“Michelle!”

“Who’s dis?” asked a male voice with a serious case of raspy throat.

“Put Michelle on!”

“Nunh. Girl’s hurt.”

“My God! What’s wrong with her?”

“Car.”

“Car what? She was hit by a car?”

“Yellow Cab.”

“What’s that mean? Was she hit by a cab? Where are you?”

“Unnh. Alley off West 71^st Street and West End. You come. Unh?”

“How’d she get hit by a cab in an alley? Who the hell are you?”

“Drive da cab. Girl hurts.”

Great, thought Katy. Michelle’s hurt, and the only person who’d help her is a cabbie who can’t speak English. I hate this city.

“You…unnnh…you come?”

“Yeah, buddy. Keep your shirt on, I’m coming. I’m three or four blocks away, so it’ll take me a few minutes. Stay with her, okay? You stay with her.”

“Unh. I wait for you. Hurry.”

“Stay on the line in case I—” The line went dead. Katy thought about calling back but dismissed the idea. She could always do that later if she couldn’t find them, and the idea of running with her phone pressed to her ear seemed like torture.

She turned away from the Lincoln Square movie theater and sprinted across Broadway, then kept running down the sidewalk of 68^th Street. She planned on saving a bit of time by cutting through the green area behind the synagogue on Amsterdam, then trucking up West End Avenue. The only alleys she could think of were around the building on the northeast side of the intersection between West 71^st Street and West End.

She sprinted across Amsterdam, ignoring the furious screech of tires and cacophony of horns, and plunged down the tree-lined alley to the north of the synagogue. She hooked a left around the playground, then angled across 70^th, hitting the sidewalk a quarter of a block from West End.

She stretched out her stride, ignoring the stares of the people strolling on the sidewalk, and leaned into the turn, almost crashing into a mother pushing a stroller. She didn’t stop; she poured on even more speed as she passed the bus stop. Katy raced across the 71^st Street crosswalk without looking for traffic, but then she faltered and slowed.

There were no cabs in sight, yellow or otherwise. Half a block later, she turned into the alley and slowed to a cautious walk. “Hello?” she called. The alley was dark and forbidding, and Katy slowed further. “Hello?”

She turned on the flashlight app on her phone and flipped the screen away from her, holding it up. The alley was a narrow one, barely wide enough for a person to walk without turning sideways, but it was empty.

“Dammit,” she muttered, jogging to the end of the alley. She peered south at the corner but could see no one in the alley. She turned off the flashlight app and redialed Michelle’s phone.

It rang somewhere to the south, and she followed the sound into the alley running behind the building, which, if memory served her, was shaped like a giant backward F. Probably in the courtyard, if it can be called that. But why isn’t that damn cabbie answering the phone again?

Katy increased her pace, rounding the corner to the courtyard at a dead run, Michelle’s phone ringing and ringing from the darkness ahead. “Michelle!” she called. “Cabbie guy!”

No one answered her, but she thought she heard a faint, shuffling step back behind the dumpsters deep in the courtyard. She ran to the end of the courtyard, then skidded to a stop.

“Oh my God! Michelle!” she cried. She wanted to go to her friend, to try and help, but the gruesome scene held her frozen. How can there be that much blood?

Michelle’s body made an island in a red sea, but there was something off…something Katy didn’t—couldn’t—get her mind wrapped around. She cocked her head to the side. “Michelle?” she murmured.

“Thanks for coming, unnh,” said that gruff-voiced cabbie from somewhere behind her.

Katy glanced over her shoulder, prepared to fight for her life—to claw, to bite, to gouge out his eyes—but when she saw the cabbie, her brain turned off completely, and the courtyard echoed with her scream.

She only had time for one.

2

Leery Oriscoe bumped his car up onto the sidewalk in front of 246 West End Avenue, bleary-eyed and already exhausted. He got out, grimacing at the cold wind that raced past him, and twitched up the collar of his camel hair coat. He squinted at the cop standing post at the end of the alley beside the building. “Laurell? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Oriscoe. You going blind in your old age or what?”

“Yeah, yeah. Who’d you piss off to get this assignment?”

Corporal Laurell Hamilton smiled at him and hooked her thumb at the alley behind her. “Your partner’s already down there. Go to the end of the alley, hook a right, then again when you come to the courtyard. Your bodies are down at the end.”

“Bodies plural, Hamilton?”

She nodded, solemn-faced. “Two of ‘em. Or what’s left of two of ‘em.”

“Right. This gets better and better.” Leery grunted and hunched his shoulders to protect his neck from the bastard wind. “Hey, you want to switch jobs, Hamilton?”

“Nah. I like my job. It gives me plenty of time to think about writing a book or two.”

“You sure? Think of the glory.”

Hamilton laughed and shook her head. “No thanks, Oriscoe. I’ll stick right where I am.”

“Hey, an attitude like that could get you stuck in the urban sprawl forever, Hamilton.”

She grinned. “I’ll take my chances.”