ou Antonio Shannon?"

Shannon looked up from his desk at the big, homely man who stood in front of him. "Yeah, I'm Shannon. What can I do for you?"

"My name's McPherson." He reached into his jacket and produced a leather ID folder, snapping it open with the practiced flip of the wrist that said Fed. Shannon took his time studying the ID. It looked official, but why would an FBI agent want to talk to him?

"First off," McPherson said quietly, "I'm not here in any official capacity. This is purely personal. A friend of mine got killed in Mississippi, and you put in a request for information about him. Rick Medina. Do you have any leads on who might have killed him?"

Shannon rubbed his jaw. Whatever response he might have expected to his request about information on the Mississippi murder victim, he sure hadn't expected an in-the-flesh visit from a Fed. That meant his little request had set off alarms somewhere. McPherson might or might not be acting in an official capacity, regardless of what he said. The victim in Mississippi might or might not have been this man's friend. It didn't matter. Rick Medina, whoever he had been, had some hot-shit connections.

"We don't know anything about that murder," he said slowly. "We were actually looking for something that would help us with one of our murder cases." He stood. "I think you need to talk to Detective Chastain."

Marc was on the phone with the ME. The child's autopsy was scheduled in an hour. His stomach tightened with anger at the thought of it, at the memory of the child's frail little body and matchstick bones. This was one of the times he wished he didn't have to adhere to the law; he would like nothing better than to kill the child's father with his bare hands, slowly, bone by bone and burn by burn, as he had tortured that child.

He had just hung up when Shannon entered with a tall, lanky, middle-aged man who nevertheless looked in remarkably good shape for his age. "This is Mr. McPherson with the FBI," Shannon said.

Marc shook hands, feeling the strength in the older man's grip. "I doubt it," he said mildly.

Shannon looked startled. McPherson gave a faint smile. "I have an ID that says so."

Marc shrugged. "I imagine you do. But if I call the local FBI office and have you checked out, what will they tell me?" If this man was an FBI agent, he was the first one Marc had ever seen who lacked that spit-and-polished look, an image the older agents clung to even more strongly than the younger ones. The differences were subtle: a haircut that wasn't quite short enough, a tie that was a little too individual and stylish. And his shoes were black Gucci loafers, which was a little out of the price range of most FBI agents. On the other hand, he was wearing a shoulder piece, though the cut of his jacket was good enough that it almost hid the bulge of the weapon.

The smile on that homely face grew to a grin. "I would tell you to go ahead and make that call, but hell, you'd probably do it. What gave me away? The shoes?"

"Among other things. The shoes were the clincher."

"It was worth a shot. Most people, even cops, aren't going to notice the shoes."

Shannon was looking in bewilderment at the shoes in question. "What's wrong with them?"

"They're Guccis," Marc explained.

Shannon still looked bewildered. "They're expensive," Marc enlarged. "Federal agents normally couldn't afford them." He looked back at his visitor. "So who are you, and why are you impersonating a federal agent?" He didn't add that doing so was against the law; this man already knew that quite well.

"My name really is McPherson."

"Then you won't mind if I check it out."

The older man sighed. "Son, have you always been such a bulldog? Do you mind if I sit down? I can see this is going to take longer than I planned."

"Please, have a seat," Marc invited, with a sardonic bite to his tone.

"Thanks, don't mind if I do." He folded his long length onto one of the chairs.

"You too, Antonio," Marc said. "But shut the door first."

Shannon shut the door and took the other seat, but he positioned it so he was at an angle to McPherson. He was sharp; he might not know Guccis, but he had definitely spotted the weapon.

"Okay, I'm not with the FBI," McPherson said easily. Marc noted that he didn't seem worried—grimly amused, maybe, but not worried. "But I do work for the federal government, and the rest of what I told Detective Shannon is the truth. He requested information on the murder of Rick Medina in Mississippi, and that made me think he might know something about the case that the cops there weren't telling me. Rick was a friend of mine. I'm not here in any official capacity. It's personal. If you have any information concerning his murder, I'd appreciate it if you would tell me what it is."

Picking up a pen, Marc turned it end over end while he considered what the man had said. If he wasn't worried about impersonating a federal agent, which was a crime and he had just admitted doing so to a cop, then likely he did indeed work for the federal government in another capacity, one that he was certain would give him immunity from prosecution. National Security Agency, maybe, or CIA.

"Which agency?" he asked, still watching the pen.

The man smothered a curse and a sigh. "You know, this isn't something that generally comes out in conversation."

"No, I don't expect so. Satellites or pickles?"

"Are you speaking English?" Shannon wondered aloud.

