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his work; it was all he really needed. And yet his mind and his heart were open to more now, if the right opportunities presented themselves. Another woman, one he could relate to on a simpler, less emotional level. Another attempt at ending the estrangement with his son Joshua. A lifestyle change of one kind or other. Something positive, in any case.
    Even though loneliness and grief no longer plagued him, he still resisted going home at night. Home: a four-room flat on Ortega, in the city’s west-side fog belt. A TV for noise, a stove to brew tea and cook an occasional meal, a bed to sleep in. When he’d first moved in, before meeting Bryn, it had seemed like a cage he shared with Colleen’s ghost. The only difference between it and a prison cell was the fact that he had a key to the door. Oppressive to the point of claustrophobia sometimes. Not anymore. The stifling effect of bare walls and cheap furniture had ended along with the haunting. Now it was just a familiar place he occupied until it was time to go out into the world again.
    There was no garage in his building; tonight he had to park around the corner on 17th Street. A strong wind off the Pacific forced him into a forward hunch on the walk to his building. He barely noticed. Weather conditions had mattered to Colleen—Seattle’s chains of rainy days sometimes depressed her—but they made no impression on him unless they affected his work. Wet, dry, warm, cold, windy, foggy—you had to deal with all the variations at one time or another, so why pay attention when there were more important things to deal with?
    A while back somebody had spray-painted what looked like gang symbols on the wall next to the building’s front entrance. Graffiti was a big problem in the city, even out here in a neighborhood that was predominately Asian and had no serious gang activity. The landlord had whitewashed over the tags, but you could still see the outlines. A minor crime, property defacement, but it went against Runyon’s grain just the same. No one had the right to intrude on others’ lives for their own benefit or amusement.
    Inside his flat, he turned the heat up to chase the evening chill and checked his answering machine. No messages. Seldom were except for telemarketing crap, but his home number was also on his business card. He was in a stay-connected business in a compulsively stay-connected society: you had to cover all the bases.
    He booted up his laptop. Three new e-mails, none of any importance. All right. He kicked off his shoes, turned on the TV to one of the handful of channels that specialized in old movies, turned the sound down, tuned himself down, and sprawled out on the couch. The interior tuning down was a trick he’d first learned on police stakeouts, resorted to more and more as a defense mechanism over the months it took Colleen to die by degrees. The less you let yourself think, the less pain and helplessness you feel. That was the theory, anyway. Now it had become a habit, the best way he knew to get through the downtime periods that separated work and sleep.
    He was no longer paying attention to the Bette Davis film, letting the drone of voices put him into a half-doze, when his cell phone vibrated.
    Immediately he was awake and alert, another trick he’d learned in Seattle. The time digits on the TV cable box read 9:18. He checked the window on the phone: no caller ID. Verity Daniels, he thought. Right.
    â€œHe just called again, Jake,” she said. She sounded a little breathless, not so much upset as excited. But you couldn’t always trust voice impressions on the phone. “I recorded the conversation like you told me to.”
    â€œEverything that was said?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid you threaten him with the police?”
    â€œHe just laughed. He wants the money tomorrow. If I don’t bring it to him, he said … he said he’d hurt me. Bad.”
    â€œBring it