She descended the steps, walked around the house to the driveway, and moved forward beside the house toward the street. At the front corner of the house where the clapboards ended and the side of the wooden porch began, she paused. The porch was about six feet high, so the floor of it was almost at eye level. As she crouched and crept forward beside the porch, she noticed an access hatch on the side of the structure that was about three feet high and two feet wide. She went past it to the side of the steps to see if there were any suspicious cars parked at the curb.

There was room for only two cars in front of the narrow house, and neither of them had anyone sitting inside that she could see. There was a cough, and Leah froze. Someone was close by. Then there was a squeak as a person’s weight came up off one of the wooden chairs on the porch. There were footsteps moving away toward the far side of the porch like a man pacing. Leah knew that the person up there would reach the far railing and walk back toward the railing just over her head.

She retreated backward to the hatch at the side of the porch, opened it, crawled inside, and then pulled the hatch shut. She stayed still and reached into her coat to take out the Glock 17 pistol with no numbers on it. She took out the silencer and screwed it onto the threads on the muzzle.

“Jesus.” It was the voice of a big man. “Where the hell is she?”

Leah could hear that the man was just above her, leaning his elbows on the railing of the porch above the spot where she was crouching.

“She’ll be here,” said a second man’s voice. “She’s a cop, and if she thinks her old lady cop friend needs her, she’ll come if she has to run barefoot over broken glass.”

“I’d like to see that.”

“Me too. But I don’t think we can add any extra requests, and Stella’s too dead to do it. Now will you please sit down where she won’t see you when she drives up? You’re making me nervous.”

“You could get on Stella’s phone again and text her to hurry up.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not a fucking moron. Just get your mind off your fear. Think about getting off one perfect shot when she gets here. Visualize it.”

“The cops could get here before she does. What then?”

“Then they must be psychic, because nobody called them yet. That’s why I made you use a knife on Stella.”