Farrow had stayed in the kitchen, checking the little window over the sink. “Did you see anything in the courtyard? I only saw a cat on the wall.”
“Whose cat?”
Farrow shrugged. “Could be our orange cat. Saw it last night, too.”
We did a quick check of the dining room and then returned to the central hall. Farrow stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up.
I stopped behind him and listened. Wiley was silent. Reed rolled his shoulder once at the front door.
“Up,” I said.
Wiley’s door was closed. The light bled out under it in a thin gold strip.
The staircase to the third floor was narrower. It would have been constructed as stairs for the staff.
The temperature dropped when we hit the third step. At the upper landing, the air was distinctly cooler. The floor wasn’t in use, and the thermostat had been turned down to fifty. We told Cabot and Wiley that it was off-limits.
At the landing, we faced two doors, both closed. We did a quick check the day we moved into the safehouse and hadn’t been back.
I turned toward Farrow. His breath created small clouds in the cold air.
The chill worked its way through my shirt. The small hairs at the back of my neck stood up.
I’d held onto a question since the night we first met. We were alone, and I asked it.
“How did you know where things were in my apartment?”
Farrow hesitated only for a beat. “I answered it then, but it was the short version. Do you want the full answer or the quick one?”
“Full.”
“It was pattern matching. You live in a building where all the units have the same floor plan. I’ve been inside three apartments in that building over the last two years and a dozen more like it across the South End and the Back Bay. It was different floors with different men, but they all had the same bones.”
He watched me as he continued. “The towels go in the linen closet in the bathroom because it’s designed for that. More intimate objects are in the drawer to the right of the lavatory. A man like you wouldn’t keep them in the living room.”
He said it without a change in his vocal tone. If he were a principal, I’d have read him as truthful.
The radiator on the second floor below us ticked once and was quiet. I heard my pulse against the high collar of my shirt.
Three apartments in my building. A dozen more like it. He had walked me through his history in the flat, operational voice he used to report on a perimeter check.
“Is there anything else you know about my apartment?”
“Plenty.”
He didn’t elaborate.
“So, you’re saying I live in a hotel room.”
“I’ve never been in a hotel with someone like you, Dane. For what it’s worth, I haven’t been with anyone else since.”
Silence followed. He’d said it flat. No question hanging off the back of it.
Farrow read rooms for a living. He knew what he’d just handed me.
I closed the distance between us.
I reached for the side of his throat with a slight grip. I’d decided. His pulse jumped once under my fingers and then steadied.