“Something like that.”
She turns to face him. “You are bringing her back, right?”
Leo cocks his head. “What?”
“You and Mac and the kids and your slobbery dog and your mean cat are coming home at the end of the semester. Right?”
Despite the dead woman at his feet, Leo cracks a faint smile. “Yes, Naya. We’re coming back. But you better home Java doesn’t find out you called him mean.”
An ambulance speeds up the street, siren wailing, and comes to a stop at the mouth of the driveway.
Leo touches Naya’s arm. “Can I leave you and Will in charge here? I want to go after Sasha.”
“Mmm, go on. Make sure your wife doesn’t use my name again.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
For a retired intelligence analyst, Linda has—had—a front door lock that’s trivially easy to pick. Still, Sasha’s heart pounds and her hands tremble as she works the tumbler.
Got it.
She jabs her decorative hairpin back into place in her updo, eases the door open cautiously, and slips inside. Then she closes the door silently and locks.
She hopes she got here first. The fact that door was locked is encouraging but not determinative.
The apartment is dark. She doesn’t turn on lights. Instead, she uses her phone flashlight, keeping it low.
She creeps down the dim hall to the spare bedroom. The door is closed. The room is quiet. She takes a breath and grasps the knob, turns it slowly and then pushes the door all the way open, braced for whatever might be waiting on the other side.
Filing cabinets stand sentry on one wall. Archival boxes lines the shelves along the other three walls. She crosses the room and opens a box at random. It’s full of briefing binders and reports.
She got here first. The Archives are secure. She flips open a binder. Her shoulders tighten when she sees the familiar Lighthouse alphanumeric code stamped on each page, confirming the theory the all wanted to be wrong.
She slides the binder back into the box and the box back onto the shelf. Then she backs out of the room and closes the door.
She follows the hallway to the kitchen and looks through the window over the sink. She can see the approach to the building’s front entrance. She watches and waits, breathing in the scent of damp earth, green leaves, and the faint perfume of blooming flowers.
A white box van with rental plates creeps down the street, circles the block, and returns. It comes to a stop not quite far enough from the fire hydrant.
Sasha nods to herself. She’s been wondering how she beat the killer here. Now she knows. They stopped to rent a van to move the archives.
A woman in a black gown emerges from the cab, opens the rear doors, and removes a collapsible hand truck. Her hair is twisted into an elegant chignon that highlights the graceful lines of her neck. She glances up at Linda’s window as she slams the doors closed. Sasha jerks away, telling herself there’s no way the woman saw her in the dark kitchen.
She slips off her shoes, leaving them in the kitchen, and creeps to the living room. She stands in front of the door, positioning herself so she will be in arm’s reach of the woman the instant she steps inside.
She slows her breathing and rolls her neck from side to side as she pictures the woman walking to the building entrance, through the lobby, and up one, two, three flights of stairs, carrying the folded document cart in one hand.
At the end of the hall, the stairwell door squeals as it opens. Then it shuts with a soft thump. Brisk footsteps approach, muffled by the carpeted hallway floor.
The steps grow closer. Closer. Stop. From the other side of the door, there’s quick breathing, then the jangle of keys.
Sasha kills her phone flashlight and slips the device into her skirt pocket. She plants her feet, raises her left hand to chin level, her wrist bent, the heel of her palm parallel to the ceiling, her elbow tucked closed to her side.
A soft laugh. “Lin, you didn’t even change the lock.”
Then the scritch of a key.
Sasha pictures the woman. She’s average height,so six inches taller than her. Aim for her chin.
