“Get out!” Earl bellowed, jangling both cuffs. “Before I break these apart and throw you through the goddamn window!”
The cop chuckled.
Danny walked away.
Dying inside.
Sunday
4:01 a.m.
Emily slipped into a Black Sabbath T-shirt.
“Uhn,” she heard Marty say.
“Go to sleep,” she whispered. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
“What time is it?”
She checked her glow-watch. “Four-oh . . . man!” She cringed at the tree limb scraping the window like Goliath’s toenail. Between work and her ongoing home reconstruction, she kept forgetting to call the tree company. The limb was too thick - and too high off the ground - to prune herself, and she didn’t want Marty climbing around with a chainsaw.
“In the morning?”
“Yes.”
Another groan. “You don’t run till five.”
“I know,” Emily said, double-knotting her Nikes. She was too keyed up to sleep. Two days had passed without finding a viable suspect. Or even a decent clue - if Bloch knew more about Zabrina Reynolds and her family, he wasn’t saying. “Between the homicides and the execution, I’ve got a lot of energy to burn off-”
Click.
Marty looked like a sleepy walrus next to the bedside lamp. “Guess I’ll get up, too,” he said.
“You want to run with me?”
He made a face, as she knew he would. Marty derided running as a “perfectly good waste of heartbeats.” His exercise was weight lifting.
Along with what they’d done for two heart-pumping hours before falling asleep.
“What are you going to do while I’m gone?” she said, smiling at the memory.
“Get us one step closer to done,” he said.
She nodded. The land beneath their feet once held the two-story log home her late husband, Kinley Jack Child, built as his wedding present to her. Two years ago, it was wrecked by the serial killer who’d laid waste to the city. Unable to coexist with those ghosts, she had the house - no longer “home” - leveled and removed.
Marty talked her out of selling the land.
“Jack chose this spot for one reason,” he said of the sloped, wooded lot that overlooked the DuPage River and Naperville Riverwalk. “Because you’d adore it.”
“I do,” she’d admitted.
“So let’s rebuild.”
“You and me?”
“With our own four hands. As a testament to Jack’s vision, and to dance on that other bastard’s grave. Living well is the best revenge, right?”
“But build a house?” she asked. “Can we do that?”
“Baby,” he’d replied, enveloping her in his arms. “We can do anything.”
The more she thought about it, the more she agreed.
A builder handled the foundation, exterior, and utilities. She and Marty tackled the interior, from floors to fixtures. Marty asked her to move into his house for the several years the project would take, but she didn’t want to jinx their love with too rapid twenty-four-seven.
He stayed over most nights, though - his beloved beagles passed last fall from a fast-moving virus, leaving his own walls full of gloom. Together, they turned the bare bones into a home. Every tile, light, and gallon of paint were glued, screwed, and brushed on by themselves. As soon as she could flush her toilets and run the AC, she bought a king-size bed - they barely fit in a queen, let alone a double - and moved in.
When they were finished, she intended to ask Marty to unpack for good. She was ready to commit till death did they part.
“Want your ice cream?” Marty asked as they trundled down the stairs and into the kitchen.
“Just one spoon,” she said about her pre-run meal. “I’ve had way too much sugar this week.”
He walked to the freezer, pulled out French vanilla. Her standard pre-run meal choice.
“I’ll take peach today,” she said.
“Ooh,” he said, spooning it into her mouth.
“I’m trying.”
His nod said he understood.
“Love you,” she said as she headed out the back door. Down her backyard hill, three miles out, three miles back, three cups of French roast, and a shower.
Maybe a spot more “exercise” if time permitted.
“Back at ya,” he said, hefting a carton of floor tiles and heading for the powder room.
9:00 a.m.
“Chief?” the patrolman gasped as he two-stepped away from the tide that covered half the floor. “I think . . . I’m . . . gonna . . .”
“Not in the crime scene,” Holbrook Chief of Police Gene Mason said, gently escorting the youngster outside. He took advantage himself, breathing in the sun-washed air. The blood didn’t bother him - he’d seen worse at highway wrecks - but the jack-o’-lantern throat sure did.