The Third Coincidence (13 page)

Someone was here. She was sure of it. If not, Jingles would be weaving back and forth between her feet.

As her vision improved, the white refrigerator took inexact shape, then she saw the handle on the fridge.

She swallowed, licked her lips, tossed her purse onto the far liv- ing room chair, and quickly moved to the back of the couch. Noth- ing had moved but her.

There were no shadows that shouldn’t be there. Then one leaped toward her, and collapsed. Rose again. Rushed her, and then disappeared, all without an accompanying sound.

She crouched next to the end of the couch, and cradled her gun in the palm of her other hand. If he had wanted her dead, he would have attacked as soon as she came in, before her eyes began to ad- just. From her position she could drop the invader with a shot to his legs. But there weren’t any legs, only a fast shadow. She held her aim, fighting to even out the ebb and flow of her breathing. Then the shadow rose again. Moved again. She had tightened the slack in the trigger when she realized the source of the shadows. The wind was blowing the small curtain over the bathroom window she left open to help dry the shower. Still, someone had to be here. If not, her cat would be with her.

She rose to a crouch and moved into the space between the two bar stools on the living room side of the kitchen island. In a sudden move she pushed the covered pan from her morning oatmeal over the edge of the island.

Clang. Bang. The pan noisily settled onto the floor.

96 David M. Bishop

Then nothing.

Her safe zone now included the kitchen. She could call the bu- reau for backup and hunker down to keep the bastard from getting to the front door—the only way in or out. While keeping her eyes on the hallway, she stepped to the chair in the living room area and reached inside her purse for her cell phone. It wasn’t there. The slot just below the top flap was empty. She reached deeper. It wasn’t there. She raked her hand hard across the bottom of her bag. It wasn’t there. She moved to the counter and dumped the contents and glanced down. Her phone wasn’t there.

It must have fallen out when I spilled my purse,
she thought.

Christ, I should’ve installed a land phone.

She couldn’t go out and look for her phone without giving the intruder the time to get out, and she wasn’t about to let the bastard escape. He had to be in either the bedroom or the bathroom.

She stood still. Alone in the dark lifeless kitchen. Listening. One minute. A breath. Another minute. Another breath.

Screw this. I’ll finish it right now. Alone.

The apartment’s one bathroom had two doors, a pocket door into the one and only bedroom, and a hinged door to the hallway. She couldn’t go down the hall to her bedroom without exposing her back to the bathroom’s hallway door. She needed a plan to clear the bath- room without leaving herself vulnerable to an attack up the hallway from the bedroom.

From near the refrigerator she saw a faint reflection of the bath- tub in the mirror over the sink. The clear shower slider stood half open.

I always pull it closed. With the window open, it dries faster.

She could enter the bathroom quickly and close the door to the hall. No. That would allow the son of a bitch to recapture the space between her and the front door. She could stop in the hall and pull the bathroom door shut, then proceed to the bedroom. But that would momentarily leave her vulnerable from the dark bedroom.

the third coincidence 97

She eased open a kitchen drawer, removed a flashlight, held it against her stomach and turned it on. It worked. She flicked it off and slipped it inside her waistband. From an upper cabinet she took two large water glasses, shoving the fingers on her left hand deep in- side. Then, holding her gun in her right hand above her shoulder, she rushed the bathroom, smacking the door with her right shoulder. The door slammed against the wall, the knob gouging out its shape in the drywall.

She watched the open pocket door into the bedroom while lis- tening for movement in the hallway. Hearing nothing, she slid one foot toward the door she had come through and quickly glanced down the hall toward the bedroom. Nothing.

The silence ended when she shattered the first glass against the hallway floor, while keeping her focus on the pocket door. Then she smashed the second water glass the same way. Now, if the intruder entered the hall from the bedroom, she would hear him.

The bedroom was as black as her hair. The uninvited guest had closed the blackout drape over the small window on the far side of the bed, the one she opened each morning so Jingles could catch the afternoon sun.

She eased her bathroom handheld mirror through the pocket door. The closet sliders on the far wall were shut.

Men get in my bedroom by invitation only, you son of a bitch.

Ready or not, here I come.

She squared her shoulders to the opening in the pocket door and tossed a round plastic bottle of hand lotion so it would roll across the bed until it dropped off the far side. She trained her gun on the darkness along the wall, but got no reaction when the lotion bottle hit the floor. Nothing. She stepped through the door, stooping be- side the bed, and listened.

Quiet. Dark.

The bastard’s still here, he must still be here. If he got out, my cat

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would have met me at the door meowing his head off. Oh, my God. That’s what Jingles did the night my bra disappeared.

She moved to the wall beside the closet, reached over, and used her fingers to find the recessed cup handle in the slider. When she had it, in one violent motion she thrust the slider as hard as she could. The door bounced off the far jamb.

“Toss out your weapon. Crawl out here on your knees. Slow.

Hands empty or you’re dead. Now!” Nothing.

Quiet. Dark.

Rachel crouched and squinted. Then flipped on the flashlight, the stark light blunting against the clothes. She moved the beam lower. She had not before realized just how many pairs of shoes she owned, but none of them had feet in them.

He has to be in the front coat closet.

She pushed the bedroom door to the hallway closed, circled around through the bathroom pocket door and into the hall beyond the broken glass, closing the bathroom door behind herself. At the panel of switches near the front door, she raised her gun, flipped on the closet’s inside light, dropped to one knee, and flung the door open.

