And never in the same spot. Mark had never returned to any of the other sites where NightWhere had been held, but he decided to drive back to the first one, down on Riverside Avenue in the South Loop. He knew he could get back there easily—it wasn’t too far off the expressway. Maybe there’d be some kind of clue there. What kind of clue that might be, he didn’t know. All he did know was that he was grasping at straws. An hour later, Mark was walking down the cracked sidewalk of Riverside, noting how much more run-down the area looked in the light than it had at night when he’d walked with Rae here. The door to the place was unlocked. He stepped inside, and the room stretched out ahead, long and empty. There was no furniture, and the industrial, grey carpet was stained with brown circles in a variety of places. Looking up, it was easy to see why. The white panels of the drop ceiling were also stained in rusty circles. The roof leaked, and nobody was here to care. He walked through the place and saw the crumpled, yellowed sleeves of used condoms here and there in the corners.
