What I had no way to avoid was the sight of Marty. He'd been tied to a chair, beaten almost beyond recognition. His head was slumped on his chest. Even without a full view of his face, I knew he was dead. The curve of his cheek was puffy and dented, dried blood turning black at his hairline. Blood had oozed from his ears and coagulated along the collar of his shirt. I made a sound and jerked my head, blocking out the sight. Pain shot through me as though I'd been tapped with a taser gun. My palms were instantly damp and a flash of heat swept over me. I felt the blood drain out of my head. My legs buckled. The guy with the eye patch caught me and supported me briefly. Beck pressed a button and the doors to the counting room eased shut.

I was walked, rubber-legged, to Beck's office, where I sank onto the couch and covered my face with my hands. The image of Marty was like a photograph that I saw now in negative, light and dark reversed. There was conversation going on above my head – Beck instructing the two guys to get the body out of there and dispose of it. I knew they'd take him down in the service elevator to the ground floor, where they could drag him through the service corridor and out to the garage. They'd stick him in the trunk of his car and dump his body by the side of the road. Odd, so odd. I'd seen it in his eyes – this ending, this death – but I'd been unable to intervene.

My vision condensed, threatening to shut down. Dark closed in from the periphery and I had that curious sensation in my ears – white noise – that told me how close I was to fainting. I put my head down between my knees. I remembered to breathe. Within a minute, the air seemed to cool and I could feel the darkness recede. When I looked up, the two guys were gone and Beck was sitting at his desk. "Sorry about that. It's not what you think. He had a heart attack."

"He's dead all the same and it's your fault," I said.

"Reba had her share in it."

"How do you figure that?"

"Take a look at what she did. We're supposed to have a deal and she shows up with an empty suitcase? What's she think, she can fuck with me and get away with it?"

"She didn't steal the computer. Marty took it with him when he left."

"I don't give a shit who took it. All she had to do was give it back and he might be alive. The stress was what killed him. Couple of harmless punches and he was gone."