The kid was spitting and gurgling, and Hazard realized his grip was a little too tight, but he decided consistency was probably the most important virtue of the moment.

“Now, I want that security footage.” He gave the kid a shake and then released him.

For almost a full minute, the kid moaned and wheezed and massaged his throat. One of his legs was shaking so badly that he had to lean against the wall to keep himself upright.

“Five seconds,” Hazard said.

The kid mumbled something, still palpating his throat.

“Louder,” Hazard said.

“We don’t have security cameras.”

“You’re fucking joking.”

“None. Inside or outside. We don’t have any.”

“For the love of fuck.”

The kid pulled up the Versace tee to wipe his face. “I’m going to tell the cops that you—”

“Go!”

With the sound of metal scraping concrete, the kid grabbed his bucket and took off into the basement.

Hazard went back up to the lobby. He spent a few minutes looking around the main floor, checking for cameras. Then he went outside and checked the building, the parking lot, the whole perimeter. This was a nice area, relatively close to Wroxall’s campus. A safe area. And not a fucking camera anywhere in sight.

The clock was ticking, so Hazard got in the minivan and pulled out of the lot just as a pair of uniformed men emerged from the apartment building—young guys, ones he recognized as the fresh assholes Riggle had brought in. They were scouting the parking lot; both of them glanced at the minivan and moved on. Dumb, dumb, dumb fucks. Hazard drove past them, merged into traffic, and tried to ignore the pounding in his chest. Dumb fucks, sure, but dumb fucks who could still throw him in the back of a cruiser if they wanted to.

He parked four blocks down, in the shade of a weeping willow. The swampy heat made his shirt stick to the seat, and he wiped his face and tried to think. No security cameras. Because this was a decent part of town. Eventually, something bad would happen—a rape, a mugging—and the owners would be afraid of a lawsuit and they’d put in a few cameras. But not yet. And that meant Hazard had hit his first dead end.

He ran through everything again, trying to see if he’d made an error. He had wanted to see how Dulac left the building; his car was still in the lot, so if Dulac had rented a car or borrowed a car—hell, for that matter, stolen a car—it could make finding him much, much easier. Hazard thought for a few more minutes, and then he got out of the minivan and hiked back toward Dulac’s building. New construction lined this street: buildings with stucco and glass and chrome, all of it mixed use, nail salons and comic book shops side by side with condominiums. The breeze carried a hint of Dawn dish soap. In the park across the street, he identified the source of the smell: a gaggle of kids, most of them barely older than Evie, were playing on a Slip ‘N Slide while two older women watched. Hazard judged from the suds on the polyethylene that the soap was working as a lubricant.