TWENTY-THREE

She spent the night on the futon, awake and dressed, the .38 in her lap. She’d locked the window again, patched the hole with cardboard and duct tape, but part of her was hoping they’d come back. Back up the fire escape and to the window, an easy target there against the streetlights.

Toward dawn, the cat curled beside her. She felt its warmth, its rhythmic breathing. After a while, her eyes grew heavy. She set the .38 on the floor, still in reach, and drifted into sleep.

When she woke, bright sunlight was pouring through the window. She reached out to touch the gun, make sure it was still there. The cat jumped to the floor, fled across the room to watch her from the kitchen doorway.

She sat on the edge of the futon, ran fingers through her hair, the night coming back to her. Hector’s face. His throat. The realization she’d been fighting since she’d found him: that it was her fault.

In daylight, the apartment looked worse. She took the .38 with her into the bathroom, leaving it on the toilet tank while she showered. After she dressed, she cleaned up the kitchen as best she could. Then she stood on a chair and dislodged the panel in the drop ceiling. The box of shells was still there. She felt around beside it, had a moment of panic until her fingers touched metal. She drew out the key ring. Four keys, four safe deposit boxes, four banks.

She took down the box of shells and fit the panel back into place.

At nine, she called the number Jimmy Peaches had given her, his private phone.

“Are you all right?” he said.

She paused, unsure how much to tell him. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t sound it.”

“How well do you know Tino Conte?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well enough to reach out to him?”

“Why?”

“That issue we were talking about,” she said. “It got serious last night.”

“How serious?”

“As serious as it gets.”

He was quiet for a moment. “My advice for you is to stay as far away from him as possible.”

“You said whoever was doing this had their own agenda, one Tino wouldn’t like.”

“So?”

“So maybe we have a mutual problem.”

“No way I’m putting you in a room with that guy. Or anyone that works for him. Like I said, the man’s a snake.”

“I can’t just sit around, waiting for someone to come at me again,” she said. “Not knowing who or from what direction. Or when.”

He sighed. “Okay. Forget about Tino, that’s not happening. But there might be another way. Let me make a couple calls, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Don’t do anything until you hear from me.”

“I won’t,” she said.

In the bedroom, she got the overnight bag from the closet shelf, packed it with clothes, the box of shells. Then she walked the apartment, looking for anything else she might need. It occurred to her again how little she’d acquired in her life, how few were the things she called her own.

The cat followed her from room to room, making noise, getting underfoot. She opened a tin of cat food, spooned all of it onto a dish, then filled a bowl with fresh water. She set them down in the kitchen doorway, then sat on the futon and watched the cat while it ate.

When it was finished, she put on her leather jacket, dropped the .38 into the pocket, looked around the apartment a final time.

The cat stopped licking its paws, watched her, suspicious. She unlocked and opened the living room window, then pushed up the storm pane. Cold air flowed in. The cat backed away under a chair.

“Come on,” she said. It didn’t move. When she crossed the room, it backed away farther, as if it knew what was coming. She reached down, scooped it up, held it to her chest as she went to the window.

“Sorry, cat,” she said. “You’re back where you started.”

She let it go. The cat half leaped, half fell from her arms, landed on its feet on the fire escape, turned to stare back up at her.

Don’t look at me like that, Crissa thought. It was nice while it lasted, that’s all. Now it’s over.

She shut the window, locked it. The cat looked at her through the glass for a long moment, then turned and sprinted down the fire escape. She watched it go.

*   *   *

The Travel Inn was on 42nd Street, still Manhattan but close enough to the Lincoln Tunnel that she could get out of town fast. She left the rental car in a garage a block away, tipped the deskman to let her check in early.

She had lunch in the coffee shop, her first food of the day, and brought a takeout cup of tea up to her fifth-floor room. She got out the .38, checked the rounds again, then pulled a chair up to the window. The clouds were heavy with the threat of snow. She thought of the cat, out there on its own again.

She sat there sipping tea, the gun in her lap, looking out at the gray day, waiting for her phone to ring.