The apartment building was three blocks from the freight rail and one block from the night market.
Caleb had paid the rent on the fourteenth-floor unit for six years. He had never been inside it. He had not stood on this street in nineteen years. The night market was the same. The freight rail was the same. The smell of grilled fish from the stall on the corner was the same, and the man at the stall was older but it was the same man.
It was four-twelve in the morning.
Elara's car was parked across the intersection with the lights off.
Iris was in the lobby pretending to read a newspaper that had not been printed in five years.
The watcher's car was where she had said it would be. Black sedan, two doors down, parking lights on. Caleb walked past it on the opposite sidewalk and did not look in the window.
He went into the building.
He took the stairs.
The fourteenth floor smelled like cooking oil and old paint.
Apartment 1407.
