“I tried my pitiful best, Agent Caine.” He watched her come within an inch of a lane-cutting taxi without blinking an eye.

“What have you been doing here in New York for the last two weeks?”

He never looked away from the pedestrian zigzagging in front of the Crown Vic. “Oh, a bit of this and that, getting set up, that’s about it.” Not to mention I shopped for furniture until I nearly cut my own wrists, fought with Nigel on where all the bloody furniture should go, and was forced to have dinner with my ex at a French in-place big on presentation and light on food. In short, I haven’t used my brain for two bloody weeks—but he didn’t tell her any of that.

She sped through a yellow light. “I’ve missed having you around. Come on, now, tell me about your new place.”

Not in this lifetime. “Nothing much to tell, really. It’s a place to live, that’s all.” Nicholas’s grandfather, in a magnanimous show of support for his grandson’s decision to move to America, had purchased Nicholas a brownstone. No matter how hard Nicholas had protested, the baron, and his parents, he suspected, refused to allow Nicholas his wish, an anonymous apartment somewhere in Chelsea.

He was now saddled with a behemoth town house on East 69th Street, much to his butler Nigel’s delight. Five bedrooms, five floors. Oh, yes, this sort of opulence was just the ticket for fitting in with the rest of the agents in the New York Field Office.

Mike slowly turned onto a street packed with pedestrians. “I can’t wait to see it. Invite me over for a beer later, all right?”

And again he thought, Not in this lifetime. He said, “Where is our crime scene?”

“Just off Wall Street. Right there.”

Mike threaded through dozens of people across to Pine Street, not far from Federal Hall. He saw the yellow sawhorse barrier with NYPD on it, three blue-and-whites, lights revolving, reflecting off the stone buildings.

They badged the NYPD cop at the barrier, signed in to the scene, and were led to the small side street. It was going to be a beautiful day, he saw, already warming nicely. Considering the number of crime scenes he’d handled in the pouring rain in London, this certainly was preferable.

“What do we have here?” he asked the young NYPD officer standing inside the tape. His badge read F. WILSON, and he looked barely old enough to vote, much less be a cop. Even though Nicholas knew he couldn’t be more than five years older than the cop, he felt ancient, until Wilson spoke like the seasoned professional he was. “Stabbing,” Wilson said, “and aren’t you in luck, it’s right there on your land. Another five feet and it would be ours, but no, this guy decides to get himself dead and make it all yours. I hear it’s your first day on the job. Welcome to New York.”

“Thank you.”

Wilson grinned. “We’ve been canvassing, got a small group of people held aside who were nearby when it happened. Most say the suspect was a Caucasian male, brown hair, medium height, wearing jeans and a white hoodie.”

Nicholas looked over at the small knot of people standing on the street corner, gaping at the scene, some recording everything with their phones, others standing quietly, obviously shell-shocked. He said, “Rather a detailed description, that.”

“I know, right? Amazing, really, since most witnesses can rarely agree on the sex of the suspect. Talk about lucking out—from the statements so far, there were two men arguing, then a struggle, then one guy turned away and the other man stabbed him from behind and took off running.”

Mike said, “Hold everyone here, Officer Wilson. We’ll want to speak to them as well. We need to get a look at the body, and we’ll be right back.”

Wilson saluted her and moved away from the tape to let them in.

Nicholas took his time walking toward the dead man, noticed Mike was taking in everything as well. Special Agent Louisa Barry, one of their crime scene techs, was snapping on nitrile gloves, ready to get to work. Nicholas smiled at her, then went down on his haunches beside a man who was seriously dead. He was in his late forties to early fifties, his brown eyes staring sightlessly into the sky, salt-and-pepper hair combed slightly to the side to cover the beginnings of a receding hairline, his suit rumpled and creased. From the angle of his body on the pavement, and the way his arms were flung out from his body, Nicholas thought he’d fallen to his knees, then onto his back and died. The blood pooled beneath him, dark and thick, but it was disturbed, like a child’s finger painting, swirls and whorls whipping across the sidewalk. What were you arguing about? Why’d he stab you in the back?

“See anything interesting?” Mike asked, studying the blood pool.

“It’s what I’m not seeing that’s interesting,” Nicholas said. “No murder weapon. The guy stabbed him, then pulled out the knife and took off. I wonder if any of the witnesses saw the killer do that.”

Mike said, “He still had his wallet, isn’t that right, Louisa?” She looked up at Louisa, holding the man’s belongings.

“Right here.”

Nicholas asked, “What’s his name?” He hated calling a once living, breathing man a corpse. He deserved more than that.

“Jonathan Charles Pearce. Lived on the Upper East Side. Money and cards left in the wallet. His cell’s a BlackBerry Touch, and here’s a nice old watch and a set of keys. Cell is password protected, I can’t access it without my tools.”

Nicholas said, “Do you carry a UFED in the field, perchance?”

“Is that British for Universal Forensic Extraction Device?” And she grinned. “Yeah, so happens I have a Touch Ultimate on the truck. Hang on a minute.”

“Good,” he said. “Are there any cameras around?”

Louisa said, “Nothing that points directly to this spot, but there’s a traffic cam at the intersection of Pine and William, and the building itself has a camera on the corner. Might have something from one of those.”

“Excellent, Louisa, thank you.”

“By the way, Nicholas? It’s good to have you on board. Welcome to New York.”

“It’s good to be here.”

In the next instant, Louisa was headed to the mobile command unit.

Mike said, “Glad she brought it. With the UFED we’ll get the pass code broken and access the data in no time. So, Nicholas, it doesn’t appear Mr. Pearce was the victim of a robbery.”

“No, it would seem not. A fight between two men. About what?”

“Whatever it was, the killer lost it and stabbed Mr. Pearce in the back with a dozen people looking on.”

3

Nicholas looked up at a sharp whistle to see a tall, beefy older man heading their way, people getting out of his way. He looked like a guided missile, ready to clear the scene and move on to his next case.

“Here’s the ME, and good news for us, he’s the best,” Mike said. “You’ll like him.”

The man reached them and stuck out his hand. Nicholas thought he meant to shake, but he was handing them both nitrile gloves.

“You’re not allowed anywhere near my body without proper protection. See to it, now.”

Mike snapped the gloves over the ones she was already wearing. She never argued with Janovich. “Good morning, Dr. Janovich. Now we’re double protected. I’d like you to meet my new partner, Special Agent Nicholas Drummond. We worked together on the Koh-i-Noor diamond case. Today’s his first day.”

They shook hands. Janovich immediately pulled off his gloves and put on a fresh pair. “If I remember correctly, you knew the woman who died during that case. I’m sorry, that was tough.”

Nicholas felt a familiar stab of pain. “Thank you, it was. I was Inspector Elaine York’s superior at New Scotland Yard. But now I’m here in America, working for the FBI.”