Chapter 1
IN HIS MEAGER bachelor apartment in Jacksonville, Florida, Steve Foster adjusted the camera on his phone.
He cleared his throat, channeling De Niro. He was doing it for his girlfriend, Sarah. She was his best audience—his only audience.
Through the paper-thin walls, he could hear his neighbor moving around. Johnny Taylor. A real outlaw type. Steve had met him a few times in the hall; the guy had eyes like shark glass. Usually, the only sounds coming from 3B were the thumps of passionate, erratic lovemaking.
Tonight, it was different.
Steve hit Record. "You talkin' to me?" he mugged at the lens. "I don't see anyone else here..."
Five minutes in, a shout from next door shattered his concentration.
"I told you!" A new voice. Deeper. Angry. "Stay away from her, Johnny!"
Steve froze. The phone kept recording.
"She’s mine," Johnny’s muffled voice shot back. "You don't own her."
"You touch her again, and I’ll put you in the ground!"
The argument escalated, voices overlapping in a crescendo of rage. Steve leaned toward the wall, heart hammering.
CRACK.
The sound was unmistakable. A gunshot.
"Oh, shit!" Steve yelled before he could catch himself.
Silence next door. The kind of heavy, suffocating silence that follows violence.
He heard me.
Panic seized him. Steve grabbed his phone and bolted for the door. He threw it open just as the door to 3B swung out.
A man stepped into the hallway. Tall, handsome, cold. Jack Harding.
Harding locked eyes with Steve. He didn't look scared; he looked calculating. His hand started to rise from his side.
"Hey!" Harding shouted.
Steve spun around, ready to sprint, but his legs felt like lead. He knew, with terrifying certainty, that he was about to die.
Suddenly, the stairwell door burst open. A young couple laughed their way into the corridor, carrying groceries. They froze, sensing the tension.
Harding hesitated. He lowered his hand, turning his face away from the light.
Steve didn't waste the miracle. He scrambled down the stairs, taking them two at a time, adrenaline pumping through his veins like battery acid. He didn't stop running until he reached Sarah’s apartment.
"You have to go to the police," Sarah said, her hands trembling as she watched the video on his phone.
"I don't want to get involved, Sarah. That guy... he saw me."
"Steve. You heard a gunshot. You have to."
He knew she was right.
An hour later, he sat across from Detective Larry Holcomb in the Robbery-Homicide unit. The air conditioning was too cold. Steve played the video.
The argument. The CRACK. The "Oh, shit!"
Holcomb didn't blink. "Show me."
They took an unmarked car back to the building. Steve waited in the hallway, sweating through his shirt, while Holcomb drew his weapon and entered 3B.
The detective found Johnny Taylor lying on the cheap carpet, a hole in his chest. A Glock 19 lay a few feet away, discarded like a wrapper.
Forensics swarmed the place. They bagged the gun, the casing, the fibers. They took prints. They ran DNA.
Back at the station, Steve sat with a sketch artist, describing the cold, handsome face of the man in the hallway.
"Like a movie star," Steve said. "But dead inside."
They ran the sketch. Nothing.
They ran the prints from the gun. Clean.
They ran the DNA. No match in the system.
Weeks turned into a month. The lead went cold. The file on Johnny Taylor began to gather dust on Holcomb’s desk.
And three thousand miles away, Jack Harding drove his convertible past the "Welcome to California" sign, the Florida humidity a distant memory. He adjusted his sunglasses, checking his face in the rearview mirror.
It was time for a close-up.
