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and for good reason. It was a vantage from which they could access any crime scene report they needed without the nuisance of having to get a human being on-site under false pretenses. Human intelligence was viewed by Director Branagh as not only fallible, but the greatest source of vulnerability to the operation. Anytime they worked in the field, they risked blowing their cover. It was a risk that was judged, more times than not, to be unacceptable.
    What struck Kera as even more unusual than that, though, was Gabb y’s location. Fourth and Bowery was only blocks from their apartment. She stepped into the bedroom with her phone. Through the open door she could see the screen on Parke r’s laptop, still open to Gnos.is.
    “That was my reaction too. Until I saw it for myself,” Gabby said. “I need you to get over here, Kera. I want you to take this case.”
    “A case ? This thing with the singer? How is that a case for us?”
    “ I’l l show you when you get here. Use the back entrance. The front is a total shit show. Cameras everywhere. Oh, and Kera?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Do n’t take any shit from these cops. W e’r e here with permission from the mayo r’s office, and nobod y’s happy about it.”
    Kera exhaled, rousing her body from the sleepy buzz of wine. “All right, I’m just a few blocks away. I can be there in ten minutes.”
    She hung up and retrieved her shoes and jacket from the closet.
    “Something urgent?” Parker said from the doorway.
    “ I’m sure sh e’s overreacting.”
    “Breaking news in Iran?”
    “I ca n’t say.” She wanted to listen to him talk more about Dubai. She wanted to curl up next to him in bed. Anything but have to lie to him. She flashed him a look they both hated: do n’t start this now . Sh e’d been up front about her job when they first met. She worked a lot. She could n’t talk about much of it because she had sources to protect. H e’d known what he was in for, and h e’d agreed to tolerate it. It would not always be like this, she promised. Just a few years. Then her career track at the Global Report would be made, and she could choose her own hours. She could work from home and have kids, if tha t’s what she wanted, though she did n’t want them now and suspected she might never. “Look, I gotta go.”
    “Of course. Your editor calls. The news cycle must go on.”
    “Do n’t wait up for me. Yo u’r e exhausted,” she said, feeling for her TGR media credentials in her pocket.
    “Babe?” Parker called out to her when she was at the door. She turned. “Be safe.”
    She blew him a kiss and then she was gone.

THREE
     
    Red and blue light bathed the entryway of Rowena Pet e’s three-story town house. A half-dozen cruisers flanked a waiting ambulance, poised at the curb below the singe r’s front door as if a lifesaving dash to the ER might still be in the cards. The town hous e’s facade looked surreally familiar to Kera. The fire hydrant on the sidewalk, the thin trees planted along the block, the tips of their branches sprouting May buds. The wide maroon steps and solid white banister that rose to the landing outside the open front door. Kera recognized it all from the Gnos.is coverage.
    Onlookers persisted well past nightfall. She swung wide of a gaggle of bored paparazzi, telescopic lenses swinging from their necks, and cut down a narrow alley. She was stopped before the rear entrance by a pair of cops who took turns scrutinizing her credentials.
    “Yo u’r e with the Global Report ?” one of them asked.
    “Tha t’s what it says.”
    The cop shook his head. “No media. You can wait out front with the rest of ’e m. Ther e’l l be a news conference soon enough.”
    “Check with your supervisor,” she said. “I have clearance through the mayo r’s office. W e’r e doing an exclusive, behind-the-scenes-with-the-NYP D’s -finest kinda thing.”
    The cop flashed his partner a look that said, What the fuck? Do we really have to do