McPherson answered. "What he means is, he thinks I must work for either National Security or the CIA. The National Security Agency deals mostly with satellites, that kind of stuff. The CIA is known, sometimes affectionately, as the pickle factory. He knows a lot, for a local cop."

Marc waited. He didn't have anything to tell McPherson about his friend's murder, and he did think McPherson was telling the truth about Medina being his friend. But something was niggling at him, an uneasiness or maybe even an awareness, as if he were about to put a piece of the puzzle in place if only he could turn it the right way.

"Was Medina one of you?" he asked.

"In a way. He did some jobs for us. He wasn't, however, working for us when he was killed."

"You would say that anyway." CIA, then, Marc figured. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered making a point about the victim not working for them at the time, since he had been murdered in the States.

"Of course I would. But it's true. We're in the dark on this, and Rick wasn't just a friend, he was a good friend." McPherson's eyes darkened. "It's damn hard to believe some punk wanting some quick cash for drugs could have gotten the drop on him like that and then not even take the car. It just doesn't feel right."

No, it didn't. Medina had evidently been very good at his job. Marc thought of what he had learned from Dexter Whitlaw's military records: Whitlaw had been a Marine sniper in Vietnam, and he had evidently been very good at his job, too.

"Did you," he said slowly, watching McPherson's face, "also know Dexter Whitlaw?"

McPherson stiffened, his eyes going flat and unreadable. "I know him. Are you saying you suspect him of killing Medina?"

"No. He was killed over on St. Ann the same day as Medina. Whitlaw was shot with a twenty-two. Did Medina and Whitlaw know each other?"

"Yeah. We all were in Vietnam at the same time." McPherson leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, pulling at his lower lip while he stared unseeingly at a spot on the floor. "So Dex is dead, too. Rick and Dex both. Same day, same caliber weapon."

"That's pushing coincidence a little too far," Marc said. "They know each other, they die the same day only a short distance apart, both killed with a twenty-two. Were they, say, maybe in the same line of work in Vietnam? And who would want both of them dead?"

"That's an interesting question." McPherson worried at his lip some more. "I'd like to know the answer to that myself. But, yeah, in a way they were in the same line of work. Both of 'em were damn good at it, too."

"Mr. Whitlaw was living on the streets, but he wasn't a bum; he was healthy, well fed, not on drugs or booze, so he had some means of income that I haven't been able to discover. Did Mr. Medina come down here to meet him, and if so, why?"

"No one knows what Rick was doing here. Personal business, he said."

"Then we still don't know anything. We can compare the slugs, see if they were killed with the same weapon, but unless you know something you aren't telling us, we're still at a dead end."

"I wish I did know something," McPherson said heavily. "Anything. Because this does smell real bad, but damn if I know why."

The noise was slight, little more than a rustle. Karen paused, her head tilting as she listened for a repeat of the small, odd sound. She was in the bedroom, plucking yellowed leaves off the potted ficus tree she had placed in front of the window.

There. A whisper, like fabric. And from a different location.

Someone was in the apartment.

Her scalp prickled, and a jolt of sheer terror made her heart almost freeze in her chest. She didn't move, couldn't move.

The bedroom door was open. She stood to the side, out of a direct line of vision, but if anyone came into the bedroom, he would see her immediately, and she was trapped against the wall. The only way out of the bedroom was that door. Her apartment was on the second floor, so she couldn't even climb out the window. It was a sheer drop to the ground, too far to jump.

He came to the bedroom door. She couldn't see him, just the faint shadow he threw across the floor. If she hadn't been looking, she never would have noticed. Karen's chest constricted, preventing her from doing more than draw in quick, shallow breaths. She couldn't move, couldn't even have screamed.

He didn't come in. After standing there for a moment, looking in, he walked on toward the kitchen, this time making much more noise, as if he thought there was no need now to be quiet.

Her ears rang, and her bedroom tilted oddly. Karen forced herself to take a deep breath, silently dragging in oxygen past the tightness in her lungs. Why had he gone on? Why was he making so much noise now?

She stared at her neatly made bed, and slowly it dawned on her: he thought the apartment was empty. The curtains were open, since she hadn't yet gone to bed, so the room was flooded with sunlight, and she had no need to turn on a lamp. There were, she realized, no lights on in the apartment at all for that very reason. The television wasn't on; she had watched it for a little while, but the morning shows hadn't been very interesting, so she had turned it off again after a few minutes. She hadn't been making any noise while she plucked the dying leaves from the ficus tree; to all intents and purposes, the apartment must seem empty to the invader.

She heard him systematically opening and closing drawers in the kitchen, prowling in the refrigerator—God, was he hungry? She should get out of the apartment, that's what all the experts said. Don't confront a burglar, just get out if you could, and call the cops once you were safe.

