Henry entered the station with his thoughts wrapped around him like his scarf. He was a familiar face around here now, which saved him all but the most perfunctory sign-in step at the front desk, yet he still had a niggling sense that he was trespassing. The more secrets he accumulated, the more he wondered how much longer it would be before one of the dozens of officers and detectives here would notice and call him out. It was especially trying on those days when he did have something to hide.

Such as the fact that he knew whom the body discovered in a local park the previous afternoon had belonged to. A patrolling officer had found it while investigating reports of an explosion or electrical disturbance, and that had narrowed the list of possible candidates from millions to a mere handful.

To be precise, the officer only found the body. The man's head was missing, presumably dumped in the river, as was his wallet. Because of this, Henry couldn't be certain that the body belonged to one Franklin Drake—at least not in any way he could explain. So, until he had an independent identification to back up his own official examination, he needed to pretend that the body was just another John Doe. He'd made a point to caution Jo on this subterfuge, and she'd seemed to accept the warning, but he couldn't miss the tension that stiffened her jaw.

Jo spotted Henry immediately and leapt to her feet, rushing over to intercept him. The sleeves of her red blouse were rolled up to her elbows; a smear of ink marred the underside of her hand. The shortage of leads hadn't kept her from throwing herself into the case. "Henry, what are you doing here? What did you find?" She cast a look around the bullpen as if suspecting that her colleagues were all watching. Lowering her voice, she added, "Unless this is about—"

Henry stopped her with a motion. "This is purely a professional visit." He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over his arm, taking a moment to smooth the fabric so it wouldn't wrinkle. He'd agreed to give Jo the necessary time to think over his offer, and he would. It was hard not to be a little hurt that she hadn't jumped at the suggestion to stay with him, until he reminded himself that this was a big step for both of them. "Lieutenant Reece asked me to come down to discuss the results from the autopsy."

"Come down?" she asked. "Was there some reason you couldn't email them?" She frowned, undoubtedly thinking of several possible reasons that all boiled down to the man's former Immortality.

Henry shrugged; the in-person visit hadn't been his idea. "I assume she's interested in forming a bigger picture view of the homicide. The official forms do tend to limit speculation."

Jo stilled, her mouth pressing into a grim line. "We don't know enough to speculate."

"Then I want to hear what do you know," Reece responded, from where she stood framed in the doorway of her office, her voice carrying easily over the hubbub of the police station. A few other officers paused in their activity to glance her way, checking to see if she was talking to them. Since she was looking straight at Jo and Henry, they returned to their own work, slightly more subdued. The background volume dropped noticeably.

Reece was dressed in a black suit that still had the sharp edges of recent ironing, suggesting that she had either just come in, or was on her way out. Henry surmised it was the second one. Her destination was undoubtedly the mayor's office, as strange, grisly homicides appealed to both the press and the government, for much the same reason. Reece raised her chin in a wordless invitation to Hanson, who had already risen from his desk. "My office."

"This is gonna be good," Hanson muttered. He picked up the "World's Greatest Dad!" coffee cup that had been next to his elbow, scowled at its contents, then slugged them back with a grimace.

"Need fortification?" Henry inquired. Coffee wasn't the form of liquid courage most people would choose, though the substance the police station passed off as coffee just might come close.

Hanson swept a hand over his hair—recently cut, Henry noted—then worked his face through a series of expressions like he was practicing which ones to take in the office with him. "I'm gonna need something," he grumbled back.

Squaring his shoulders, Henry led the way. Of the three of them, Reece could hurt him the least.

The four people should have been able to comfortably fit in her office. Bright sunlight streaming through the windows lit the spacious room, glimmering off the plaques that filled the walls. Without planning it, Henry, Jo, and Hanson clustered together at the base of the desk where neat stacks of paper covered the surface. Right in the middle lay a folder open to the initial police report from the case in question. Though it was upside down, Henry was still able to easily read the text. There wasn't much to read.

