They stood side by side, staring down a long aisle with cement floors, double-decker shelves on the right, crowded with reinforced cardboard barrels that stood four feet tall each and were spray painted with case numbers, rolling ladders erratically placed throughout the foreboding corridor, and along the left, a line of caged units with more boxes, envelopes, and barrels housed inside them, some elevated on wooden skids.

Larkin removed his cell, checked his calendar, and said, “We have to be in Williamsburg to speak with Roger Hunt no later than two o’clock, ideally. That gives us exactly three hours.”

“We can’t go through this warehouse in three hours.”

“We only need to check this aisle,” Larkin corrected. “She said if it were logged in their catalogue system, in theory, it’d be shelved here.” He shrugged out of his suit coat and draped it over the steps of the closest ladder.

“Evie….” Doyle said in a desperate tone.

Larkin turned, smiling just a little. “Yes, Ira?” And saying Doyle’s first name was… it felt right.

Doyle’s face softened. He met Larkin’s gaze.

“I like when you call me that—Evie.”

“Oh?”

Larkin nodded. He removed latex gloves from his coat and offered Doyle a pair. “Beginning or end.” He indicated the entrance and then the dead-end of the aisle with his free hand.

Doyle took off his suit coat before accepting the gloves. “Here. I’ll start at the beginning. You really know how to show a guy a good time.”

“I’ll owe you and your big, capable hands. Of course, I’ll probably have to restrain you. You’re very touchy, and in theory, we’d be resting your hands after all this work.” Larkin finished with perfect sincerity, “Good thing I have handcuffs.” He turned on his heel and started for the end of the aisle, daring a glance over his shoulder at the half-mark to see Doyle was doubled over, hands on his knees.

After that, the search was slow, methodical, and tedious. Larkin spent a while digging through the gated section on his end but was able to confirm the evidence all belonged to one large, and recent, investigation. Boxes and barrels were clean, crisp, their labels still bright. Not what he wanted. He wanted the evidence that looked like it’d been punted around the city like a football for a few decades. Larkin turned his attention to the towering shelves instead, and had spent nearly an hour systematically moving back and forth between the ground level and pulling along a ladder to reach the overhead barrels, when Doyle’s voice echoed from the other end of the aisle.

“Larkin, I think I found it.”