“Who’s there?”
No answer.
I squinted, trying to see through the darkness of my bedroom. My digital clock displayed 3:35 in bright red; the only light in the room.
I sat up and reached for the lamp by my bedside. Clicked it on.
Nothing happened.
I reached higher and felt that the lightbulb was missing.
Carefully, slowly, I eased open my nightstand drawer, seeking out the.38 I put in there every night.
The gun was gone.
Something in the darkness moved.
“Mom? Alan?”
No answer.
I breathed in deep, held it, straining to hear any sound.
A faint chuckle came from nearby.
My digital clock went out.
The hair rose on the back of my neck. The darkness was complete, a thick inky cloth. Sweat trickled down my spine.
The closet.
“I’ve got a gun!” I yelled to the darkness.
Another chuckle. Low and soft.
Fuller.
Another movement. Closer this time.
My heart pumped ice through my veins. Where were Mom and Alan? What had he done to them?
How do I make it out of here alive?
My only chance was to get to the door, to get out of the apartment. Run hard and fast and don’t look back.
I slowly drew back the covers, and eased one foot over the edge of the bed, resting it on the warm chest of the man with the knife who was lying on the floor beside me.
I screamed, and woke myself up.
Reflexively, I had the bedroom light on and the.38 in my hand in a nanosecond. My breath came in ragged gasps, and my heart felt like I’d just completed the last leg of a triathlon.
“Jack?”
Alan opened his eyes. They widened when he saw the gun.
“What’s happening?”
“Just a bad dream.”
“You’re going to shoot a bad dream?”
I looked at my gun, quivering in my hand, and tried to put it back in the drawer. My fingers wouldn’t let go. I had to pry them off with my free hand.
I sat awake, thinking about fear, until my alarm went off and I had to go to court.
I dressed in my best suit, a blue Armani blazer and light gray slacks, spent ten minutes dabbing concealer under my eyes, and met my mom in the kitchen, where she already had a pot of coffee going.
“Morning, Mom.”
Mom wore a pink flannel nightgown with a cat stitched on the front. She sat at the breakfast bar, sipping out of a mug, you guessed it, with a cat on it.
“Good morning, Jacqueline. You look very pretty.”
“Court.” I poured coffee into one of the last drinking vessels without a feline picture gracing it. “You okay?”
“This cold weather is affecting my hip.”
“It’s got to be eighty degrees in here, Mom. You set the thermostat on ‘broil.’”
“My hip is synced to the outside temperature, and it’s freezing out there. I forgot how cold this city gets.”
I wondered how cold Mom really was, and how much of this was her pining for Florida.
“Do you keep in touch with any of your friends back in Dade City?”
“Just Mr. Griffin. He keeps pestering me to visit. But I’d hate to travel in this weather. The cold, you know.”
“Why not invite him here?”
“He’s retired, dear. On a fixed income. I couldn’t ask him to fly out here, and then pay those ridiculous hotel rates.”
“He can stay with us.”
Mom smiled so brightly she lost twenty years.
“Really?”
“Sure. If he doesn’t mind sharing the sofa bed.” I winked at her.
“Well, I think I’ll give him a call, then. I could use the company. You work all day, and Alan spends all of his time locked in the bedroom, writing.”
I searched the fridge for a bagel, finding nothing but Alan’s health food. Soy and sprouts did not a good breakfast make. I chose some dark bread, and a non-dairy, low-fat, butter-flavored spread, which had such a long list of chemical ingredients on the package it should have been called “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Cancer.”
“Thanksgiving is next week.” I slathered the imitation stuff on the bread. “Invite him over for that.”
“That’s a wonderful idea. I’ll call him now.”
I took a bite, then spit the mouthful into my hand.
“What the hell is this?”
“Alan’s soy bread. He has that gluten allergy.”
I tossed it in the garbage. “It tastes like a sour sponge.”
“Steer clear of his breakfast cereal. Tofutos, they’re called. Beans and milk aren’t a tasty combo. And whatever you do, don’t let him make you anything in that juicer. He actually forced me to drink a celery sprout smoothie.”
Mom got on the phone, and I finished my coffee and headed to the criminal courthouse at 26th and California.
Someone had forgotten to tell Chicago it was still fall, because a light snow dusted everything and I almost broke my neck on a patch of sidewalk ice.
My car started on the second try, and I played how-slow-can-we-drive-and-still-move-forward with my fellow Chicagoans. The first snowfall of the season and everyone seems to forget, en masse, how to drive.
I was late getting to the trial. The courthouse, a squat square building, had free underground parking for city employees. Heated. I took an escalator up to the main floor, bypassed the line at the metal detector with a flash of my star, and took the second group of elevators to the twenty-seventh floor.
Court had already begun, and the tiny room was crammed full to bursting. I shouldered my way through the crowd and sat next to Libby, who wore a lavender Vanderbilt jacket and skirt like it had been designed for her.
Her co-counsel, a brown-haired, twenty-something prosecutor named Noel Penaflor, had Phil Blasky on the stand. Phil had on an ill-fitting suit and tried his best to explain, in layman’s terms, the results of Eileen Hutton’s autopsy.
“… thoracic cavity eviscerated and…”
I tuned him out, trying to organize my thoughts.
I didn’t look at Fuller.
As the litany of atrocities ensued, Noel introduced pictures of Eileen as evidence. First came pictures of her with family and friends. Then came the autopsy photos.
As expected, this caused a general uproar in the courtroom. But no reaction was more impressive than Fuller’s.
He vomited all over the defense team’s table.