She put on her boots, then went to the bathroom and brushed her hair and put on lip gloss and a jacket, grabbed her phone, and headed out.

Checked the time on her phone.

The café was just past the yoga studio, but she should be fine. Hot yoga didn’t let out until 8:00, and it was only 7:50.

She pulled Marwan’s number off his earlier Insta message and texted him, hoping his phone was working again.

He should come, too. She was giving up on Ilanka.

Marwan started to write back while she was stopped at a corner but not fast enough. She put her phone away to cross the street—the only way she ever crossed—and got it out again on the other side.

He’d written, Can’t do it. Can’t explain now. Cops here at restaurant.

She wrote back: ??????

At the next corner, outside the café, she waited by a small tree decorated with string lights that dripped white light through branches. She checked Citizen for something having to do with the restaurant, but it wasn’t there yet.

She watched her phone and waited, but nothing more came from Marwan.

Eli arrived and studied her. “What’s wrong?”

“Marwan just texted me and said there are cops at the restaurant.”

“What restaurant?” He looked inside the café. “This restaurant?”

“His family owns a restaurant on Steinway.” She felt bad she hadn’t even said hi to Marwan the last time she was there, but she wasn’t sure he’d even noticed or recognized her.

“Oh,” Eli said. “And?”

“And I don’t know.” They had to move aside to let a woman walking two freakishly large dogs—like waist high—pass. What kind of person kept dogs like that in the city? “Want to walk up that way? See if we can find out what’s going on?”

“Sure,” he said, “I guess.”

Eden turned to lead the way.

“So about the countdown,” Eli said.

“Yeah,” Eden said. “What do you think?”

“It’s going to run down right before school starts tomorrow. And it’s not in sync with a handoff. So you’ll need to take her again tonight no matter what.”

“What? No way.”

“I went to get it at like four, so that puts the handoff deadline at like six a.m. I mean, I can meet you in the morning if you want, but we still have to deal with the countdown deadline at eight. Wouldn’t it be easier to just take her tonight? I mean, we’re here.”

“Let’s just think,” she said.

Up ahead, a plane cut through the sky between distant buildings, about to land at the airport. It was always an odd sort of thrill seeing them so close like that. A little unnerving, too, like if the pilot wavered just a little bit he’d take out the neighborhood.