dakota.