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my mom,” she said to him, her voice breaking, and it was perhaps the single strangest comment she could have made.
    She looked at me, then at the man, and she decided not to kill anyone that night; then she turned and ran out onto the side street, still holding the man’s gun. A hard left into the thin curling light rain of the night, away from Haight Street.
    A car screeched to a stop close to the alleyway—an Audi, it looked like—and the suburban dad bolted toward it, holding his bloodied head.
    I was torn for a second, and it cost me—which one did I chase? So I chased him. I threw myself at the car as he slammed the passenger side door and the Audi roared forward.
    I landed on the roof, fingers scrabbling for purchase. I tried to hammer my foot against the back window but the Audi swerved hard, barely kissing the steel of the cars parked along the road. I saw a flash of blonde hair at the wheel, a blur of a face, nothing more.
    I was thrown. I slid off the Audi, landing on the trunk of one of the parked cars. I rolled, my parkour training taking over, spreading the impact along my backside, landing on my feet on the sidewalk.
    The car roared off into the dark, vanishing with a hard right, as the cry of the police sirens grew.
    But I saw the license plate before it made the swerving turn, caught in the garish glow of the grow lights seller’s display on the corner. I memorized it.
    Where was the woman? I jerked around, trying to find her. Vanished. The crowd at the intersection had cleared, some of the homeless regulars screaming and pointing.
    I stumbled back into the bar. And there was a dead man lying on my bar’s floor, some of The Select’s employees milling by the bar, in shock. Felix, the bar’s manager, stood near them, studying the body with a calm eye. Felix was fortyish, balding, thin and strong like wire.
    “Are you all right?” he said.
    “Yes.” I knelt by the body and told Felix, “Go to the front door, keep everyone out. Meet the police there.”
    “Sam…we have to know who he is, who he’s from…”
    Like this wasn’t random. Like it was an attack on me. My past catching up with me. He didn’t know about the woman asking for help.
    “Now. Get them out.”
    But as Felix herded everyone onto the street, I positioned myself between the mountain’s body and The Select’s security camera. I stuck my hand in the dead mountain’s pocket.
    I needed to know something. Before the police arrived and I lost all control of the situation.

6
    Thursday, November 4, early evening
    I ’M TAKING YOU TO THE DOCTOR.” Holly kept one hand on the steering wheel, put the other hand on Glenn’s bleeding head. He was hurt badly.
    “No doctor. You know the rules.”
    “Screw the rules. I’m taking you to the hospital over on Parnassus…”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “Glenn! Must you argue with me?”
    “I don’t need a doctor.”
    Holly took the next corner hard, barely making the light before it glowed red. She glanced in the rearview. She could hear a distant cry of sirens.
    “Holly! If we get pulled over for running a light, how do I explain a head wound? Think!”
    “I am thinking. I am the only one thinking. I am thinking we go straight to the hospital.”
    “We can’t. He’s dead. The Russian. He’s dead.”
    Holly gripped the steering wheel harder. “She killed him? That little…nothing?”
    “A bartender killed him.”
    “What, he had a gun behind the bar?”
    “He took the Russian’s knife from him and he killed him with it.”
    Holly hit her hand against the steering wheel. “You said this guy was former freaking Russian Special Forces.”
    “He was. Once.” He winced. He clutched at the silver symbol on the necklace, hanging loose from his shirt. “The bartender was better.”
    “I told you you’d made a mistake hiring him.” Her voice rose hard and fast. A dead body left behind. How would they explain this mess to Belias? “I told you it was a bad idea; we could have