She took a long drag from her cigarette and used it to try to calm her shaken nerves as she stared out across Manhattan.

Mannie slid the French doors open when she was nearly ready to snub out the cigarette.

“Hello, Sasha.”

“Hey.”

“How long have you been out here?”

She shrugged. “A while. I couldn’t stop him.”

“Stop him?”

“From shooting that man.”

“No one could have.”

She’d been crying. She couldn’t help it. And now Mannie was looking at her tear-streaked face.

“Don’t stare.” She wiped a finger across her eye. “It’s not polite.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She scoffed lightly. “Did you come out here to throw me off the balcony?”

“Not at all.”

“Where’ve you been? I figured you’d be in there helping him kill people.”

“Are you okay?”

She shrugged again, dropped the butt beside her foot, and rubbed the life out of it with the toe of her shoe.

Mannie slid the door shut, isolating the two of them. She eased away from him as far as the railing would allow.

“I saw you there on Amber Road,” he said. “Yesterday morning during the funeral. What were you doing out by the graveyard?”

“Keeping an eye on a client of mine.”

“Who?”

“The senator.”

He considered her words.

She gazed back inside at Blake, who was standing beside one of the mannequins, softly caressing her chin and then trailing his finger down her neckline.

She turned to face Mannie. “What does he want with me?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” She heard something in his voice. It might have been concern.

“Blake told me he was gonna give me a treat to carry me away. Do you know what that is?”

“It has to do with his silent ladies.”

“You don’t mean . . . what—the mannequins?”

“Yes. But you’re not going to want to accept that gift.” He reached into his jacket, and she tensed, expecting him to pull out a gun or a knife or something, but instead he produced a roll of hundred-dollar bills.

“Come up with an excuse to leave—a family emergency, a health issue, it doesn’t matter, just make it convincing. Get out of here and don’t come back. I’ll take care of things with him. I don’t want to see you again.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you helping me?”

“Because I can.”

++++

It didn’t take me long to realize that the homicide videos weren’t going to be helpful. In nearly all of the cases, the offenders had eventually been apprehended, and there was no sign of a surreptitious observer. So instead I focused on the suicides.

They ran the gamut.

One young man hanged himself from the roof of his house, tying one end of the rope around the chimney and cinching the other end around his neck.