LITMIR.BIZ

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knew she could spend the next few hours at least getting started on the job, maybe finish a couple of walls, and still have time to get a good night’s sleep before meeting Quinn and Fedderman tomorrow morning.

      She also knew she wouldn’t paint. She had the Elzner case for an excuse.

      She couldn’t put out of her mind what Quinn had said about the Elzners not necessarily being the first victims, but maybe simply the latest, of a serial killer who did couples. It seemed to Pearl that Quinn was working on insufficient knowledge to make such a statement. On the other hand, this wasn’t an ordinary man or an ordinary cop. He’d been right a lot of times in his long career.

      Couples. Why would anyone want to murder couples? Resentment? Because they were happy couples and he was single and unhappy? Not likely. How many single, unhappy people were out there wandering around and not killing anyone? In New York alone?

      Me. I’m a suspect.

      So’s Quinn.

      Depressing thought.

      Okay, enough. Time to give up and go to bed.

      She stood up from the table and placed her empty glass in the sink, then went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She secured the apartment all the way, chain lock and dead bolt, and turned out the lights, so there was only the illumination from outside that filtered through the flimsy drapes. On her way to the bedroom she gave the hall closet containing the paint and supplies a wide berth and didn’t glance in its direction.

      At least I didn’t succumb to that temptation.

      She made a detour into the bathroom to wash down an Ambien, which the doctor had prescribed so she could escape her thoughts and go to sleep. The pills worked okay, but she didn’t want to take too many and become dependent, so she spaced them out, trying not to take them on successive nights.

      This was a logical night for one of the pills, what with the microwaved pizza’s potential effect on her dreams. Pepperoni and anchovies. She wasn’t about to give her subconscious and stomach that kind of chance to team up against her. It was a pill night for sure. Her belly was already growling in pizza protest.

      Nude but for her oversize dark blue NYPD T-shirt, the window air conditioner humming and rattling away as it sent a cool breeze over her bare legs, she lay on top of the sheets and thought about the Elzner case.

      Which led her to think about Quinn.

      There he was again, slouched on his damned horse.

      C’mon, pill!

      17

      Marcy Graham woke again from the dream she’d been having lately. Someone would be in the room with her and Ron, standing at the foot of the bed, watching them sleep. She would drift nearer and nearer to consciousness, then come all the way awake with a start.

      And there would be no one there.

      Again! So real!

      She sat up in bed and looked around in the dimness, then relaxed and lay back, noticing her sheet and pillow were damp with perspiration though the room was cool. Ron stirred beside her, then sighed and rolled over onto his side, facing away from her. She took comfort in his bulk, in his nearness.

      Yet she couldn’t return to sleep, so real was that dream. More real than at other times, she realized. She could almost recall the man’s dark form, the silent, motionless way he stood and stared.

      But it didn’t make sense, any of it. What kind of maniac would want to simply watch other people while they slept?

      Unless he wasn’t simply watching. Maybe he was making sure they were asleep so he could…do what? Something else? Something more? Knowing he wouldn’t be disturbed.

      Marcy flung herself onto her side and fluffed her pillow so violently she woke up Ron. He rolled onto his back and looked over at her.

      “Somethin’ wrong?” His voice was slurred by sleep.

      “I can’t sleep.”

      “Yeah. I gathered s’much. Wha’s wrong?”

      “Nothing.”

      “Fine.”

      “Something!”

      “What?”

      “I don’t know.”

      He breathed in deeply and sighed. “An’ you want me to find out.”

      “Would you?”

      Instead of answering, he sat up and opened the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed. She knew he kept a souvenir baseball bat there, but while it was a miniature bat, bearing Sammy Sosa’s signature, it made a handy club about the size of a policeman’s nightstick.

      She watched his muscular, slope-shouldered form, dressed in white undershorts and sleeveless undershirt, cross the room and go into the hall, saw the hall brighten as lights in the living room came on. She could hear him moving around out there, checking things, looking where someone might hide, opening closet doors. Master of his domain, stalking a possible enemy who’d gotten through the defenses.

      Suddenly uncomfortable alone in the dim room, Marcy climbed out of bed and went to join him. Besides, if by some remote chance an intruder was in the apartment, two against one would be better than just Ron—though Marcy sure didn’t want to put that to the test.

      Ron was standing in the middle of the living room, the miniature bat held low in his right hand.

      He looked over at her, hair tousled, eyes sleepy. “Nothing. The door’s still locked, everything looks normal, nobody hiding anywhere in here.”

      “Did you look in the kitchen?”

      “Sure. Normal. Everything’s okay, Marcy.”

      “The bedroom.”

      “Huh? We just left the bedroom.”

      “There are places to hide there.”

      “Sure, I guess there are.”

      She smiled at him. He’d been brave for her. Now he was humoring her. But that meant he was thinking of her, showing his love.

      “You wait here while I go check.”

      He trod barefoot back into the bedroom, looking forward to going back to sleep. But why not give Marcy her way? He was too tired to argue. And he’d been revved up a few minutes ago, thinking maybe she had heard something or knew somehow there was someone in the apartment.

      Damn, he’d been revved up!

      Calmer now, reassured, he entered the dim bedroom and didn’t bother turning on the light. As he moved toward the closet door, he held the bat higher. Anything’s possible.

      “Don’t forget to look under the bed,” Marcy called from the living room.

      Ron paused and lowered the bat.

      The man lying flat on his stomach beneath the bed switched the long-bladed knife to his other hand, on the side of the bed where he could see Ron Graham’s bare feet. Watching the feet gave him some idea of where Graham’s face and vulnerable throat might appear any second if he peered beneath the bed. Using the knife might be awkward. It was all a question of body position. Graham would be surprised and horrified and frozen for a second, allowing the opportunity for a quick body shift and a slash with the knife. But the bare feet were so important, where they were, where the toes were pointed. The man with the knife lay very still, his upper body an inch off the floor, watching the pale bare feet, watching….

      Ron walked close to the bed and sat down on it. He sure didn’t feel like bending over and checking for monsters. He would humor Marcy only so far.

      “Nobody under there!” he called to her. “Just a few dust bunnies.”

      He rose and went to the closet, quickly

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