“Don’t be an asshole,” Wade said. “I’m just asking. Why the sudden frenzy?”

“I have brain cancer,” Eddie said. “The doctor says I’ll be dead by Christmas. Happy?”

“Very funny,” Wade said. “Shouldn’t make jokes like that, my friend.”

What was Eddie supposed to tell the guy? That he’d rather keep busy than sit around thinking about how he was two days away from eating a quarter million bucks? Ten times that, counting next year’s business, if his friends in Chicago decided he couldn’t handle their traffic, after all.

There was no future in furniture. Not in this town. Not with the Furniture Mart mafia running the city and Rod fucking Kush vaccuming up business down the street. Asshole had the same idea as Eddie for his storm sale, only instead of fourteen-inch goddamned Homelites, he was giving away sixteen-inch Stihls.

The fact was, Eddie Tice could film TV commercials until his dick fell off, and it still wouldn’t change a thing.

Somewhere, Russ was out there. Laughing. The little puke. A twenty-five-year-old kid with no long view, counting his stupid trunk full of short dough. Thinking about it made Eddie want to go pick up the piece-of-shit chain saw over there on the floor and…

“I’m fine,” he said. “Okay? I appreciate the concern. Now please go finish my Halloween commercial before Thanksgiving, huh?”

Wade shrugged and headed for the back of the studio. Over his shoulder, he said, “You should give yourself a day off.”

As if on cue, Eddie’s cell phone buzzed inside the suit.

Jesus. He found the hidden zipper and dug around for the phone. Wade joined the voice guy and the camera guy. They all disappeared together into the editing suite.

Andy, the chain saw maniac, reappeared in street clothes. He slung a duffel bag over his shoulder and hurried out the back exit.

That left Eddie Tice standing alone, still wearing the ridiculous snow monster getup, sweat pouring down his face, cell phone buzzing in his big furry hand.

The caller ID screen didn’t show a number. Just the corresponding name from the internal phone book. Chicago.

Just then, it hit him.

They’re both right, he realized. This stupid commercial doesn’t make one fucking bit of sense.

He didn’t answer the phone.

The apartment was small but clean: a couple of rooms and a kitchenette, a few basic pieces of furniture. There was a color television and a cordless telephone and a spider plant hanging in the glass door to the balcony. Lydia House had supplied a few items of clothing and a plastic Walgreens sack filled with toiletries.

“Home sweet home,” Gwen said.

Worth checked the place over, knowing it was a pointless activity. The volunteers from the YWCA had a checklist; the officer from the Victim Assistance unit who brought Gwen from the hospital would have made sure things were square.

In fact, there wasn’t really any good reason for him to be here at all. Worth knew that. He had to be at assembly for roll call in forty minutes; he should have gone straight to work.

“Are you settled in?”

“Settled as I’ll probably get.” She gave a self-conscious smile. “But it’s nice.”

“Hopefully it won’t be long.” The building was secured through the telephone system. He picked up the phone, made sure there was a dial tone. “Has anybody been by to check on you?”

“Just the lady from the shelter,” Gwen said. “She even brought my homework from the apartment.”

“Okay.”

Ray Salcedo and his partner, Tony Briggs, were rolling C-shift. Worth told her she might see them at some point.

She nodded and tucked a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. She was more or less dressed for bed: a snug cotton T-shirt that stopped at her belly button, flannel lounge bottoms that rested low on her hips. Worth tried not to look at her.

Gwen dropped her eyes, folding her slender arms over her waist. “Are you mad at me?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“You’re acting different,” she said.

“I don’t mean to.”

“But you are.”

“I just want to make sure everything is secure.”

“Why?” she said. “Who would be coming?”

In her voice, Worth heard what she left unspoken, but he didn’t know what to say.

He hadn’t told her about the money he’d found in the trunk of her dead boyfriend’s car. He hadn’t told her that whoever the money belonged to had already come around looking for it.

He hadn’t told her because he needed Gwen Mullen to keep doing exactly what she’d been doing so far. Until he had more information to work with, no good would come from leaving her alone here in a state of alarm.

Earlier, she’d told him that two of Russell’s buddies had come to harass her at the hospital on Sunday afternoon. A kid named Troy Mather and a kid named Derek Price. They worked with Russell in the warehouse at a local furniture store.

Confronted with a prickly female OPD detective on her way back from the coffee machine, Mather and Price had claimed not to know Russell’s whereabouts. Worth wondered—no doubt for altogether different reasons from Detective Kenna—whether these two had been lying or telling the truth.

Either way, Gwen would be safe here for now. He’d know more soon.

“You’re looking at me different,” she said quietly.

“I don’t mean to, Gwen.”

“You’re not actually looking at me at all.”

He finally did, and her face nearly broke his heart. It wasn’t the face he’d seen earlier today in her hospital room; it was closer to the face he’d seen three days ago, in Sorensen’s office above the store.

“Please don’t start looking at me different.” Her eyes glistened. “Please.”

Some force moved him toward her. He didn’t get there under his own power. It wasn’t his doing, moving to hold her.

He just went numb for moment. Two seconds, tops.

The next he knew, she’d somehow folded into his arms.

“I know what I did,” she said into his neck. “I don’t know how. I hardly even remember doing it now. It’s like a big red blur.”

“Gwen. Shhh.”

“I was too scared to leave but I couldn’t let him hit me anymore.” She pressed her face against his. Her hot tears seemed to burn his cheek. “I meant to turn myself in. When I came to the store. I did.”

“I know.”

“Please believe that I did.”

“I believe you,” Worth said.

“I’m screwed up, Matthew. You don’t have any idea. But please don’t look at me differently.”

He opened his mouth to tell her he wouldn’t, but somehow her lips ended up on his. She clawed her hands into the back of his jacket, but her mouth was soft as warm silk.

He wanted to push her away but he couldn’t. All of a sudden, he became aware of the length of her body pressed against him. Through thin cotton and flannel he felt her breasts, her stomach, her hips. Her mouth parted, and he felt the wet velvet flick of her tongue.

His mind flashed to Sondra’s kiss in the kitchen on Saturday. It hadn’t been like this. This reminded him that he hadn’t really touched a woman in over a year.

It wasn’t what this was supposed to be about. Gwen hadn’t even healed from her injuries.

Yet she sighed in his mouth and he was hard as a rock. Angry at himself for letting this happen, swept up in it at the same time.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She touched his face. “Thank you.”

He drew Gwen closer, telling himself over and over to step away.

Tony Briggs hit the john on the way to roll call. He looked at the side of his head in the mirror while he washed his hands at the sink.

They’d shaved a patch at the hospital.