“Come on, Gay, Pizza Nirvana’s only half a mile away, lots of traffic all the way, lots of people. I’ll be in and out in a flash. No worries.” She pulled her car keys out of her jeans pocket, tossed them in the air, caught them again, leaned down to rub Helmut’s ears. “I really need to get out, breathe some of this crisp air.”

“It’s thirty degrees out, a bit beyond crisp.”

“Gay, really, I’m going nuts. I’ll leave Helmut to protect you. He saved my bacon Monday night.” She went down on her knees, took Helmut’s head between her hands, looked into his beautiful eyes. “You will stay here and guard Gay. I’ll bring you one of those cheese sticks you like.” She looked up at Gay. “You could give Helmut a short walk, but not too long, he hates the cold.”

Gay took a final bite of his apple, banked the core into the wastebasket, and clapped his hands. Helmut trotted over to him, butted his golden head against his hands. “My old dog, Gamble, died a couple of years ago. Helmut here makes me wonder if I should get another mutt.” He remembered there was a basketball game on tonight between his beloved Wizards and the Bucks. He sighed, looked at his watch. “Okay, you fetch the pizzas and I’ll walk Helmut, give both of us some exercise. You got your Glock?”

“Of course.”

He walked with her to the front hall. “I know in my head you’re right, no one can know you’re here, but—you be careful anyway, Hildebrandt. Oh yeah, when you get back you can tell me what you were doing on the Web for hours.”

That brought her to a stop. “How did you know?”

“It’s not a big house. I walked behind you, you never heard me. I’m a ghost.”

Olivia sighed. She couldn’t tell him, so she lied clean. “Only thing interesting I found was a nest of drug dealers out of Rwanda who supply the Middle East.”

“Sure, Hildebrandt, like I’ll believe that.”

She patted his hand. “Don’t worry about me, Gay. And you stay, Helmut. Guard Gay.” Olivia bundled up against the cold and bitter wind, wondered how winter could still be so dug in in the middle of March.

Gay watched her run to her car, climb in, and lock the doors before he closed the front door again.

Olivia turned the heater on full blast and settled in until it began to warm. Of course Gay knew she was cutting him out. She couldn’t tell him she was researching French arms dealers, studying their glossy web pages, and then, frustrated, anything she could find on the dark Web. Why had she picked Rwanda of all places? She wondered what Dillon Savich was doing.