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“Stop! I don’t know you. I don’t want charity. I just don’t...” His eyes panned wildly around the room before focusing on my face again. “No more talk, okay? I’m through with talking. When I wanted to talk, everybody blew me off, so let’s not say anything. I won’t bother you, if you won’t bother me, and oh, what a quiet, pleasant place this place will always be. And that way you’ll also be safe. Probably.” He gestured with the pistol. “I make no guarantees.”

My gaze followed his to Kirsten’s apartment door, and only then did I notice the ominous nailpoints, four of them, protruding like spikes from the opposite side.

“Cathy Lindner—”

“Shut up!” The pain in his face matched the anguish in his voice, and so I relented. Instead I checked the interior of my purse again to make absolutely certain that the handle of the target pistol was as I wished, then I sat back in the chair and looked at my watch, wondering how much longer it might be before R. J. came hunting for me. Or the girl Kirsten decided to come back. Or something else happened.

In any event, my only logical recourse was to wait. As my husband might have said, had he been present, When you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything.

STEVE CARR:

Well — it was a minute after five that the telephone rang, and to be honest, it wasn’t a minute too soon. Seven hours with Cathy Lindner, mostly spent by both of us trying to keep up a hopeful pose, was taking its toll, more on her than me since she was the real sufferer, not only being so anxious about her cousin, but also trying to step outside for as few cigarettes as possible as a gesture to me.

I learned a lot about her in those seven hours: She was twenty-two; she was of German and Norwegian descent; she was a late, only child, a Lutheran, a full partner in the family construction business with her father and mother; she was the company’s unlicensed practical architect. Not currently going out with anyone, not currently having much fun, not seeing much of her old high school and community college friends, not making new ones. Exasperated by Jason, worried to death by Jason, full of guilt about her recent treatment of Jason, hurt pretty deeply by Jason’s earlier blasé treatment of her. Confused by Jason.

By the time the phone rang I was basically fed up with hearing about it all, since it was hard for me to find points of empathy. I got along fine with my own sister, for instance, if Jason was like a brother to her. And the girl I was secretly holding out for was just that, a secret, so if Cathy loved Jason in more than a sisterly way, I wasn’t about to exchange confidences.

“Hello?”

“Steve — it’s Dad. Your mother isn’t there, is she?”

“No. Didn’t she—”

“She dropped me at the police station and went over to Martin Street to try to question the other girl. She was going to be back here by four fifteen. I think... the body in the car definitely wasn’t Harnisch’s, first of all, so I think—”

“He’s got her!”

“Well — I think we need to get to Martin Street anyway, both of us. Can you borrow Cathy’s car? Or, no — she’d better come too.”

The one thing you should never ever do is panic. The case was turning into a proving ground of all of Dad’s professional wisdom, it seemed like, and the reasoned calm in his voice made me think of this favorite axiom as I tried to hold down my sudden fear. “We’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said.

I tossed Cathy her coat from where it lay across the back of my desk chair, then explained what had happened, as much as I knew, while I hustled her ahead of me out to her Cherokee. After that we sped along the dark streets, Cathy driving and puffing at a cigarette with the window wide open while I told her about the charred body in the car fire and the nail in its head. She didn’t have to be shielded from that particular uncertainty anymore, since Jason was alive.

Or alive, at least, until I got my hands on him if he’d done anything to Mom — that’s what I was thinking privately.

At the police station, Dad climbed in the seat behind us saying, “Let’s go,” and Cathy burned rubber pulling out into traffic. She was upset but being very quiet. It wasn’t far to Martin Street, and when we got there Dad’s Chevy was sitting right in front, so he and I got out while Cathy parked farther up the block. Then Dad stepped back to the trunk of the car and dug around in the dark for a minute; he’d only just pocketed the pistol he kept hidden there as Cathy came hurrying up beside us. From there we waded snow on up to the building entrance, with Dad in charge all the way. While panic was as far from his manner as hilarity, he was what you might call intent on the job. “Follow my lead, you two,” was all he said, “and be quiet.”

In the foyer he didn’t even look at the bell buttons but went straight to the locked double doors, where he kneeled down with a little pocket tool out. It wasn’t fifteen seconds until I heard the latch snap open. “The girl you talked to, Steve — lead the way.”

At the door to Liz Clarke’s apartment Dad knocked, then stood back and said to me, “Get her to open the door.” How he knew she’d be there I didn’t figure out until a few seconds later, just about the time I heard Liz’s voice saying from a distance, “Who is it?”

“Steve Carr. I was here this morning, remember? I need to ask you a couple of things.”

“Oh. Just a sec.” There were various muted sounds, then the door drew in enough for Liz to poke her head through. That was when Dad crashed it wide open and stepped past her, saying, “Ms. Clarke, I’m Steve’s father. The young lady there is Jason’s cousin Cathy. We need to talk to Kirsten right now, so if you won’t bring her out, I’ll have to.”

Liz was dressed in slacks and a sweater this time and had makeup on, which made her look older, maybe late twenties. I felt young and a little stupid, having guessed dead wrong about who she was hiding in the bedroom. It was Kirsten — not Jason, the way I’d theorized. Anyway, before Liz could answer, a girl in a fatigue-print jumpsuit stepped through the doorway to the sitting room holding the kitten against her with one arm and gripping a beer bottle in the opposite hand.

I’d stepped to the side when we barged in, so I could see the look Cathy Lindner gave her as she approached and the look she gave back. The two of them didn’t look that much alike — Kirsten was taller and older and had dark hair and eyes — but each one held herself the same, and they had similar faces and expressions, or they did when Cathy wasn’t staring Kirsten down.

“Well?” Kirsten addressed Dad in a tone that sounded to me more than slightly buzzed.

“Why are you hiding out?”

“I’m scared.” She raised the kitten up and kissed its head. “We’re scared, aren’t we, Tig?”

“Why?”

I stepped close and grabbed the cat away. “Look. It’s important. Someone else is in danger besides you.”

“Oh.” She fell back a step. “I... well, I... came in late, like, you know, last night? And there were, like, these nails pounded through my door, and I thought, omigod, Jason’s pissed because I didn’t go to his stupid car fire! And so I grabbed the cat and ran down here to good old Liz—”

“The good old sucker,” muttered Liz.

“Then you haven’t actually seen Jason?” Dad asked.

“I’ve heard him!”

“She’d been listening at the door,” Liz said in a dubious tone.

“I know how he walks, and I’ve heard him! He went down the stairs and back up — so he’s up there!” She pointed upward toward the back of the building. “He’s got a passkey. You know he does!”

“Then why, for God’s sake, haven’t you called the police?” Dad asked.