It is dark at the top of the stairs.

He keeps climbing.

The door opens onto a hallway, its linseed lineolum flooring warped and curled. Four doors open off the hallway, two on either side. He opens the first door. There is an office beyond, nothing in it but a mouse’s nest and some chewed-on newspapers.

He looks in the second office. It has a heavy metal desk in it. There is a window that looks over the factory floor, but it is covered with plywood.

There is a woman in the third office.

Ryan jumps when he sees her, slamming back against the door with a rattling thud. She is sitting with her back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling as if expecting it to do something. There is a look on her face, a look that is both empty and full, like she is thinking very deep thoughts about nothing.

“Jesus,” he whispers, his heart pounding in his throat. “Who the hell are you?”

She drops her oil-colored eyes and looks at him, not blinking. She is, Ryan notices, as far from beautiful as a woman can get. She is shaped like a bell; her ass is immense, her waist lumpy, her shoulders strangely narrow. Her breasts poke out through her too-tight tank-top, and they’re small and hard and probably sour, like unripe persimmons. Her arms are thick with muscle.

“Winnie,” she says, lifting a hand. In it, there is a bottle of vodka. She takes a swig of this and holds the bottle toward him.

Squatter, he thinks, with a mixture of disgust and glee. The first secret to be stripped, the first boil to be lanced. He knows how to deal with squatters.

“You’re going to have to leave.” His voice is firm and unshaking, full of money.