He hugged a heavy pot, rain dripping from his hair. I went over and helped him set it on the floor with the others.

Then he leaned out into the pouring rain, way out, reaching for the pot at the farthest corner of the fire escape. I put my hand on his back.

When I dare to remember this moment, I know I wasn’t overcome, or seeing red, or crazy. In fact it all happened in a clearing of my rage—a gesture so minor, merely a shifting of my weight, a tiny incline as if taking interest, and I felt a shock shoot through his back as he lurched forward with a cry smothered by rain.

I saw his hand swipe for the rusted bar and miss. I heard a pot break below, nothing more.

The rain obscured the window like drapes. I looked down to the alleyway. There was smashed terra-cotta touched by a yellow square of light, the soil running to mud.

All at once the clearing closed, my drunk overtook me, and it felt like I might tumble after him. I stumbled back inside.

Call the police.

I looked at the dossier unpacked on the table. How could I explain it?

I gathered the pages into the folder, along with the notes Lane had taken, and searched for any other evidence of my presence. I recalled how the cops had moved through my apartment, hunting for signs of the ghost. I took my wineglass to the kitchen, then rinsed and dried it and used a towel to place it with the others at the back of the cupboard. I’d been in the apartment before. If they found prints or hairs, I could answer that, but I had no choice but to trust the storm was washing the body, all the fibers, all the cells.

The body—was it true? I staggered back to the window, looked down at a shapeless stain on the darkness.

I snatched some paper towel and used it to open the door. It automatically locked behind me. I put the towel in my pocket and seemed to float down the stairs, hugging the dossier, anticipating ambush at every echoing step.

There was no one. I pushed through the front doors into the rain.

6.

The white-legged spider fiddled with its web. I wavered on the edge of consciousness, a cold surface to my cheek. The thought that it was the floor of a jail cell startled me awake and I bonked my head on porcelain. I’d fallen asleep behind my toilet, where the spider had strung itself up, the web beaded with the juiced husks of fruit flies. I heard the voices of men on the scaffolding. It was already late in the morning.