The call came in just after dawn.
A floater in the river - standard report, nothing fancy. But Rhodes's voice on the line was different. Flat, deliberate.
"Pierce," he said. "South Branch, under the Canal Street bridge. Bring gloves and an open mind."
By the time Alice got there, the place was crawling with uniforms. The smell hit first - brine, rot, and gasoline mixed into something that clung to your teeth. She ducked under the tape, flashing her badge more out of habit than necessity.
Detective Navarro, young, sharp, and still too clean, met her at the scene. "You're Pierce, right? Captain said this one's for you."
"Lucky me," she said, squatting beside the tarp-covered shape. "What've we got?"
Navarro pulled it back. The body was male, mid-thirties, swollen from the river. The eyes were open - glassy, fixed on nothing. The left hand was missing three fingers, cleanly severed.
Alice frowned. "Ritual?"
"Maybe," Navarro said. "Or someone sending a message."
"Any ID?"
He held up a wallet in a plastic bag. "Driver's license says Jonas Reed."
The name hit her like a punch to the gut.
Jonas - the dock worker from Pier 21. The one she'd promised wouldn't go to jail. The one who'd told her about the Broker.
She forced her face neutral. "Witnesses?"
"Homeless guy found him floating around 5 a.m. Didn't see who dumped him. Said he heard a van around three."
Alice nodded, eyes scanning the body again. The cut on his fingers wasn't random - surgical precision, deliberate spacing. Not torture. Punishment.
"Anything on him besides the wallet?"
Navarro hesitated. "Yeah. This." He handed her a small object in an evidence bag.
It was a pendant. A circle with three slashes. The same as the one sitting in her apartment.
Alice's jaw tightened. "Where'd you find this?"
"Hooked on his jacket zipper."
She slipped the bag into her pocket before anyone noticed. "Catalogue everything and send me the report when you've got it. I'll handle the follow-up."
Navarro nodded, relieved to pass the weight upward.
By the time she straightened up, Rhodes was there - hands in pockets, eyes sharp despite the morning haze.
"Pierce," he said. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Just another night in paradise," she replied.
He looked past her to the corpse. "Missing fingers. You thinking cartel, or something more home grown?"
"Hard to say. Could be a debt marker. Could be a warning."
He studied her for a moment - the way she avoided his gaze, the twitch in her jaw. "You knew this guy?"
"I've met him. Informant, maybe."
"Maybe?"
She exhaled, the lie forming slow and clean. "He worked the docks. Said he'd heard chatter about some smuggling routes. Nothing solid."
Rhodes didn't buy it, not entirely. "You keep bringing me bodies from the river, Pierce. You sure you're not fishing with dynamite?"
She almost smiled. "Whatever gets results."
He grunted, then looked toward the water. "You ever notice how the river always gives back what it's owed? Doesn't matter how deep you throw it."
There was something in his tone - not a threat, but a warning dressed as wisdom.
Alice followed his gaze. The current was slow, dark, patient.
"Take a break," he said finally. "You're running on fumes. Go home, rest. Let Navarro and the others process this one."
"I'm fine."
"That wasn't a request."
Their eyes met - hers sharp, his tired but steady.
"You're a good cop," Rhodes said quietly. "But lately, you're not looking at the crime, you're looking for something in it. And I don't like what that does to my detectives."
He turned before she could answer, leaving her with the smell of rot and gasoline and a truth she couldn't argue.
When he was gone, Alice crouched again beside the tarp. Her hand slipped into her pocket, fingers brushing the plastic bag that held the pendant.
Jonas Reed hadn't lied. The Broker was real. And now, so was the price of getting close.