“Phil, you’ve been drinking. Haven’t you?”

Scratch. Scratch.

I looked at the window, but the leaves were gone, bowing back in the dark breeze.

“I know that, Phillip,” she said sadly. “I know. And I’m trying.” Her hand fell away from my hip and she turned toward the phone and stood up from the bed. “I don’t. I don’t hate you.”

She stood with one knee on the bed, looking out the window, the phone cord pressed against the backs of her thighs, and worked her way back into her T-shirt.

I got out of the bed, too, tossed my jeans and shirt back on. The house was cold without the press of body heat, and I didn’t feel like crawling back under the covers while she chatted with Phil.

“I’m not judging,” she said. “But if Arujo picks tonight to come after you, wouldn’t you rather have sharp wits?”

The white beam of light crested her shoulder and the glow of candlelight and blinked three times against the upper wall in front of her. She had her head down and didn’t notice, so I left the bedroom and walked down the hallway, hugging my arms against the cold and watched through the living room window as Tim Dunn crossed the street toward the house.

I reached to deactivate the alarm, saw that it had lost its power in the blackout.

I opened the door before he could ring the bell.

“What’s up?” I said.

He had his head down against the moisture sweeping off the trees and I realized he was looking at my bare feet.

A walkie-talkie squawked from the living room.

“Cold?” Dunn said and tugged his earlobe.

“Yeah. Come on in,” I said. “Shut the door behind you.”

I turned in the hallway and Devin’s voice burst over the walkie-talkie: “Patrick, get the fuck out of the house. Arujo set us up. Arujo set us up. He’s not in Nahant.”

I turned back as Dunn raised his head and Evandro Arujo’s face stared out at me from under the cap brim.

“Arujo’s not in Nahant, Patrick. He’s right here. In the rest of your life.”

34

Before I could speak, Evandro pressed a stiletto against the skin under my right eye. He dug the point into the socket bone and closed the door behind him.

There was already blood on the knife.

He noticed me looking at it and smiled sadly.

“Officer Dunn,” he whispered, “won’t be turning twenty-five, I’m afraid. Bummer, huh.”

He pushed me backward by digging the point in harder against the bone and I took a few steps down the hallway.

“Patrick,” he said, his other hand on Dunn’s service revolver, “if you make a sound, I’ll pluck out your eye and shoot your partner before she’s halfway out of the bedroom. Understood?”

I nodded.

In the faint light from the candles in the bedroom I could see he wore Dunn’s uniform shirt; it was dark with blood.

“Why’d you have to kill him?” I whispered.