She knew immediately what he was looking for. “How long have you been doing this?” she said.
“Since I moved in. Since the bomber singled you out as the one he wanted to kill first, I realized what a good habit it is, so I do it more often.”
“I think he tried for me because I’m a woman.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I humiliated him when I blocked his rifle shots at Elliot and Crowell with the truck. The only other person he targeted personally was Gloria Hedlund, also a woman. With everybody else it was just a matter of who answered a particular emergency call, something he couldn’t predict.”
“He doesn’t seem to like women much.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Hines said.
“And I’ll bet women don’t think much of him, either,” said Stahl.
“No, but I’m probably not the most objective one to ask.”
Stahl said, “I think he’s living alone in someplace that’s remote enough to test explosives and initiators. That would keep his social calendar kind of empty. Besides, it would be really hard to explain to another person what he’s doing with all the chemicals. What you have to remember is that he’s doing it voluntarily.”
“True,” she said. She watched the upscale houses glide by, all of them under big old trees at the back of green, closely trimmed lawns. The houses all sat at the ends of long driveways and had big garages, so there were very few cars parked on the streets in this area. The only multifamily building was Stahl’s condominium, the sort of place that was half submerged in its lawn, and had a modern look that made it seem more like an art installation than a dwelling. The parking was underground and invisible. “Looks clear tonight.”
“Agreed,” Stahl said. “I hope I didn’t make you feel nervous.”
“I’m not,” she said. “This is just another reason to stick to you like a suntan. Whenever I’m with you I feel safe. Let’s enter the confines of your paranoid palace.”
They stopped at the gate and drove inside while it closed behind them. They waited while the barred entry to the garage lifted to admit them. Just as Stahl pulled into the space beside Hines’s, his phone rang.
“Stahl,” he said.
“Hi, Dick. This is Bart Almanzo. My guys just finished watching all the video of the funeral today. I’m afraid nobody spotted the suspect. There was no face that had turned up on an earlier video.”
“You used the same officers who watched all of the other videos?”
“Yes. Even though by now almost everyone in Homicide has seen all of it. We’ll be getting more tape from businesses along the way, but we blanketed the cemetery with cameras, so it’s unlikely we missed anybody.”
“Sorry to hear it,” Stahl said. “The breaks aren’t falling our way today.”
“Yeah, I heard about the meeting with the mayor. It was on the radio, backward.”
“How did you know it wasn’t true?”
“There’s a growing faction of people who are connoisseurs of the mayor’s stupid decisions. This one is already getting famous. I heard it from a gentleman who is high up in the union. Take care of yourself.”
“Just what I plan to do,” said Stahl. “See you.”
Stahl and Hines went inside through the kitchen entrance and Hines set her purse on the table in the living room. Stahl called over his shoulder: “Scotch?”
“And ice. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She went into the spare room and hung her dress uniform in the closet, then pulled a sweatshirt on over her head and put on shorts.
They sat on the couch to sip their drinks. They kissed gently and then drank some more. After a few minutes together Stahl said, “Does that outfit mean I won’t be tearing your clothes off tonight after all?”
“I hope you’re not disappointed. But I’ve had that pistol belt strapped to me all day, and heavy shoes and all. You’re welcome to take this off me if you want. It doesn’t take as long, so you won’t get bored.”
“Bored? I’m confident that I won’t.”
They moved into the bedroom and made love in the faint light from the skylight streaming in from the living room. This was the first time since the bombing in her apartment, and so it was like coming together after years apart. At first there was a tentative, cautious quality to their movements. They were like people learning all over again to trust their instincts about what the other would want, and to give the other permission to take chances. But soon they were comfortable again, each of them wanting, taking, and giving at the same time. When it was over, the hour was late.
He leaned over her. “Are you okay?”
“Except for the broken bones.”
“Come on.”
They moved together and kissed, a long, quiet moment while their lips touched, they closed their eyes, and they breathed the same breath.
Hines woke up lying on top of the sheets, still touching Stahl. His larger body was giving off heat so she hadn’t noticed there were no covers. She moved her foot to try to hook the sheet and pull it up without waking Dick.
The movement seemed to bring her out of a dream, and she realized she had not just awakened spontaneously. As she saw her phone across the room light up, swung her legs off the bed, and stepped toward the phone, she saw Stahl turn toward his nightstand, where his phone was lit too.
They both read the message at once. “SECURITY,” it said. “Break-in detected. Lock all doors and shelter in place.”
“This is for real,” he said. “Get dressed.”
He stepped into the pants he had taken off at bedtime. She went to the closet and pulled on a black pullover and a pair of black jeans, and stepped into a pair of black flats. She went low, ran to the purse she had left on the table in the living room, and plucked out her Glock pistol and the spare magazine.
In a moment she saw Stahl emerge from the bedroom and step along the wall pushing the .45 pistol he kept in the nightstand into his waistband. He stopped. “Where are you?” he said softly.
“On the floor by the couch. Who sent the message?”
“The building security system. The security guys can send it by pushing a signal on their phones. But if a door or window breaks it comes automatically.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you gave me the new phone?”
“I bought it when you were in the hospital and forgot.”
She said, “What do you want to do now?”
“Stay put. It’s most likely nothing.”
“That suits me.”
“I’m going into the spare bedroom for a minute.”
“To the gun safe?”
“Yes.”
She heard the faint sounds of Stahl moving across the room to the hall, and then imagined she could hear the gun safe swing open, a slight rub of the hinges. She did hear it close and lock. She heard some clicks and metallic slides. In a moment his dark silhouette materialized beside her.
She reached for him, but felt the cold barrel of a rifle. She recognized the distinctive shape. “An M4. Thanks. Is the magazine full?”
“Yes. I got one out for each of us.”
“You’re so thoughtful.”
“I’ve lived here for four years, and I never got an alert message before.”
There was a noise, a faint crunching sound above them. In the dim glow coming from the skylight, Hines and Stahl turned to glance at each other. Stahl pointed at the island with the marble top that separated the kitchen from the living room.
Hines nodded, stayed low, and skittered around the counter to take up a firing position on the other side. She charged the M4 and aimed at the skylight.
Stahl moved back toward the spare bedroom, knelt in the doorway with the muzzle of his rifle up, and began to scan the windows.
The sound of crunching gravel came again, then a similar sound from the other end of the roof, and a third trail following that one. He looked toward Hines. He couldn’t see her behind the marble-topped counter, but he could see her rifle barrel aiming up at the skylight. He looked at the kitchen. There were no windows in there, only a skylight. The outer wall held a wide stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator, a stainless steel eight-burner Wolf stove, a vertical pair of ovens. There was nothing but brick and reinforced concrete on the outer walls.