A hand on his wrist.

“—let’s get to the car and talk about this,” Somers was saying.

“Russell,” Riggle was shouting, “slap cuffs on this piece of shit before I have to do it myself.”

Hazard glanced over his shoulder; Russell was apparently the name of the pimply-faced kid who had been stringing the tape. He was coming at Hazard with a nasty grin on his face, fumbling with the cuffs on his belt, obviously unpracticed at how to use them. Another officer, a bigger, butcher version, but still looking like a schoolyard thug, was also approaching. Presumably, this was Lansdown. Farther back, a few officers Hazard recognized, men and women who had worked with him under Cravens, watched, frozen and silent.

“This is getting out of control,” Somers was saying, putting himself between Hazard and Riggle. “It’s a misunderstanding, Chief, and it’s my fault. I assumed Emery would be working as a consultant on the case; under Chief Cravens—”

“Cravens is gone, son,” Riggle boomed. “As of this moment, your boyfriend is no longer a contracted employee of the Wahredua Police Department. How’s that for clarity? I don’t want him at another crime scene ever again, and I sure as hell want him off of this one. The last thing I need is a distraction while we try to find the maniac who did this.”

It was the word that gelled everything in Hazard’s mind; the rapid firing of neurons, the cold blaze of conscious and subconscious logic that Hazard was already running through, all of it froze in an instant.

A distraction.

Grabbing Somers’s shirt, he dragged him toward the Mustang, breaking into a run. He caught Russell with his shoulder and sent him ass-first to the ground, and he just kept running.

“Ree, what the hell—” Somers said.

“Mitchell,” Hazard said. “He’s going for Mitchell right now.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

JULY 2

TUESDAY

1:44 AM

WHEN THEY REACHED MITCHELL’S apartment building, the street was so silent that Somers’s pulse rang in his ears. Ignoring the red curb, he parked at the front entrance. Behind the glass doors, the lobby was awash with a soft glow.

“Ree,” Somers began.

Hazard launched out of the car.

Swearing, Somers went after him. He caught up with Hazard at the intercom, where Hazard was depressing the button next to Mitchell’s unit number. The panel emitted a soft buzz.

“Ok,” Somers said.

Hazard kept his finger on the button, and the buzzing went up and down Somers’s spine like the teeth of a saw.

“Ok,” Somers said again, grabbing Hazard’s wrist this time. “He can’t answer if you hold it down.”

But in the quiet that followed, the only noise was the hum of the sodium lamps, and down the block, the rumble of a truck coming to life. Headlights swung out across the black river of asphalt, and then the light narrowed, vanished, and taillights drifted off into darkness.

Hazard jammed the button again.

“Ree, he’s not answering. He’s asleep or he’s out with friends or—Jesus Christ, will you stop?”