Once we reached the fourth floor, I moved around them, unlocked our apartment, and went inside to switch on the nearest lamp. “Between the bookshelf and couch would be great,” I said, pointing farther into the room.
They murmured acknowledgment and set to work removing the netting and getting the tree mounted in a base.
I unclasped Dillon’s leash, tossed the unfortunate piece of mail on the table, and hung up my coat and scarf. I changed into my regular glasses and put my shoulder bag in its usual I’m-too-lazy-to-find-it-a-real-home place on the floor. I turned around to shut the door that’d been left open and yelped in surprise at Calvin standing in the threshold.
“Holy—fuck, Cal. You scared the shit out of me.” I put a hand to my chest.
He had a very distinct frown on his face as he entered the apartment. His gaze flickered over my shoulder to the fuss happening behind me, and then he said calmly, “I just came from your dad’s.”
“I had to meet them for delivery,” I said, jutting a thumb backward.
“Is there something wrong with your phone?”
“I don’t think so.” I went to remove it from a pocket.
“That was sarcasm, Sebastian. I didn’t ask you stay at your father’s for shits and giggles.” He paused when one of the guys announced they were finished. Calvin reached into his back pocket, removed his wallet, and took out a few bills for a tip. He offered the money as the men made for the door.
“Hey, thanks,” one said with a nod. “Happy holidays.”
Calvin was quiet until the door shut behind him. He looked at me again.
“I meant to call,” I said. “I got distracted.” A likely excuse if there ever was one. “Max phoned while I was walking home—he’d heard some ’90s band on the oldies radio station and was having a crisis over being twenty-three.”
Calvin didn’t respond as he removed his winter jacket. He unbuttoned his suit coat, tossed it over one of the chairs at the table, and unbuckled his shoulder holster. He set his SIG P226 aside.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Calvin reached up, scrubbed his face briefly with both hands, then steepled his fingertips together and rested them against his mouth. He stared at a framed print on the wall ofUn bar aux Folies-Bergèreby Édouard Manet. An interesting painting. Firmly rooted in the Realism movement. Not my taste—I leaned more toward Romanticism and the escape its themes provided. But ever since Calvin had seen this painting in one of my reference books, he’d been fascinated by it. I’d asked him, after we obtained a print, what it was about the barmaid that moved him.
“I’m not an art critic, baby,” he’d said with a chuckle.
“So what?”
He’d taken a deep breath and considered the painting for some time. “There’s a… duality in her that I relate to, I guess. Her reflection in the mirror shows her fulfilling a behavior expected of her. A public persona. But we—theonlooker, not the customer—see her emotions head-on. A moment of… resigned melancholy.” He’d stared for another moment. “The private human underneath.”
“The play is the tragedy, Man,” I’d answered.
“I know you didn’t want me alone,” I continued. “But I didn’t think it’d be a—”
“He’s gone missing,” Calvin interrupted.
I blinked, glanced around the room, then asked, “Who has?”
Calvin looked at me. “Frank Newell.”
“I’ll take ‘People I Don’t Know’ for five hundred, Alex,” I said with a shrug.
“He works at the Museum of Natural History,” Calvin said reluctantly.
I raised both eyebrows. “Let me guess. He loves dinosaurs.”
“Assistant Curator for the Division of Paleontology. Last Wednesday he received a package with human remains inside. We’re still trying to identify the victim.” Calvin walked back to me, took my hands, and pulled me close. “Frank didn’t show up to work on Friday, and by Saturday afternoon, his girlfriend reported him missing. There’s been no ransom note, no phone call from possible kidnappers, no nothing. He’s… gone.”
“I’m getting that queasy feeling in my stomach, like when you tell me I’ve narrowly missed imminent danger,” I answered.
“Isuspect this is a repeating pattern. That perhaps there was a missing person before Frank—maybe they became the remains that were delivered to him.”
I swallowed with some difficulty. “Uh… huh. And so… what? You think I’m going to go missing in two days’ time?”
