Chapter 2The safe house wasn’t a house per se but a small apartment on the top floor of a nine-story building in a middle-class neighborhood. It wasn’t anything special as far as the furnishings went—a mismatched sofa and armchair facing a low bookcase with a decent sized TV on top, a small table and two chairs in one corner of the living room, and a full-sized bed and a dresser in the bedroom. The kitchen, off the living area, held older appliances that Ben would have sneered at a year ago. Now, he was happy to have the use of them—and the decent bathroom.
“Not exactly what you were used to, I’m sure,” Ray said once Ben had looked around.
“Let’s put it this way,” Ben replied. “Compared to how I’ve been living recently, it’s a palace. Compared to what I had before the s**t hit the fan, y
