He’d met her Saturday, not Saturday six months ago, but Saturday only days before. Objectively, he should think wanting this woman in his life for the next fifty years, maybe more, was nuts. But now, in the middle of the night, with everything quiet and the air warm, and that long hair of hers hanging over the side of the cot, it seemed eminently reasonable. His brain snapped awake at that thought, and he chewed it over, decided it was an excellent thought, one of the best he’d ever had. What was even better, he was thinking in a straight line.

She moaned in her sleep, flopped onto her back. Was she dreaming about her car exploding, feeling that she couldn’t breathe, that death was an instant away? He remembered how time had almost stopped until he’d pulled her under him as his car exploded. He turned off the lamp and closed his eyes, content that his SIG was in his bedside drawer and a deputy was outside his door.

Why didn’t they blow up our cars at the same time? We’d be dead, gone. Why blow up my car before Anna’s? Because I saw the man running away in the alley last night? Because I was a witness, like Delsey is still a witness? She still wasn’t safe, he knew it, but there was nothing to do tonight.

He heard Anna make a small yipping sound in her sleep as his brain tottered on the edge of oblivion, and he smiled before he fell asleep.

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

After midnight Tuesday morning

The house alarm screeched, waking them as the hall clock struck three o’clock. Savich leapt out of bed, grabbed his SIG, and ran to the flashing alarm display on his bedroom wall. The outside floodlights came on as he read the LED: Motion detected, bedroom 2 window.

He raced across the hall, Sherlock behind him, with the alarm still blasting. Delsey was standing in the middle of the hall, Sean plastered against her, Astro dancing and barking around Sean’s legs. “You guys are fast,” Savich said. “Don’t worry, it’s okay.” He and Sherlock disappeared into Delsey’s bedroom and ran to the window. They looked down. An aluminum extension ladder teetered on its edge on the bushes below them, but no one was in sight. The ladder had tripped the alarm before the intruder could even climb up. He had to be running from the lights, long gone. Savich said to Sherlock, “Check all the upstairs windows; I’ll take downstairs.”

“You guys sure got out of bed fast,” Sherlock said, pressing her SIG down along her leg as she patted Sean’s shoulder. “Everything’s okay. Sean, you and Delsey stay right here. Astro the Mighty Dog will protect you. I’m going to check the windows. Routine, not to worry. It’s probably a battery out.” She was aware Delsey was staring at her, and she smiled at her, nodding. She was glad Sean couldn’t hear how heavy and fast her heart was pumping.

“I’ll be right back.” She didn’t raise her SIG until she was out of sight again.

Of course, Delsey knew the story about the battery was meant for Sean’s ears. She calmed herself; she was the adult, she had to calm Sean. She knelt down beside him and said in a chatty voice as she patted Astro’s head, “Alarms malfunction all the time, Sean, don’t worry.”

“It’s never gone off before,” Sean said.

“Well, there’s always a first time. We’ll stay here with Astro until your mom and dad turn it off, then we can get back to sleep, okay?”

Sherlock walked back into the hallway to see Sean talking to Delsey, not a shadow of fear on his small face, bless her. She smiled at them. “It’s okay,” she said, and at that moment, Dillon switched the alarm off and the sudden dead silence seemed more frightening than the blasting noise.

Delsey knew by Sherlock’s face that something was happening, that it was no malfunction, and that Sherlock was still frightened for Sean. But there was nothing she could do, nothing at all. She kept stroking Sean’s shoulder, petting Astro.

Sherlock called out, “Dillon, we’re clear up here. Everything’s shut and locked.”

“Here, too,” Savich shouted back.

Delsey stepped back into her bedroom, her eyes on her window, and she knew her window alarm had gone off, and that meant someone had wanted to come in and kill her, like the gang thug in Maestro. She swallowed convulsively. She hadn’t realized Sean had followed her until she felt his small hand on her arm.

“I wonder who wanted to come in your room, Delsey.”

“I don’t know, Sean. Maybe the postman with a special delivery, you think?”

He thought about this. “I don’t think so, Delsey, not at night. Don’t worry, Mommy and Daddy will find out if the postman came to your window. They always find out everything.”