I could ignore him. Ignore a legion of blue-suiter friends of his. But I saw Gattling’s lights go on, and I accepted my police escort, all the way into my neighborhood.

At a stop sign a block from my house, he pulled up next to me. “I think I’m gonna hang out here for a bit.”

“Go back to work,” I said. “I’m in for the night. I promise.”

“You know if you break that,” he said, “Remy’s gonna be pissed. And I’m not the one she’s gonna say disappointed her.”

I thought about his words.

“All right,” I said. “Hold a sec. I’ll be right back.”

I pulled into my driveway. Walked back the six or seven houses to where he was parked. And handed him my car keys. “Bring these back at the end of your shift. If it looks like I’m asleep, drop ’em in the mail slot, will ya?”

With my car keys safely in his hand, Gattling pulled away, and I walked down the street to my house.

As I came in the front door, I heard a racket. A barking noise, accompanied by the sound of fur against wood.

Had Beau closed himself inside the bathroom again?

I moved toward the hallway to open the bathroom door, but I caught sight of something shimmering in the low light of the dining area.

My cuffs on the table.

“Don’t even think about going for your weapon,” a raspy voice said. “You’ll be dead before you draw.”

A light turned on in the living room, and a man was sitting on my couch, holding a .45.

Steele Vankle.

55

Wednesday, September 11, 6:31 a.m.

Kelly Borland’s eyes sensed a warmth that meant sunlight, and she woke, glancing around without moving.

Jed was still asleep.

As she lifted his long, muscular arm from atop her naked chest, she smelled his scent. A mix of machine oil and body odor. He was a photographer and a writer. Why the hell did he smell like an auto shop?

Kelly slipped out of bed.

“The magic massage,” she’d called it with a few boyfriends.

She gave a man a massage along the temples. Around his ears and along his cranium. Then her pliant hands moved farther south, down his back.

Within minutes, every man melted.

For Jed, his sleep was so deep she could bang pots and pans, and he wouldn’t wake up.

She moved to the kitchen. Dressed out there and drank a full glass of water. She heard a noise and stopped. Beau-Beau came out from the spare room where he liked to sleep. Where he could hear every noise and protect Jed from strangers.

She grabbed a couple garbage bags from the kitchen drawer. A small slice of sunlight was entering the yard, and she walked with Beau-Beau out to the back.

Kelly had met Jed a month after she’d arrived in town.

Harrington was a brilliant thinker and writer. But he wasn’t turning anything in for publication. He was simply amassing stories of corruption like a Senate committee. Filling boxes with reams of paper, but no longer ambitious about doing anything with it.