“Look, let’s just—”

“Or if this story we’re telling now was true? If we really were screwing each other’s brains out? Maybe I could see it. But I can’t….”

Matthew leaned forward, finally looking at her for the first time in minutes.

“I believe you did what you had to do,” he said. “That’s all.”

“But you don’t even know me.”

“I know enough.”

You didn’t do this for me. That was her thought, but she couldn’t say it. What did it matter anyway?

So she said, “They haven’t called since midnight.”

Matthew said nothing.

“One or the other of them has been calling every two or three hours,” she said. “Now all of a sudden it’s been six.”

“It’s okay.”

“What do you think that means?”

He shrugged. “They’re feeling like they’ve got us conditioned. At this point, not calling keeps you on-line as well as calling every two or three hours. Maybe even better.”

An individual uses a pattern of abusive behavior—phsyical, psychological, even economic—to establish power over his or her partner. She’d practically memorized the “truth” by now. According to the flyer.

But Matthew was right. She’d been awake all night, waiting for the phone to ring. In fact, she’d been listening for it all this time they’d been sitting here.

The abuser maintains control through fear and intimidation.

If Matthew was right about that, maybe he was right about everything. Maybe he really could fix it, if she trusted him.

Didn’t he deserve that much?

Why hadn’t he told her about the money?

Did she trust him?

Just then, as though she’d summoned it, the telephone rang.

It seemed loud as an alarm bell in the quiet apartment. Gwen jumped half out of her skin. Matthew calmly reached out, touched her arm. It’s okay.

She took a breath, picked up the cordless receiver by her hand, and answered.

“Hello.”

“Kenna,” a cool voice said. “I’m downstairs at the door.”

Gwen closed her eyes, exhaled. Marly.

“I’ll buzz you in,” she said.

After she hung up, Matthew came around, bent down, and kissed the top of her head.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I need to go hold up my end.” He touched her arm with the back of his hand. “It’s almost over.”

“Tell me again.”

“Tell you what?”

“That it’s going to be okay.”

Matthew took her face in both hands and looked down into her eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”

He was such a bad liar. How could this work?

Why did she need him to tell her anything?

A knock sounded at the door. Matthew went over, undid the locks, and pulled the door open.

Marly Kenna stood there, bag on her shoulder, coat open, cheeks lightly flushed. There must have been a breeze outside. Her hair looked like feathers.

She smirked at Matthew, shaking her head slowly. “Officer Worth.”

“Detective Kenna,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

She blew that off, came into the apartment, and pointed a finger in Gwen’s direction.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you, girl.”

Tony and Ray made it down to the riverfront two and a half hours before dawn.

Sunday morning, after the snow, Uncle Eddie had pissed and moaned about his boat. He hadn’t winterized it yet. Who the hell expected a foot of snow before Halloween?

They parked Ray’s Expedition on Eighth Street and hiked down to the boardwalk on foot. There were three other boats still moored at the marina: two runabouts and Eddie’s forty-foot cruiser. Joan’s Arc.

The smaller boats dipped low in their slips, covers laden with unmelted snow. It hadn’t felt cold in the city, but the air on the river froze the hairs in your nose. Out beyond the landing, the three-quarter moon danced in place, rippling on the wide, slow current.

They boarded Eddie’s boat and used their feet to push all the snow off the aft deck. Clumps and soggy clods splashed the dark water. Tony used the spare key from Eddie’s desk and searched the cabin; Ray checked the helm and all the storage wells.

After an hour of looking, they agreed.

Except for a personal stash—two or three grams of flake in a small ivory box, tucked up into the upholstery in the sleeping berth—there was nothing on board. No product, no ordnance, no emergency cash. No address books written in funky code. Nothing that would cause anybody to look past the scene they’d set at the furniture store.

Back on the landing, Tony took the sack of demolished VHS security cassettes and upended it over the railing. Shards of plastic and ribbons of tape floated down to the water.

The water swept the pieces downriver. The current was faster than it looked.

They stayed awhile, slowly getting cold, passing a pint of Bushmills back and forth between them. The river flowing past created the sensation that it was the platform that was moving, not the river itself.

Little by little, the sky began to lighten over the tops of the trees along the opposite bank. They should have been long gone by then, but Ray said nothing. He just took his share of the whiskey and hung.

Tony killed the last of it. When the booze was gone, he screwed on the cap, drew his arm back, and hurled the empty bottle as far out as he could. The bottle hit the water with a faint slap, disappeared, then buoyed back to the surface a few feet downstream.

They stood there in the twilight, watching the bottle bob and weave among chunks of ice, riding the floe. Pretty soon they couldn’t see it anymore.

Ray said, “Ready to roll?”

In another minute, Tony nodded.

They walked back to the car.

27

It was a five-minute drive from the safe apartment to Central Station on Howard Street.

Worth arrived a few minutes before 7 A.M. Traffic was still thin, and frost skimmed the streets. Downtown seemed to glow with early light.

He used his key chip to enter the parking facility, left his personal weapon with lockup on the way in. He felt an urge to explain himself: I don’t normally carry off-duty. But the clerk barely looked up.

Worth went on inside.

Mark Vargas waited for him at the elevators on the fourth floor. He had a stack of folders under one arm and a paper cup of coffee in the other hand. Badge on his belt.

“Come on back,” he said.

It seemed strangely quiet on the floor; no chirping phones, no squawking fax machines, no watercooler chatter. A momentary seam between night and day.

Worth unzipped his coat and fell in step. They passed cubes and offices, open desks, drawing occasional glances along the way. Across the bullpen, he saw one detective standing at a printer, tracking them.

The guy looked familiar, but Worth couldn’t remember his name. Mid-forties, balding. He wore an empty shoulder holster and half a grin. When Worth made eye contact, the guy put up his dukes.

Another guy at a nearby desk covered his mouth with his knuckles. He didn’t look up from whatever he was doing.

Vargas kept his eyes forward and walked on, ignoring everybody. Worth couldn’t decide which was worse: the asshole by the printer, or the fact that Mark Vargas kept turning out to be basically an okay guy.

It had been about this time of day, their now-famous exchange. Middle of July. The nights had been hot and sticky and it had been the end of a long bad shift; Worth had been hand-delivering an LD-512 he’d forgotten to write up on an agg burglary two weeks before.

Vargas had been walking to his desk, reading a printout and eating a Crane Curl.