“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
The words had hardly passed his lips when his cell phone began playing Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” Ramsey’s entire body jerked to wakefulness and she pushed herself upright as Sullivan reached for his phone in his back pocket. “Sorry. I have to get this.”
“Please,” she said. “For God’s sake, get it.”
Sullivan stood, tapped the phone, and raised it to his ear. “What is it, Mrs. Tereshko?”
Groaning softly, Ramsey dropped back on the sofa and pulled the throw over her head. “The neighbor? Mrs. T. gets “Ride of the Valkyries” as her ring tone?” She stopped muttering to herself to hear what Sullivan was saying.
“Are your doors locked?” he was asking. “Good. You stay inside, and you keep your shotgun with you. I’ll go out and have a look around. No. The person you saw earlier is not out there. Yes, I’m sure. No, I don’t know why someone would be trespassing across our backyards. Did you ever think this housing plan should have alleys? Yes, ma’am. It’s something to consider, isn’t it? All right. I need to go if I’m going to be of any use. Sure. I’ll let you know.”
Sullivan ended the call and slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Sorry. I’ve got to take a look around.”
Ramsey’s head emerged from under the throw. “Of course, but does she know about 9-1-1?”
“She does, and I guess she used to be a frequent caller until I moved here.” He took his jacket out of the closet and slipped it on. “She’s seventy-two and head of the Neighborhood Watch.”
“Ah. ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ is explained.”
Grinning, he took his pistol out of the lockbox and tucked it into the small of his back. “This won’t take long. It was probably a deer. We get a lot of them foraging for food this time of year.”
Ramsey sat up and scooted back into the sofa’s corner. “Wait,” she called to him as he took a few steps toward the kitchen and the back door. “Do you think she saw Jay?”
“I think she saw a deer,” he repeated. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Ramsey waited until she heard Sullivan leave before she got to her feet and went to the front window. She carefully lifted the light-filtering blind away from the window so she could peek out. There wasn’t any movement on the street or in the yard that she could see. She peered sideways for a better look. A car pulled up to the corner half a block away and turned up Sullivan’s street, moving considerably slower than the posted speed limit for a residential area. She watched its progress. The headlights gave her a wider field of vision until it passed the house. She was tempted to turn on the porch light, but stopped with her hand on the switch because she didn’t know if it would actually help Sullivan.
She went to the back of the house and turned off the kitchen light before she looked outside. If it was Jay skulking around, there was no point in framing her face in the window. She saw a flashlight wavering in a neighbor’s yard, although whether it was Mrs. T.’s place or someone else’s, she didn’t know. She couldn’t make out who was holding the flashlight, but she hoped it was Sullivan. The light briefly illuminated a shed and then a swing set before it disappeared behind a thick row of cedars. The darkness was disturbing. She found herself holding her breath until the light reappeared and she could finally make out Sullivan’s shape. No one was with him. No deer or dog or coyote had bolted across the yard. No Jay Carpenter appeared from between the cedars. Likewise, there was no shotgun blast. She concluded that Mrs. T. had followed Sullivan’s instructions.
Ramsey turned the kitchen light back on and opened the door as Sullivan was crossing the deck. “Anything?” she asked.
“Let me get inside.”
She stepped out of the way to let him pass. He tapped the door closed, pushing back on the cold eddy of air trying to follow him in. Ramsey took his jacket when he shrugged out of it and laid it over the back of a chair. Unable to manage her anxiety, Ramsey asked him again for information.
“Well, it wasn’t deer,” he said, removing his gun from his waistband. “I need to put this away.”
Ramsey followed him, hovering by the closet while he stored his Sig Sauer. “It was Jay, wasn’t it?”
“It was a person. There’s no way to know if it was Jay.” He moved to the living room, warmed his hands at the fire before he turned to the sofa. Ramsey hadn’t moved to sit down. It was impossible to miss the thread of tension running through her. One tug and she would unravel. “Let me call Mrs. Tereshko and let her know I’m going to ask for a patrol of the area. I don’t want her shooting an officer.”
“A patrol? Is that necessary?”
“A precaution and a courtesy. That will calm the waters.”
“Right. We don’t want the Valkyries riding again.”
“Exactly.” He made both calls. The one to his neighbor was brief; the one to the station was a bit longer because he conveyed his suspicions that someone was wandering in and around the houses on his block. When he hung up, Ramsey still hadn’t taken up her seat on the sofa, so he resumed his position in the corner and patted the space beside him. He picked up his drink and took a swallow. “You might as well sit.”
“Do I need to?”
“Ramsey. Come here.”
She did. Lifting the throw, she sat down into a comfortable curl at his side and smoothed the throw over her legs. “Tell me,” she said. “You think it was Jay, don’t you?”
“It wassomeone,” he said. “There’s some frost on the grass. I tracked your footprints leading up to my deck and I found another set, a set of bigger prints, in the yards on both sides of my house and then to the houses closer to Mechling Street. I saw your Escape.”
“Did you see an Audi?”
