So Zack has about twenty minutes to cool his heels before the businessman gets back to the GreenGirl. No big deal. He’s waiting for Steve anyway. Who’s always late.

What’s he gonna do while he waits?

Twenty minutes to kill.

Hmmm.

Zack feels naked without his own phone.

Of course, he’s got this guy’s phone, to fill up the time a little.

He knows he shouldn’t really look around in it. But what’s the harm? A quick little peek at a stranger’s life. What’s the big deal? Who’s it hurting? He scrolls through a few of the guy’s texts. Not very chatty. Just some street addresses and rendezvous: 12th and Broadway. Apartment 3C. Southwest corner. Some addresses and meeting places in different cities. Super businesslike. Not a lot of fun in this guy’s life. Or not on his phone anyway.

So Zack goes a little further, where he told himself he wouldn’t, but now he’s more curious based on texts that tell him nothing.

He starts to look at the photos. Organized into folders with just a single name on each.

Huh. Not a single selfie.

Huh. Photos of buildings. Some photos of random streets. Almost like planning a route or something.

Some shots of people on the street. Who don’t know he’s taking their picture. A little creepy, thinks Zack.

And then a series of photos that changes everything. That makes him grab suddenly at the counter, to steady himself there in the GreenGirl. That makes him feel instantly dizzy. Close to retching.

A lifeless body on the sidewalk. Photographed from close up.

Several photos of different bodies, photographed from various angles. And something in him knows—instantly, instinctively—what a series of photos like this must be.

Documentation.

Verification.

Proof.

Proof of what?

But something in him already has the answer.

He suddenly understands what the other photos are. Street corners. Buildings.

It’s research.

Research before a hit.

Holy shit.

His heart is drumming hard against his chest. He blinks repeatedly to try to steady himself. To clear his mind a little.

Twenty minutes until the “businessman” gets here.

He can stay here with the guy’s phone and pretend he hasn’t seen any of it and innocently, cheerfully, hand the phone back to the guy.

But a guy like this—is he gonna take that risk? A professional killer, who knows that a kid who’s nosy enough to watch him entering his passcode has been sitting here with his dead-body-filled phone for twenty minutes? Suddenly the kid’s not nosy? Come on.

And by now the guy might know a lot about Zack. He might have used his twenty minutes and Zack’s phone to learn a lot about Zack, and his friends, and the details of Zack’s life.