the esophagus!'' His laughter started as soon as he finished the joke.
Jade laughed, three notes descending the scale.
'Aren't you going to ask me in?' Tony said.
'You are in.'
'Farther in?'
'Would you like to come farther in?' Jade asked flatly, turning his back on Tony and heading to the living room.
'Why certainly. I'd be delighted.' Jade watched Tony's face when he saw Travers sitting on the floor. He could tell Tony was impressed by her.
'You didn't tell me your partner was here,' he said.
'One of your friends, I'm surprised he doesn't think I'm the maid,' Travers shot back without looking up.
Tony turned to face Jade, his eyebrows raised. 'And all the charm of a rottweiler.'
'Rabid,' Jade said. 'A rabid rottweiler.'
Travers kept flipping pages.
Tony took a step back and pointedly looked Jade up and down. A pair of ripped shorts, no shirt, no shoes and socks. 'You didn't have to get all dressed up just because I was coming over.'
Jade grabbed the leg of his shorts. 'What, this old thing?' he said.
Travers smiled, but still refused to look up.
'I gotta hop in the shower,' Jade said. 'Play nice with the rottweiler.' He disappeared down the hall.
Tony sat down heavily on the couch. 'So. I see you've met the ever unpredictable Jade Marlow.'
Travers looked up at Tony and studied him carefully. There was a softness to his face, and she wasn't surprised to see the wedding band on his finger. She decided she liked him. 'You could say I've had the pleasure.'
'Frustrating, huh?'
'And more. Sometimes he's impossible. I take that back. He's always impossible.'
Tony laughed and extended his hand. 'Tony Razzoni.'
'I know. You're one of the only people he talks about civilly. Anyone else I figure he would've shot at the door.'
'I've dodged a few of his bullets,' Tony said. He chuckled. 'He's very intense.'
Travers slammed down the file she'd been studying. 'Intense? About what? About himself? He doesn't give a shit about anything else. The victims, the families-nothing.'
She immediately regretted her outburst, embarrassed to be showing emotion about someone she presumably didn't like.
Tony ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, and looked at her knowingly. She hated that he knew Jade was under her skin.
'I met a guy a few years back, ran track with Jade at UCLA,' he said. 'Said Jade trained like nobody else-put in five-hour practices six days a week. In his junior year, he was a strong candidate for team captain. That's rare, you know, for a junior. The night of the election, he didn't show up. Most guys woulda killed to be captain, but he didn't even show up. Guy I talked to said he just didn't want it. But I think he was afraid of the responsibility, didn't want to run the risk of letting anyone down.' Tony paused for so long that Travers thought he was done with the story.
'He won every single regular season meet in his junior and senior years. And he knew he would, the guy said. Even back when he missed that election on purpose.'
Tony looked away from her, leaning back and spreading his arms across the top of the couch. 'Guess he just didn't care, huh?'
They sat in silence, Travers flipping through a criminal psychology textbook and Tony picking at his nails.
Chapter 39
Allander heard a truck pull into the driveway and then a man's deep voice followed by children's laughter. He had found a shotgun mounted on the wall of the study, upstairs, and a box of shells in the cabinet beneath. Now he sat in quiet anticipation, shotgun across his knees.
The front door opened and Earl entered the house. In his late fifties, he had a head of curly gray hair, and his skin was wind-blasted from years of working outside. Like his wife, Earl was a teacher. Allander had determined this fact earlier by looking through the photo album in the living room. That's why he waited for him.
Earl stopped when he saw the outline of Allander's figure in the darkness of the living room ahead. The boys hadn't noticed Allander's presence, and Earl's eyes closed regretfully as he heard the door click shut behind them. With one muscular arm, he swept his two boys, aged ten and sixteen, behind his back.
'You know,' Allander said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward until a sliver of light fell over his face. 'You shouldn't allow guns in the house. There's an overwhelming likelihood that they'll be used against members of your own family.' He smiled sweetly and waited to see a change of expression sweep across Earl's face. He was not disappointed.
'You'd better pray you didn't touch her,' Earl said, his voice lowering to a snarl.
'I don't pray,' Allander replied. 'And I did touch her.'
Earl lunged forward, his fingers spread in fury. The hatred in his eyes was extraordinary. Allander knew the man would have no qualms about tearing the flesh from his body with his bare hands.
The first shot hit Earl in the stomach and stopped his momentum, knocking him backward. He landed in a sitting position about two yards in front of Allander's feet.
His fingers pushed in and felt the rush of blood where his stomach wall had been. He raised his head to look at Allander just as the second shot blew much of it from his shoulders. Chunks of flesh landed in the entranceway, skidding past the children's feet before sticking to the wall behind them. Blood sprayed the large mirror on the left side of the room.
'Well, that was certainly a helpful exercise,' Allander said cheerily as he loaded two more shells into the shotgun and recocked it. 'I hope no one else loses his head over this little matter.'
The sixteen-year-old started to cry, his shoulders heaving. The younger brother remained silent, staring at Allander with wide eyes. He stepped back against the door, and Allander smiled as he saw his little pink fingers grasp the older boy's hand.
The boys sat back to back in two of the kitchen chairs, bound to their seats by thick duct tape coiled around their bodies just under their chests.
The thrill of power rushed through Allander's body, touching him to the bone. He almost had to shake it off like a chill. He had come to settle another score, to revisit the teachers with a bit of retribution. The children had just been an extra. He liked having them just as they were; he could perform any action he desired on them and they could do nothing about it. Very few people had ever experienced such complete control.
Allander had been considerate enough to remove the mother's body from the kitchen before he took the boys in there. He had even mopped up the blood. Fathers received their retribution publicly, but he could never show children their dead mother. She was safely out of sight, one room over in the family room.
The older boy had stopped crying, but his breath still came with sobbing urgency. He shrank back from reality, shock glazing his now vacant eyes. The little one had not made a sound.
'Well, my young friends, what are your names?' Allander asked politely. He was perched on a high stool facing the boys and he dug a kitchen knife into his seat absentmindedly, cleaving little peels of wood from the surface.
'We're not your friends, and we're not telling you our names. We're not telling you nothin'.' The ten-year-old jerked his head toward his older sibling. 'Don't tell him nothin', Ted.'
Allander smiled. 'Well, if he doesn't tell me nothing then he would, in fact, be telling me something. A double negative makes a positive. Your advice isn't concordant with your desires.'
The ten-year-old looked at Allander and squinted his left eye to form what he thought of as an intimidating
