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Chapters (97)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. 1.
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  24. SIX MONTHS LATER
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  93. SIX MORE MONTHS LATER
  94. 88.
  95. 89.
  96. Discover More
  97. About the Author

But wait. Couldn’t this guy use Find My iPhone to see where Zack is? So maybe he should just toss it in the trash, get away from it.

But even if Zack tosses the phone in the trash, and even if Zack tells the “businessman” what trash can it’s in, where to find it, it won’t matter. Because now Zack knows what’s on that phone. And that’s not going to be acceptable to a businessman like this.

Zack no longer cares if he gets his own cell phone back. But this guy cares very much, intensely, if he gets his phone back.

Zack hurries down the block. Walking as fast as he can. A block he knows so well. A block where everything suddenly looks different. Strange. Tilted.

His brain is spinning. Has he misread the situation entirely? Is he just overthinking it somehow, overreacting, overly alert? The same over-alertness that got him into this guy’s phone in the first place—was it now just going into overdrive? It seems absurd that there even is such a thing as an assassin for hire. Doubly absurd that he has photos of victims on his cell phone. Triply absurd that he’s hanging around at a GreenGirl—what, between appointments?

Zack has learned to trust his instincts, but this time maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe this time he should trust logic, not instincts. Logic says the odds against accidentally swapping cell phones with an assassin in a coffee shop are astronomically high. Against all reason. So maybe Zack is wrong about something here. Maybe there’s something he’s missed.

Those photos. Maybe the guy is just a death fetishist. Listens to the police radio and gets to crime scenes before the police do. Sells the photos online in some sick little club. Maybe this guy’s not the assassin. Maybe he just takes the proof pictures and doesn’t actually commit the murders. So maybe he needs his cell phone back because, if he doesn’t get it back, he himself could be killed. That would change things, wouldn’t it? Hey, I’m just the photographer. Please, please give it back, or I’ll be killed. The assassin I work for doesn’t have to know. That would be an ingenious ploy on the part of the businessman, wouldn’t it, saying something like that, to get Zack to come back to the coffee shop? So ingenious that Zack can tell it’s only his own ingenious imagination working overtime. I’m just the photographer. Wishful thinking. No basis in reality.

Maybe the photos are all staged. Some kind of weird, dark performance art project thing. Maybe once the photos are snapped, the victim gets up, brushes off, and peers over the photographer’s shoulder to see what they got. Maybe the photos are an exhibit in some edgy downtown gallery Zack’s never heard of. Hey, it’s New York.