Page 36 of One Second After Another

“Be good, buddy.”

Cross was already flipping through the pages of Luca’s phone when he closed the door and pulled out the fob to lock the car. Satisfied somebody wouldn’t be punching out the window of his car on a cool day when he was right across the street, he darted through slow moving traffic to the line of yellow police tape at the entrance of a large apartment building’s parking lot.

Beyond the line of police vehicles that had been parked inside the lot, Luca could see what movement remained at the scene. Which wasn’t very much. The lack of a coroner’s vehicle or an ambulance told him he had been too fucking late to catch someone—like maybe a reporter—that could confirm what he’d heard happened here in the early morning hours.

“Shitty thing, huh?”

The new voice at his left had Luca turning that way. The approaching security guard with a cigarette tucked between the same two fingers that he used to scratch his bulging midsection nodded toward the cops that were chatting at the rear of one police vehicle.

“They’re finally finishing up. It’s been a whole day thing. Don’t know why when they said it was just a suicide.”

Luca stuffed his hands in his pockets, deciding to lie because maybe he could get something. “Yeah, a friend of mine lives on the fifth floor. Guess she saw the body this morning. Jumped from the—”

“Twenty-fifth floor, yeah. Some reporter’s—or a journalist, maybe?—husband.”

“The one that wrote the article in the Times that got a lot of attention recently, right? About the senator’s fiancée. Crazy. Was she there?”

“Nah, they can’t find her. The thing about it ... people don’t usually jump headfirst, but hey, the cops said the place was quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary. And I’m just a fucking security guard, you know what I mean?”

Luca’s first thought?

Professionals.

But which ones?

The Elite?

The League?

Someone else?

Anything was possible.

“And sorry,” the guard told him, “but I can’t let anybody through until they cut the tape. Only residents of the building. Your friend will be here on another day.”

Shit, yeah.

Right.

“Thanks, man,” Luca said.

For more than he knew ...

By the time Luca returned to his car, his mind was already running a million miles a minute. He needed to stop trying to find Penny, and start thinking like her at this point. They were beyond the line of just finding her—time had run out for that.

Slipping inside the driver’s seat after he’d unlocked the car, Luca wasn’t surprised to find Cross had discarded his phone to the backseat. The kid never liked electronics as a distraction. At least he wasn’t longer than the five minutes he promised.

“We’re gonna go see your mom,” he told his godson, getting the car turned on and in gear.

Cross nodded. “Okay. You know she’s going to come back, don’t you?”

Luca’s check of traffic as he maneuvered out of the parking spot came to an abrupt stop as his gaze darted to the rearview mirror. His nephew watched him with the same calm demeanor he always had when he was doing ... that shit. He didn’t even know what to call it. Vibing, maybe. Feeling the aura of the people around him—reading the damn room.

All of it and more.

“Who?” Luca dared to ask.

But he thought he might already know.