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The neighborhood changes before the GPS alerts me that we’re close. I know we’re close. Not because the neighborhood is bad. Because I know this kind of block.

Older buildings squeezed together. Repairs done because they had to be, not because anybody cared how they looked afterward. A security light hanging crooked over one entrance. Rust eating through the bottom of a fire escape.

My fingers tighten around the steering wheel before I make them relax. I’ve lived in places like this—more than one.

A memory tries to surface: raised voices on the other side of a wall thin enough to hear things a little boy shouldn’t hear, lying alone in the dark.

That was a long fucking time ago.

I lift my coffee and swallow the bile rising in the back of my throat.

“There.” Laney leans forward and points through the windshield. “That’s it.”

I follow her finger and pull to the curb as close as we can get. She studies the building through the windshield. I do the same. “Still sure about this?”

She immediately looks at me. “Don’t be such a diva.”

“I am not being a diva.” I turn in my seat to look at her.

“We can’t all have penthouses, Bishop.”

“I don’t expect you to have a penthouse.”

“Good. Because the internship does not pay penthouse money.”

“You also don’t have to live somewhere the front door looks like it lost a fight.”

She leans forward to look past me. “What are you talking about? It has character.”

“It has tetanus.”

She points at me. “Open mind. Closed mouth, Ken. Or you can stay in the car.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Neither one of us moves. I glance at the building again. Bars cover the first-floor windows. I decide not to mention it… yet.

“I’m coming with you.”

“I knew you would.”

“Someone has to identify the body.”

She smacks my arm.

I grin and climb out, moving to open her door.

Beside me on the cracked concrete, Laney tips her head back and studies the faded brick building with the kind of determination usually reserved for hostage negotiations.

“Well.”

That’s all she says.

A few people sit on the front steps, talking and passing a phone back and forth. One of the women looks up when we approach. Her eyes travel over me.

Then she smiles. “Hey, handsome. You lost?”