Bethesda, Maryland
Thursday, November 27, 8:07 p.m.
For a special task force, they really weren’t very good.
The trick to surveillance detection is to never let them know that you’ve made them. Let them think they’re observing you undetected. Meanwhile, to make them start to doubt that you’re really a viable suspect, you do nothing but innocuous things. You bore them to death.
He’d picked up the team following him the minute he left his apartment, just before six o’clock. He drove over to the city lot across from the Barnes amp; Noble and parked. Then he spent half an hour browsing its bookshelves, before taking the thriller he’d purchased to a restaurant right around the corner. He sat there reading and eating for a bit, forcing the plainclothes cop they sent in to keep an eye on him nurse a beer at the bar. Finally, he led them on a grocery-shopping expedition before returning home.
There were two more unmarkeds staking out his building tonight, parked in spots different from the ones they occupied last night. He made them the minute he turned into the short side street running alongside the highrise. Never glancing in their direction, he swung down the ramp into the garage, leaving the Forester in its usual space.
Tonight, like all the previous nights since Annie had tipped them to his address, he’d been working to lull them into thinking that he wasn’t going anywhere.
He flipped on all the lights when he entered the apartment, left all the curtains wide open, too. See, fellows? Nothing to hide. Even though he swept his car and apartment and found no bugs, so far, he whistled while he put away the groceries and fed the cat-just in case they’d installed some while he was out.
The absence of bugs told him they didn’t have enough on him to get a court order. So this was still just a fishing expedition. Cronin and his buddies had suspicions, but nothing solid. Tonight, though, his goal was to satisfy them that they could rule him out as a suspect.
He turned on the TV in the living room, cranked up the volume a bit. Poured a glass of wine and made a show of walking past his windows with it in hand. Yep, just another lonely single dude, dumped by his girlfriend, spending another quiet, pathetic evening home alone with his cat. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along…
He collapsed onto the sofa, not bothering to watch the popular amateur dance competition on the tube. Luna had disappeared somewhere else in the apartment, leaving him alone with his plans. And his demons.
His “girlfriend.” He remembered when he’d called her that. He fought down his anger as her image flashed into his consciousness. It had been so long since he’d let anyone in. He’d let her in, all right. He had to admit it: He’d fallen in love. Hard. Like he’d never fallen for anyone before. Yes, he had opened himself, even admitting to her that he had been betrayed before.
And he’d been prepared to open up even more. All the way. To tell her everything, past and present. He had understood from the beginning that if this were to grow into something important, he couldn’t keep her in the dark. Eventually, she’d have to know.
For him, it had become something important. So important, that he was ready to walk away from everything else. Ready to let all the chips fall as they might, when he told her. Ready, because he thought she was worth it.
And look where it had gotten him.
She’d been playing him. How long, he wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter that she loved him, either. Of that, he had no doubt; he could tell how conflicted she was. But he didn’t give a damn about her conflicts. You either love someone, or you don’t. You either trust somebody all the way, or you don’t. And she had betrayed him. That was all that mattered. She was working with the cops to bring him down. Why, he didn’t know. And couldn’t care less.
Not anymore.
Okay, so if she wanted to play him, he’d play her right back. She’d become part of his alibi for this evening.
He pulled a cell from his pocket, inserted its battery, and keyed in her number.
“Hello?”
He felt in icy control. “Hi, you.”
Hesitation. “Hi, you.”
“I’m just calling to tell you how much I miss you, Annie.”
Silence. Then: “Oh, Dylan. Me, too… I wish I could be there tonight… I’m so confused.”
Sure you are. “You still haven’t told me about what.”
“It’s so complicated.” She paused, then added: “There’s so much that we don’t know about each other.”
“Apparently not.” He heard the edge creeping into his voice. Careful.
“Remember what we talked about on our first date? That we both have trust issues?”
“I remember. Very well, in fact.”
“I…I just can’t seem to get past mine.”
He found himself gritting his teeth. “Well, I thought I’d gotten past mine. But maybe not.”
“Dylan-I keep going back and forth on this in my mind. Some days, I want desperately to see you. But other days, I just want to run away.”
“I know how you feel.”
A long pause.
“You sound so distant,” she said.
The undertow of anger began to tug at him. He didn’t want to say it, but he had to.
“I thought we had something very special, Annie. I don’t exactly know what happened. I feel blindsided, though. It still sounds as if you have some things to sort out. ‘Things,’ plural.”
She didn’t respond.
“Okay, so how about we leave it this way: Let’s take a bit of a break, a couple of weeks. Take the time to try to figure out what we each need. And whether what we each need can mesh together.”
“If that’s what you want.” Her voice sounded soft. Tentative.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with what I want. It’s what I think we need, though. You need some time. I do, too.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll call you again in a few weeks. Right now, though, I feel like crap. I think I’m going to wrap things up here, then turn in early.”
“All right,” she said. Then: “You promise you will call me, won’t you?”
“I promise,” he found himself saying.
“Dylan?”
“Yes?”
Her breath was coming in short, broken gasps. He realized she was crying.
“Dylan…I do love you.”
Someone was squeezing his chest, so tight that he could hardly breathe. He clenched his jaw tight. No, he wouldn’t say it. He had vowed to himself that he would never say that again. To her. To anyone.
He closed his eyes. “I love you, too, Annie.”
He had to snap the phone shut.
He cursed himself for his weakness. Cursed her for her hold on him.
This was no time to be a pussy. He had to focus on tonight’s mission. He knew he could always control his emotions when he focused on the mission.
After a few minutes, he felt the coldness return. She was just an alibi, now. Nothing more.
He checked his watch. Just after nine. Time to move.
He removed the battery from the cell, then went through the same routine he’d established on the previous nights. He clicked off the television, rose from the sofa, stood in front of the balcony door, and stretched. Then drew the curtains shut and turned off the living room lamps.
He went into the kitchen and filled Luna’s water bowl and food dish. She heard the noises and emerged from her hiding place to feast.
Entering the bedroom, he flipped on the lights and the other TV, then shut the curtains there, too. Unseen now, he spent the next five minutes sweeping the whole apartment for bugs. It was still clear.
He entered the walk-in closet, changed clothes, then went into the bathroom to do the rest of his prep. When he was done, he stood in front of the full-length mirror on its door, making sure everything looked just right.
At nine-forty, he set the timers on the circuits in the bedroom. He left the lights and TV on when he left the room, closing the door behind him.
It was dark in the living room, now. He sat down to wait. After a moment, Luna joined him on the sofa. She pranced back and forth under his hand as he pet her.