Fear the Night

There was an almost inaudible snick! from the other side of the drape, and the unmistakable crack of a rifle shot echoed along the street.

Meg saw the shock on Amelia’s face, the pattern of blood on her left cheek.

Then Meg was sitting on the floor, dragging Amelia down with her.

It all seemed to be happening slowly, but disjointedly in a way that ate up time.

Shouts from outside. Running footfalls. Leather soles shuffling on concrete. The doorbell chiming over and over. A pounding on the door.

Meg looked again at Amelia, who was sitting hugging her knees and staring wide-eyed back at her, still with the stunned expression. And something else. A kind of horror mixed with pity.

A pain in Meg’s right shoulder made her gasp, and she curled to lie on her side on the deep, roughly napped carpet. She felt for her shoulder and found fiery pain. Blood was thick and scarlet on her fingers, and now she felt the warmth of fresh blood between her breasts, trickling down her ribs beneath her left arm. Her life trickling away.

“Christ! I’ve been shot. . ”

“Stay still,” Amelia said, calmer now, suddenly older than twenty-one and in charge. Her face was bloody, cut by flying glass. A small shard protruded from just below her left eye. “I’ll get help.”

“Careful. . ”

Amelia nodded as she scooted away, staying low, passing out of sight because Meg was too weak to turn her head to follow her movements.

I’ve been shot. . Can’t be. . So many things left to do. .

Motion. Shiny black shoes near her. Big. Men’s shoes. Cop’s shoes.

Jesus! That’s reassuring. .

A cop’s face looming over her. Knickerbocker’s.

Mr. Chicken.

Exhausted, no longer in pain, Meg closed her eyes.

The Night Sniper knew he’d missed. He’d tried to make a head shot and failed. Carelessness of a sort. Or unlucky.

Something made the blond woman in the window, who had to be Amelia Repetto, suddenly move-only a few inches, but enough to save her life. Life was always a matter of inches.

Lucky Amelia.

This time.

There’ll be another time.

Right now the challenge was to get out of the subleased apartment fast. He’d gone over it all in his mind, so his actions were almost automatic. He moved quickly and deliberately, a part of his mind seconds, minutes ahead of where he was and what he was doing.

This rifle had a bolt action, so the Sniper didn’t have to use valuable time retrieving a shell casing; it remained in the breech. There weren’t as many tall buildings in this area as downtown, which meant the echo effect wasn’t as great. It wouldn’t take his opponents long to locate the source of the shot. If he weren’t fast enough they’d be on his heels.

It was their time of temporary advantage in the game.

Their move.

His risk.

Even as he was reviewing this in his mind, he was heading toward the door to the hall.

He took the fire stairs fast, this time not caring if he made noise.

Past the musty-smelling basement laundry room. Still unoccupied.

Out the side door into the dark passageway. The fresh night air.

He hurried toward the paler rectangle of light that was the block behind Amelia Repetto’s apartment, his long coat flapping as he took giant strides while fitting the rifle in its sling. Protruding from one pocket of his threadbare coat was a brown-wrapped bottle that would account for the uneven gait caused by the rifle extending down alongside his left leg. Its awkward, shifting weight only added to the suggestion of inebriation. As he walked across a subway grate, he worked the rifle’s bolt and let the spent shell drop from beneath his coat to fall into darkness. If he must, he could throw the coat open and raise and fire the rifle in an instant.

If he must.

Right now, he didn’t anticipate the need. Though his shooting could have been more accurate, his escape from the area was going just fine. He would stay in his homeless costume this time, and make his way as one of the invisible into the vastness and anonymity of the city.

He forced himself to move more slowly and deliberately, as if he were unafraid, as uninterested in his pursuers as they should be in him.

Another ten minutes and he’d be safe. The ageless equation of the desperate: time equals distance equals safety. .

He was unaware that a large percentage of the NYPD was in the area. And that they knew more than he imagined.

As Repetto jogged the final few yards to Amelia’s apartment door and started up the concrete steps to the stoop, his cell phone chirped.

“We got a name,” Melbourne told him.

“We got a shooting here! My place!”

“Amelia okay?”

“Dunno. Gonna find out.”

Repetto was through the door now, shoving aside a uniform as he made his way toward the still form of a woman on the floor.

Then he became aware of Amelia standing off to the side, holding a bloody towel to her face.

She came to him and hugged him fiercely, dropping the towel and pressing her bloodied face to his shoulder. He hugged his only child tight, kissing her forehead, then leaned back to stare more closely at her.

She didn’t appear to be injured badly, but she’d need treatment. He could see glass shards glittering in the small cuts that peppered her cheek. Outside, sirens were yowling, drawing near.

“We got EMS on the way,” a voice near him said. Repetto turned to see a uniform, tried to recall his name but couldn’t.

Amelia had moved away from Repetto. A guy wearing a bowling jacket and beard who Repetto knew was undercover was helping her over to the sofa, gently guiding her with a hand on her elbow so she’d sit down.

Repetto began thinking more clearly through his fear and concern for Amelia. He understood now that the woman on the floor was Meg.

He went to her on numbed legs, barely avoiding the blood. We’re going to get the bastard!

The trap was closing.

We’re going to get him.

After making sure her wounds were only superficial, Repetto saw Amelia off not in an ambulance but in a patrol car. He called Lora, talking to her only briefly, to let her know what had happened, to reassure her that Amelia would be all right. Then he called Melbourne back.

“Amelia. .?” Melbourne asked, when he heard Repetto’s voice.

“She’ll be okay,” Repetto said.

“Thank God for that.”

“Meg’s not so good.”

After Repetto had brought him up to speed on what had happened at the apartment, Melbourne said, “Our sniper’s name is Dante Vanya.” He spelled it for Repetto. “Weaver tracked him down. We did a rush through Central Warrants and tossed his apartment, swank place on the Upper East Side. He’s the son of a guy the Department of Sanitation fired sixteen years ago. Dad became depressed and shot Dante’s mom, then himself. Dante lived for a