“Affirmative, 7140. Too short for a trace. Sounded like the voice distortion machine you can buy in any spy shop.”
“He’s watching my house.”
“It’s all clear out here. He may have seen you at Fountain Square or the symphony.”
Will set the radio back on the bedside table and pulled her close to him. She laid her head on his big chest and listened to his heart slowly stop its race. She could feel her own, whacking away under her sternum.
“He knows I’m a nurse,” she whispered.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry I got you into this.”
“You didn’t.” She liked it that he called her “baby.” She said, “He killed three of my students. For all I know, I was in this before you were.”
He stroked her hair and thought about that. Then: “Do you know how to handle a pistol?”
“My daddy taught me.”
“Good. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“I know.”
He started to speak again, but she held her hand against his cheek, “Now, hush,” gently, and they held each other, skin on skin from face to toes, the best feeling in the world, no matter what waited tomorrow, what waited outside the bricks of the wall. She felt a brave peace.
Saturday
Lieutenant Fassbinder called an all-hands meeting for ten. Everyone was fueling up on coffee and in a bad mood for being brought in on the weekend. Once again, Will was back on the fifth floor of 800 Broadway, sitting at his old desk. He was the only one not in a bad mood, and the reason, Cheryl Beth, was sitting in the waiting room.
“Ideas, people,” Fassbinder was saying, pacing a trench in the floor. His voice was businesslike, but his hands kept clenching and unclenching. “I need ideas. The brass are on me like white on rice and that means I’m going to be kicking every little turd from them right down on you. Ideas!”
“We need somebody with Cheryl Beth,” Dodds said.
Fassbinder stopped and gave Will a stare so filled with anger that no one would have been surprised if he had started foaming at the mouth. “I think Borders has that covered. Don’t you, Detective Borders.”
Dodds persisted. “Starting Monday, she’s going to be back on the job. She’s a target. Do you want me to replay…”
“No, I don’t want you to replay the goddamned recording. We’ve heard it five times.” Fassbinder stalked to Dodds’ desk and rapped his fist on it. “Do you know how much overtime this is costing?”
“The chief said we could have unlimited overtime,” Will said.
Fassbinder fixed him with the suppressed homicidal look again. “Well, your friend the chief doesn’t cut me that kind of slack, Borders. My old man wasn’t killed in the line of duty. I don’t limp with a fucking cane. It’s a week since Gruber’s death and we don’t have shit. That’s the world I live in. The only thing Covington has is your goddamned son as a person of interest.