“Are you quite all right?” asked a man’s voice, from inside the house.

I blinked, scowled in concentration, and managed to stand up on some of the wispy shrubbery under the window, until I could see over the chair back that blocked my view from where I was standing.

There was a man sitting on the couch of Murphy’s living room. He was wearing a black suit with a crisp white shirt and a black tie with a single stripe of maroon. His skin was dark—more Mediterranean than African—but his short, neat sweep of hair was dyed peroxide blond. His eyes were an unsettling color, somewhere between dark honey and poison ivy, and the sharp angularity of his nose made me think of a bird of prey.

“Fine,” said Murphy. She was on her feet, her gun tucked into the waist of her jeans in front. SIG made a fine, compact 9mm, but it looked big, dangerous, and clumsy on Murphy’s scale. She folded her arms and stared at the man as if he’d been found at the side of the highway, gobbling up raw roadkill. “I told you not to show up early anymore, Childs.”

“A lifetime of habit,” Childs said in reply. “Honestly, it isn’t something to which I give any thought.”

“You know how things are out there,” Murphy said, jerking her chin toward the front of the house. “Start thinking about it. You catch me on a nervous evening, and maybe I shoot you through the door.”

Childs folded his fingers on one knee. He didn’t look like a big guy. He wasn’t heavy with muscle. Neither are cobras. There was plenty of room for a gun under that expensive suit jacket. “My relationship with my employer is relatively new. But I have a sense that, should such a tragedy occur, the personal repercussions to you would be quite severe.”

Murphy shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. On the other hand, maybe we start killing his people until the price of doing business with us is too high and he breaks it off.” She smiled. It was almost gleefully wintry. “I don’t have a badge anymore, Childs. But I do have friends. Special, special friends.”

Between them there was a low charge of tension in the room, the silent promise of violence. Murphy’s fingers were dangling casually less than two inches from her gun. Childs’s hands were still folded on his knee. He abruptly smiled and dropped back into a more relaxed pose on the sofa. “We’ve coexisted well enough for the past six months. I see no sense in letting frayed tempers put an end to that now.”

Murphy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Marcone’s top murderer—”

Childs lifted a hand. “Please. Troubleshooter.”

Murphy continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “—doesn’t back down that quickly, regardless of how survival oriented he is. That’s why you’re here early, despite my request. You want something.”

“So nice to know you eventually take note of the obvious,” Childs replied. “Yes. My employer sent me with a question.”