The building across the street had five floors and maybe half the units had their lights on. None of them looked like those exaggerated scenes in the movies, with naked people or wild parties or couples fighting. They were mostly elderly and parents with kids, moving shadows against a backdrop of TVs and laptops and kitchens.
I scanned the street below—first left, then right, then up.
Nothing.
My heart didn't slow down. If anything, the silence just gave it more room to echo inside me.
I pressed closer to the glass, searching.
"You're not going to find me," he suddenly said on the line.
I felt strange. He saw me while I didn't see him. I didn't know his face or his name or his age. "It's not exactly fair," I blurted out.
"Life never is," he spoke in a low, almost inaudible voice, and I thought that, for the first time, I heard a flicker of emotion from him. Like something between the words cracked a little.
23 seven
I was at the edge of the rooftop, watching the window across the street while the wind cut at my cheek. My Bureau issued burner was connected to my earpiece via a different channel.
I'd taken off my gloves for a second and the cold air made my knuckles ache, but that was nothing new. Below, cars blurred past in streaks of white and red. The city's noise rose and fell with the tides of the hour.
"Can you see what I'm doing right now?" she suddenly asked. Then she raised her left hand, slow and deliberate, and wiggled her fingers.
Her silhouette was framed by the pale glow of the table lamp behind her.
"Waving a hand," I said, feeling stupid.
"Which one?"
"The left one."
There was silence for a second, then a huff of breath. "You really are watching me. Not sure if that's creepy or comforting."
"Does it matter?" I said. But what I meant wasDoes it matter as long as you're safe?
She turned away from the window and took a few steps away from it, but the curtain remained open. Then she spun back into view and twirled, ponytail whipping behind her, free arm out.
"What am I doing now?" she asked.
I tracked her fluid movement, then the aftermath—the way her momentum carried her into the edge of the coffee table and made her wince.
"You're dancing," I supplied. "You might have a bruise on your ankle later."
She laughed a little. "That's generous. The dancing part, I mean. It's been years." She laughed again.
I had a strange desire to laugh with her, even though I wasn't sure what real laughing pertained. It was an emotion I wasn't familiar with. It didn't serve my purpose. I imitated it on the job when I needed to blend in, but only occasionally. "Coffee table okay?" I asked instead.
She looked behind her at the piece of furniture that she'd collided with seconds ago and nodded an affirmative. "Seems that way." Then she rubbed her ankle. "I'll need to put a mug on it to see if it holds up."
A car alarm wailed somewhere down the block, but cut off after two cycles.
Still, my eyes didn't leave the apartment window. I waited for her to move, to test me again, but instead she stood still for a long time, as if thinking over her next move. She grabbed her ponytail and curled the tip of it over her index finger.
I watched her do it, transfixed.
The city's cold seeped up through my clothes, through my boots and knees and spine, but I ignored it like I ignored everything else except the job. Or was this even the job right now? There was a vibration at the base of my skull—always the readiness, the tension between here and now and what could be. I flexed my hands to keep them loose.
On the other end, she asked, "Why do you do this?"
