Page 12 of Spade

“I just need eyes,” I said.

He scrolled through endless hours of cars, trucks, and the odd lost RV, timestamp spinning in the upper corner. The clock read 10:54 when a gray Honda Accord slid into frame, lane three. The car didn’t stop for gas. It just rolled past the pumps and turned toward the highway. There was a woman in the driver’s seat, alone. Her face was washed out by the glare, just a smudge of pale and a line of dark hair tied up behind her head. But the posture got me: hands on ten and two, eyes forward, the set of her jaw hard enough to be visible through the blur.

“Back it up,” I said.

He did, irritation baked into the click of every key. We watched the segment three more times, frame by frame. The Honda’s plates weren’t readable, but the make and the year matched the one in the Fremont still. The shadow on the left rear panel was the same: a scrape or a dent, maybe five inches long. I tapped the screen, more for my own benefit than his.

“Can you email me this?” I asked.

The man scowled, then shrugged. “Don’t get paid for tech support,” he said, but he opened a mail client and punched in the address I wrote on a sticky note. I watched the file upload and ping my inbox, then closed the laptop with a soft click. I left the ten, and walked out with the same slow, methodical pace the woman in the Accord had used to exit the frame.

The lot was empty except for a faded Silverado idling by the air pump, windows up and music throbbing. I got into my own car and locked the doors, then pulled out the two printouts from this morning—one from the alley behind Fremont, one from the ATM camera across the street from the second body. Both images were grainy, full of artifacts and ghosting, but the car was always there: gray Accord, battered, inconspicuous.

I opened the email on my phone and stared at the gas station screenshot. Even with the pixels fighting me, I could see what mattered. It wasn’t the color or the make or the dent. It was the way she looked straight ahead, ignoring everything except the road, as if being seen was a risk she’d already accounted for. Some part of me recognized the discipline, the refusal to make a mistake when you were being watched.

I lined up the three images on my steering wheel: the ATM still, the alley, the gas station. Same car, or close enough. Same woman, or close enough. I sat there, phone in hand, until the glass fogged with my own breath and I could feel the numbness working up my fingers.

Through the window, the gas station attendant watched me for a while, then turned away, satisfied I wasn’t about to start something. He didn’t understand the kind of stillness that settles in when you’re close—when the hypothetical turns flesh, and you can finally see the outline of the thing you’re hunting.

I didn’t have a name yet. But I had a pattern, and a vehicle, and a woman who didn’t fit any of the databases but would, soon. I had the kind of certainty that made you skip meals and sleep with your phone on your chest.

I put the car in gear and waited for the next move.

5

Spade

The knife waited on the nightstand, catching the lamplight just so. No point pretending it wasn’t part of why I was there. The rest of the room was bare: a mattress on the floor, one flat pillow, gray sheets that still smelled like the plastic packaging. I liked his apartment because it looked like he’d moved in an hour ago and didn’t plan to stay long. No photos, no books, just the essentials. The kind of place you could leave in a hurry.

“Come on, baby,” he pleaded, his hands on my hips, keeping me in place. I wasn’t planning on leaving. At least not yet.

“You gotta have patience, love.” Right. He was a fucking man and only had one thing on his mind—shooting his load and taking a nap. “There you go,” I said, moving around on his cock.

“Faster. Come on, move faster.”

Such an asshole.

His fingers dug deeper, trying to force a rhythm he couldn’t keep. I shifted again and set the pace with my thighs, forearms braced against his chest, ink on my skin pressed to the bare scrub of his. His body was tense and sweet, muscles straining under the old bruises I’d left last time. He liked to be marked, or at least he told himself he did. It was a good story, so I played along.

“I wanna play,” I said.

“Whatever. Just don’t stop.”

I grabbed his chin. “Don’t you fucking come yet. Don’t do it.”

He knocked my hand away. “Fuck that,” he said.

He arched up, chasing me with his pelvis, gasping like he’d just realized he was allowed to make noise. I kept my face blank, eyes fixed on his, giving him nothing. Not pleasure, not approval, not even the illusion of control. His mouth made shapes around my name, tried to say it, and swallowed the syllables, turning it into a guttural noise. I bit the inside of my cheek and watched the lamplight stutter off the edge of the blade.

“Oh shit,” he moaned. “Hell yeah.”

“You know what happens if you come too early, Eric. Don’t do it!”

I let him get close. Let him think he was in charge, even as I steered everything: the way he moved, the pace, the temperature in the room. I liked the feeling of sweat pooling between us, liked the sharp sting when he pinched the flesh above my ass, liked the tang of his breath as it got more ragged. There was nothing romantic in it. Just bodies doing what they were wired to do.

“Jesus,” he said, voice raw. “Harder.”

I smiled with my teeth. “You sure?”