Reece shut her office door and lowered the blinds over the windows that looked out into the bullpen, casting a pall over the room that had nothing to do with light. She crossed quickly to her side of the desk and planted herself in front of her chair, arms crossed. Everyone held themselves taut with expectation. Reece only indulged in these kinds of confidentiality concerns when she anticipated the worst kind of bad news.

True to form, she didn't waste time. "Doctor Morgan, I assume you've had opportunity to examine our newest John Doe?"

"The preliminary work-up is done," Henry answered. "The man was decapitated by a sharp object, most likely a long knife, though the weapon has not been recovered." That much was undeniable. The why and the who were the sticking points, as they always would be in cases such as this. "At this point, a full autopsy is unlikely to tell us anything about the cause of death we don't already know."

"Do one anyway," Reece ordered. "I want everything we can get on this guy. Blood type. Childhood injuries. Whether or not his feet turned in or out when he walked. Everything." Turning to Jo, she continued, "Have you identified him yet?"

Jo blanched, her struggle with withholding information her superior had every right to know dragging like a gravity well at the pause. "No." Clearing her throat, she kept going. "No. His fingerprints weren't in the system, and so far no one's filed a missing person's report that fits his description. Without someone stepping forward, we may not have any way to identify him."

Reece nodded and rubbed her eyebrows like she was staving off a headache. "Detectives, I know you're fighting the uphill battle on this investigation, and if we don't get something concrete soon, we may have to accept that we'll never have all the answers." She glanced down at the report, tapping one finger against it thoughtfully. "In your opinion, what's the likelihood that this homicide is connected to the one in February?"

"None," Hanson promptly answered.

Reece's cheeks puffed in a sigh she managed to restrain. "The mayor seems to think that the two homicides are connected. He's already mentioned ordering a case audit if we don't put this to bed before the media runs away with it. He was quick to remind me that nothing scares off tourists faster than a crime wave."

Hanson rolled his eyes; his opinion of the mayor and his investigative skills dropped every time the man tried to interfere with a case. "First of all, we caught the last guy. Means, motive, opportunity, murder weapon, confession. That case was nailed shut."

"That's the one who got killed before he got to trial?" Reece asked, remembering. "The whole thing fell off the radar after that…" She trailed off, the question of why the media had let the police off the hook staying unasked. Sometimes the police didn't want to know all the answers. The reprieve of that small mercy didn't last long. Reece pinched her brow tighter. "So, rather than needing to say the words 'serial killer,' I now need to suggest that we're looking at a copycat?"

"If it is, it's a piss poor copycat," Hanson replied. "The only similarity between the cases we've found so far is how the vic died." His eyes narrowed in thought, then he added, "And both the vics were white males. That could be a coincidence."

"Is that your read too, Detective Martinez?" Reece inquired.

Jo threw a glance at Henry, her eyes widening in what he could only interpret as a request for help. "It's really too soon to say."

There was another possibility, one that no one in the room dared to bring up: that Kostya was the wrong guy, and the February killer was still out there somewhere. As Henry stood there, breathing in the lavender scented air of Reece's office, it occurred to him that he knew Kostya was the right man—he saw no reason that his Immortal friends would lie to him about that after being so trusting with the other details of their lives—but Jo may not have the same confidence. Could she think they'd caught the wrong person?

"If I may—" Henry waited for Reece's confirmation before continuing—"I am absolutely certain the two cases are only superficially related. When Detective Hanson said there were few similarities, he was exactly right." Hanson puffed up at the compliment. A second later, his eyes narrowed in suspicion because Henry didn't often compliment him. "The first homicide happened late at night, in an isolated location. There were clear signs of fight, not to mention the considerable vandalism that was also in evidence. Whereas, the second homicide occurred in the early afternoon, in a public location—albeit one that was temporarily abandoned by a quirk of both the timing and the weather. The victim presented no struggle. He either knew his killer, or had reason to believe he could trust him—"

The Quickening had still damaged the surrounding environs, though with only trees and water to affect, the damage had been far less noticeable than the havoc wreaked to the office building that Kostya's first victim had been found it.

