Free Brothers and Bones by James Hankins

was, so I could begin to really focus on the Redekov trial, like I should have been doing all along.
    There were other people on the streets that night, of course, folks I felt it would be safer not to make eye contact with, and I’d had a few tense moments when I thought I might soon find a broken bottle at my throat, but the later it got, the more I had the streets to myself.
    After a few hours I’d covered a lot of ground, having wound my way past countless dead, featherless ducks hanging in shop windows and into the heart of Chinatown. I was getting tired and close to calling it a night when I saw him. Or thought I did. He was on a street corner a block away, hunched over a trash can, sifting through its contents. He found something he deemed worth pocketing, then walked away. I watched him for a second before following.
    He turned at the next corner, moving faster than I thought at first, with deceptively long strides, and I hurried to keep up with him. When I reached the corner, he was already turning into an alley halfway down the block. I broke into a jog and reached the mouth of the alley a moment later. Through the darkness I saw him nearing the other end, moving with surprising fluidity, almost gliding through the shadows, then he turned down what must have been an adjoining alley. Before he vanished from view, I could have sworn he shot a glance my way.
    To my shame, I hesitated. Entering that alley, as black as it was and dripping with shadows, seemed like a rotten idea. Following this guy, who might not even have been the man I was looking for, down dark alleys in a dangerous, unfamiliar part of town, seemed insane. But the homeless guy in the Harvard sweatshirt might have been my last chance to find out what happened to Jake. If there was a possibility the man I just saw was him—and even the slightest chance that the man, against all odds, actually was Jake—then I simply had no choice.
    I stepped into the darkness and moved quickly down the alley, eyes straight ahead, avoiding the shadows pressing in all around, like a six-year-old kid who believed that pulling the covers over my head would keep the monster in the dark corner of the room from getting to me.
    I reached the end of the alley and turned right. This time I saw only a swish of fabric—it looked like the tail of an overcoat—disappear down another side alley. After coming this far, I had no intention of losing him, so I broke into a run. I skidded around the next corner into yet another alley—shadow-drenched, filled with dark shapes and plenty of hiding places. Then up ahead I saw a flash of movement as the homeless man slipped around yet another corner.
    And so it went, with the guy somehow staying just ahead of me no matter how fast I ran. Up ahead I could hear his footsteps, an occasional sound of a bottle or piece of trash being inadvertently kicked, the scrape of a shoe. But I couldn’t catch him. Man, that guy could move when he wanted to.
    Meanwhile, without realizing it, I’d become hopelessly lost in a labyrinth of deserted streets and alleys. Once or twice I thought I’d lost the homeless man, only to find myself suddenly on his heels again. I was getting tired and starting to slow. Fortunately, he seemed to be as well. After a while, we were walking most of the time, with a periodic jogging dash here or there. Every now and then I’d get a glimpse of my quarry and, I thought, every now and then he stole a glimpse of me.
    I was leaning against the corner of a building, spending a few precious seconds to catch a much-needed breath, when I heard his footsteps suddenly quicken. They began to fade away faster than I would have imagined they could. I broke into a panicked run, fearing my last chance was slipping away from me. When I turned the next corner I found myself in a litter-strewn alley, much like the others I’d been touring all night. But this one had several offshoots. I stopped and listened. The footsteps ahead of me