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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The Woman with the Gray Gloves
She came in with the first heat of noon. The smog was sitting on the city like a lazy cat that wouldn’t get off your chest, and her perfume climbed through it as if rules were for other people. Gray gloves, gray hat, eyes the color of ditchwater that knew better. She said her name was Evelyn March and didn’t offer a handshake. Ladies like that don’t share fingerprints.
“My son’s missing,” she said, voice ironed flat. “Theo. Three days.”
I sat her down and poured water. In my line, liquor is a kind of punctuation I avoid before sundown. “Why me?” I asked.
“You were recommended.” She studied the office like she expected it to flinch. The blinds were cut light into slats. “He’s a reporter. Freelance. Nose where it doesn’t belong. He was working on a story about the Palisades Redevelopment.”
“You mean the new concrete dream on the cliffs,” I said. “The one the city wants so bad it can taste the rebar.”
She offered a thin envelope. Cash. A photo of a kid with a widow’s peak, chin stubborn as a doorstop. “If he’s dead,” she said, “tell me fast. If he’s hiding, tell him to call his mother.”
“You sure he wants to?” I asked.
She blinked once. It sounded like a no.
