Jeffery Deaver - Edge

He sighed again. Loudly. “I guess. Come on. Five minutes.” He turned and, limping, led me through the neat suburban house, which smelled of lemon furniture polish and coffee. I couldn’t draw many conclusions about him or his family from my observations but one thing that stood out was the framed yellowing front page of The Washington Post hanging in the den: H ERO C OP S AVES T WO D URING R OBBERY .

A picture of a younger Ryan Kessler accompanied the story.

On the drive here Claire duBois, as efficient as a fine watch, had given me a backgrounder on Ryan. This included details of the officer’s rescue. Some punk had robbed a deli downtown in the District, panicked and started shooting. Ryan was en route to meet an informant and happened to be in the alley behind the deli. He’d heard the shots, drawn his weapon and sped in through the back door, too late to save the husband and wife who owned the place, but he had rescued the customers inside, taking a bullet in the leg before the robber fled.

The story ended with a curious twist: The woman customer had stayed in touch with him. They’d started going out. She was now his wife, Joanne. Ryan had a daughter by his first wife, who’d died of ovarian cancer when the girl was six.

After delivering the bios, duBois had told me in the car, “That’s pretty romantic, saving her life. Knight in shining armor.”

I don’t read much fiction but I enjoy history, medieval included. I could have told her that knight’s armor was the worst defensive system ever created; it looked spiffy but made the warrior far more vulnerable than a simple shield, helmet and chain mail or nothing at all.

I also reflected that getting shot in the leg seemed like a rather unromantic way to get a spouse.

As we moved through the cluttered family room, Ryan said, “Here it is, a nice Saturday. Wouldn’t you rather be hanging out with your wife and kids?”

“Actually, I’m single. And I don’t have children.”

Ryan was silent for a moment, a familiar response. It usually came from suburbanites of a certain age, upon learning they’re talking to an unmarried, family-less forty-year-old. “Let’s go in here.” We entered the kitchen and new smells mingled with the others: a big weekend breakfast, not a meal I’m generally fond of. The place was cluttered, dirty dishes stacked neatly in the sink. Jackets and sweats were draped on the white colonial dining chairs around a blond table. Against the wall the number of empty paper Safeway bags outnumbered the Whole Foods four to one. Schoolbooks and running shoes and DVD and CD cases. Junk mail and magazines.

“Coffee?” Ryan asked because he wanted some and preferred not to appear rude, only discouraging.

“No, thanks.”

He poured a cup while I stepped to the window and looked out over a backyard like ten thousand backyards nearby. I observed windows and doors.

Noting my reconnaissance, Ryan sipped, enjoying the coffee. “Really, Agent Corte, I don’t need anybody to stand guard duty.”

“Actually I want to get you and your family into a safe house until we find the people behind this.”

He scoffed, “Move out?”

“Should just be a matter of days, at the most.”

I heard sounds from upstairs but saw no one else on the ground floor. Claire duBois had given me information on Ryan’s family too. Joanne Kessler, thirty-nine, had worked as a statistician for about eight or nine years, then, after meeting and marrying widower Ryan, she had quit to become a full-time mother to her stepdaughter, who was ten at the time.

The daughter, Amanda, was a junior at a public high school. “She makes good grades and is in three advanced placement programs. History, English and French. She’s on the yearbook. She volunteers a lot.” I’d wondered if some of the organizations were hospitals or devoted to health care because of her mother’s death. DuBois had continued, “And she plays basketball. That was my sport. You wouldn’t think it. But you don’t have to be that tall. Really. The thing is you have to be willing to bump. Hard.”

Ryan now said, “Look, I’m just a cop handling some routine nonviolent cases. No terrorists, no Mafia, no conspiracies.” He sipped more of the coffee, snuck a look at the doorway and added two more sugars, stirring quickly. “Agent Fredericks said this guy needed the information, whatever it is, by Monday night? There’s nothing I’m working on that has a deadline like that. In fact, I’m in a down period now. For the past week or so, I’m mostly on some departmental administrative assignment. Budget. That’s all. If I thought there was something to it, I’d let you know. But there just isn’t. A mistake,” he repeated.

“I had a principal last year I was protecting.” He hadn’t invited me to sit but I did anyway, on one of the swivel stools. He remained standing. “I spent five days playing cat and mouse with a hitter-a professional killer-who’d been hired to take him out. It was all a complete mistake. The hitter had been given the wrong name. But he would have killed my principal just the same. In this case, it isn’t a hitter who’s after you, it’s a lifter. You ever heard that term?”

“I think. An interrogator, right? A pro.”

Close enough. I nodded. “Now, a hitter’s one thing. Mistake or not, you’d be the only one at risk. But a lifter… he’ll target your family, anything to get an edge on you-some leverage to force you to tell him what he wants. By the time he realizes it’s a mistake, someone close to you could be seriously hurt. Or worse.”

Considering my words. “Who is he?”

“His name’s Henry Loving.”

“Former military? Special ops?”

“No. Civilian.”

“In a gang? Organized crime?”

“Not that we could find.”

In fact, we didn’t know much about Henry Loving, other than he’d been born in northern Virginia, left home in his late teens and had maintained little contact with most of his family. His school records were missing. The last time he’d been arrested was when the sentence involved juvenile detention. A week after he was released the magistrate in the case quit the bench for reasons unknown and left the area. It might have been a coincidence. But I, for one, didn’t think so. Loving’s court and police files vanished at the same time. He worked hard to hide his roots and protect his anonymity.

I looked out the window once more. Then, after a brief conspiratorial pause and a glance into the still-empty hall, I continued, speaking even more softly, “But there’s something else I have to say. This is completely between us?”

He gripped the coffee he’d lost his taste for.

I continued, “Henry Loving has successfully kidnapped at least a dozen principals to interrogate them. Those are just the cases we know about. He’s responsible for the deaths of a half dozen bystanders too. He’s killed or seriously injured federal agents and local cops.”

Ryan gave a brief wince.

“I’ve been trying… our organization and the Bureau have been trying for years to collar him. So, okay, I’m admitting it: Yes, we’re here to protect you and your family. But you’re a godsend to us, Detective. You’re a decorated cop, somebody who’s familiar with tactical response, with weapons.”

“Well, it’s been a few years.”

“Those skills never go away. Don’t you think? Like riding a bicycle.”

A modest glance downward. “I do get out to the range every week.”

“There you go.” I could see a change in his dark eyes. A bit of fire in them. “I’m asking for your help in getting this guy. But we can’t do it here. Not in this house. Too dangerous for you and your family, too dangerous for your neighbors.”