The kid mumbled something and tried to walk away. I grabbed his arm and he sagged. I knew what I had to do. Put him in the back of the squad car, book him for public drunkenness, and let him dry out in jail. Shitty way to kick off the New Year.

I helped him to his feet, planned to take him to the car and into the station, when the man appeared from around the corner.

“Ah, Officer!” the man called. I turned. He was bundled up in a thick winter jacket, and he had a wool fedora, the kind with the built-in ear flaps, pulled down. At first, I thought he was a woman from the way he ran. His hips moved with a swishing motion. His thick, black glasses were nearly steamed up with the melted snow glistening on the lenses. He was a little older than the kid, probably in his mid to late twenties. But it was hard to tell.

“Oh my God, Benjamin,” the man said, producing a leather coat, which he helped onto the boy. His voice was high and wavering with a thick lisp. “This is my responsibility, Officer, not Ben’s. This should never have happened.” He shook his head like a disappointed mother. “He had an office Christmas party today, and then he was hitting the cocktails when I left to get thyme for the chicken, and when I came back, he was gone. I’ve been going crazy trying to find him.”

“Could I see some identification, sir?” I said.

The man, wearing gloves, gently withdrew a wallet from his back pocket. I looked at the address on the license as the man zipped up the coat he’d put on the boy. The address was just a few blocks over. I glanced at the picture and the name on the license. The picture matched.

I handed the license back to the man and studied the kid once more. “Benjamin, what’s your last name?” I shone the flashlight in the kid’s eyes. He didn’t wince or look away.

“Collins, Officer,” the man said. “His name is Benjamin Collins. I’m so sorry about this, sir,” the man continued, his voice high and nervous. I stepped back to the cruiser, called dispatch, and had them run Benjamin Collins through the system. The name came back clean. I had dispatch run the man through the system too. He came back without any hits.

I thought about it. The kid was in bad shape. By the time he was booked, printed, and in an actual jail cell, he’d be even worse. I thought about one time in high school when a cop pulled me over. I had a beer between my legs and a twelve-pack in the trunk. He made me dump everything out and go home, rather than taking me in, calling my parents, and basically ruining my life. That act of kindness was a better lesson than being thrown into a holding cell with a bunch of lowlifes.

Well, I thought, now’s my chance to return the favor. Besides, it was New Year’s Eve. Who wanted to start the year off in jail?

I walked back to find the man slipping winter boots onto the kid’s feet. “Okay,” I said. “Get him home. I’ll give him a warning this time, but if I ever see his name come up again . . .”

“Perfectly understood, Officer,” the man said. He shook my hand heartily. “Again, I’m so sorry. He’s a beautiful, beautiful person, but when he drinks, sometimes . . .”

He put his arm around the boy and began walking away, practically carrying the younger man. The wind had picked up and was now packing a ferocious wallop.

“Want a lift?” I asked.

“That’s quite all right, Officer.” The man’s voice was nearly lost in the wind. “We’re right around the corner.”

I watched them turn the corner, then got back in the car and wiped the snow from my face. I called in my position.

In my mind, I had done my final good deed of the year. In my mind, I had finished out the New Year the best way possible, doing something nice for someone, and now it was time to see a beautiful girl about a glass of champagne.

•

The call came at five twenty-one in the morning. About an hour past mine and Elizabeth’s final lovemaking session of the night.

I untangled my body from Elizabeth’s and listened to the voice of Chief Michalski telling me to get down to the Yacht Club immediately.

Fifteen minutes later, I watched as Benjamin Collins’ body was loaded into the coroner’s van. They’d found his ID on the frozen pier just twenty feet or so from where his nude, mutilated body had been seen bobbing in the small patch of water heated by the Yacht Club’s boiler runoff.

I stood there in the cold, as numb and unfeeling as I’d ever been in my entire life. They let me look at the body. It was a sight I would never forget.

By the end of the day, I’d given my version of the events of the night before well over a dozen times. To the chief. To internal investigators. I desperately wanted to join in the search for the man to whom I’d turned over Benjamin Collins, but I was kept away from the investigation. Left to sit in a room and think about what I’d done.

No one had chewed me out. No one blamed me for fucking up, but it was there just the same.

Finally, the chief called me in and asked for my gun and badge. It was administrative leave. Until things were sorted out and the killer was caught. Until then, I was gone. The department might be liable should Collins’ relatives seek litigation. I left his office, taking one last look at my gun and badge before he swept them off his desk and into his drawer.

I never got them back.

Chapter Two

Six Years Later

The gloved fist smashed through the glass of the shop’s back door. The impact as well as the sound of shards tinkling to the floor went unnoticed by the workshop’s sole occupant. The woman at the large workbench heard only the high-pitched buzz of the random orbit sander.

Nor did she hear the sound of the deadbolt thrown back, the doorknob turning, and the heavy door swinging open.

The only noise to reach her ears was that of the sander as its 220-grit sandpaper gently bit into the five-hundred-year-old wood. She moved the sander along the wood’s surface with confident precision. Her honey-colored hair was tied back in a ponytail. Thick shop glasses distorted the Lake Michigan blue of her eyes as the powdery sawdust flying from the sander coated her hands and covered her hair like a thin veil.

The woman leaned back from the workbench and flicked off the sander. As the whine of the motor instantly began to descend, she brushed the layer of dust from the wood. Even through the gauze of the powder, the beauty of the grain was apparent. This had been a special batch: ancient elm, filled with grain patterns and whorls that would be breathtaking after a light stain and varnish were applied.

She leaned back and studied the beginning stage of the guitar. It was to be a semi-acoustic twelve-string, made from centuries-old elm salvaged from the bottom of Lake Michigan. It was for a rocker in California, who had paid her the first half of the price tag: five thousand dollars. She was taking her time with this one, especially after the monumental task she’d just accomplished.

She glanced over at the finished guitar in question. A jumbo acoustic, her most ambitious and most expensive guitar yet. Made from the rarest, most expensive woods of all: virgin tiger maple, hickory, ash, and ebony. All of it salvaged from the bottom of Lake Michigan. All of it priceless. All of it breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful. And she had used all of her skills, all of her powers to turn those woods into a guitar. A guitar with a sound so rich and so pure you almost forgot how beautiful it looked.

And it already had a buyer.

Jesse brushed her hands off on her jeans and went to the guitar. She picked it up and felt the perfect weight of it.

She sat back on her stool and strummed the strings, the full beauty of the sound echoing in the shop’s interior. Her fingers naturally picked out a melancholy melody, and she played quietly, confidently.