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myself.”
    “Do people do it in San Diego?” Archie asked.
    “No,” Rachel said. “But I thought that Portland was friendlier.”
    “We are,” Archie said. “But we are also socially awkward. I think they cancel each other out.”
    “So if I need to borrow sugar or a spark plug or something . . . ?”
    Archie thought for a moment. “I don’t have any of those things.”
    Her smile faded and she glanced back down the empty hall. “I haven’t seen many people around the place.”
    “Not many people live here,” Archie said. The one-two punch of the flood and the economy had left his building in development limbo. All the better, as far as he was concerned.
    “Well, it will be quiet, then,” Rachel said. She sighed and her breasts lifted against the tank top. “Nice meeting you,” she said. “I’ll see you
around.”
    Archie had the urge to say something, but he couldn’t figure out what. So he settled on saying, “Welcome to the building.”
    She gave him an awkward little wave and walked off down the hall toward the elevator. He watched her for as long as he could get away with.

CHAPTER
10
    S usan’s feet hurt . She had bought a pair of red Frye motorcycle boots with her last Herald check and they
were killing her, but she was determined to break them in. It was August. She should be in flip-flops. But flip-flops did not look as awesome with a short black skirt as red Frye motorcycle
boots.
    Still, she needed to get off her feet. Now.
    She banged on the door to Archie’s apartment. If he wasn’t going to answer her calls or return her voice mails, then he could at least tell her to get lost to her face.
    She shifted her weight from foot to foot and banged again.
    The door opened, and Archie peered out. He lifted his eyebrows and blinked at her, like he was surprised. That wasn’t weird. It wasn’t like he knew she was coming. But he looked
surprised in a different sort of way. Like he was expecting someone else.
    “Hi,” he said.
    “Who were you hoping I’d be?” she asked.
    Archie glanced behind her, down the hallway. Susan looked, too. There was no one there. She hadn’t seen anyone on her way up.
    “My neighbor was just here,” Archie said.
    Whatever. “Now it’s me,” Susan said. She bent over and wrestled off a boot.
    “Hi,” Archie said.
    Susan wasn’t in the mood for Archie’s bullshit. “You said that,” she said. “Now let me in.” She squeezed past him into the apartment, carrying one boot, and
immediately began tugging at the other one.
    “Let me guess,” Archie said. “You were in the neighborhood.”
    “You didn’t call me back,” she said. The boots were off. She set them side by side near the door and wiggled her toes on the floor. Her socks were mismatched and stank of sweat
and funk and heat. There weren’t many people she felt comfortable enough around to reveal that level of personal fetidity, but Archie was one of them.
    “I had a lot of messages,” Archie said.
    She hadn’t been to Archie’s new place before. When they had first met he was recently divorced and was living in a sad apartment in North Portland, then he had moved back in with his
family in the fancy house in Hillsboro. Then there was the psych ward, a stay with Henry Sobol, and now this. He had neglected to invite her to the new place. With Archie, she sometimes had to take
things into her own hands.
    She moved inside, looking around, and he closed the door behind her. She saw his phone lying on the floor in pieces and glanced over at him, but he didn’t offer an explanation.
    The apartment was nicer than she’d been expecting. Exposed brick walls. Massive factory windows. Hardwoods. High ceiling with exposed wood beams. Archie didn’t have much furniture: a
few bookcases, a simple black couch that looked brand-new, a couple of chairs Susan recognized from the house in Hillsboro. The kitchen was open to the living room, and full of midrange steel
appliances. She