Two of the buzz cuts looked to a third for permission before they followed Jack’s orders. When Ronin nodded, they stood up and carried their plates into the living room.

Karim stayed where he was. Whereas the buzz cuts were all wearing varying versions of exercise pants or shorts paired with tank tops, Karim was impeccably dressed in a well-cut gray suit and a canary-yellow bow tie. Not a clip-on, Archie noticed—this bow tie was the real deal. It had been complexly knotted and was only very slightly askew. Karim picked up a cherry red electric kettle in front of his plate and poured hot water into a dainty cup with a tea bag in it. Steam rose from the cup.

Ronin lifted a forkful of eggs to his mouth and chewed, his eyes darting around the room. His close-cropped hair was a shadow of dark stubble and his eyes were a light brown that looked almost gold. His features and skin color were so multiethnic as to be difficult to pinpoint. He looked like he was from everywhere, and nowhere.

Archie recognized him from last night. He’d been the one with the headset and the clipboard.

“I want you to tell him who the girl is,” Jack instructed Ronin. There were empty chairs at the table, but Jack didn’t sit. He stood with his arms crossed, behind Karim, like a captain on the bridge of his ship.

Henry held his phone in front of Ronin and Ronin studied the image of the dead girl. He didn’t react at all to the fact that he was looking at a corpse. His meaty face didn’t change. He did not appear disturbed. But he also did not appear overly cavalier or self-conscious, the way he might if he had something to prove or was overcompensating. It took looking at a lot of dead bodies before you could look at the face of a dead young girl like that without showing even a flicker of emotion. Archie knew that from experience.

“I don’t know her name,” Ronin said finally, shoveling another bite of eggs into his mouth. “She wasn’t on the list.”

“Nice,” Jack said. “She wasn’t on the list, but apparently she was at the party. Excellent security. Clearly I’m getting my money’s worth.”

Archie slipped into one of the empty wooden chairs next to Ronin.

Ronin didn’t know her name. She wasn’t on the list. But that didn’t mean Ronin hadn’t seen her.

“You remember her?” Archie asked quietly.

Karim stirred his tea with a spoon, and the spoon knocked against the side of the porcelain cup as he circled it. He was wearing square silver cuff links, each with a small blue gem at its center that matched the fine blue stripes on his white shirt.