As I sat on the one divan, fiddling nervously with the key he'd lifted from Josh's room to get us in here, he strolled along the walls, admiring the rows and rows of artwork by the dim light of the one lamp we had dared to turn on. He'd risked everything sneaking into Josh's police-taped dorm to get this thing, and later he'd have to risk it again to sneak it back in so that the cops wouldn't notice it was missing. Yet there he was, his hands clasped behind his back as he strolled, like he was checking out a new SoHo gallery, instead of waiting for his dead best friend's brother to show up under false pretenses he'd concocted, after which he'd have to go back to his dorm and break the law. Again. "What if he doesn't come?" I asked. My heart was pounding in my bones. My skull throbbed. My fingers were moist. I was a PingPong ball of nerves. He leaned in closer to an abstract painting, inspecting the signature. Infuriatingly composed. "He'll come." "But what if he doesn't?" I clutched the key.
