KEVIN STOOD UNSTEADILY UNDER A FAILING LIGHT fixture in the hallway outside his apartment. He always locked his door. Always. But it was possible that he forgot one lock this time, wasn't it? Both upper locks were set, including the deadbolt. So it was safe to go in, right? But what if somebody was waiting in there? That guy Angel from the building or one of the goons who'd pitched him out of the car?

Kevin rubbed his forehead with his good hand. He tried to remember leaving his apartment, but that was before he got drunk and stoned and thrown out of a car and sent to the hospital, and he couldn't picture it. He was shivering now, even though he'd been out of the cold for several minutes. He could barely move. Even getting back to the elevator would be a monumental task.

So he picked up the hospital bag, turned the handle, and pushed open the door.

Feeble light from the hall leaked into the room over a collage of blacks and grays, the uneven angles of Kevin's life framed in shadow and set out in front of him like an old black-and-white photo. A distorted rectangle of sherbet-orange light stretched across the ceiling from the window facing the street.

Kevin flipped the light and blinked against the sudden saturation of color. The room came into focus: the couch, the armchair, and the coffee table, which was covered with the remnants of a takeout meal from earlier in the week. A stack of mail lay in a pile where he'd left it on the card table. A half-empty milk glass sat on the kitchen counter next to a crumpled napkin and a plastic fork. Everything was still and in its place.

With effort, Kevin limped around the corner into the bedroom. It was darker than the living room because the shade was closed, but his unmade bed sat quietly under the glow of his clock radio. Piles of clothes and stacks of art supplies lay on the dresser untouched. Kevin checked the bathrooms and the closets. Nothing was out of place.

OK, he told himself, everything’s fine.

But, as usual, he was missing the point. Everything wasn't fine. See, there was one place Kevin didn't look. To be fair, there was no reason why he would have. It was a horizontal gap between the ceiling and the top of the cabinets above his sink—too small to store anything, and too high up to be convenient anyway.

But if somebody came in to search the place... If they thought he was hiding something, let's say, stashing it away where he hoped no one would find it... Well, this would be one of the first places they'd check.

That was the genius of it, at least according to one Hector Amira. He had nothing against Kevin, but he needed an out, an insurance policy. If somebody was going to go down for murdering that woman last night it sure as hell wasn't going to be him. So Hector broke into the apartment and carefully placed a large manilla envelope in this exact spot. The contents of it, according to a certain work associate, had great sentimental value.