Fear the Night

hadn’t left the place in months. The other 7-F was in a steel and glass postwar monstrosity that had windows that didn’t open.

Repetto, Meg, and Birdy had spent another futile day. If this was a game they were playing, the Sniper was winning.

At dinner that night at Mama Roma, a neighborhood Italian restaurant that was one of their favorites, Repetto watched Lora ignore her favorite pasta and stare idly into the wine she was swirling in her glass. She was taking Dal Bricker’s death hard, as was Repetto. Dal, who had been like a son to them, and if dreams could come true, a son-in-law. For some reason Repetto thought Lora would emerge from her grief sooner than he would. He should have known better; she didn’t have as much opportunity as he to act on her pain and hunger for revenge.

“Did you see your client about the condo near Gramercy Park?” he asked.

“Canceled the appointment,” she said. “Somehow coordinating drapes and carpet doesn’t seem so important now.”

Repetto knew what she meant. “Dal?”

She stopped the swirling motion with her glass and looked at him. “Of course.”

“We’ll get his killer.”

“That sounds like a line from an old B-movie.”

“Maybe it does, but it’s true.”

She didn’t insult him by pointing out what they both knew: apprehending the Night Sniper wouldn’t bring back Dal. “Can you promise?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I know I won’t quit until we do get him.” When she showed no reaction, he said, “How’s Amelia taking Dal’s death?”

“Not well. But she’s losing herself in her studies. She’s strong and can cope.”

“Hard work as therapy.” That was something Repetto believed in, so why not his daughter?

“Maybe she’ll start seeing-”

“Someone else?” Repetto interrupted, almost angrily.

“She never did see Dal quite the way we would have liked.”

“No,” he admitted, “she didn’t.”

Lora artfully twirled a few strands of angel-hair pasta on her fork into a small tangle, put it in her mouth, and chewed. A sip of wine. “I had lunch today with Zoe Brady.”

After Zoe’s initial visit, Repetto was surprised when Lora had told him the two women had met, at a police banquet, and through an unexpected encounter in an antique shop when Lora was searching for a particular piece of furniture for a client. He was equally surprised they’d met for lunch. They didn’t exactly strike him as soul sisters.

“I called her,” Lora said. “I wanted to talk to her about the Night Sniper.”

“Why?”

“I need to know what’s going on. I need … to do something. To help. For Dal.”

“For you, you mean.”

“That’s true. Dal’s gone.”

“You’re a decorator, Lora, not a cop. For that matter, Zoe’s not a cop either.”

“Zoe can help me understand. She can tell me about the man who killed Dal, the man my husband is trying to kill.”

“Catch,” Repetto corrected her. “It isn’t my job to kill him.”

“I wasn’t talking about your job.”

“I was only talking about my job.” He took a large swallow of wine, dribbling some of it on his tie.

“Red wine,” Lora said. “It’ll stain.”

“We changing the subject?” Repetto asked, dabbing at the stain with his napkin.

She smiled sadly. “Sure.”

“I don’t want to have to worry about you, Lora.”

“This isn’t 1890, and I’m not some wilting flower who’s going to swoon under stress.”

“I know that. It’s the twenty-first century, and life is cheaper.”

“Are you going to forbid me to help?”

He had to grin. “I wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t work anyway. The thing is, I don’t know any way you can help.”

“Maybe there isn’t one, but I can at least help myself. It makes me feel better to talk with Zoe.”

“Not me,” Repetto said. “I don’t have as much faith as you do in profilers.”

“Still, she’s making the killer real to me.”

“Somebody to disturb your sleep.”

“Somebody I can hate.”

Repetto understood how hate could supplant grief. He poured some more Chianti and took a sip, being more careful this time.

“I’ll take the tie to the cleaners,” Lora said. “We’ve got some other things that need to go.”

They didn’t talk about Dal or the Night Sniper the rest of the evening.

Everything but.

The next morning, after Repetto left the house, Lora was gathering clothes to take to the dry cleaner. She checked one of Repetto’s suits to make sure the pockets were empty.

Deep in one of his suit coat’s inside pockets, she found a ticket stub from a week ago, when they’d last attended a play.

No surprise; Repetto was forgetful.

As she set the ticket aside to be thrown away later, she saw that it was for an orchestra seat, six rows back and seven off the aisle.

Seat 7-F.

10

Ralph Evans moved aside and let his wife, Venus, enter the elevator first. They both stood against the elevator walls so the bellhop would have room with their luggage. They’d just checked into the Melrose Plaza Hotel on the edge of Times Square. Pattie and George Neverton, also from Columbus, Ohio, had checked in minutes before. The Evanses had known the Nevertons for almost twenty years. Venus had gone to high school with Pattie. The two girls had dated the same boys, made the same mistakes, fallen into the same resignation they’d decided was happiness.

Ralph, a buyer for Adcock’s, an upscale men’s clothing store chain, was in New York on business, but his appointments weren’t scheduled till tomorrow. Plenty of time for talking with designer reps and feeling bolts of fabrics. Tonight the four Ohioans were going to have dinner at a good restaurant, then take in a show. That was why Ralph and Venus had invited their old friends the Nevertons to come along and play in fun city.

As soon as Ralph had tipped the bellhop and they were settled in their room, he called the Nevertons, who were also on the thirty-first floor. George and Pattie said they were right down the hall and would come over; they wanted to compare rooms, see if Ralph and Venus had a phone in the bathroom.

Venus, a plump former cheerleader, wandered over to the window and looked out at the city. “It’s so big and busy. More so even than you said.”

Ralph looked at her framed by the light, twenty pounds overweight (but so was he), still with the bright blue eyes and wild mop of blond hair. Somehow they came to be in their midforties, he a middle-aged cloth and clothing