The eating area of the kitchen had a clear view of the living room. If he were there, he would be able to see her making for the door. What if he had a gun? He could shoot her where she stood.

All of a sudden, she felt calm—or at least much calmer. Whether or not he was armed, she had a better chance of getting through this unharmed if she got out of the apartment. She eased toward the bedroom door, her bare feet silent on the carpet.

Just as she came even with the door, she heard his footsteps approach the eating area. She froze one step short of stepping into view. Once again, her breath hung in her chest, caught on the icy shards of terror. If he came on into the living room—

But furniture scraped across tile, and she knew he was still in the eating area. Her brow furrowed. It sounded as if he were turning all the chairs upside down.

Surely that wasn't normal behavior for a burglar. Look for valuables, take the television and small stereo, and get out. But he hadn't even come into the bedroom to look for jewelry, which was where most women kept their valuable bits and pieces.

She slid that one step more, framed in the doorway but staying far enough back that she could see only a small portion of the eating area. She saw the legs of a chair sticking out. He was turning them all upside down.

He was looking for something… something in particular.

Get out and then call, the advice went. She looked at the phone by the bed. The apartment was too quiet; the only sounds were that of the refrigerator running and the noises he was making. If she called 911, she would have to whisper, and he might be able to hear even that. If she didn't say anything, would they send someone out anyway? Could 911 pinpoint individual apartments?

It didn't matter if they could or not, she realized, so long as they came with sirens blasting.

Damn him, he was searching her apartment. Abruptly, the terror left her, and other emotions flooded through her. She felt outraged, violated. He was looking through her things, disturbing the tentative feelings of home she was beginning to form. This was the only home she had now; the house she had always considered home, still thought of as home, was nothing but a burned-out shell. She wasn't going to abandon her home to this bastard.

Karen took a step back, away from the doorway. Gently, so gently, moving slow and easy the way her father had taught her to walk in the woods, she eased toward the telephone. Not turning her back on the doorway, she carefully lifted the receiver out of the cradle and shoved it under her pillow to muffle the noise of the dial tone. Then she punched 911, wincing at the faint click of the buttons.

A weapon. She needed a weapon. But she didn't own a handgun, and the knives were all in the kitchen. When he finished the rest of the apartment and came into the bedroom, he would see the phone under the pillow and know someone was there, hiding. She would lose the element of surprise, which was the only advantage she had, so she had to find something before then.

There was nothing in the bedroom she could use, unless she wanted to hit him with her purse, which was sitting beside the chair in the corner—another dead giveaway of her presence, if he happened to see it.

Quickly, she did a mental inventory of the bathroom. The disposable shavers she used wouldn't send him screaming in fright, unless he had a phobia about being shaved. The worst damage one of those shavers could do was a shallow slice. She had perfume, hairspray… hairspray. That was it. He would have to get close, but a gun was the only weapon that afforded distance. She wouldn't have had that luxury even with a knife.

The bathroom door was open only halfway. Karen sidled toward it, taking care not to brush against anything. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel her pulse throbbing in her fingertips, but she felt calmer now, more purposeful.

The door hinges creaked at the least movement, she remembered. She couldn't touch the door.

The carpet seemed to drag at her feet. The distance was only a few steps, but it felt like yards. She was in full view of the open bedroom door if the man came far enough into the living room to look through it. How much longer would he be occupied in the kitchen? How many places in a kitchen were there to search? He had already looked in the cabinets and drawers, the refrigerator, under the chairs and table. The only place now to occupy him before he came back into the living room was a small closet to the right of the doorway before you went into the kitchen. If he was methodical, that would be the next place he would search.

Please, let him be methodical, she prayed.

The bathroom door wasn't open as much as she had hoped. She eyed the narrow opening. It looked too narrow, large enough to let a child slip through, but she wasn't a child. Still, she had lost weight. Maybe she could do it—maybe.

Have a plan, just in case.

In the kitchen, he began putting the chairs upright again, sliding them into place. He was a neat burglar, as if he didn't want her to know he had been inside her home. His neatness gave her a few seconds of warning.

She took several quick, silent breaths, visualizing what she was going to do. The hairspray was sitting on the left side of the vanity. The towel hung on a bar on the right. Grab the towel with her right hand, pick up the hairspray can with her left, use the towel to muffle the sound of the cap coming off. She wished she were less neat and had tossed the cap as soon as she bought the spray. She never threw away any cap, though, until the container was empty.

She exhaled to collapse her chest and sucked in her stomach. Pressing her back hard against the doorway, so hard the edge scraped her skin, she sidled through.

Her breast just brushed the door; the hinges gave a single, small squeal.

