She looked frantically around for a place to hide. The sheet-draped furniture. She scrambled for the nearest piece, what appeared to be a hulking chair. A key turned in a lock. Crouching behind the chair, she had full view of the doorway. She took aim.

The door swung outward, shielding the man. He left it open. A moment later, she heard the kitchen door open, then swing shut.

Apparently, he hadn’t noticed it was unlocked. That had been a stupid mistake on her part. If he did, he would realize she was there, and depending on where he was headed, he could see her car.

She could go after him, but M.C.’s safety was her first priority. Scrambling out from behind the chair, she darted for the open door.

The basement was dark; she snapped on her pencil light and circled the room with it. Typical basement stuff. Metal shelves stacked with all manner of things

M.C. wasn’t there. She frowned and moved the beam over the room again, wishing for a more powerful flashlight.

“M.C.,” she whispered, as loudly as she felt she could. “Are you here?”

“Here,” the other woman called. “I’m here.”

Thank God. Kitt hurried in the direction of M.C.’s voice. A wall. Holstering her Glock and holding the pencil light between her teeth, she felt her way across the wall.

“Where are you?” she asked again.

“I don’t know.”

The sound had definitely come from behind the wall. Another room. A hidden room behind this one.

But where was the door?

From the room above came the sound of footfalls. He was coming back! Quickly, she snapped off her light and ducked behind a group of moving boxes.

A moment later, he trotted down the stairs. Humming again. A tune from Oklahoma!

He carried a can of Coke and a straw.

She studied the tall, thin man. She recognized him from his DMV photo she’d called up, though he was better-looking in real life. She saw why M.C. had been attracted to him-he possessed a kind of boyish good looks. Very nonthreatening. Like a redheaded Peter Pan.

Further confirmation her mother had been right-never judge a book by its cover.

He crossed to the battered bookcase, crowded with a mishmash of junk. He picked up what appeared to be a television remote control, pushed a button and the bookcase swung open.

A safe room. Shit.

Most safe-room doors were made of reinforced, bulletproof steel. Once he closed the door behind him, short of dynamite, she wouldn’t be able to get inside until he opened it again.

She would not allow him to lock himself inside that room with M.C.

Luckily his back was to her. Kitt eased from her hiding place, weapon out. She took aim, preparing to fire.

Still humming, he tossed the remote back on the shelf and stepped through the doorway.

Kitt let out a relieved breath. Now she knew how to get in. All she had to do was wait for the right moment.

72

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

12:35 a.m.

At the soft swish of the door opening, M.C. braced herself. Not Kitt, she knew. Not yet. She had heard Lance on the stairs, his humming. Kitt would wait. Until she was certain M.C. was safe. Until she was confident she could take Lance down.

Until she was certain she had no other choice.

“Mary Catherine,” he called softly. “I’ve got your drink.”

He came to her and knelt before her. He held the can and straw to her lips. She sipped the sweet, cold drink. It washed away the taste of the blood. She could almost feel the rush of the sugar entering her system.

“I was so thirsty.”

“More?”

She nodded and took several more sips, then pulled back. “Thank you.”

He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her. She saw he had the revolver jammed into the waistband of his pants.

“I hope you have the safety on,” she said. “If not, you’ll have a whole new set of one-liners for your act.”

“That’s what I loved about you, Mary Catherine. You always got me, you know?”

Loved. Past tense.

Not good.

He looked genuinely regretful. “I wish things could have ended differently between us.”

Different than me dying or you going to prison? Gee, Lance, you think?

“We can write our own ending,” she said. “Our very own happily-ever-after.”

“Happily-ever-after,” he repeated, tone wistful. “I believed in those, a long time ago.”

“Believe again,” she said. “It’s not too late.”

“It is. It’s…You don’t understand.”

“You keep saying that. Tell me about the Beast. And about your family.”

He was quiet a moment, then began. She saw that he trembled. “Mother was special.”

“Deaf?”

“Yes. She never heard. Even when we told her. She didn’t protect us from him.”

“Who?”

“Father.”

“He hurt you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. That was wrong. No one should ever hurt a child.”

“No. Never.”

“You hurt children, Lance. You killed them.”

“No. The angels are sleeping.”

“Dead,” she corrected him.

“Beautiful. Peaceful. No more pain.”

“What about Marianne Vest?”

He grimaced. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

“Who are you, Lance? The Sleeping Angel Killer? His Copycat?”

“We’re one. It was always just the two of us.”

“You and the Beast.”

“Yes. The Other One. He protected me. As best he could.”

He. A brother.

“He came up with the plan to save us.”

“What was it?”

“We killed her. After.”

“After what?”

“After he beat her.”

“So, your father hurt her, too?”

He nodded. “We used his gun. He loved his gun.”

The Smith amp; Wesson.

“Then we hid it. Nobody ever suspected us.”

“They do now, Lance.” She said it softly. “Because of the gun. You used it to kill Brian, didn’t you?”

“I killed him because he was bothering you. I tried to talk to him first, explain that you and I were together. He laughed at me. So, I followed him to that motel and I shot him.”

“Your brother, was he angry?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“He’s going to know now. They traced the gun.”

He sat quietly, face expressionless. She went on, “That call I took, at your apartment. It was a woman from the Walton B. Johnson Center. She remembered your name. They’re going to look for me; people knew we had been seeing each other.”

“It’s over, isn’t it?”

His words came out choked. She felt for the little boy whose life had gone so terribly awry. That such evil existed, that it was so often directed toward children, broke her heart.

“It doesn’t have to be,” she said. “Free me. We’ll go to the police. I’ll try to help you.”

He curled into himself and rocked back and forth, like a small child seeking comfort. “It’s my fault, all my fault. I’m stupid. And careless, just like he says.”

“You’re not stupid, Lance.”

“He’s all I have. He’s going to be angry, so angry.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“You can’t.” He met her eyes, the expression in his hollow and hopeless. “Only he can.”

The hair on the back of her neck prickled. He meant to kill her. He was sweating and shaking.

Lance Castrogiovanni didn’t enjoy killing; weirdly, he felt it was his duty.

“Don’t do this, Lance!” she cried loudly, to signal Kitt. “We can make it work. I’ll go to my chief and-”

Sobbing now, he stood and went for the Smith amp; Wesson.

The same moment her cop’s sixth sense alerted her that Kitt was in the room, she stepped out of the shadows.

“Put your gun on the floor at your feet, Lance,” Kitt said softly. “Then turn around slowly, hands in the air.”