Victor switched off the emergency stop and opened the elevator doors. Grabbing the belt, he hauled Rivas off the elevator. Just before the doors closed, he saw a small pool of blood on the elevator floor. Too late.

He dragged Rivas down the hallway to a utility closet. Using a passcode reader app, he unlocked the door. Inside the small room, Victor heaved Rivas against a floor polisher. Rivas groaned. His broken leg was bent under his body. Victor removed his belt from Rivas and fastened it around his own waist. Unsnapping the detective’s gun from its holster, Victor jammed it into his waistband behind his back. Finished, he climbed over Rivas and closed the door.

As Victor turned away from the utility closet, he noticed a young woman coming toward him from the end of the corridor. She was texting as she walked. Victor smiled and nodded. “How’s it going?” The woman didn’t look up.

At the elevators, he stood with his back to the wall to hide the gun. He waited until the young woman took an elevator down. Victor took the next one up.

On the thirty-seventh floor, he opened his phone to see the condo webcams. He flipped through images until he reached the living room. He saw Detective Holland lying still on the floor. Russell was not in view.

He tapped the screen to call Russell’s cell. The phone rang four times and went to voicemail.

Victor went back to the webcam screens for the other rooms in the apartment: kitchen, dining room, master bedroom, guest bedroom, office.

All empty.

Where the fuck was Russell? He stared at his screen.

Did he leave the apartment? Why didn’t he answer his cell?

Victor checked the webcam screens for the remaining rooms: Guest bathroom empty. Laundry room empty. Balcony.

The image for the balcony was missing.

(ii)

(FRIDAY, 10:57 A.M.)

Eden led Gina Cipriani up the stairs of the apartment complex, where they found Lorin Albright on the third-floor landing smoking a cigarette. Eden watched Albright’s attention focus on the larger, uniformed officer.

“This is Officer Cipriani,” Eden said.

Albright took a deep drag, blowing smoke out the side of her mouth. “You bring her along to arrest me for something?”

“No. We have some questions.”

“What if I don’t answer? You going to have this one lay a beating on me? Win says you people like to beat on folks.”

Defiance flashed in Albright’s eyes, the practiced toughness of someone used to getting hit. But Eden saw something weak in the gesture, too, and the surrender waiting behind it. She recognized in Albright’s face, old at thirty, and in her ragged, half-bleached hair, the woman’s sadness, her concession to what she had learned to be her place in the world. “The last time I was here, Ms. Albright, you said you’re from Fresno and you go there on holidays to visit your mother and grandmother.”