Until Broadway’s nest of vipers was shut down.
Until Earl was in prison yet again.
Until Niederman caught you in the act of tying up loose ends—cleaning up Earl’s goddamn mess.
You must have agreed to not rat each other out.
You moved Mia’s body together, then parted ways forever.
But that shared moment birthed themise en abyme.
The murder within a murder.
It set us all on our respective paths.
And somewhere along the way, maybe you, maybe Earl—maybe both of you—agreed to a symbiotic relationship with someone unknown. Only now, it’s turned toxic. You’re panicking, trying to clean up your tracks.
Asking forDoyleto meet with you about Earl is the first mistake the sender has made. Because this game of cat and mouse hadn’t ever been about Doyle. It wasalwaysabout Larkin.
If the sender is blackmailing you—Matilde Wagner—he’s tasked you with removing Doyle as an obstacle.
“Stop here,” Larkin ordered.
“What?”
“Just stop.”
Doyle slammed on the brakes in the middle of East Third, a one-way packed to capacity on either side with parked cars and tired storefronts, their sun-bleached awnings, sticker-laden windows, and poorly graffitied walls reminiscent of a meaner, grittier New York.
Larkin took off his seat belt and opened the door. “I’ll meet you inside.”
Doyle grabbed his sleeve, hauling him back in. “What’s going on?”
“Go park the car and I’ll meet you inside,” Larkin said again.
Doyle yanked his sunglasses off. He was confused, exasperated, and if Larkin didn’t know any better, on his way to actually being pissed. He reiterated, “She doesn’t like you, Evie.”
“No shit.”
“And we might not get the information we want if you go in there all amped up and looking for a fight. Let’s find a place to park and—”
“I need you to trust me.”
“But—”
A car pulled up behind them and laid on the horn.
“Trust me,” Larkin said again before climbing out. He rounded the front of the car and slipped between a parked box truck, one side tagged so many times that the delivery company’s name was no longer legible, and an olive-green SUV with a window decal claiming: I don’t brake for Yankees fans. There was a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Larkin turned and watched Doyle pull away, making a left on Avenue C.
It was fine.
Larkin would rather Doyle angry than dead.
Because if Larkin had explained the situation, laid out his reasoning, Doyle would have surely insisted on going inside anyway. And why wouldn’t he? Doyle was a cop. It was his job. He’d have made an argument that if their roles were reversed—but they weren’t.
The sender wanted Larkin alive.
And he wanted Doyle dead.
