Game

Ambling along the streets of Brooklyn, no one gave an older dad a second look.

People. Ha.

Billy worried more about facial-recognition software than he worried about a human being recalling his face from TV. Cameras were everywhere in “free” America—at ATMs, at street intersections, at banks, behind convenience-store counters. The bastard cops and the FBI were supposed to need search warrants and court orders to look at those cameras, but Billy was no fool. He knew about the Patriot Act. And he knew something even more sinister—he knew the fear that ruled in the hearts of all prospects. The bastard cops needed a court order only when someone said no to them. And these days, all you had to do was wave a flag or say “keeping Americans safe” and anyone owning those cameras would let the cops look all they wanted. No hassle. No fuss, no muss. So Billy took no chances. He wore sunglasses and a hat whenever possible.

And he smiled.

Facial-recognition software, for some reason, had trouble distinguishing between two faces if one of them was smiling. There were even states where you couldn’t smile for your driver’s license photo. So, Billy smiled everywhere he went.

This was hardly a chore. Billy liked smiling. Billy was a happy guy.

In his coat pockets, he had a total of five different throwaway cell phones. One of them buzzed for his attention as he pushed his stroller past the umpteenth coffee shop on Fourth Street. This place was obsessed, Billy had noticed, with coffee shops. There were three of them on every block, not to mention the occasional Starbucks.

He paused as he groped for the proper phone. Only one person had the numbers to his various phones, and that was just for emergencies. He shouldn’t be receiving phone calls—he gave them.

Finding the right phone, he flipped it open, and before he could say anything, the voice at the other end said, almost saucily, “Guess who’s in town?”

And then told him.

And Billy Dent’s smile grew even wider.

CHAPTER 16

The pounding at the door woke Jazz from a deep slumber that morning, gasping awake as if he’d forgotten how to breathe. Co

“Who—” she started.

“NYPD!” a voice barked. “Open up! Now!”

“NYPD?” Co

Jazz shook sleep from his head and rolled to his feet. Was Hughes playing some kind of joke? Or…

Or was he being Fultoned again?

He left the chain on the door, opening it just enough to peer out. Two uniformed cops stood there, along with an older white guy in a suit and tie. The white guy pushed at the door. “Jasper Dent,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It was more like a command, as though he were ordering the kid at the door to be Jazz.

“Let me see some ID,” Jazz said, but before the words were even out of his mouth, he was looking at the name card and badge for Detective Stephen Long.

“Homicide,” Long snapped. “Brooklyn South. Open the door.”

Brooklyn South. Homicide. The same division Hughes came from.

Or claimed to come from. The badge and name card looked similar to Hughes’s. How hard would that be to fake? Probably easier than Jazz thought, but harder than made it worthwhile.

“What can I do for you, Detective?” Jazz asked, stalling. He could hear Co

“I said open the goddamn door. Do it now or we’ll bust it down. Seriously.”

“Do you have a warrant?”

Long blew out an a

“Wait, wait.” Co

“You can come with us,” Long said as he and the other two cops came into the room. Long looked around, spied Co

“What’s going on here?” Jazz asked.

Long looked at his watch. “You have thirty seconds to put on real clothes. Dressed or not, I’m taking you with me.”

Bristling, Jazz grabbed his clothes from the previous day and retreated to the bathroom to change. Outside, he could hear the cops going through the dresser and desk drawers. One of them must have started to go through Co

He emerged from the bathroom, dressed, to find one of the cops triumphantly brandishing the iPad and papers Hughes had brought over the day before. From the crestfallen expression on Co

“We’re done here,” Long said, and tipped an imaginary hat to Co

Co

Then again, Jazz had a history of being dragged away by the cops, and it always worked out. He had been arrested once a couple of months ago during the Impressionist case, at the same time that Howie struggled for his life after being knifed. And she had been there in the school auditorium when Deputy Erickson had pulled Jazz out of play rehearsal one afternoon, all because Jazz had done too good a job predicting the Impressionist’s next victim. Both times, he had returned safe and sound.

As she did at home every morning in her own room, she switched on the TV to listen to the news and weather while she got dressed. She would have to figure out where he’d gone, of course. Even though he always came back to her, that didn’t mean he didn’t need help. After all, the Impressionist had managed to hold Jazz hostage in his own home, and only Co

Or had they? Maybe Jazz could have saved himself. Put that one up there on the list of things she would never know. She sighed. You could have chosen an easier life for yourself, Conscience Hall, than falling in love with a guy who packs the kind of baggage Jazz packs.

Nah. She was kidding herself. It hadn’t been a choice—she had fallen desperately in love with Jazz early on. Tried to hide it. From her father especially, but even from herself. In love with the son of the world’s most notorious serial killer? For reals? Maybe he’s not nuts, but you sure are, Co

The first time they kissed, though…

God, that first kiss!

Co

He’d groaned somewhere deep in the back of his throat as they kissed, and she thought that groan was surrender.

And speaking of surrender, she thought, pawing through her suitcase for a shirt, what the hell happened last night? A less confident girl might have curled up in a corner with her Cosmo and wept and snuffled her way through some idiotic article with a title like “How to Make Him Your Boy Toy.” But not Co