At the door, Mahler shoved his gun into his holster, unlocked the deadbolt, and eased open the latch. He slipped off his shoes and walked to the kitchen in his socks. Taking out his gun again, he sat on the floor.

He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. From an open window in the hallway, he heard the wind blowing through the oaks in the backyard and, closer, the refrigerator’s machine hum.

Mahler remembered training for night patrols at the Army Ranger school in Georgia twenty years back. Sitting alone in the dark at the base of a tree, waiting for the other patrol. One, two hours at a time. The instructor was a scary guy named Wills, who had spent three tours in the jungles of Phuoc Long.

As far as he could tell in the dark, nothing in the kitchen was moved. But now Mahler sensed something. What was it? A sound? A smell? Whatever it was, he knew what it meant: someone else was here. Where were they? Living room, dining room, bedroom? The first two rooms were open and exposed. If their places were reversed, he’d choose the back rooms. How many guys? More than one? No. It would be one. Every lesson learned in Ranger school told him so.

He unconsciously squeezed the Sig. He let his hand relax and stilled his mind. From the office came the sound of a ticking clock.

He thought of Wills again. Guy had a Zen about combat patrols. He heard Wills’s voice in his ear: What do you know about the other guy?

Not a smash-and-grab kid, Mahler thought. Whoever this guy is, he broke into the house and got past the house alarm, and somehow reprogrammed it to bypass the alarm company. He knows my cell number.

Why’d he do that? Wills asked.

He wants me to come, Mahler thought.

Now that you’re here, what’s he want?

To find him.

What’s that tell you?

He’s ready. Sitting on the floor of one of the back rooms, holding a gun, just like me.

Who has the edge? Wills asked.

He does. He can sit there all night, waiting for me.

How do you change that balance?

Go to him, Mahler thought. Make him move. Assume he’s in the last bedroom, the master. The room has two doors: one down the hallway from the living room, the other through the back utility room. No matter where the shooter is in the bedroom, the first doorway exposes me to a clear shot. Also, if I go that way, there’s a chance I drive him out the back door, where Eden can’t see him. The second doorway has some cover, and I force him into the hallway and the front door.