Coats and umbrellas. Only coats and umbrellas.

A sense of relief struggled with her anger. Someone had been here. But now he was gone. And so was Jingles. Her nerve endings began tingling as her adrenal gland shut down.

After a futile hour of looking for Jingles outside, during which she found her cell phone under her car, she stood at the top of the landing softly calling for Jingles. She wrapped her arms around her- self and shivered as if a seam in time had allowed December to visit June.

Back inside, she put her gun on the kitchen counter, and cleaned up the broken glass.

She put on an oversized T-shirt and went into the bathroom,

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turned on the light, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her skin looked wet and felt hot. She splashed her face with cold water, ran a rung-out washcloth over her neck and down her arms. As she turned, her field of vision included the toilet bowl where she saw a dark shadow against the stark white porcelain.

Jingles.

His eyes had been gouged out.

chapter 22

The Supreme Court is effectively standing down.

—Eric Dunn, freelance columnist, June 11

The way McCall had watched Rachel Johnstone leave his home that first night had convinced LW that Rachel would be the perfect messenger. She would tell Jack about her stupid cat, and he would understand: stop interfering.

LW screwed the cap off a bottle of red wine and sat down to watch MSNBC’s rebroadcast of its earlier edition of
D.C. Talk
.

But what he heard was not what he had been expecting. He flailed his arms, sloshing wine onto the floor. “Fuck you, Nesbit,” he shouted at the TV screen. “Don’t you get it? This is not about me! It’s about stopping the unelected officials who really run America.” You Goddamn fool! It’s blasphemous to compare me to John Wilkes Booth and the Reverend Jim Jones.

“Charles Nesbit. I sentence you to death.”

Chief Justice Evans paused outside the conference room and took a deep breath before walking in to face his five surviving associate jus- tices. At six four the chief justice towered above the others. At a sig- nal from him, his fellow justices took their seats in accordance with the Court’s long tradition: Justice James Dunlin, the senior associate justice, sat to the right of the chief justice. Michael Roberts, the sec- ond senior associate justice, sat to the chief’s left. Justices Penelope Budson and Harold Sanders, the third and fourth senior, sat second

the third coincidence 101

to his right and left respectively. The fifth surviving and newest Associate Justice Jonathan Phineas Huckaby faced him across the table. The seats where those killed would have sat, remained empty. “The president has asked that we move our families away from our homes,” the chief justice told his associate justices, choosing his words with care. “Today. The FBI and our Court police will ac- company us during these relocations and each of us and our fami-

lies will thereafter remain under surveillance.”

When several of them started to speak, he held up his hands. “I know,” Evans said. “I know. This is a sad day. The FBI is checking our automobiles for bugs and explosives. I took the liberty of giving them permission. I trust no one objects. We’re to leave unannounced as soon as we finish this meeting. When the FBI tells us our homes are clear, we can return our families to them. While we’re gone, the FBI and our Court police will electronically sweep our chambers here and the private and common areas of the courthouse before in- stalling cameras and listening devices.”

Justice Penelope Anne Budson, an elderly woman who’s gray hair had bluish highlights, spoke first. “Mr. Chief Justice. How are we to proceed with our duties? Our deliberations must be confi- dential.”

“There will be no listening devices or cameras inside this con- ference room. We’ll post security outside this door twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This room will be used for all our discus- sions about the cases we have under deliberation. In our respective chambers we will need to watch what we say and make more use of e-mails and memos.”

“But still—” Justice Budson insisted.

“Penny,” the chief justice interrupted, “how can we proceed with our duties when one of us per week is being murdered? We cannot expect to go forward without some inconvenience. Let us hope in- convenience is the worst we suffer.”

“Excuse me, but this appears to transcend mere inconvenience,” Justice Michael Roberts said, his voice sharp with annoyance.

102 David M. Bishop

“You’re quite correct, Mike. But then, calling it whatever you prefer, the situation remains.”

Senior Associate Justice Dunlin dropped his pincer glasses onto the notepad before him. “Perhaps,” he said in his Maine accent, “we should, for now, suspend our work as this Commander LW has de- manded. Our summer recess is fast approaching. We could claim an inability to proceed with so many vacancies on the bench. The president and the Senate could delay the confirmation process until this LW and his militia are captured.”

“There it is,” Evans said. “All right; it’s on the table. Does any- one second Justice Dunlin’s motion that we adjourn during these trying times?”

“I did not place a motion on the table, Mr. Chief Justice. I thought we were having informal discussion.”

“All right then,” the chief justice corrected himself, “does anyone wish to informally discuss further Justice Dunlin’s idea of recessing early?”

Justice Sanders stabbed his notepad with his mechanical pencil. “I will oppose any effort for an early adjournment. Make no mistake, whether foreign or domestic, if madmen figure they can shut down the Court or any part of America we will get more terrorism, not less.” A double pencil stab punctuated his comment.

Chief Justice Evans pointed his finger and thumb at Sanders as a child would mimic a pistol. “I agree, Sandy, but high principle is often easiest when one is not looking down the barrel of a gun.” He then turned to his senior associate. “Justice Dunlin, do you wish to put your idea in the form of a motion?”

Dunlin stroked his pale, bony jaw. “No.”