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“I knew and I did not make it my business until it was on the floor in front of me.”

Pell leans back. The coat stays on. “Lauren Brooks?”

Lo. The name sits wrong in this room. “Lo,” I say.

“She was found Wednesday?”

“Yes.”

“You were in the other building Thursday?”

“Yes. A merger. Hale and Ellison. Different building. I was there most of the day. I drove home from there. I was home when Ivy called.”

“Can anyone confirm you were home?”

“No. I live alone.”

Ortiz writes that down too. I watch him do it.

“Kit Mori,” Pell says. “Last in the building on purpose. Thirty-six. Copy room. Same as Brennan in some ways. Not in others. Ivy Chen walks in on him. Then she runs. Then she dies in your stairwell. You heard it. You own the stairwell. You own the copy room. You own the file room on nineteen. You own the phones. Tuesday it was Noah Brennan. All of it in your building. All of it on floors you own.”

“I own the building, yes. But I did not kill any of these people.”

“Someone wants us to think you are in it,” she says. “Or someone wants you to think you are special. Which is it?”

“Both.”

That is the first thing I have said that makes Ortiz stop writing.

They take me through it again.

What time I left Tuesday. What I drank. Who I spoke to. Whether Noah’s door was open when I went down. Why I did not shut it. What the caller said about nineteen. Whether I recognized the voice. Whether it was Rafe. Whether it could have been a woman. Whether the mask Ivy described looks like anything we have used at an office party.

I say I do not know.

I say it more than once.

I hate how true it is.

They ask about Dev. Badges. Cameras. The lights in the file room. Why nineteen was never watched all the way. I tell them Dev will answer that better than I will.

They ask about Marcus. The photographs. Why an investigator is packing pictures at that hour. I tell them that is his job. I tell them he was at the lift with a folder when I took the stairs. Phone in his pocket. Not in his hand.

They ask about Rafe again. Where he was tonight. I do not know. I have not seen him since they sat me in this room. I do not ask if they have him down the hall. I can guess.

They ask about Ivy. Why she was coming to the building at almost midnight. I tell them Kit. I tell them that their fling was no secret on this floor.

“She called because she had found Kit. After that it was the stairs and her breathing and saying someone was behind her. She tried to tell me it was someone from the building.”

“She named the killer?” Pell says.

“No.”

“You were on the phone?”

“She started to. She only managed to tell me that it was someone from the building. Someone she knew. Then she stopped. After that I heard the rest of it. She did not give me a name.”

“Convenient.”