Page 3 of The Writer

The train grows louder. The pipe, the concrete, the air—all come alive with the vibration of it.

Maybe twenty seconds out now.

Declan has very few memories of his father. He was only seven when he died in a construction accident over on Forty-First. One that wouldn’t have happened if the foreman hadn’t been pushing everyone to put in double hours to hit some ridiculous deadline nobody gave two shits about all these years later. His father lost his footing—that’s what they told him and his mother. Would he have slipped if he hadn’t been on fifteen straight hours? Not his father. No fucking way. Declan can barely picture the man’s face anymore, but his voice… his father’s voice, that thick Irish brogue—it’s as clear today as it was when Declan was a kid.

You don’t run from your problems, boy. You grab ’em by the fucking throat.

“Pops, you don’t know.”

A drop of blood falls from his hand, hits Declan’s cheek. He wipes it away and catches a glimpse of the small tattoo on the skin between his thumb and forefinger:MM.

“Sometimes you dig a hole and there’s no climbing back out.”

Lights visible now.

The train just beyond the tunnel bend.

Ten seconds.

Every muscle in Declan’s body goes tense. His fingertips are electric. Every sound, smell, and color are amplified.

Seven.

When the train rounds the corner, it’s moving so fast it has no business staying on the tracks, but somehow it does. Sparks fly. There’s a harsh screech. Declan’s eyes find the engineer and a moment later the engineer spots him, and for that quick instant, their gazes lock. Declan tells himself he looks stoic, hard. Resolved. But in truth, he can’t hide his fear any more than the engineer can.

Three.

The world slows.

The engineer reaches for the emergency brake. His fingers curl around it. But he doesn’t pull. They both know it’s too late for that.

Two.

Declan closes his eyes.

“Sorry, Pops.”

One.

CHAPTER THREE

DECLAN’S PHONE RINGS.

In the instant it takes for his brain to process that, the train screams by at a mind-bending speed followed by a rush of air that nearly sucks him from the platform in a whirlwind of dust. It’s his grip on the pipe that keeps him from tumbling over the edge and maybe under the ass end of one of the cars, maybe not, certainly not into the sweet spot at the train’s nose, and that deduction—which he comes to in a millisecond—is enough for Declan to push off from the pipe, swing back, and drop awkwardly to the ground against a support pillar.

The train vanishes.

The sound fades.

Drenched in sweat, Declan sucks in a sharp breath. Everyfiber of his body is screaming. Protesting. This isn’t the first time he’s tried to jump tonight, it’s the fourth, and he knows the next train will arrive in under seven minutes. He’ll regroup and get it right. Declan is many things, but a failure isn’t one of them.

His phone gives another shrill ring and vibrates in his pocket. He fumbles it out and glances at the display—his partner, Jarod Cordova.

Declan clicks Decline.

At sixty, Cordova is twenty-four years older than Declan and three short years from forced retirement. While most cops slip into low gear for this phase of their career, Cordova seems to view the ticking clock as some sort of personal challenge—how many jackets can he close before they slap an imitation-gold Apple watch on his wrist and buy him a one-way ticket to Boca Raton? Because their current workload isn’t enough for him, he’s gotten in the habit of taking cold-case files home and working them in his spare time. These late-night calls usually mean he’s at his kitchen table elbow-deep in yellowed paperwork and wants to talk something out.

Nope.

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