51.

The killer moved.

The girl was only two strides from the door. She was lifting her hand to the knob. He had waited for this. People who are nervous or afraid of something look over their shoulders as they approach a door, but there is a moment when they have to open it, when they have to focus forward and they can't look around. That's the moment you can take them. He knew this. He had done it half a hundred times.

He was out of the car in a second, the 9mm SIG held lightly in his hand. He went up the walk behind her without making a sound. In his excitement, the silicone bodysuit seemed to weigh nothing; the fake flesh seemed to have become his own. He moved easily. He glided through the rain.

Now he was right behind her. She was unaware. It was a fine electric moment. He was alive to everything: the rain on his face, the feel of the gun, the way his movements seemed to flow, inevitable. Then something else: he caught the scent of her. The musky, flowery scent of her on the cool, wet desert air. It was a joy.

She opened the door quickly. With a fearful, jerky motion, she slipped her hand inside and flicked up the light switch. She was about to take one last look behind her.

Before she could, the killer grabbed her.

He slipped his left arm around her throat. He yanked her close against the left side of his chest. That kept his body protected and his gun hand clear.

He was through the door, in the house, in the living room. It was a moment like music. The smell of her hair filled him. His cheek was close to her cheek. Her soft throat was trapped in the crook of his arm. He held her fast and leveled his gun at the armchair, at Weiss.

But Weiss was gone. The chair was empty.

The killer kept moving. He was ready for this. He stepped to the side, carrying Julie with him. He had her almost off the floor. She was choking, clutching at his arm, but too weak to struggle. With a sweep of his gun hand, he covered the kitchen, the bedroom, and the front door-the only places Weiss could've gone.

It all happened in a second, one single second with the girl gasping and the rain pattering and the killer sweeping the room with his gun, waiting for Weiss to come at him.

Then, for the first time, as he turned from one side of the house to the other, he saw the braid rug out of place. He saw the trapdoor in the floor.

A bolt of fear went through him. He hadn't known about the trapdoor. He had missed it when he checked the house earlier. The rug out of place. The trap. Weiss could be down there.

Surprised, he swung to face it, lowered the gun at it.

The moment he did that, he knew Weiss was behind him. Weiss had gone out the kitchen door and come around the house, come back in through the front. Of course he had. He had only needed the man who called himself John Foy to see the trap, to face it for that single instant. He was Weiss-and he had known that's what the killer would do.

The thought went through the killer's mind: swing back around, swing Julie around for a shield, shoot Weiss down as he comes through the door.

But he only had time for the thought. Then Weiss stepped up behind him and drove the butt of a. 38 into the base of his skull.

The man who called himself John Foy crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

52.

The killer let go of Julie Wyant as he fell. She staggered away from him, deeper into the room. Rubbing her throat, she looked up at Weiss where he stood hulking and breathless just within the doorway. The killer lay on the floor between them.

Weiss looked at her. The sight of her made something catch and hesitate inside him. He knew that sweet, rose, white, and wistful face, the dreamy eyes-he knew them so well from the pictures he had of her; now here she was before him in the flesh.

She seemed about to speak. He stopped her with a gesture-a movement of his head toward the open door.

Julie Wyant swallowed, rubbing her throat. She looked down at the man on the floor. She nodded. She moved to the door, passing close to Weiss, so close he smelled her and felt the heat of her. Without pausing, she reached for him, gently pressed his arm through his trench coat. He ached.

Then she was gone.

With a grunt, Weiss dropped down on one knee beside the fallen gunman. He retrieved the 9mm SIG from where it had dropped from the gunman's hand onto the braid rug. As he slipped the weapon into his raincoat pocket, he heard a metal door shut in the night outside. Julie had gotten back into her car. He heard the engine turn over.

The killer was already stirring. Weiss held the. 38 on him and searched him quickly with his left hand. He reached inside his raincoat, feeling his sides, under his arms, the small of his back, the waistband beneath his paunch. He ran his hands down one leg, then the other. He found the compact. 45 in an ankle holster on his right leg. He waggled it free.

Weiss stood up. He had his. 38 in one hand and the killer's. 45 in the other. As he stood, he caught a glimpse of headlights from the corner of his eye. That was Julie Wyant driving away.

He would probably never see her again, he thought.

He moved heavily across the room, back to the armchair. He sank down into it. He laid the. 45 on the phone table beside it. He trained the. 38 on the man on the floor, the man who called himself John Foy.

It was the first good look he'd had at him. The first good look he'd had, knowing who he was. He couldn't remember how he'd looked the other time he saw him, in the driveway back in Hannock. He had the sense he looked totally different now. Bigger somehow-or fatter maybe. He wasn't sure. He had the sense if he ever saw the guy again, he'd look different then too.

The killer groaned. He shifted on the floor. He moved his hand to his head and rubbed the spot where Weiss had hit him. His eyes fluttered open.

'Oh God,' he said.

As Weiss watched, he slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. He shook his head as if to clear it. He breathed in deep. He looked around until he saw Weiss sitting over him in the armchair.

Then he smiled.

Weiss held the gun steady on him.

Good, the killer thought.

This was what he had planned for. He'd hoped to get Weiss on the ground fast, but he'd known what Weiss was, he'd known what Weiss could do. So now the detective had the SIG Sauer and the. 45. But the Saracen was still nestled in the pocket of the killer's body vest. In a minute or so, the man who called himself John Foy was going to pull it out and blow Weiss away.

Good, he thought.

But the rage-the rage burned in him. He didn't care about the thudding ache in his head. He could ignore that. But not the rage. Sure, he had known Weiss might outguess him, might trick him somehow, but now that it had happened, he didn't like it one bit. And the trapdoor-that was almost as if Julie had been in on it with him, as if they had planned the thing together, laughing at him the whole time. And then-why had Weiss let Julie go? He was aware of it, aware of her driving away, even as he came back to consciousness. That was the one thing he hadn't planned for. He wanted her to be here. He wanted her to see what was going to happen next. He had assumed Weiss would want her to see that too. He thought that was the point of the whole thing, that she was the point. It had never even occurred to him that Weiss might let her run away.

Now she was gone. He would have to find her all over again. It wouldn't be hard this time. There was only

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