Somers ran his hand through Hazard’s hair, carding it slowly, letting his fingertips trace the shape of Hazard’s skull and the strong lines of his neck, his shoulders. “Is that a baseball bat,” Somers whispered, “or are you just happy to see me?”

“You already used that one.”

“The old ones are the best.”

“You need new material.”

“Sometimes audiences like familiar content.”

“No,” Hazard said. “They don’t.”

“You just say that because you’ve never read a book more than once.”

“That’s not true; I read Bacon’s Novum Organum twice.”

“Ree,” Somers said. “I need you to do what you’re good at. Right now. Before they get here and lock this place down. Before Riggle kicks you out. Understand?”

After a moment, Hazard nodded and started moving around the room. Somers kept an eye on him while taking an opposite course. Hazard checked the front door, examining the locks, the strike plate, some kind of electronic device that Somers guessed was a sensor for an alarm, and the frame for a security bar mounted on the inside. Then he moved toward the windows, checking some sort of film on the glass, the cam locks, and more of the electronic sensors. Somers was working his way through the kitchen. No drawers torn open. No signs of a search or a frantic attempt to lay hands on a weapon.

“Unplugged,” Hazard said, and Somers glanced over to see him standing by a security camera and pointing at the power cord and plug, which lay on the floor. “Lot of fucking good.”

“Maybe the cameras recorded something before they were unplugged. A lot of these do-it-yourself kits can upload directly to the cloud.”

Hazard swore under his breath and moved to examine the alarm console. Somers lingered in the kitchen; something about the space prickled in his gut, but it took him a moment to put his finger on it.

Water in the sink. Big, fat beads glittering against the stainless steel.

Tearing a paper towel from the roll, Somers folded it until only a corner stuck out, and then he dabbed it against the inside of the drain.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he pulled the towel back, and then he displayed the red-stained paper for Hazard.

Hazard couldn’t get any paler, but somehow, his face seemed even more washed out as he nodded.

They moved through the rest of the apartment together.

“He was going out,” Hazard said, pointing to the anal douche left on the rim of the bathtub. “I fucking told him not to go out, and he did it anyway.”

“Or someone came over,” Somers said. “That just means he was expecting sex.”

Hazard just nodded. He ushered Somers all the way into the bedroom and closed the door. He pointed to a floor-mounted door lock that Somers hadn’t ever seen before, and then his finger drifted up, to a single spray of blood arcing across the back of the door.

“He didn’t set the lock,” Somers said, his brain suddenly wooden, as though all the gears had stopped. “He was back here when he was attacked, but he didn’t set the lock.”