Reality had proven to be so much less inspirational—although he’d lived up to the drug standard, for sure.

And now he was here.

Going through the garage, he stomped the rain off himself, leaving a dark splatter on the cement floor. Inside the house, he took a moment to focus. Then he started rifling through cabinets, closets, and drawers. He opened them in the kitchen. In the downstairs half bath. In the built-in shelving of the family room and in the front hall. He went upstairs and opened them in the master suite, and the two bedrooms, and the full bath that was supposed to be shared at the head of the stairs.

Anything he found, he put in an empty box he’d taken from the hall closet.

Back on the first floor, he set the box down on the dusty kitchen counter, and before he did an inventory, he went into the basement. Nothing there except for a washer and dryer, three paint cans that were open and dried up, and a box of Bounce dryer sheets that had mouse turds in it.

In the kitchen once again, he sifted through his bounty. Two sets of Ford-branded car keys, only one of which was accompanied by a remote—which suggested the other vehicle was an older model. A house key that, when he tried it in the front door and the back door, did not fit the house. An autoloader with no bullets. A magazine that did not match the gun. A pair of handcuffs with no key. Four cell phones that were out of juice and did not have chargers.

The laptop and the book he was already familiar with thanks to his first visit here.

Plugging the laptop in, he got nowhere. No power in the socket. No battery life left. It was probably password protected anyway, and there was nothing he could do about that. He had the IT skills of… well, a junkie.

Mr. F put both palms on the countertop and leaned into braced arms. Hanging his head, he felt the remnant aches of the internal injuries the Omega had given him and thought of the do-nothing H he had shot up under the bridge. The two realities formed a north and south pole, his existence trapped and rotating on the axis between the pair.

Taking the book with him, he found a spot in the living room on the unvacuumed rug. As he settled his back against the wall, he opened the cover of the book.

The words were dense, made out of small letters that were squeezed in tightly, like commuters on a morning train. His eyes refused to focus at first.

The sense that he had to find his way in this new prison he’d ended up in was what made him start to absorb what was on the page.

In the Omega’s world, the only asset Mr. F had was himself.

* * *

Jo parallel parked her Golf across the street from the police barricades and the news crews that surrounded the Hudson Hunt & Fish Club. Getting out, she frowned up at the drooling sky and put the hood of her windbreaker over her head. On a jog, she crossed to the other side of the road, and skirted the crowd that had gathered. As she shuffled behind a newscaster with a camera rolling on him and a microphone up to his mouth, Jo was glad she could cover her face. No reason she needed to be seen here.

The front entrance of the concrete block building was a no go and so was the side door where, according to the news conference that had been held at nine a.m., the assassinations had occurred. Three were dead. Gigante, his bodyguard, and his chauffeur. Gigante had been shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the throat, his body found slumped in the back seat of an SUV registered to his cement company. The chauffeur had been shot once through the forehead and then folded up and stuffed into the rear compartment of the vehicle. The bodyguard had been shot twice and collapsed on the ground just outside the open passenger side door in front.

Jo camo’d herself in the crowd of spectators and checked her watch.

Five minutes later, McCordle came out the side door of the building. When he caught her eye, he nodded over his shoulder, away from the commotion.

Holding her bag against her body, Jo jogged past the hair salon next door and went down its length, her breath tight in her chest. As she came out around the rear, McCordle was stepping free of the barricade, and he double-checked the parked squad cars before striding up to her.

“Let’s go over here,” he said, leading her back out of sight by the beauty parlor.

“I’m surprised you wanted to meet me here,” she whispered. “Are those the crime scene pictures?”

When she pointed to an envelope tucked under his arm, McCordle nodded and gave the thing over to her. “Listen, we need to talk.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

He took her arm and squeezed it. “I’m serious. One of our sources says that Gigante may have put a hit out on you.”

Jo frowned. “But I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Gigante’s dead.”

“The hit man working the contract isn’t going to worry about that. He’s going to want his money and he’ll get paid by the family only when you’re… you know.”

“Dead. You can say the word. I’m not afraid of it.”

“You should be. This is no joke.” When there was a shout, McCordle put himself between her and the noise. After a minute, he started talking again. “It’s only exciting on the outside, Jo. On the inside of a situation like this, people get hurt, even if they’re innocent.”

“Do you know who the hit man is?”

“Not yet. My source is looking into it—and maybe something will show on the tapes.”

“So the FBI hasn’t turned them over to the CPD yet.”

“My department is putting every pressure we have on them. In the meantime, you need to be very careful—”

“You said ‘may have,’ though. A hit on me is unconfirmed so it could just be a rumor.” Before McCordle could lecture her some more, she cut him off. “About the scene here. What have you found out since nine a.m. this morning?”

“Forensics didn’t get anything in the SUV that wasn’t expected. No fingerprints apart from Gigante, the bodyguard, and the chauffeur. No foreign hair samples. They’ve got the bullets and the casings, but there’s no gun.”

“Who called the murders in?”

“Passerby.”

“I know, but your captain didn’t give the name during the news conference.”

“It’s a minor so we’re not releasing it. It was a seventeen-year-old going to a six a.m. athletic practice. He was on his bike. He said he always cut through the alley on his way to Jefferson High in the morning, and he called the situation in without taking pictures and posting them on the internet. All is not lost with this younger generation.”

“Has Frank Pappalardo released any statements about all this?”

“We’re bringing him in for questioning. But no, and he’s not going to say a word. He’s old-school.”

“But this is the payback. For Johnny Pappalardo’s murder. Right?”

“Looks like it. And this is why I’m telling you, you’ve got to be careful. You have my cell phone number. You call me if you see anything suspicious around you or the paper or where you live.”

“Speaking of which, did you find any cell phones in the SUV?”

“Jo. Are you listening to what I’m saying?”

“Yes. Any cell phones in the SUV?”

McCordle glanced over his shoulder like he was cursing in his head. “There was one found. We’re not sure who it belongs to, but it’s not Gigante’s because he was known to hate them We’re getting the texts and photographs that were on it.”