In that instant, with her face turned up to him—earnest and attentive—it struck Keegan where he’d seen her before. She was the woman in the photographs, the woman Simon Catling was willing to pay a small fortune to find. The realization rocked him back on his heels. He almost spilled what little coffee was left in his mug. Was it even possible? What were the chances, in a city of two and a half million, that the woman he’d refused to find would turn up, unbidden, outside his kitchen door?

The young woman shaded her eyes with one hand again. “Would you like to join me for some coffee, Mr. Keegan?” she called up to him. “Or perhaps some orange juice?”

Keegan stared down at her upturned face. The more he looked, the more certain he was that this Eve Ormsby-Cutler was Catling’s woman. But how could that be? The odds were astronomical. He tried to remember the photographs clearly, but all he could think about was the fat envelope of money beside him on the empty seat. Who might Catling have called once Keegan had turned him down? What men were now scouring the city for the face that was—inexplicably—turned up at him at this very moment?

He poured his instant coffee into the rose bushes at his feet. “Yes,” he told her. “I could use a decent cup of coffee.”

KEEGAN HAD NEVER seen a dog in his office building before, so he carried Nora under one arm, like a parcel he’d been sent to deliver. He strode across the marbled lobby floor, past the row of payphones and the cigarette machines, to the bank of elevators, trying not to look conspicuous. There were Mr. Sotos everywhere.

Up on the sixth floor, he found the outer door to his office unlocked. Inside, Mrs. Dodd sat at her desk reading a P.G. Wodehouse novel. A transistor radio was tuned to Joe Yocam and his Fabulous Forty. Seeing him in the doorway, Mrs. Dodd switched the radio off and slipped it into her desk’s file drawer, along with her paperback. She had obviously not been expecting Keegan to come in, but she looked not at all abashed for being caught with office contraband.

“Long time no see, boss,” she said cheerily, sliding the drawer shut. Her face lit up when she saw the dog. “Oh! Who’s this you’ve got with you?” Her voice went all singsong, like when she talked to one of her grandkids over the office phone.

“Her name’s Nora,” Keegan said, looking down at the terrier under his arm. “She belonged to my mother. I don’t have anywhere to leave her.” He wasn’t sure what to do with the dog, so he set her down atop Mrs. Dodd’s big oak desk.