"Alright, alright, I see your point." Reece flipped the file closed and pushed the whole thing off to the side. The stress that had been crackling around her eased. "I'll pass what we know on to the mayor before he 'leaks' his suspicion. The last thing I need is the media inventing a crime spree."

Henry opened his mouth to remind the assembled group of the last difference in the cases, only Hanson got their first. The man was really earning the compliments today.

"Somethin' else," Hanson added. "The last guy didn't like witnesses."

Reece blinked at him while she caught up to what he was saying. When she did, she let out a small sigh of relief. "The boy. Has he been able to give us anything?"

With a shake of her head, Jo plugged that tiniest of cracks. "Physically, he's fine," she said. "Not a mark on him. Emotionally?" She shook her head again. Sunlight glimmered off the gold of her earrings, and it was all Henry could do not to reach over to touch them. "He witnessed a murder. A particularly violent murder. He's with the child psychologist now—an old friend of mine—so she promised to let me know as soon as he says anything." Pulling her phone from her pocket, she glanced at the display. From his angle, Henry clearly saw that there were no messages. "She said kids are resilient, so…" In a rare showing of superstition, Jo crossed her fingers.

Henry bowed his head, his faith in modern psychology not as strong. Children could be resilient; in his time, he'd witnessed some remarkable examples of children successfully recovering from traumas through the dedicated efforts of extended families and churches. He'd also seen many more examples of children who'd spent the rest of their—usually short—lives broken, often turning to alcohol or laudanum to numb the pain.

He'd dedicated his life to studying the body, not the mind, so he could hardly claim expertise in the intricacies of how mental trauma healed. Maybe the psychologist could rescue the child. He had his doubts. Hanson had found the boy cowering in a tree only a few yards from Drake's body. The child was filthy and malnourished, with overgrown and matted blond hair, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans that were ripped and stained beyond salvation. A street urchin, perhaps, though only on seeing him did Henry recognize how long it had been since he'd seen one who looked so hardened. A mere century before, he'd assumed that unwanted children who lived along the edges of society were part of the natural order. Advances in social welfare, along with a radical shift in both the law and the ethos of what to do with abandoned and orphaned children, had made them a rarity—and a tragedy in their own right. This child was one who had somehow managed to slip through the cracks, and who had no reason to hope that his life could ever be otherwise. He'd been terrified, the look in his blue eyes one Henry associated with soldiers who had survived the battle, yet would never be able to leave the war behind.

"Keep me up to date," Reece said. "It sounds like whatever he can give us will be more than we have." She drew a short breath. "Hanson, I'd like to speak with you privately for a minute. Jo, Henry, thank you."

Taking the dismissal, Henry held the door while Jo exited. As she passed, his hand brushed the length of her arm and she reflexively tilted toward him. Someday they might lose this need to be close to each other; today, he only hoped that she would agree to them becoming closer.

Jo returned to her desk and sat down, then promptly popped back up and stalked off toward the department's kitchen. Her teeth worried her lower lip and a deep crease bisected her brow. As much as Henry needed to be returning to the morgue, he couldn't leave with Jo in distress.

In the kitchen, Jo bee-lined for the coffee machine, only to discover that it was empty save for a thick brown sludge which coated the bottom of the glass carafe. "What, did someone leave this thing on all night?" Jo groused, mostly to herself, before sliding the carafe back into place.

In lieu of an answer, Henry took a seat on one of the folding chairs that surrounded the kitchen table. Someone's Lean Cuisine frozen dinner cooked in the microwave, filling the air with the scent of marinara and the hint of burning plastic. Fortunately, the owner of said dinner wasn't in the room, which left Jo free to work through her concerns.

"I lied to her," Jo said, suddenly. She turned to lean against the counter, her arms crossed tight. "I looked my commanding officer straight in the face and lied."

"You withheld unverifiable information," Henry countered. It was a technique he'd come to rely on in the face of difficult-to-answer questions: tell only as much of the truth as necessary to satisfy the questioner. "Without a head, we can't access dental records or photographs. Without a wallet, we don't know what his current identification is. Without a sword…" He trailed off because he didn't know what the absence of a sword meant, only that it had to be relevant. Whomever had killed Drake had also disposed of those three items. The only method left open to the police had been fingerprinting, and that hadn't found any matches, as the killer had doubtlessly known.

