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“Hang on.”

Beyond the kiosk, a tall blonde in a long dress emerged from the building. She looked to be in her thirties, and moved quickly toward the SUV. When the passenger reached his arm out the window, she handed him a thick envelope. Then the blonde blew a kiss, smiled and waved, and turned back toward the building.

“Okay, finally we’re going!” the driver said.

As he began taking his foot off the brake, he quickly checked the mirror on his door for traffic—and saw a black Porsche 911 fast approaching with its right-turn signal blinking.

“Shit!” he said, pressing hard on the brake pedal.

The Porsche’s horn briefly sounded twice, then the car cut across his front bumper and went up the drive, pulling in behind the Escalade.

The SUV began to circle the fountain at the top of the drive.

The van driver checked his mirror again and saw a line of four cars.

“Aw, come on . . .”

—

“While that might be a valid point, Chad, right now I really don’t give a damn what my doctor says,” Matt Payne said, steering the 911 into the just vacated spot in front of the valet kiosk. He was talking on his smartphone via the Porsche’s audio system, the device plugged into the car’s USB port. “The incision where they worked fixing the bullet damage still oozes a little, mostly around the sutures, but I’m getting better.”

Payne was a lithely muscled twenty-seven-year-old who stood six-foot and a solid one-seventy-five. He had deep, intelligent eyes and dark, thick hair that he kept clipped short. He wore a white, long-sleeved knit polo shirt and khakis, with brown suede chukka boots and a navy fleece jacket.

Under the jacket, a Colt .45 ACP Officers Model semiautomatic pistol hung beside his left bicep from a leather shoulder holster. A bifold wallet held his Philadelphia Police Department ID card and badge.

“I’m really on Amanda’s shit list right now,” Payne went on. “If I’m going to surprise her with this condo that just got put on the market, I’ve got to do this meeting now—before someone goes and leases the damn thing out from under me. Then I can just get the rest of my stuff that wouldn’t fit in Amanda’s out of my place around the corner.”

To meet a City of Philadelphia requirement that members of the police department reside within the city limits, Payne had been paying his father a pittance to live in a tiny apartment in the garret of a brownstone overlooking Rittenhouse Square. The mansion, which had been in the Payne family since being built one hundred fifty years earlier, had had its three lower floors converted to modern office space and now housed the Delaware Valley Cancer Society.

Watching the valet trot over to his door, Payne put the Porsche’s stick shift in neutral and reached between the seats and pulled up on the hand brake. He left he engine running.

“I’ve got to go. Call you later,” he said.

He broke off the connection by tapping the icon on the in-dash multifunction screen, then unplugged the phone from its cradle in the console.

The valet pulled the door open and assumed the erect stance.

“Welcome back, Mr. Payne,” she said.

He stepped out of the vehicle, wincing at the sharp pain from the wound.

The valet noticed.

“Are you all right, sir?” she said, her facial expression one of genuine concern.

“Yeah, fine. Melody, right? Thanks for asking. Indigestion, I think.”

He smiled at her—then, hearing the squeal of tires spinning behind him, jerked his head toward the street.

Payne saw that the white panel van he had just passed was racing away from the curb, an orange traffic cone flying off its front bumper. And, a moment later, he watched it screech to a dead stop in front of the Cadillac Escalade, which was approaching the brick drive’s exit, about to pull onto the street.

The Escalade, its path now blocked, also s

creeched to a stop.

Payne then saw a chromed door in the side of the van swinging open. A black tube poked out of the hole.

What the hell?