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“No.”

“Then I want my phone. I want my keys. I want to leave this room.”

She almost smiles. She does not. “Stay in town. Do not go back to thirty-six. Do not go into the stairs. Do not call Ortega and get your stories straight. If that number rings again, you do not play it like a secret. You bring it here.”

“I want my phone.”

“You will get it.”

They make me wait anyway. The sky outside the glass is still night. Halloween is already on the calendar. It does not feel like a party. It feels like a clock.

Ortiz brings the bag. My phone. My keys. Pell watches my face when the screen lights. No new call. Only what is already there.

“Mr. Preswood?” Pell says at the door. “The caller told Ivy to make you listen. That is what you said.”

“Yes.”

“Then this is not finished.”

“No,” I say. “It is not.”

They walk me out the same way I came in. Lobby. Tape. People who do not work for me, standing in my building. I do not look at thirty-six. I do not look at the stairs. I go to my car because it is the only door they have left me.

The bay is cold. My hands shake when I unlock it. I sit. I shut the door. I do not start the engine straight away. I put my forehead on the wheel and breathe until I can feel my own name again.

The phone lights.

Unknown.

I should take it inside. I should put it on Pell’s table and let her listen. I do not. I answer because Ivy is dead in a stairwell I own and the last time I hung up, someone still died.

“What?”

The close voice is already against my ear. Soft. Sure. Like a mouth on the other side of the glass.

“You stayed in that room a long time,” it says. “I liked watching you sit still. I liked your hands on the table. I liked that you did not give them my words. Those are mine. Say it.”

“I am not playing with you.”

“But you are. You answered. It’s Halloween, Mr. Preswood. Officially. It’s going to be a fucking bloodbath. Someone else is going to die tonight and you are going to listen while I decide if they get a chance.”

My stomach drops. I look at the building. Lights. Tape. No one running. Not yet.

“If this is about me, leave them. Come here.”

A tap on the phone. Soft. The same tap I have heard since Tuesday.

“Don’t scream. Kiss me.”

I do not kiss the phone. I hate that my mouth opens anyway.

“You want them alive, you do what I say. All of it. You argue, I cut. You hang up, I cut. You walk back to that woman in the coat, I cut and I send you the piece. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Good boy. That’s the first honest thing you’ve said since you put your jacket on Noah.”

Heat goes through me wrong. Not safe. Not wanted. My body still hears the voice and answers it like a dirty call I did not ask for.