The best option remaining was the boy—Tommy—, the name given by his case worker because the child refused to supply his own.

"Henry, I lied." Dropping her voice to a hiss that Henry had to strain to hear, Jo continued, "I'm now guilty of withholding evidence and obstructing an ongoing investigation. So I let this case go cold. What about the next time? You know there'll be a next time. The mayor's already got his eye on my department. Do you think he's going to let us get away with leaving every Game-related case unsolved?" She dropped her gaze. "How long until someone notices a pattern?" She cast a furtive glance around the kitchen and out its main door, confirming that no one had sneaked in while they were talking, or was about to. "I did not sign up to become corrupt cop."

No, she hadn't. He didn't think she was capable of being corrupted—at least not by the usual motivators.

Tilting his head, Henry really looked at Jo for the first time in weeks—which was not to say that he'd stopped looking at her. He loved her, knew every line on her face and every twist of her hair; he could describe the angle of shadows her nose and cheekbones cast under every lighting level New York City offered them. He could read her mood in the slightest posture change and had learned all the connotations to her frowns and smiles. That was the problem. Sometimes, he knew, love could be its own blindness.

He'd known that letting her into his world would be hard, but he hadn't appreciated the burden it would place on her morality. He'd chosen to bring her into the world that his immortal friends lived in because he couldn't start lying to her again after finally getting to tell her the truth. Because he loved her. As much as he wanted to use the knowledge he'd gained over two hundred years to give her quick and simple answers to her questions, he couldn't. If anything, a long life had taught him that black and white answers were hard to come by.

Henry scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling the rasp of the stubble on his chin. "Jo, is this really a route you want to pursue? Drake was an Immortal. We have already learned the inefficacy of trying to judge their actions through standard law enforcement procedures."

Jo crossed to the table and planted her hands flat on the surface, leaning in. "Come on, Henry. You were there. You saw the body. Did Drake look like he was killed in a duel? Because last I checked, people didn't duel while relaxing on a park bench. Murder is a felony offense, no matter who does it: mortal or immortal. We have been over this topic, and I agreed to not raise a stink about your friends' past indiscretions, as long as they agreed to follow the laws the rest of us have to obey, or at least put on a convincing show of doing so. I can look the other way on the weapons violations and the identity fraud. I cannot look the other way on murder."

The microwave dinged and shut off; from inside, the newly cooked dish sizzled faintly. Jo started toward it like it was her lunch, then caught herself and swung back to hear Henry's response.

Henry only distantly noticed these details, he was so shocked by what she'd pointed out. He had seen Drake's body, both at the park and on his table. The Immortal's head had been cut off, rendering him completely dead. There was indisputable evidence of a Quickening. To him, that meant the Game had been played. He hadn't given any thought to the inconsistencies of the crime scene. Why hadn't he? Was he so consumed in waiting for Jo's answer that he wasn't giving due attention to his work? The possibility alarmed him.

At last, Henry managed a response that wouldn't condemn anyone. He could never admit what a basic blunder he'd made, yet he had made it. "Why don't you talk to Richie? Maybe he can offer some insight."

Jo's shoulders hunched like she was getting ready to argue, then relaxed again. "You know, that's not a bad idea." She straightened up and started toward the door, motioning for Henry to follow her. "You coming?"

As much as he wanted to, Henry didn't want her to think he was crowding her, and he didn't trust himself not to press her for an answer before she was ready to give one.

"I'm afraid my services are required at the OCME. Lt. Reece has presented me with a substantial to-do list." Standing up, he brushed the wrinkles from his trousers, and gave Jo a smile meant to ease the sting of his rejection. "Please do let me know what you learn." He hesitated, realizing how stilted he sounded, and tried again. "Would you call me tonight when you're home?"

Jo waited for him to catch up, then gave him a small kiss on the cheek. "I can't wait."