Nathaniel came to Dana’s apartment at midnight, James behind him, both of them carrying the particular energy of men who had not sat down in several hours.
Claire let them in without a word and watched Nathaniel’s eyes do their usual sweep of the room, the door, the windows, the automatic inventory of exits that she had not noticed him doing until the first crisis and could not stop noticing now.
“Sit down,” she said. “Both of you. I will make coffee.”
They sat. Claire made coffee. Dana quietly disappeared to her bedroom with the tact of someone who understood when a room needed fewer people in it.
Nathaniel wrapped both hands around the mug Claire set in front of him and looked at it for a moment before he spoke.
“Carter Webb,” he said. “The private investigator who died eight months
