Working Stiff

He sat down on the couch and fiddled with the pillow, clearly wanting her to go. So she did, with Mr. French trotting along in her wake.

She closed the bedroom door, leaned against it, and looked at the dog. “You are an asshole; you know that?”

He snorted, turned three times in a circle, and flopped down in the doorway.

“Now you think you’re a chaperone? Fine. Knock yourself out. No treats for you.”

It seemed unnaturally quiet as she prepared for bed; she found herself stopping, waiting for some hint of sound from the living room. Bryn made herself move briskly, brushing her teeth, her hair, slipping into comfy flannel pajama pants and a cotton tank top. When she got into bed, Mr. French abandoned his post at the door and jumped up onto the bed to curl at her feet.

She glared at him “Don’t even try to make it up to me, loser dog.” He licked his chops, grunted, and put his head down on his paws. “And don’t give me the sad eyes. I’m not going for it.”

He whined softly, so she melted and petted him, and got rewarded with an affectionate lick before she turned off the lights.

Now it was quiet. Really, really quiet. Except for the always loud bulldog breathing, it felt like her apartment had been wrapped in soundproofing. She usually heard something from her neighbors— voices, smeared TV noise, something—but tonight it was like her room had been launched into outer space. Maybe they were on vacation. Or out to a late dinner.

Maybe they’re dead. That morbid thought crept in unexpectedly, and Bryn fought to get rid of it. Not everything had to have an awful explanation. Not every shadow had a threat.

But it was really quiet.

Bryn turned, twisted, sighed, flopped over on her back. It felt hot in the apartment. Almost stifling. She considered getting up to adjust the thermostat, but it was in the living room, and no way was she going out there. Better to sweat.

She drifted, almost asleep, and found herself sighing happily as a cool breeze dried the sweat on her face. Felt good.

Breeze.

Mr. French suddenly bolted off the bed, barking furiously, louder than she’d ever heard him, and the shock threw her off the opposite side in instinctive reaction. She fumbled for the gun she’d left sitting out on the nightstand, found it, and crouched behind the bed as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

The pale square of the window. Billowing curtains. The cool breeze moving over her skin.

Mr. French, snarling and barking.

There was no one at the window. I didn’t open that. Someone else did. He may already be inside.

No. If someone had gotten in, Mr. French would have gone after him.

The next second, her bedroom door slammed open, and McCallister stepped in, took cover next to Bryn, and said, “What happened?” He was still in his suit pants and shirt, but his tie and jacket were off—that was a minor, fleeting detail, though. What she mostly noticed was that he’d come armed. His voice sounded a lot calmer than she felt. “Window,” she said. “I didn’t open it.”

Mr. French was bouncing up and down, ricocheting off the wall and snapping at the blowing curtains.

“Call him off,” McCallister said. “Let me check it out. Maybe you did and forgot.”

“I didn’t! And it didn’t open itself!”

“I know. Just let me check.”

She whistled, but Mr. French wouldn’t heel; he was fixated on the window, angrier than she’d ever seen him. McCallister shook his head and stepped out and moved like a ghost to the side of the window. Mr. French, apparently realizing he had backup now, stopped barking and stood at alert attention, watching as McCallister eased back the curtain and looked out. His body language stayed tense, even after he gave Bryn the all-clear sign and slid the glass closed. He checked the lock. “Not broken,” he said. “Someone must have slipped the catch and opened it. Not that hard to do, with these kinds of cheap locks. I just didn’t expect anyone to come up the wall. It’s a pretty rigorous climb.”

“Could you do it?”

He shrugged, which she assumed meant yes. Bryn sat down on the bed and imagined someone climbing up that wall—and without her will, that image morphed from a shadowy figure to Fast Freddy. She imagined him raising his head and grinning as he did it, and it was the memory of his weird, lewd smile that made her shiver. “Jesus,” she whispered. “He didn’t get in …?”

“Mr. French says no,” McCallister said. He reached down and patted the bulldog on the head; the dog growled in response, lifting his lips to show teeth, but didn’t bite. Just made the point. “I think the dog stopped him.”

If she hadn’t let Mr. French into the bedroom—which she usually didn’t, actually—he might have been in the other room, barking at the door. More time for Freddy—if it was Freddy—to get in and do … whatever he was planning to do.

Or—on the pleasant side—maybe it had been a garden-variety rapist/murderer. That, Bryn thought, would actually be a relief.

“I don’t think you should stay here,” McCallister said. “Please pack a bag.” It was, she noticed, in the form of a request.

“I’m not leaving my dog.”

“We’ll take him with us. Please.”

McCallister still seemed tense, and she wasn’t in any mood to be obstinate, or to argue about the twinge of obedience she felt even though he’d phrased it politely as a request. He was one of those people who was so normally unreadable that when he flashed actual stress, it had to be a real crisis. Plus, someone really had jimmied her window—whether it was Fast Freddy or not. Getting out of here didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

Packing took about five minutes. Hell, as much as Bryn owned, she thought she could have packed to move house in under an hour, depressing as that was. McCallister checked his car thoroughly, inside and out, for tracking devices, hidden passengers, or explosive parting gifts before he allowed her to come anywhere near it. He even checked out the trunk. She felt that little frisson of revulsion when she imagined Fast Freddy hiding in there, like a trapdoor spider down its hole.

They’d gone about a mile from her house, taking apparently random twists and turns, when McCallister finally said, “I don’t see a tail.”

“That’s good.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I’m switching cars.”

“You’re what?”

“I could have missed something. This isn’t a game, Bryn. It’s not television. I can’t afford to take a chance with our lives.”

“I thought I was hard to kill.”

His voice, when it came, sounded grim. “You’re not hard to hurt.”

McCallister got on the car phone and ordered up a second car from one of his Pharmadene henchpersons. Within half an hour, they’d pulled into a parking lot and switched vehicles with another man driving a similar car.

“Where’s he going?” Bryn asked.

“Anywhere but where we’re going. If anyone’s tracking him, it’ll be a wasted and lengthy trip.”

“Well, where are we going?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“In case we’re being monitored.”

He didn’t answer, but then, she really had stopped expecting him to make the effort to give her any actual information.

They left the downtown lights behind and drifted into suburbia, sleepy streets and darkened houses. He kept driving, and now that the adrenaline had worn off she found herself dozing, her head at an uncomfortable angle against the window. She must have faded out for a while, because when she jerked upright again McCallister was pulling to a stop in front of a massive stone wall pierced by an enormous, forbidding wrought-iron gate.