At the same time, to his extreme surprise, Tony felt something hard slam against the side of his head. A flashbulb popped behind his eye, and his vision went dark for a moment. He actually staggered, half stunned. It felt like getting hit with a length of pipe.

“Son of a bitch.”

The guy’s crutch clattered to the floor as he fell. Tony hadn’t even seen him swing it.

Goddamn. He heard laughing.

“Up your ass,” he said to the dark.

Ray came out of the shadows, pulling his own mask up over his face again. He put his hands on his hips, looked down at the motionless pile on the floor, and said, “Nice shot.”

“Fuck off.”

“What do you do for an encore? Push a little old lady down some stairs?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Tony touched his scalp. “Jesus.”

“Hey,” Ray said. Serious now. “I just thought of something.”

“What?”

“That’s assaulting a police officer.” He looked at Tony. “Should we take him downtown? Or do you just want me to hold him still so you can kick him a couple times?”

Tony sighed and knelt down. He lifted the fallen crutches, tossed them aside, and checked the guy out.

Still breathing. Goose egg in the morning, probably. But he’d be fine.

“Here,” Ray said. He found a pillow amid the debris in the living room and tossed it over. “Put that under his leg.”

Tony got the guy laid out more or less flat. After getting the pillow situated, he grabbed his mask and stood up again, feeling a warm trickle of blood behind his ear.

“So now what?” Ray said.

“This guy Worth is starting to piss me off.”

“I mean him.” Ray nodded toward the unconscious neighbor. “Can’t just leave him there.”

“What the hell else are we going to do with him?”

“Good point.”

Tony had to give the man credit: He’d moved quick for an older guy. In the dark, no less. And with only one good wheel. He touched his scalp again; the fingers of his glove came away slick. Jesus.

He grabbed the last of his beer on the way through the kitchen, draining it on the move. So much for easy.

Behind him, Ray said, “Look out! He’s got a heating pad!”

Asshole.

17

Four blocks away, Worth could see the red and blue glow of emergency lights rippling on the snow-covered rooftops down the street.

Two blocks away, his chest tightened. At the corner, he felt his head getting light.

For a minute he just sat there in the truck, foot on the brake, both hands gripping the wheel. He forced himself to breathe.

Jesus. That had been his first thought. John had a heart attack. He counted three radio units and an EMS truck, all crowding the street between his house and John’s.

But John’s house was still dark.

All the lights in Worth’s house were blazing.

And there was an unmarked unit sitting in his driveway.

Shit.

While he sat there, across the intersection, idling at the stop sign like some rubbernecker, a uniformed cop emerged from the back door of the house, shining a flashlight around on the ground. From a distance, it looked like Dan Wesson from B crew.

Another cop came out of Worth’s garage.

So this was it. Worth found his mind drifting like the plumes of exhaust outside the truck.

He’d eavesdropped on his dad and Kelly once. They’d been downstairs at the kitchen table, beers popping, late on a weeknight. Kelly had been a boot in the Northeast at the time; he’d stopped by the house after coming off shift. Worth had still been a senior at Central High. Instead of coming down, he’d stayed upstairs and listened through the air vent, feeling like a child.

Kid, you gotta learn how to think like the bad guys, he’d heard his dad say. Up through the vent came the clink of the Zippo, the long exhale. The bad guys already know how to think like you.

Worth had never learned how to think like a bad guy. He’d never really learned how to think like a cop. He’d been a damned English major when Kelly was killed.

Who had he thought he could help?

Another vehicle arrived at the house, a dark green minivan he didn’t recognize. The minivan slid to a stop against the bank of plowed snow along the curb.

A woman piled out from behind the wheel. She hurried up the driveway, not quite frantic, but somewhere on the verge. One of the uniforms intercepted her.

Somebody related to Gwen?

Somebody related to Russell James?

Worth put the truck into gear. He didn’t know where he was planning to go, or what he’d do when he got there. But he needed to think.

There came a sharp knock on the window by his head. Hard light came in through the window, blinding him.

Shit.

Outside the window, a muffled voice said, “Matt?”

The light went away. As the spots swam out of his vision, Worth’s chest began pounding. He realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled and ran the window down.

“Hey,” a third uniform said. Worth hadn’t even seen him approaching the vehicle. “We’ve been looking for you.”

The voice seemed familiar. Worth blinked his eyes.

“Sorry about the light.”

“Ken?”

“Good for you I’m not a carjacker,” Ken Bailer said. “You okay? How come you’re just sitting over here?”

“Trying to figure out how to get to my house,” Worth said. “What the hell’s going on?”

Ken Bailer shook his head. He holstered his Maglite.

“Man, you’d better come with me.”

The lead man on site was a guy named Sheppard. Mid-forties, sandy hair, quiet eyes. Sheppard worked out of the South Investigation Unit; Worth remembered him from an apartment burglary at the Livestock Exchange Building two or three years ago.

He didn’t get the impression that the memory was mutual, but Sheppard had seemed like an okay guy then, and he seemed like an okay guy now.

“Mr. Pospisil says that he came over to use the phone here after discovering a gas leak inside his home,” Sheppard said. “He says he rang the doorbell, but nobody answered.”

“It’s broken,” Worth said. He’d meant to fix it all summer.

“Yeah, we found that.” Sheppard looked at his notepad. “So Mr. Pospisil went ahead and let himself inside with a key he says you provided him. I’m assuming you can confirm the house key?”

“Yes,” Worth said. “The property was vacant for a few months last year. John looked in on the place for me.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Can you make a point of entry?”

“Same door, most likely,” Sheppard said. “No sign of force.”

Worth thought about it. He remembered locking the door when he’d left. After leaving the garage unlocked with the GTO inside on Saturday, he’d been doubly careful about that.

The house didn’t have a security system. Whoever had been here had known how to bypass a basic dead bolt. No big deal, but it showed more sophistication and stealth than a regular smash job. As far as Sheppard would be concerned, storm looters were out.

“Photographed two different sets of footprints,” he said. “Besides Mr. Pospisil’s.”

If John had needed his key to get in, it meant that they’d locked the door behind them after entering. Which meant they’d planned to be here awhile.

Detective Sheppard grinned. “Here’s the part I like.”

He led Worth to the doorway into the living room and pointed at the threshold. Worth saw a single droplet of bright red blood on the white kitchen tile. The spatter had already been circled in grease pencil.

“Mr. Pospisil took a swing toward a voice,” Sheppard said. “Since he isn’t the one bleeding, I assume he connected.”

“What do you mean, he took a swing?”