She didn't stop. Freezing now could be disastrous, if he had heard that betraying squeak. She slipped into the small, dark bathroom, grabbing the towel with her right hand and the hairspray can with her left. She didn't bang against anything, just moved smoothly and quietly. After wrapping the towel around the cap, she twisted it off. That, too, made a slight sound, less carrying than the creak of the hinges.

Turning around, she faced the bathroom door, standing just where she wouldn't be visible through either the opening or the crack. Quickly, she checked behind her, to make certain the mirror couldn't be seen, but from the angle of the open door, all that was visible was the tub and shower enclosure.

Holding the can in her left hand with the nozzle pointed outward, she waited. She didn't like being caught in this tiny space, but after the squeak of the hinges, she didn't dare step out into the bedroom again. She already knew he could move quietly, because she hadn't heard him enter the apartment. He could be standing on the other side of the door, playing cat and mouse, silently waiting for her to come out.

Her scalp prickled again. She could almost feel him there, a patient, malevolent presence.

But she could be patient, too. The one who moves first is the one who loses, her father had said. How could she remember all this? She had been only a child, and he was a scary stranger, though she knew he was her father. But he had talked, showing her how to be a successful sniper, and she had listened. She didn't have a gun in her hand, only a can of hairspray, but that knowledge had been her father's legacy to her, and perhaps now it would save her life.

She didn't hear any sounds coming from the living room. If he hadn't heard the hinges, he would be searching as he had before, moving about normally, making noise. The apartment was silent; he had heard her.

She gauged the distance to the door. If he shoved it open, it would hit her, knocking her off balance and ruining her aim. Silently, she stepped back against the vanity, hoping that would be enough clearance. She raised the can and waited.

She had a slight advantage in that she knew he was there. He suspected her presence, but he didn't know—unless he had noticed her purse. Or the telephone under the pillow. Oh, God.

Picture what you're going to do, Dexter had said. Be prepared to do it without warning. Don't hesitate, or your ass is dead.

Karen didn't want her ass to be dead. She wanted to live a long, long time—

The door crashed violently inward. Instantly, she extended her arm and sprayed at the head of the menacing shape silhouetted in the doorway. "Aghh!" He staggered back, his hands going to his eyes. One of those hands held a gun.

Karen hit him in a rush, shoving him with all her strength and sending him sprawling backward across the bed. He grabbed at her, catching her gown and pulling her with him. She screamed, hoping the sound would go through the pillow and that the 911 operator was still on the line. He rolled, pinning her down; she saw his contorted face, his red and streaming eyes, and she hit him with another blast of the hairspray. She missed his eyes, and the spray went up his nose. He choked, gagging. She sprayed him again, kicking violently, squirming, hitting him in the face with her right fist. Her foot hit the lamp and knocked it off with a crash, the ceramic base shattering.

"You… bitch!" he howled. Blinded, he struck out with his fist and caught her on the cheekbone. The impact bounced her head on the mattress, blurred her vision. She wasn't aware of pain, only of the stunning force of the blow. She hit him across the nose with the can, splitting the skin and sending blood spraying across her and the bed. She managed to get her legs up and kicked out with both of them as hard as she could, one foot hitting him in the stomach and the other lower, almost in the groin. He staggered back, his breath exploding out of him. Karen rolled off the bed, scrambling on her hands and knees for the door. He pulled the trigger then, enraged, cursing, but he couldn't see, and the bullet punched a hole in the wall above her head, sending plaster flying.

The carpet burned her knees as she lunged through the door. Panting, her vision still blurred, she staggered to her feet and lurched for the front door. Another shot exploded through the wall.

She wrenched the door open as he stumbled out of the bedroom. Wiping his sleeve across his streaming eyes, he raised his arm. Karen dove out the door, sprawling in the hallway and rolling as she hit. The shot splintered the door. She surged to her feet, stumbled for the stairs, and ran into two policemen who were coming up the steps with their weapons drawn, faces white.

Dizzily, she sank to the floor. Down the hall, she saw a blurred face in the doorway of one of the other three apartments on this floor. "Get down!" she gasped.

Hearing her voice, the burglar staggered through the door, arms extended, pistol in a two-handed grip. Both policemen reacted instantly, firing so close together that the two shots sounded like one. The impact of the bullets slammed the burglar back against the wall, and for an instant a look of mild surprise crossed his face. He looked down at the red stain spreading across his chest, blinking his streaming eyes as he tried to focus them.

"Drop the gun! Drop it!" both policemen yelled.

The burglar laughed. The sound gurgled in his throat, but it was a laugh. "Fuck you," he said, and lifted his pistol, pointing it in Karen's direction. He pulled the trigger just as both policemen fired again.