North doubled back along the hall, checking to see if someone had followed, but the stairs were quiet. When he glanced back, Shaw was standing with his hands shoved into those ridiculous hemp pants, and he cocked his head, summoning North back.

As North watched, Shaw approached the door to the apartment opposite Sevcik’s. He studied the peephole. Then he rapped on the wood.

Nothing.

Shaw knocked again.

That tickle at the back of North’s neck had become a tingle. He didn’t like any of this. He didn’t like when his gut started screaming at him that things were bad, really bad. The last time he had ignored that warning, it had ended with—his mind whited out, and then all he could see was Shaw at the bottom of the cement steps—North having to put a bullet in Marvin Hanson.

Still nothing from the apartment opposite Sevcik’s. North threw another glance back at the stairs. He was starting to wish he were carrying.

“Call the police,” Shaw said.

“You’ve got a phone.”

“Tell them somebody’s breaking into unit 3D.”

North worked his phone out of his pocket and unlocked the screen.

From behind the door came a voice. “We’re coming out. Move up against the wall, hands spread where we can see them.”

“Come on out first and I’ll think about it,” Shaw said.

Hints of a murmured discussion made their way through the door, and then it cracked open. The first man to come out made North grimace: he was too much of a pretty boy. Darkly sandy hair, darker eyebrows, even darker eyes, like the whole palette had been selected off the Calvin Klein beachbum collection. He wore a tailored suit, and he was holding out a badge. Shaw obligingly backed away from the door, hands out and open.

“Gentlemen,” the pretty boy said.

His partner wasn’t pretty, and he looked like he’d had twenty hard years on the force. Bushy dark hair, bushy dark brows, a bushy little sliver of goatee. He might have passed for a guy who just never made it out of the 80s except for the eyes. He looked like he’d seen every kind of shit humans could imagine and then some new stuff people were still inventing. He looked like he knew how to do his job.

“Detective Reck,” the pretty boy said. He tipped his head at his partner. “Detective Barr. Go on and stand up against the wall. I’m guessing you know the position.”

“Bucking bronco,” North said as he moved to take up position against the wall.

“Missionary,” Shaw said, following suit.

“Cowgirl.”

“Oh. Reverse cowgirl! I forgot about that until you said cowgirl.”

Barr patted down North, efficient, and none of the heavy-handed crap some cops tried to pull. Reck patted down Shaw. Efficient, too, but there was something about Reck’s hands when Shaw said, “Reverse cowgirl,” that made North grit his teeth. It wasn’t anything North could even name: it wasn’t that Reck’s hands jittered or jumped or slowed or fondled. It was—well, it might have been a tic. But North knew it wasn’t a tic.