“Oh, you have got to fucking kidd—” was as far as I got before the second one, who had slipped out of my field of view while I was arguing with the first, grabbed me from behind, lifted me up, and walked me over to an elevator. The doors had been jammed open. There was nothing but shaft on the other side of the door.

A small part of me was really pissed that I missed that detail about the elevator doors earlier.

I screamed as I was tossed down the shaft.

I did not scream all the way down. That was because about two seconds in I clipped my head on something, felt the top of my skull lift off, and then instantly everything went black.

Then I was on my bed, naked.

“Fuck!” I yelled. I leapt up, lost my footing on the unstable ground of my mattress, and fell to my floor. I narrowly avoided braining myself on my closet door.

That would have been some irony, all things considered. To be murdered, and come back, only to be killed by the edge of a door.

Holy shit, I thought. I was fucking murdered.

I was aware I was going to vomit maybe a tenth of a second before I did. I didn’t even try to make it to the bathroom. I just turned my head and threw up all over my comforter. When I was done I wearily bunched up the comforter, took it to the bathroom, and dropped it into the tub. I turned on the showerhead and directed its flow. I’d take it down to the washing machine in the apartment building basement later.

I had a headache and then for a split second panicked that I was still missing part of my skull.

I checked, to be sure.

All clear.

I had a celebratory session of vomiting. This time I made it to the toilet. It was all dry heaves at that point.

I needed a drink.

My wallet, my keys and my phone were on my kitchen table, along with a piece of paper, torn from a notepad.

I stared at the paper.

I sighed and I picked it up. “You had better be fucking useful,” I said to it.

I read it.

I picked up the phone and called Langdon.

“I’m coming up with nothing,” Langdon said, as she answered the phone, without so much as a hello. “Albert’s phone and Calhoun’s phone never once meet.”

“That’s because they take our phones from us when we’re doing a shady dispatch,” I said. “They know you guys can track phones.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then, “And you didn’t think to tell me that, did you, before I wasted my entire damn evening.”

“It slipped my mind.”

“I’m docking your consulting fee.”