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SLOANE STOPPED BYTHE City Brew that morning for a cup of black coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Her mother was stocked to the brink with every flavor of coffee imaginable, but not just a plain black brew, and she didn't plan on getting it now for her daughter either. Sloane had to make do with the coffee shop down the street.
She exited the City Brew with a fresh to-go cup of coffee and headed back to the Rosewell for some much-needed writing time. She had wanted to spruce up the coffee with the nip she thought was in her jacket pocket, but alas, she must've drank it already. Oh, well. Her gloved hands stayed warm around the hot cup, but eventually, one had to abandon the precious heat when her phone started ringing. Sloane clumsily pulled it from her purse and answered it on the last ring, not bothering to look at the caller ID. "Hello?"
"Bernstein," Bobby greeted groggily, "long time, no talk."
Sloane took a sip of her coffee and crossed a busy street, earning a few horns from some angry taxi drivers. "You sound like you just woke up."
"That obvious, huh?" He sighed heavily. "What's going on?"
She could tell from the edge in his tone that he wanted to know where she'd gotten in the Spider-Man search. He needed to learn some subtlety. "Is that code for, 'Did you find Spider-Man?'" She laughed and ungracefully pulled her parka's collar up when a frigid breeze blew past her. "I planned on calling you sometime today to tell you. I was able to get ahold of him."
"You did?" Bobby asked, flabbergasted. "I'll be honest, I didn't have a lot of faith that you could find him."
"Wow, thanks."
"It's nothing personal. You're just not good with that shit. Anyway, how'd you find him? Was he swinging around a building late at night? Saving some cat from a tree?"
Sloane snorted. "He's basically a retired old man, Bobby. He's not doing any of that shit." She took a sip of coffee and slipped past a woman with a baby stroller on the narrow sidewalk. The Rosewell was just down the street. "Let's just say I know a guy who knows him. Somehow, I got the easy way out."
