“Yowza,” Terese said.

“I know, right?”

“That was . . .”

“I know, right?”

Myron had a way with postcoital banter.

Terese swung her legs out of bed, rose, and moved toward the window. Myron watched. He liked the way she moved naked, panther-like, all coiled and toned and confident. The apartment was perched above Central Park on the West Side. Terese looked out the window toward the lake and Bow Bridge. If you’ve ever seen a New York City movie where a couple in love runs across a footbridge, you’ve seen Bow Bridge.

“God, what a view,” Terese said.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Are you ogling my ass?”

“I prefer to think of it as watching. Guarding.”

“In a protective manner, then?”

“It would be unprofessional of me to look away.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want you to appear unprofessional.”

“Thank you.”

Then, with her back still toward him, his fiancée said, “Myron?”

“Yes, my love.”

“I’m happy.”

“Me too.”

“That’s scary.”

“Terrifying,” Myron agreed. “Come back to bed.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Oh, I can keep them,” Myron said. Then: “Is there a place around here that delivers oysters and vitamin E?”

She turned, gave him her best smile, and ka-boom, his heart exploded into a million pieces. Terese Collins was back. After all the years of separations and anguish and instability, they were finally going to get married. It felt incredible. It felt wonderful. It felt fragile.

And that was when the phone rang.

They both stopped as though they sensed it. When things are going this well, you sort of hold your breath because you want it to last. You don’t want to stop or even slow down time as much as you just want to stay safe in your little bubble.

That phone ring, to keep with this piss-poor metaphor, was a bubble burster.

Myron checked the caller ID but the number was blocked. They were in the Dakota building in Manhattan. When Win had disappeared a year ago, he had put the place in Myron’s name. For most of that year, Myron had chosen to stay in his childhood home in nearby Livingston, New Jersey, trying his best to raise his teenage nephew, Mickey. But now his brother, Mickey’s father, was back, and so Myron had given them the house and come back to the city.

The phone rang a second time. Terese turned to the side, as though the sound had slapped her across the cheek. He could see the scar from the bullet wound on her neck. The old feeling, the need to protect, started to rise in him.

For a moment, Myron debated letting it go to voicemail, but then Terese closed her eyes and nodded, just once. Not answering, they both knew, would only delay the inevitable.

Myron picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

There was an odd hesitation and some static and then the voice he hadn’t heard in so long came through: “Don’t you mean ‘articulate’?”